The problem? That moment rarely comes when or how we expect. And while we wait, life keeps moving. Dreams shrink. Health and youthful drive fade. Bad habits become muscle memory. The next chapter silently slips further away.

Many of us assume that the next chapter in life will start when it “should.” That someday, when the work slows down, the schedule clears, or a milestone arrives, life will suddenly feel easier, freer, more meaningful. We expect clarity to appear overnight, as if decades of routine will magically transform into the life we’ve imagined.

That is a trap.

We liked our work. But we also knew something simple: it wouldn’t last forever. Roles change. Energy changes. Health changes. Change is inevitable. Waiting for retirement or a distant “someday” to build the next chapter is risky—and uninspiring. We weren’t interested in sitting back and watching the days go by.

Recognizing the Trap

We’ve seen this pattern before. When we made a major career change in the past, we fell into the same mental trap most people do: thinking clarity would arrive after the leap. In reality, clarity comes from the work we do before and after a transition, not from the moment of change. That experience taught us to recognize the trap early when thinking about the next chapter.

The key lesson: your next chapter doesn’t have to wait. You don’t need to start from scratch at retirement.

Step 1: Stop Assuming Your Future Self Is a Different Person

The next chapter isn’t about reinventing yourself completely. Growth expands you, but it doesn’t erase your core interests. Your future self shouldn’t be a stranger. Pay attention to what consistently pulls you in—skills, hobbies, or projects you keep returning to.

Step 2: Take Stock and Identify the Delta

Start by listing the habits, skills, interests, and projects you’ve been consistently investing in. Then compare this inventory to the life you imagine. Where is the gap? What is missing?

The bigger the gap, the more dangerous the trap becomes. A large gap can make the future feel overwhelming, strengthening the temptation to wait for “someday” rather than act now.

Once you see the delta, you can create a focused plan of small, consistent actions to move the ball forward. That clarity prevents wasted effort on dramatic leaps and ensures progress compounds over time.

Step 3: Move the Ball Forward Every Day

If something matters enough to anchor your future, it deserves structured time in your present. Even 30 minutes a day dedicated to a skill, interest, or project compounds faster than waiting for a someday leap. Skills deepen. Confidence grows. Options multiply. That is how you avoid the Hail Mary.

Reframing the next chapter as something you build gradually takes the pressure off. The question shifts from “What will I do someday?” to “What deserves more reps this week?” That is tactical, actionable, and repeatable.

You don’t need to leave work you enjoy to prepare for what comes next. In fact, work you enjoy can fund and stabilize the next chapter if approached intentionally.

Build Your Next Chapter: 3-Step Action Framework

Step 1: Stop Assuming Your Future Self Is Different

Growth expands you; it doesn’t erase your core interests. So, start by identifying the skills, habits, and projects you keep returning to.

Step 2: Take Stock & Identify the Delta

First, list what you’re already investing time in. Next, compare it to the life you want. The bigger the gap, the more dangerous the “someday” trap becomes. Then, focus on small, consistent actions to close that gap.

Step 3: Move the Ball Forward Every Day

Even 30 minutes a day compounds faster than waiting for “someday.” Over time, building gradually, measuring progress, and iterating creates real momentum. Finally, reframe the question: “What deserves more reps this week?”

At this point, you’ve already begun taking actionable steps toward your next chapter. But there’s another trap that can quietly undermine progress if left unexamined.

Avoid the “It Will Be Better When” Trap

The real trap is the phrase “It will be better when we…”

• Retire
• Have more time
• Are focused on ourselves

Ultimately, time does not create clarity. Action does.

To get started, consider a simple filter:

• Find what you already spend time on that could scale?
• What skill are you quietly building?
• What interest keeps resurfacing year after year?
• Where can you commit to little, consistent progress instead of a future leap?

Chances are, that is already your next chapter in early form.

Build a Next Chapter You’ll Actually Enjoy

Wrapping Up

Your next chapter should not feel like a stranger. It should feel like a more developed version of who you already are. However, if it feels disconnected from your current habits and interests, reassess the vision. The goal is alignment, not escape.

We recognized that attempting a ‘Hail Mary’ pass into the end zone at the last minute is a trap. That is how we used to think of our future. Instead, we are moving the ball now, a few yards at a time. Measured risk. Compounding effort. So, start moving the ball today. Your next chapter doesn’t have to wait for a distant someday—it’s being built in the choices you make now.

The Future:
Don’t imagine it-
-Build It

The post How to Break the Golden Years Trap first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

The medical, health, and fitness communities rely on data to determine a person’s peak health and optimal weight. To make things easier to find, we highlighted some of the most essential tools and formulas and pointed you to resources for digging deeper.

That said, anyone who’s spent time in health and fitness knows that trends come and go. Further, these tools and formulas focus on large populations, not always matching an individual’s goals. New theories, tools, and approaches constantly emerge, so we must continually revisit and refine what we know.

Disclaimer

Before diving in, here are the axioms that drive our statement that each tool is a single lens on where you are in meeting your goals, not who you are. 

• Each human being is a different living, breathing organism. 
• Every health organization and government must try to set standards that are the broadest for all people. 

Also, we aren’t here to judge these openly. We aim to discuss what each is attempting to ascertain, how it tracks it, and how it provides insight into your personal goals. Now on to the tools!

Body Mass and Composition

So, like us, you are curious and want to understand your body weight and makeup. These tools help answer questions like “Am I heavy for my size?” or “How much of my weight is muscle, fat, or bone?” They do this by measuring parts of your body and comparing them.

• BMI or Body Mass Index Calculator: A calculator for adults to gauge if they are over-/or underweight. 

• Skin Fold Test: This test uses calipers to measure specific skin folds to determine a person’s muscle-to-fat ratio.

• WHR or Waist to Hip Ratio Test: Another body composition test that relies on a difference in the circumference of someone’s waist relative to their hips. 

• Dunk or Hydrostatic Weighing Test: This test uses your buoyancy to determine your body composition. It uses Archimedes’ principle to make its determination.   

Calorie Intake and Consumption

• BMR or Base Metabolic Rate: A calculator that estimates the total number of calories your body burns daily at rest. Rest means eating, sleeping, and performing normal respiration and blood pumping. 

• TDEE or Total Daily Energy Expenditure: This formula is roughly BMR with activity added. That being said, activity is also not a standard because it is based on you and your current state of conditioning or fitness. 

• DRI or Daily Required Intake: DRI is BMR calories broken down into fats, proteins, carbohydrates, macronutrients, etc., according to the USDA MyPlate.gov standard. 

But Wait, There’s More!

We didn’t get into activity calculations, such as the RPE (Rate or Perceived Energy) Scale for perceived exertion, nor Bone Density scans, such as DEXA (sometimes called DXA), to determine body composition. Why? We wanted to focus on those most available to the average person just looking for basic guidance, like we were. 

An Important Point To Note

Remember that post on serving size we wrote? Yes, take a look at your BMR and TDEE. You may find that you are not what the USDA terms the ‘average’ person who needs x calories daily. This is where most problems with weight management start for people. Once you have done some research, you will find your number.

Wrapping Up;

This post collects a variety of tools commonly used to guide weight and health management. Each can be helpful, but each has pros and cons. We aren’t here to decide what’s right for you, but if you choose to use them, remember to research them. None of these tools is an authority on you unless you fall into the exact ‘average’ they are targeting. Instead, see them as valuable tools, helping you shape and refine your approach to your goals.

The post The Truth About Fitness Calculators first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

Setting Up our Goals

To begin with, we got honest about our goals, which was an outcome of reviewing our habits. After some conversations and ideating, we made a list of our 3 to 6-month goals with attainable outcomes. Achievable and actionable goals are key to driving real, attainable outcomes. These items went into a spreadsheet. It wasn’t easy because we had to be honest about trade-offs and priorities.

In that process, we found that there are things we think we want to do and things we will do. Many of us have things we say we want but will never achieve because we cannot take action or are unwilling to suffer for them. We may want to be rock stars or master gardeners, which takes time and energy. 

If we pursue those goals, we must trade off other things we want to expend energy on. By focusing on what we wish to in a measurable and actionable way, we make sure we focus our energy on things we won’t simply drop just because something got ‘hard’. Unfortunately, growth isn’t easy, but by focusing on actionable items, you can prove that you are progressing due to your effort.

Buckets of Hours for Balance

We assigned each goal a bucket of hours each week. Those buckets of hours allow us to stay balanced and manage multiple goals simultaneously. We are rarely engaged in one single goal at a time. There will usually be an attempt to attain various goals simultaneously. 

Even if you want to be an Olympic athlete, you will not be training every minute of the day. You will also need to build your brand, do interviews, and find a way to earn income later. The sport may be the primary focus, but it can’t always be the only thing you can focus on. 

Before the week starts, we put what we will work on on the sheet and tie those items to the larger goals. We then estimate each item to make sure it can make it happen. Further, we make sure the goals are attainable that week. We can’t plant a garden if the weather isn’t expected to cooperate. This work creates an actionable weekly plan with no foreseeable blocking dependencies.

Logging our Time

Every day, we ‘bill’ our time against the tasks we have for that week, just like any other project. We log this for every day we work on one of the tasks. To be realistic, we also bill our daily duties, such as making dinner, doing dishes, or even going to the gym. Let’s face it: those things also take time and limit our capacity for the bigger goals.

As the week goes on, we add notes about wins, losses, and learnings as things progress. These become items to review every Friday to gauge how the week went. Our time logging creates a data-based way of determining how things are proceeding. 

 If something happens and we can’t get through an item, we want to ensure it doesn’t keep recurring. If it happens repeatedly, it is feedback that it is not actionable or can’t be done right now due to some dependency.

Celebrate the Wins

We have learned that we must also celebrate our wins if something has gone well. If we have made a huge gain or overcome a hurdle, we want to recognize and reward ourselves; otherwise, working towards long-term goals can feel like an overwhelming slog. If you’re going to become a great baker, you want to make sure you recognize when you have made something great so you know how to repeat it. 

The point here is that we want to remove the stigma of failure. By documenting learnings, we see how we are growing, while celebrating wins, we see our progress. This helps us through positive reinforcement rather than negative reinforcement, which can lead to cognitive biases like Survivor’s Bias that block our growth.

This approach has made us feel more productive and focused. This isn’t a new concept per se. We do Scrum events in software engineering to help teams build their products. Initially, that is where the idea of our personal time card started, but it is not what it has become.

An Actionable Feedback Loop

Our timecard has become a constant feedback loop that helps us address the question, ‘Am I doing everything possible to achieve what I want and what is truly important to me?’ That question can be tricky to answer when we are the judge and jury looking at our performance. It always feels like more must be done, which isn’t always actionable or possible.

A timesheet that tracks progress toward our personal goals gives us a practical gut check and a way to examine our approach to goals and the trade-offs between them. We have real numbers to look at when we ask ourselves if I am doing enough about <x> or should focus more on <y> this week. It then becomes much more about data than about emotional context or mood.

What, No Example?

No, we are not going to give an example. Why? We don’t want to focus on the tools. You can take notes on a whiteboard, a Google calendar, an Excel spreadsheet, or even sticky notes. The point is that the tools don’t matter, but the process does. All you need to do to succeed is:

• Create a set of actionable goals you want to work towards.
• Create a bucket of hours for each.
• Log your time daily.
• Have a win, a learning, or a failure? Take a note!
• Review once a week to celebrate what got done and learn from what went wrong.

Wrapping Up

We know punching a clock can feel tedious. However, we have found this approach a huge help. While your mileage may vary, it has been beneficial for us in balancing our march toward multiple goals. It has helped us realize where we want to be and, more importantly, how to estimate our progress.

The post How To Be Successful Via A Time Card first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

You can easily quantify how much you weigh or how much money you make. Some goals that maximize your potential are not as easy as they seem to quantify. For example, ‘I want to be in good shape’, but putting a pin in for an outcome is hard. Because of those challenges, we decided to take a different approach to how we viewed success, blocks, and missteps via habits.

How This Idea Came About?

It was simple. We were looking for new hobbies during the winter when the weather wasn’t conducive to our regular sports and traveling. Being frugal and conscious of waste, we didn’t want to do things to keep busy. We had a few conversations back and forth about things we wanted to do, but we were worried about cost and space. 

In one of those conversations, we realized we didn’t want another hobby to do another ‘thing. ‘ There had to be more to it than simply entertaining ourselves. Those activities aren’t bad, but we have enough of them. It had to be something that created value in our lives. 

Value Add was Key

The idea of creating value stuck. Value was the key to unlocking a more philosophical approach to all our activities. As we refined this idea, we saw larger implications of that approach. Value was tangible even if it wasn’t easily quantifiable. As with any investment, we wanted to understand how we would be rewarded so we could rank our activities. If you spend time doing something, you want to be rewarded by it in return. The better the return, the larger the reward.

We decided to start ranking our activities by value. Did we get the same value out of watching a movie that we did out of going to the gym? What was the investment for each time? How did the outcomes of doing the activity benefit us? We started to realize that not all activities benefit us. Some activities we found valuable, but they were more maintenance than fun hobbies. 

Out of this, the three habits were born. So what are they?

The Three Habits of Us All

There are three habits all of us have. That is not a judgment because what you value and do is up to you. We only label them to help us define ourselves. The habits are:

• Creation: Habits that create something.
• Stability: Habits that maintain our current state.
• Waste: Habits that have negative sides to them.

Let’s get to defining them.

Habits of Creation

These things we do add value to our lives by creating new things for ourselves. If you garden and grow vegetables to eat, then gardening is a habit of creation for you. You will usually gain something from sitting on the couch and reading a book. That makes reading a habit of creation for you. You practice a creation habit whenever you seek an opportunity to advance a goal. 

Habits of Stability

We must follow these habits, but may not enjoy them or create something new. For example, cleaning the house every week is necessary, but may not add additional value to your life. Another example may be going grocery shopping, which is required to eat. Essentially, any time you perform maintenance or routine tasks necessary to support your life, you practice a habit of stability. 

Habits of Waste

Habits of waste are things we do that create waste. When you go out to eat, only eat half and throw the rest away; you waste food and money. If you have a gym membership, go three times a week, and never push yourself, you get nothing for your time and money. That is what we would call creating waste. Sounds a bit preachy, right?

We’re not Preaching! It is—not—about preaching. It is about honestly identifying areas where we waste our time. Why? Because those areas don’t add value, they still cost us and keep us from doing things we value more. They are, however, sometimes necessary as a tradeoff.

Let’s examine when they are necessary.

You may need to eat out if you are busy working all week, spend your entire Saturday doing yard work, or take the kids to soccer practice. It may be that the only option to eat out is somewhere that serves a larger portion size than you want. Could you have made dinner? Sure! But in this case, you are spending so much of your time with habits of creation that you need to balance them with some waste to stay productive and possibly sane. 

That’s How We Use Them

We use these to review a week or even a year to gauge how things are going. Did we spend more time in habits that created waste, or did we spend more time in habits of creation? Are we balancing the three? When we plan a week and look at the tasks ahead of us, what is the ratio of each outcome of our actions? 

TL;DR: Are we making headway, staying stable, or stuck in a destructive pattern? 

This also applies to longer-term goals. Not all goals are quantifiable or quickly reachable, and life is not linear. Just because we want to do something doesn’t mean something won’t block our path. Things like health, family, and economics are external forces that can hinder our short-term progress. We don’t always control those events but can control how we react. 

The Negative Cycle That These Avoid

The biggest challenge for many of us is recognizing progress. Learning and growing can be frustrating and even painful processes. Many times, to succeed, you must know by failure. When focused on the short term, those failures can lead us to feelings of negativity. We are wired for negativity, and that wiring protects us in the short term. To succeed and grow, we need mechanisms to rewire us to see opportunities. Canonizing these three habits can help us with that rewiring. 

When we try and fail, it is easy for us to assume we learned nothing. Worse yet, there are times in life when we can lose track of our gains due to the duration or challenges of our goals. I will never be an Iron Chef; however, I did learn to cook and do meal planning. It was not a linear progression of learning. There were times I filled the house with acrid smoke, and we ended up going out for fast food.

I was, and always will, be learning. That failure and the lessons learned from it could have been wasteful. In these cases, my ‘Habit of Creation’ is to note what went wrong, why, and how to avoid it the next time. In that act, we take something that was a waste and make it something that creates learning. 

Progress Indicators

Because life and learning aren’t linear, it isn’t always easy to know if we are succeeding in our goals. When we review progress on our goals, we look at what is trending. Seeing more of the week or month with more Creation than Waste indicates that we are progressing, even if we have another year or more to accomplish our goals. This is what some would call ‘working a plan’. 

If life forces a pause due to financial, medical, or other external forces, we may see an uptick in our Stability over Creation. That is still a positive outcome over waste. Sometimes, we might have to wait and see what little we can do alone. For example, economic downturns are not something you, as an individual, can do anything about. What is important is that you can keep a positive mental picture by being able to see what you are doing to stabilize yourself and reduce waste.

Our Check In

We keep a log occasionally, especially when unsure of our progress. Every week, we take 15 minutes to write out 2-3 of each habit we have acted on. For example, we might have done research that turned into a blog post. Out of that research came learning. Maybe we planted a garden but underestimated the time needed to do that activity, so we ate out. Out of that, maybe there was a mix of waste and creation. 

Over time, we want to see a more create-than-waste trend. If we know no stability, we probably let some things go that we shouldn’t. While we don’t love doing maintenance work, sometimes we must stop and change our lawn mower’s oil. Maintenance doesn’t stop there. It may also mean doing a portfolio tune-up to ensure your financial goals are met. Stability comes in many shapes and sizes. 

Wrapping Up

We discussed three types of habits to help guide our definition of progress. By canonizing tasks into Habits of Creation, Stability, and Waste, we can help measure our progress. We can use these as a reality check when we feel we aren’t making progress or learning. It is easy to get discouraged without feedback on successes. These tools can help us define success and overcome that problem to stay focused and positive, or make changes so that we can be.

The post How To Build A Road To Better Habits first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

Flashback to Where We Started

We started to cook for ourselves over eating out to help us handle our calorie budget through portions over serving size. It was also a way to lower costs as we started to break out of the economies of convenience. As we made our bread, yogurt, and crackers, we found things didn’t taste the same. Over time, we found our food more to our liking than what we purchased or ate when out.

Was it better? Is homemade better? That is subjective because it is a judgment based on personal taste. We noticed most food we bought or ate out was significantly more salty and/or sweet. We eventually had to limit our eating or purchase of pre-packaged food because we started not to like them. 

Nope, We’re Not Haters

We are not here to discuss whether homemade food is better than factory food. There are so many different ways to compare the two that it is hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison. This is not a post about ultra-processed food vs. farm-to-table organics. We won’t examine how food is wasted through the supply chain. 

The reality is, I still love myself some Taco Bell once in a while. Big Macs are a great treat once every six months. You can’t tell me Taco Bell tastes like genuine Mexican or Tex-Mex cuisine. I don’t consider a Big Mac to taste like any real hamburger, homemade or not. They are both delightful nonetheless. We will treat fast food or large restaurant chains as factory food, even when they produce it fresh in-store or in restaurants. We will get to why in a bit.

Factory vs Home

The fundamental difference between factory food and homemade food lies in their goals and production methods.

Factory food aims to maximize sales by appealing to the broadest audience. Producers must ensure the food stays as consistent as possible. That means every frozen pizza, box of crackers, and block of cheddar must meet specific standards. Even fast-food restaurants must maintain these standards. For example, a Whopper in California should taste the same as one in Kentucky.

Factory food producers must use consistent ingredients in their production lines. When you buy frozen fries, the producers have selected potatoes of a specific variety, size, and water content to ensure a uniform product. Additionally, many factories use machines and processes that home cooks lack. These machines enable instant freezing and more consistent deep frying. It doesn’t stop there. They also have tools and packaging for less spoilage by using, for example, things such as nitrogen gas in a bag of chips.

Home cooking is about tailoring food to your specifications. That means creating something for you, by you. For example, you may prefer spicier or sweeter food than the general public likes, so you tailor your cooking to your palate. You often need to work with inconsistent seasonal ingredients as a home cook. You generally prepare food without highly specialized equipment designed for one specific dish. For example, you may have an ice cream machine; however, it can’t create the same overrun as a commercial machine. 

By definition, home cooking can’t taste 100% the same as factory food because of these reasons.

How We All Got Here

Over time, we have shifted from an agrarian to an industrialized society. If you were an early pioneer or homesteader, you often cooked simple meals based on what you produced. As we moved into larger populations living in cities, this changed. People in cities didn’t have room for a garden and chickens, so they had to seek out local vendors. This was part of the tradeoff of working long hours in a factory versus homesteading. 

As we progressed post-WWII into a level of affluence combined with leisure, we entered a time where convenience and consistency became key. We had abundance, were traveling more, and let’s face it, cooking three hot meals a day plus goodies isn’t easy. In a family at that time, that job was usually the work of one person: the woman. Convenience, or factory food, was part of her emancipation. This was where things like TV dinners and pre-packaged meals gained ground over home cooking. 

Fast food, another form of factory food, was born then. It came from travelers’ need for consistency. The age of the motor car and family road trips began with the construction of the interstate highway system. People wanted to trust what they ate and stayed, so many companies like McDonald’s, White Castle, and Howard Johnson catered to that need. 

Changing Over

Because home-cooked foods aren’t the same as factory foods, they will taste different. Learning to store and reheat foods becomes essential to make the best use of them and reduce the time we spend cooking. There is also a period of adjustment to the change of taste. Here’s the strange part: once you become used to what you make, factory foods taste very strange. Why?

By cooking at home, you tailor your food to your tastes, not the larger populations. Remember that factory foods are created through a rigorous series of consumer testing. That testing decides what foods have the broadest appeal to sell. Making anything for a large population or least common denominator can’t be polarizing in any one direction. It can’t be excessively sweet, spicy, salty, etc. It also has to be a certain level of these to be liked by many. 

For example, we cut out a lot of salt from our diet. We didn’t go to zero; we just dialed it back. As we changed, we found that eating out or purchasing something was much more salty than we had remembered. Our tastes had adapted to what we produced rather than what others liked. We realized that the more we made at home, the less we liked out. Your tastes adapt. That wasn’t an overnight thing; it took time. 

But Why?

Food isn’t just about consuming nutrients. When we eat things that taste good, our brain releases dopamine. Factory food companies design their products to trigger this response, and they prove it through consumer testing. We promised not to preach, but the reality is that ultra-high-processed food deliberately aims to do this. People often see home cooking as made with love, but love doesn’t always win—at least not at first.

We Didn’t Go Cold Turkey

For us, breaking with factory food meant rewiring our brains in how we thought about food and the rewards our brains got from eating it. To switch, we found ways of approximating factory foods but with our twist and customized to our liking. We had fried fish and fried chicken, made our egg rolls, and even katsu chicken. They were experiments. Even our bread recipe tries to approximate a local loaf we used to buy in the store. 

As we tailored our food to our needs, we found when we had to purchase something or eat out, we were less satisfied. The food was more expensive, saltier, or too sweet, or something that was becoming less familiar. We had essentially rewired our brains to enjoy what we produced over what was created for mass consumption. 

However, we will never produce a Big Mac or a crunchy Taco Bell taco. Those are still basic treats for once every few months. But now, those tastes and the rewards from them are different. They have become substitutes for times when we travel and need something consistent if we can’t bring our food. 

Wrapping Up

In this post, we discussed why homemade and factory foods taste different. It is tough to produce that ‘factory taste’ at home. Instead of trying to imitate, you can create for yourself what rewards you and helps you meet your dietary goals. Factory foods have a purpose, as do homemade foods. We don’t believe that making everything from scratch scales in the modern world. Still, by investing a little time in learning, you can create food tailored to your needs over the general population.  

The post Why Homemade Makes Food So Unique? first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

This is a post on a health-related topic. We are not medical or other trained health professionals. The information presented here is what learned about ourselves on our journey. Your journey is different and it is best to consult your doctor or other medical professional before making a change. Please see our disclaimer at Before Making Lifestyle Changes before making any changes to diet, activity, etc.

As with many health topics, this one proved to be subjective. We will divide recovery into three categories to provide a frame of reference.

• During workout recovery, this relates to the amount of time between sets. This is based on personal workout styles, physical health, age, etc. 
• Immediate post-workout recovery, which includes things like post-workout eating and rest.
• Intra-workout rest is defined as the amount of time between workout periods required to allow us to heal the damage done.

We found the first two so specific to a person’s goals, health, sport, etc., that they should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. While there are similarities across all recovery for all sports, they are such generalizations we didn’t find them helpful. Here is why there isn’t an easy button for those two items:

• Those two things are the uniqueness of the person and their goals. 
• All sports and fitness goals have different training paradigms. 

The Bodybuilder vs The Sprinter

To explain why we say that, let’s talk about two types of athletes: bodybuilders and sprinters. These two athletes’ goals will have similar but different approaches to training. Bodybuilders will use bulking/cutting cycles and heavy lifting to increase lean muscle mass. A sprinter is attempting to increase power and stamina in their legs while maintaining a lighter overall body. The during-workout and immediate post-recovery routines will be similar but not the same. 

This is why we are not covering those two specific topics in detail. However, this write-up addresses many of those points. 

The Wrong Answers

The biggest challenge we found in addressing this was the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy of unavoidable degeneration at age. After 30, we know we start losing muscle as part of aging. Most people are advised on how to stem that loss rather than how to address growing muscles. That turns muscle loss into a reality when it doesn’t have to be. You can gain muscles as you age. That doesn’t mean you will be able to grow 22-inch biceps if you are just getting started at 50, but it is more of a numbers game that requires a separate post.

That doesn’t mean you can push your body like you are younger and growing. This is where the idea of increased recovery time comes in. As we age, we have injuries to contend with, sleep challenges, stressors, etc., that compound these recovery times. You can still improve your strength and mobility but must do so via proper recovery.  

Building vs Remodeling

A good example of how we handle aging and recovery is similar to building vs. remodeling a house. If you are building a home from scratch, you lay out plans, start construction, and continue until finished. It is very straightforward. Let’s consider adding a new addition to an existing house that is still occupied. 

You start with a plan, but as soon as you dig in, you may find sections of plumbing that need to be redone to come up to code. Certain sections of that house will be off-limits when construction occurs. You may find dry rot or even asbestos that requires special handling. That is the reality of not only remodeling but working out at a later age. You have to account for it because if you don’t, you can get injured. This is why recovery matters. 

Recovery Times

We found that recovery time is directly related to the intensity of the workout. For most people, the rest period is 1-3 days, depending on many factors, including fitness level and age. For people over 50, it is common to see 2-3 days between training to prevent injury. This is due to everything from reduced healing capacity to diminished protein synthesis. All of that can lead to overtraining, no matter your age. Conversely, atrophy and muscle loss become a reality if you never push yourself. 

Instead of offering opinions, we will point you to different options to explore. Recovery turns out to be a complicated personal thing. Many people have already written volumes on this. We wanted to put the context here to reduce the noise.

•  One extreme is Bodybuilding’s take on recovery.
• The other extreme is Second Wind Movement’s Guide to Recovery
• Good RX’s write-up on recovery is somewhere between the two.

Wrapping Up

As with all things health, workout recovery times are personal. In this post, we have given reasons for this and some useful links to material on why. In our opinion, the biggest challenge we have as we age is misinformation. Another is not being realistic about overcoming age-based challenges while recognizing we need to do them in new ways, which can lead to overtraining. Somewhere between these two is the correct answer for you. 

The post Your Muscle Recovery Need Is Unique first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

The Numbers

Based on EPA data, 66 million tons of consumable food were wasted in the US in 2019, a staggering 133 billion pounds of food. Those numbers say we waste roughly 30-40% of the US food supply, and 60% of the wasted food goes into landfills. The amount of land wasted growing and getting rid of that food due to loss is roughly the size of California and New York combined. 

Further, a 2010 USDA study put a price tag on that loss of $162 billion in food. The average US consumer creates 218.9 lbs of food waste to another EPA source for 2010. That statement is not about being preachy but about recognising that we all have an impact on the larger picture.

At that level of food waste, we get large-scale wastes of other resources such as energy. The whole supply chain from creation to clean-up of that wasted food uses enough energy to power 50 million US homes, about the same carbon footprint as 42 coal-fired electrical plants. In addition to the energy impact, decaying food waste produces byproducts such as methane gas. The combined total of greenhouse gasses that wasted food creates is 8-10% of our total greenhouse gasses. 

Why Do You Care?

You are paying for it with your cash. This problem impacts your budget. How? The most obvious answer is that if you spend money on something you don’t use and have to throw away, you threw money away. Let’s add a bit more to that. Think about an average family of four who wastes 219 lbs of food per person per year. Based on those statistics, the math says a family of four throws away 876 lbs of things they paid for but didn’t consume. 

To have a tasty beverage or meal, food needs to arrive at your home or favorite eatery and find a new home when you get rid of it. The supply chain responsible for making that happen is where the real impact and cost of wasting food are hidden. Remember, for food to arrive, it has to be picked, shipped, made, etc. To make that happen, you need fuel to truck food to processing plants, which use energy to make your favorite ice cream, deli meat, cheese, etc. 

All those processes consume resources, some of which, like roads, most of us pay taxes to upkeep. They also produce pollutants that harm the air and water. As you would imagine, when we throw food away, we get similar problems. 60% of all wasted food goes to a landfill in garbage trucks. Those sites and the people that run them come out of your taxes and even increase the cost of goods and services for the foods you throw away.

The Bigger Picture

As a consumer at the end of a supply line, you are the apex consumer of the entire process of farm to market. This supply chain isn’t local; it’s global. For example, we know pineapples and bananas are not grown in the US in most states. If you have a fresh strawberry-pineapple smoothie in the middle of winter in Chicago, even the strawberries aren’t from a local market. This means you are paying a premium for products out of season to be shipped to you, which raises costs.

What also isn’t apparent is that to make displays and have enough food on hand, a store or restaurant will have waste. Why? Not every strawberry or pound of ground beef will be sold before it goes bad. There isn’t a perfect system to match all food with all consumers. Unlike other products, food can’t just sit on the shelf forever like a pair of pants. This is the primary reason you will see discounted prices for food close to their sell-by date.

Premium or Loss Leader?

For example, ham can be a seasonal premium product or a loss leader. Since it is in high demand before a holiday, it may be sold at a premium. Retailers will take on extra stock so they don’t run out. Wait one week after, and it will be on sale to draw shoppers in. What isn’t sold will eventually find its way to local landfills. Your taxes pay for those landfills, so whether you buy the ham or not, you will pay for it in some small way to be in your local grocery store.

As a consumer of this global system, you pay a premium for these products due to shipping. The cost is built into the operating cost of every step of the supply chain. That is part of why prices change seasonally for specific items. That global impact is all part of what we throw away when we throw away some mushy bananas or don’t finish our pineapple and guava smoothie. 

Awareness Over Stumping for Change

Food waste doesn’t help anyone. We wanted to put some numbers behind it to show that even at a basic level. The reasons we don’t want to soapbox about this are numerous but revolve around these ideas:

• We don’t want to advocate putting people out of jobs by not eating out.
• Not everyone has time to use everything from snout to tail.
• Food is about being social and providing entertainment. 
• Not everyone lives on land they can do things like compost on.
• Not everyone has the time or space to reduce their food waste footprint.

With awareness, you can help and create a positive impact. The impact you can have isn’t strictly as simple as saving money. Money savings are the most tangible issue to address. The reality is that there is more that you are helping with, like reducing landfills, greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel use, and many more less concrete things. 

Some Quick Wins

If you want to reduce waste, here are some ideas. These can help your financial bottom line and the rest of us. 

• Have a leftover mindset. Whether you are cooking at home or eating out, have a plan for using leftovers. 
• Be a seasonal eater. Buying foods in season reduces the amount of non-local food, such as imported strawberries, consumed in the off-season.
• Be aware that use-by and best-buy are guidelines, not rules, so you don’t need to throw out some items you may think you do. 
• Patronize restaurants that serve portions that match your calorie budget and needs. 
• Create a meal plan so that you know just how much you need and no more.  

Wrapping Up

 In this post, we have shown how big a problem food waste is. It impacts everything from money to employment to natural resources. With a bit of awareness, it doesn’t take much to influence how you address you in this area. Little changes can help save you money while creating a positive impact on a global scale. 

The post Food Waste Costs All Of Us Big Money first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

Spoilers and TL;DR;

This post is longer than we like. Why? Because to understand an economy such as convenience, you have to set some context. If you are looking for the takeaway and how to save on costs, skip down to Our Learnings. If you want to understand how we unpack on this topic, read on. 

Opposing Forces

There’s a saying, “You can have it quick, cheap or done right. Pick any two”. Why do folks say that? Because it is true! Those are three opposing forces all of us consumers face. By consumers I mean any person or thing doing trading goods and services with another person or thing. That is what an economy is; barter of time and materials with another person or business. 

The balance of these three forces is how we determine personal value. If you break your leg, done right and quick, will take precedence over cheap. You will go to the ER, get pain medication, have the leg set correctly, and you are willing to pay a premium for it. Because you are willing to pay almost anything to stop the pain and fix the leg, it is a perfect example of an inelastic demand curve.

In another example, your vehicle may need an oil change. That is not extremely hard to do, but it is time consuming if you include buying parts and getting rid of the waste oil. In this case, it may be cheaper than going to the dealer, and you can do this as well as a technician. Still, there is a tradeoff of your time to do the work. 

Where It Becomes Gray

Let’s face it, sometimes, you just get hungry and want a burger. You absolutely must have one before you become hangry. That makes your overriding priority. Still, you have a choice to make; cheap or right. Ok, that is admittedly, a strange thought. What is ‘right’ when it comes to a burger? Does it need to be wagyu beef on a toasted brioche bun with micro-greens and bacon jam? Or can it be something out of a gas station hot case?

Let’s go back to our oil change example. We can go out, buy factory parts, tools, and spend our time changing our oil. We will need to run the errands of getting those items first, then do the work, then do the clean up. Finally, we take the used oil and hopefully recycle it. That is a lot of trouble, time, and money for one oil change. If we have our vehicle for 5 years, and have only invested in tools once, buy supplies once, in bulk, then it might be more viable. 

Ah, but yes, other places can change the oil in your vehicle as well. They use dealer grade parts and have lower labor rates. But if we chose that option, will it be done right? That depends on how you define being right. Do they save more time? That depends on your schedule and how urgent you need that oil changed. 

The Chains 

First, let’s eliminate the idea of bartering from our conversation. That is a complete economy of its own that needs its post. For our purposes, when we purchase something, we will use money. The work and/or goods we produce determine our income and money. When we pay someone, that is for them, or more importantly, the chain of people and value they add to the thing we are buying. 

Chain of value-adding people is key to the high cost of buying items of convenience. Durable goods such as cars and washing machines are good examples of value adding chains. The goods we buy are sourced from all over the world. At each step, each piece adds cost to the final product. For example, if someone produces the tires for a vehicle, they need to be paid, as do their sources. Every step, every part, has to be made and shipped and assembled. That’s a lot of folks with hands out. 

 Now, let’s pick one that is not so obvious. What about a McDonald’s Big Mac? No, we aren’t picking on them exclusively, but they are so ubiquitous they are relatable for most people. When we buy a Big Mac, we are paying multiple premiums on that food. There is a large chain of people involved in making sure you get your tasty Big Mac promptly. Those toasted sesame seeds on that bun didn’t toast themselves. 

The Obvious

 Every time we make a purchase decision, we are deciding what amount of right and how quickly we are willing to pay for it. We all make those decisions every day. In general, we probably don’t think about them. Many of us don’t think along these lines actively, but we all do process the data we are given as a set of trade-offs. 

When we are in the store, we may choose a high-end brand name product or a less expensive generic. In each case we are actually making a choice of what ‘done right’  is from a product pov. We place a monetary value on that choice.  The monetary decision is based on how much we value something versus how much the rest of society is willing to pay for something. 

Enter Convenience

We are often willing to pay a premium for a quicker reward. The same goes for buying time back. If you are working 45 hours a week, have a couple kids, and hobbies, time is a precious commodity. Time is finite and the demand curve we have for it can be very inelastic. Doing some research yields that an average person splits between 80-90% of their time between work, household work, and human needs, that doesn’t leave a lot of free time.  

A callout on that data. That sample feels skewed but as with all things health related, it is a best guess based on a series of polls. The group sampled was between ages 15 and 64 and may or may not be employed. There is enough common knowledge around sleep, and work life balance, to contradict some of this. That being said, the trade, in many cases, would be an increase in work and commuting at a loss of sleep instead of additional free time, which would lead to the same problem of limited time.

With so little time, many are willing to pay for services that can’t perform or simply don’t have time for. Don’t have time for dinner? Order out! Don’t have time to clean? Hire a cleaning service! Want a date night alone for two? Hire a nanny! But what are the actual trade offs?

Time vs Money Pitfalls 

When we pay money for goods, many times, we are expecting to get time back. That doesn’t always happen. Why? Consider this:

• Our money supply is generated through us spending time earning. 
• Because society considers some skills more valuable than others, we earn different amounts based on our work.
• When we purchase an item, it usually comes with a chain of value adders that drive up its price, making it a premium product relative to what we may be able to do on our own.

Why do these items matter? Because your money is directly tied to your time. That is what money is exchanged for. You have knowledge, goods, or other items you have invested your time in. Sometimes the trade offs work, and sometimes they don’t.

Examples In Numbers

Let’s do some math. Doug makes $40 an hour. Doug has two kids and a domestic partner. We will say if Doug chooses, he can make dinner for 4 in 45 minutes with $15 of ingredients.  The other choice is that Doug picks up food on his way home, which costs him 15 minutes of time and $10 per person plus a $5 tip. 

The cost of each meal is not only in the dollar cost but the time cost. Doug values his time at $40 an hour.  That means if Doug spends 45 minutes making dinner, his time value is equivalent to $30. When you add $15 of ingredients to that cost, you get the meal for 4 being $45 of his time. 

Conversely, if Doug opts to pick up food, it is more expensive. Fifteen minutes is equivalent to $10. That means the meal cost him $55 of his time.  In this case, what looks like a time buy back costs someone more than they value their time at.

Now we look at Ann. Ann has a similar domestic arrangement. She makes $80, which is double the value of time when compared to Doug. That makes the meal made at home worth $75 worth of her time. The meal out would equate to $65 worth of her time. In Ann’s case, she is buying back her time, but really, only $10 worth. If she were to make enough for leftovers, it might still be worth her time to make the meal at home.  

Our Learnings

As we started to re-evaluate many things in our life, we built out a calorie budget. The first outcome from that was we had to stop eating out. We had used restaurants for convenience, thinking they were saving time.  At our cabin, we had to start cooking more as well. We decided to use some discount grocers as they were a one-stop shop in those less urban areas. At the same time, we were tracking our budget looking for what we need for retirement. A funny serendipitous thing happened.

Both the amount we were spending on going out and our groceries went down significantly. By being calorie conscious, we cut our eating out, which led to eating in. Looking at future retirement needs made us look at being more price conscious. This led to a further reduction in cost. Interestingly enough, we didn’t lose time waiting in lines or for someone to prepare a meal for us. Finally, it made us look at other areas where we were paying for convenience. 

Tips And Traps

Finally, we come to some tips and traps from our learnings. Hopefully they will be food for thought for others.

Tips:

• In terms of ‘Done Right’, premium products may not be worth it. Most products have generic or house brands that are just as good or close enough.
• Before making a purchase choice, think about your time and what it is worth. If something is going to be 8 hours of your time, you are saying it is worth a day working to have it.
• By planning, you can cut down the need for urgency, which usually comes with a trade-off of a higher price.
• Look around your home and ask yourself if every product is needed. Many home products are easy to make with items we have on hand, are just as effective as store-bought.
• Block out time to make a menu or craft items on your calendar so you can stay ahead of needs
• Be intentional in how you spend money, meaning know what your time is truly worth. 

Traps:

• What we perceive as time saving may not be when weighed against other trade-offs once we think about the total cost of that item.. 
• Commit to doing things more than once if they require an investment in tools and supplies.  If you don’t, those tools and supplies will make the initial time you do something more expensive than it is probably worth. 
• Not defining ‘good enough’ before we start a project or even eating out can lead us to overspending. 
• Prioritizing ‘Cheap’ for items when we should prioritize ‘Done Right’ can cause us to re-spend the same time and money over and over. 

One Last Musing

One outcome for us from our learnings was in how we approached a more intentional form of spending our time and money. We came to look at some items as challenges to be solved through hobbies. For us, we decided to make things like making hot sauce, beer, sausage, and jerky part of our things that were fun to do. When we do this, the time cost is reduced for both the hobby and what it produces. For example, if you fish, and you eat fish, while not a convenient thing to do, you help fund your meals while enriching your life via those hobbies. 

Wrapping Up

If you are still with us, we thank you for your patience. This is not a simple topic. The takeaway is there is a cost for convenience. There are times that cost makes sense and there are times it does not. By learning to value your time, and understand what is ‘good enough’, you can better address your budgeting. Further, if you can use your hobbies as a way to cut down the need for convenience items, you can reduce your overall spend of both time and money.

The post The True Cost Of The Easy Way first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

This post is a work in progress with the intent that we cover what is working for us. It is one step in cataloging all of our staples so that we can understand how to optimize our storage space, time spent cooking, and economies of scale in making purchases. This is part of a larger list I wanted when we first started cooking around how to stock a pantry. Since all our searches came up with nothing that spoke to us or our style and calorie budget, we decided to make our own. 

The ‘plan’ we originally came up with was ambitious. We wanted to be able to bake any time we wanted and only go to the store every other week. We also wanted a way to make sure we had items that were shelf stable or had a decent shelf life in the fridge so we didn’t waste food. Why have such lofty goals? It was an experiment to see how off-grid we could live when we retired as well as how much food we could make ourselves.

We also bought items such as cake flour and mixes even though I believe I have made two cakes in my life. While I thought it would be worth trying I had to force myself to make a sheet cake just to use the mix which was a year past its use-by date. When we started our journey in baking, we could make our own baked goods to create the proper portion sizes for our limited calorie budget. It wasn’t that the mix didn’t allow it, but rather we realized we enjoyed cookies, dessert bread, and homemade candy over cakes. 

We realized though, if we hadn’t started this big, we wouldn’t have figured anything out. By investing money into ingredients we forced ourselves to use things rather than waste them. As a result of the forcing function, we learned what we liked, what we didn’t, how much we could make ourselves, what we couldn’t, etc. 

Where We Landed

It turns out it took fewer one-offs for baking than we thought which was an outcome of a couple of things. First, most of what we needed to bake with we used for general cooking anyway such as AP flour, canola oil, and eggs. We hadn’t sat down and realized how few extra items it took until we started tracking our staples for everyday meals.

We also started to realize that bread is simply water, flour, yeast, and salt prepared in different ways and found America’s Test Kitchen Book ‘Everyday Bread’ is a good read on why.  You only need a couple of types of procedures such as the creaming method to create different cookies as well. We also learned that if we wanted chocolate chip cookies we only needed a handful of ingredients to make multiple types. When we switched to oatmeal the next week, again, only a couple of ingredients changed. 

Further, what we think of as ingredients of baked goods can be used in many other things which makes them more general staples. For example, you may make chocolate cherry cookies or whole wheat bread with pepita and sesame seeds for an extra crunch. Would we consider the dried cherries and pepitas as baking staples? Not at all, because we use them to dress up a boring salad or even coleslaw.

Here is a list of items we keep on hand that play a role in not only baking but are staples for other types of cooking. This is not an inclusive list of all items we keep but rather the ones needed for most of our baked goods.

• Flours and Dry Goods
  • AP Flour
  • Cornstarch (Sometimes called Cornflour) 
  • Buttermilk Powder
  • Corn Meal
  • Old Fashioned Oats
  • Baking Soda
  • Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• Oils and Fats
  • Canola Oil
  • Olive Oil
  • Butter
• Dairy and Eggs
  • Whole Milk
  • Eggs
• Sugars
  • Light Brown
  • Dark Brown
  • White
  • Molasses 
• Salts
  • Kosher
  • Sea
  • Non-Iodized Table
• Nuts, Seeds and Dried Fruits
  • Raisins
  • Cherries
  • Cranberries
  • Walnuts
  • Pepitas 
  • Sunflour
  • Peanut Butter
• Canned goods
  • Pumpkin
• Spices and Extracts
  • Ginger
  • Cinnamon 
  • Allspice
  • Clove
  • Cayenne 
  • Vanilla 

Baking Staples Add-ons

It turned out, that for us to bake a large percentage of additional items we only need the additional items below. Again, this is not inclusive but they are our most used items to produce roughly 80% of what we make.

• Flours and Dry Goods
  • Bread Flour
  • Whole Wheat Flour
  • Baking Powder
  • Instant Yeast
• Dairy and Eggs
  • Heavy Cream
• Sugars
  • Confectioners (Powdered Sugar)
• Inclusions
  • Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
  • Butterscotch Chips
• Seasonings and Extracts
  • Everything Bagel (EBS)
  • Poultry
  • Mint Extract
• Starters
  • Whole Wheat Bittman Bread
  • Sourdough which right now is in progress. 

From the Broad To Specific

When we started to catalog, we saw obvious patterns occur. The patterns we found were a group of items that applied to all cooking and a separate list of baking staples. This helped us understand what we needed to cook, and then add baking which is an important distinction for us. After making recipes that had multiple exotic ingredients that led to waste we wanted to learn what needed and could reuse over and over. 

First, we will look at Everything Bagel Seasoning (EBS) and canned pumpkin. We only use EBS for making bagels or bread. That’s fine since it has a long shelf life and is fairly inexpensive so we don’t mind storing the one-off. While many only use canned pumpkin for pies, we use it more often for Pumpkin Spice Sloppy Joes, making soap, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, etc. Yes, there are a lot of uses for it so we keep it on hand even though it may sit for a while, it is a visual reminder to mix things up. 

Yeast and baking powder are a different set of examples. You can not create many baked items without them. If you want leavened baked goods, at least for most recipes to work, you need them. You won’t need them if you aren’t baking. There is no reason to buy and store them then especially since yeast has a somewhat short life expectancy. 

This post discussed some of our mistakes and realizations on our journey. From that, we have given a starter list of ingredients that are used by many in general cooking. We have also added on a minimum, for our tastes and recipes, a set of additional items for making baked goods. With a little observation and forethought, we believe it becomes easier to avoid wasting space, time, and money on ingredients used only once a year or so. 

The post Important Staples You Need To Bake first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

We travel a lot on weekends. For us, it was normal to eat home-prepared meals all week, and then eat out on the road. That was a simple tradeoff for us. We couldn’t or didn’t want to maintain a specific schedule or may have no way to heat something we made on the road. Let’s face it, road food was also a treat.

We also tracked our weight every week. If you are traveling, scales weren’t always in the picture for weekends. What we noticed would be Friday we would be at weight X. On Monday morning we would be up 2-4 lbs. By Tuesday or Wednesday, we will be back at X. Maddening to see what happens every week. When we decided to start tracking our calories, we started to see an obvious trend. 

On the weekends our calorie intake went up. Yay! We found our smoking gun. It turns out not so much. Since we know the 1000-calorie rule has lost favor, we knew weight gain wasn’t that instantaneous. Ok, maybe you would gain a couple of ounces but not up to 4 lbs from having some extra calories over a weekend.   

The Bigger Picture

It would be easy to simply place the gain on the additional food. We did that at first and tried lowering our calorie intake because math is math. After a bit of time with no changes, we saw no differences. We decided there had to be more at work than just food. After thinking about it we realized our weekly routine was drastically different from our weekend routine.  Some things we noticed the differences and changes:

• Water intake was lower.
• Physical exertion was higher.
• We drank more alcohol on weekends. 
• Sleep patterns were disrupted. 
• We ate food that was higher in fat and salt. 
• As physical exertion increased so did hunger which pushed our calorie intake higher.
• A completely sedentary pattern of traveling for 3-5 hours either via car, plane, etc.

How this happens is pretty easy and it isn’t always obvious. Let’s say we get up early for a raft trip. We spend a day in hot weather and probably don’t drink as much water as we should to compensate. For food, we bring some salty snacks like jerky or nuts that can survive the warm day. Getting in and out of the boat, going down the river, etc. uses muscles in ways we don’t usually use them. That’s just the day. 

After the trip, we stop at the local restaurant and wolf down a huge burger to compensate for the light eating day. That night we would sit out late on the deck have an extra glass of wine or beer and reminisce about the day. The next day we would be starving as our bodies are now repairing muscle on food that probably isn’t balanced. Let’s face it, it wasn’t the kale chips we would be reaching for at that time.

We tried changing up our food to be ‘healthier’ but it didn’t help. Ordering a chicken footlong from Subway instead of a big burger didn’t help. Oddly enough, we noticed lower weekend gains when we ate fried chicken and jo-jos as an emergency meal from a gas station hot case than we did trying to eat healthy choices. For us, it still was about controlling portion size and finding hidden calories such as are in sports drinks.

As we monitored our weight bumps, we would occasionally see the opposite result. There were weekends when we would have the exact opposite result. We would start the weekend high, and then, magically, find our weight the same or lower after the weekend. As we dug through our data we found the weekends we stayed with smaller portions, we had less dramatic fluctuations. There was more to it, however.

At first, we thought it was the extra calories which included more salt and fat. We also theorized it was due to additional calories. Sometimes we thought it was the extra physical exertion putting our bodies in ‘threat’ mode to store calories.  In some ways, we felt these were all contributors however not any one of these on their own seemed like a true ‘smoking gun’ to point at as a cause.

Want an Answer?

We do too and we have a theory but no simple answer. While not doctors or dieticians we were pretty sure it wasn’t simply the calories we ate. We did some experimentation and research and found a correlation between keeping our calorie intake moderated to what we have during the week and the weekend. Shocker, correct? Not really. It didn’t tell the full story and we still had some fairly large swings in weight despite modifying our eating habits.

We noticed we could eat more and still not have our weekend ‘bump’ sometimes. On those weekends we consumed extra fiber and made sure we consumed water. Hotter weather and alcohol seem to also contribute to the bump. The paradox was we were expending more calories, eating only a little more, and gaining 2-4 lbs. It didn’t make sense. 

Your GI Tract

Our GI tract is responsible for moving everything we eat and drink from inlet to outlet so to speak. Most of us have heard it takes anywhere from 6-24 hours to process our food. We know this to be true since we get hungry sometimes fairly soon after we eat a meal. If you have ever had food poisoning or the 24-hour flu, you know symptoms show up rather quickly. Those numbers are both less than a weekend correct? Yes, but what we think of as digestion is only part of the process. 

For some people, the full food ride from the fork to the bathroom can take between 14 and 73 hours according to Healthline.  That means whatever you have eaten may stay with you for up to 3 days. Like any machine, when we are operating routinely, with known inputs, we expect known outputs. If we change that routine on the weekend by increasing load (eating more) while decreasing lubrication (water and fiber) we can’t expect the routine processing times. 

That is our Empirical Theory

Let’s play our raft adventure back and see how this can happen. In our example, hotter temps and lower water intake can increase digestion time. Having salty snacks that are low in fiber, high fat, and protein can cause digestion to take longer. The use of alcohol can cause dehydration as well. All of this can slow digestion. We then add more calories in the form of a burger and fries than we are used to processing. All of that can cause our GI Tract to come under additional pressure and slow down. 

If you are carrying extra weight on Monday and Tuesday after a weekend binge this is one plausible cause. As we started to see this pattern we became more focused on how to stay hydrated and eat more appropriately when on the road or out doing our sports. We tried to keep as much of our routine, well, routine as we could. Most importantly, we learned to keep hydrated and get more fiber to help mitigate the ‘weekend bump’.

This is still an ongoing experiment for us. When we can come up with more concrete findings we plan on updating this post. Until we do, do your experiments and research. At worst, you will find what is causing you that weekend weight gain in your situation.

Ewww…gross

We are biological creatures with biological processes. It is neither gross nor pretty. What we are talking about is something that is part of being human, animal, and most other living organisms. Digestion is simply the breakdown and separation of food into what we need and what we don’t. Sometimes, you have to simply be ok talking about it so you can understand its effects on us. 

Wrapping up

We talked about how the GI Tract is impacted by changes in routines. We have also drawn an empirical correlation between GI Tract health, changes in routine, and weekend weight gain. In the articles we have linked, there are many steps on how to avoid the ‘bump’ so we won’t re-iterate them. While there is no quick answer, this post has given some insight into one possible cause of our weekend weight gain. Do your research to decide if that is what is affecting you. 

The post Do We Really Get Big On The Weekend first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.