The Marginal Utility of Health and Fitness 2: It’s What’s for Dinner
I cannot stress this enough: once you have an idea on calories and what various foods are ‘worth’, stop counting calories!!
Hearing this from anyone in the health and fitness world might make you wonder what they’re really on about and if they have any idea what they’re talking about. But, in reality, counting calories is a massive headache and will make you go crazy. I promise. I spent three months counting calories when I was in my 20’s and it was incredibly beneficial for my understanding of the caloric content of the things I was stuffing into my face. But it comes with a slippery slope that can lead to an obsession with the numbers.
In keeping with the theme of the marginal utility of health and fitness, I want to talk about nutrition and will preface this with the idea that if you’re making a big change to your nutrition you might want to run it by your doctor--especially if you’re diabetic, have thyroid issues, or any number of other food-related issues.
Food is super important to me and I really want to talk to you all about it more often so, while this blog is a little all over the place, I promise to come back for seconds and thirds and desserts and midnight snacks to talk more on it.
Food, the whole food, and nothing but the food
I live for food (and dogs… and my family, fine) but there are obviously some food choices that do not live for me. It’s a wicked world out there and everyone is going to tell you that the best way of eating is X. The catch, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, is that we are all different and we all have preferences. If I told you that you should eat fish and peanut butter to give you optimal performance, you might really dislike the taste and you’d lose out on all the joy that food brings to your life.
The rule of thumb that I tell everyone is simple: lean proteins and healthy fats, bright coloured fruits and vegetables, whole grains when you can, and do your level best to cut out ‘added sugar’. Pre-packaged food is never my first option, but let’s be honest, we can’t always be in the kitchen and we can’t always stick to our best-laid-plans.
Real food will always trump something that has been made for you and packed up for convenience. There’s a thing called bio-availability that relates to the ability of your body to break down a food and use the nutrients that it’s meant to provide. Real, whole food is almost always more bio-available to your body than most anything else.
Where does the marginal utility of healthy eating come into play? Happiness. Pure utility. I grew up with food at the center of family gatherings, hanging out with friends--it was a key tool to bringing people together and thus a major part of that was making sure the food was enjoyable. But the double-sided chef’s knife will have you learn quickly that not everyone wants to gather around a plate of three-bean salad and kale smoothies when they can have chicken wings and beers.
I don’t really like the saying that ‘everything is fine in moderation’ because there are a lot of things that I just won’t eat. Fast food, for example, has been off the menu for a long time and even eating at a restaurant gets cut down because I can either make it myself for less, or I don’t know what’s in it or where it came from, etc. Snobby AF, I know. So what does Uncle Vince do?
I eat real food as much as possible. I don’t beat myself up when I fall off the rails but I make sure to not make that a habit. I stop eating crappy food and cut back on the snacking (I’m looking at you, giant bag of spicy dill pickle chips).
But I eat (and make) bread like it’s going out of style. It’s delicious and if you make your own you can control the amount of sugar (and literally everything else) and you can eat it while it’s fresh outta the oven! I love pizza, too. I eat it almost once a week (check the Instagram proof!) but it’s not a take out, greasy mess--it’s homemade and checks all the boxes I need it to check: tasty, cheesy, right amount of sauce, and plenty of it. I love BBQ, beer, chips and guacamole, hot dogs, salads, pasta, steak, shrimp, cereals--this list goes on forever and I swear that I’ll never change (unless medically prescribed and even then you’ll have to pry eggs and bacon from my cold, dead hands).
“But, Vince,” you may think, “how does that fit into a healthy lifestyle? Hot dogs??”
Moderation (barf) is applicable here. And the joy I get from eating the foods that I love. Think of moderation as the marginal utility of food (read: the tenth piece of pizza hurts me). If I have to eat my planned meals today because tomorrow I’m going to bury all my feelings in a buffet of Indian food, so be it. If I’m ‘good’ all week, I do my workouts and generally stay healthy then the marginal utility from the sushi that I have on Saturday is really high. If I’m destroying myself all week with bad food choices, that sushi doesn’t score so high.
How do I get the most utility out of food? Over the years (yes, I’m old) I’ve understood the caloric density of various foods; the nutritional value of snacks and supplements (more on that later) and a bunch of ins and outs. I eat fairly intuitively now, but keep it on a pretty consistent schedule. I would like to think that when I do eat, the food had better be as delicious and nutritious as possible. If someone is telling you that they are using food only as fuel to achieve their goals then, in my humble opinion, they’ve never had my slow-roasted pork shoulder. Food must bring joy. And I’m really happy if this annoys the ever-loving sh!t out of the multi-billion dollar fitness world because I’ve seen people try and follow those standards and developed a six-pack followed by food anxiety, eating disorders and worse. Food isn’t your enemy--highly processed food is. Pre-packaged and pre-made food is. Added sugar is bad. But, food is incredible and delicious and you should enjoy the F out of it.
If you do anything good for your health and fitness and wellness--enjoy food. Just don’t turn a blind eye to poor choices. There is, afterall, a future where we all look like Jabba the Hutt (I freakin’ love the scene where he’s just chillin’ with Leia and dropping food into his face… this doesn’t sound bad, actually).
Portion control is massive. If you look at the amount of food you get at your favourite burger joint, you cannot tell me it was meant for a single person. One of the local places here will give you a burger that can easily be shared (except I would never) and enough fries to end a potato famine. Controlling the sheer volume of the food on your plate is really important and one of the easiest tricks is to use a smaller plate. But don’t starve yourself.
For those of you that wonder, here’s a typical day (and typical should give you the impression that I’m pretty hella consistent with this schedule):
I’m up with the dogs at 5:30am and then, after getting ready, I’m off to the office. I don’t eat in the morning apart from a cup or two (or three) of coffee and that’s about the extent of my food until around 2:00pm (side bar: when I was younger I literally could not function without eating first). My first meal is something with a lot of protein, healthy fats and my multi-vitamins if I remember to take them. My go-to is eggs and <insert leftover meat here>, with some cream cheese--all wrapped into a… a wrap. Why does this work for me? Simple: I really love eggs and I fry them up with a bit of butter because that’s the best. Cream cheese is delicious. Wraps make food portable and handy. Eggs, when cooked, provide a complete protein and amino acid profile, contain healthy omega fatty acids, and the extra meat that I throw in there ups the protein and general deliciousness. Did I mention that cream cheese is super tasty?
After that, I’m pretty good until dinner/supper/whatever you want to call it. This meal can be anything from pasta with veggies and garlic toast, to chicken with broccoli. Chicken should never be dry or rubbery, veggies should have a bit of butter and if the meal pairs well with a glass of wine or a beer, then so be it (mind you we don’t really drink during the week at all).
You’ve spent all this time reading and thinking about food, you’re probably a little peckish. Post your questions, comments and favourite go-do meal below. And then ask yourself why your answer isn’t “pancakes”.
Stay hungry (literally don’t),
-v
