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.

Portions Vs Meals

In another post, we discussed the difference between portions and meals. We also discussed what a serving size is and isn’t. Since we know a serving size is something based on what others eat, we want to define a portion as the amount of something you eat based on your calorie budget. For example, you may order a pizza but may only eat two slices of an extra-large pie. Was that a portion or a serving of that pizza?

We are calling that out intentionally as we know there is confusion around the definitions of portions vs servings. This becomes a bit more problematic to talk about in multi-course meals where we have proteins, starches, and usually a vegetable as a main entree plus sides. 

This gets more problematic because when building an a la carte meal, you will need portions that make up all three. When you take home leftovers from a restaurant, you may see all three as one portion of a meal. This portion thing begins to sound a little weird but, no worries, we will clear it up a bit later. 

Portion Planning 

To plan for a month of meals we need to extend the number of items we need to have on hand.  Don’t worry, they don’t necessarily add to our work. Remember we can gain portions from simply cooking a little more or taking home leftovers from a restaurant. Before we get to that, let’s give ourselves a definition and again a little harmless math.

• Number of Diners per Meal (NDpM) which is, you guessed it, the number of people you need to feed.
• A complete Meal we define as a meal that approximates proteins, starches, and vegetables to approximate the USDA MyPlate standard.

Let’s also use the table and definitions we had in the previous post to work through our math.

Running Total of Meals Worksheet

The Math

Let’s assume 4 diners for our NdpM. What we then have for the total number of portions we need to make or have on hand for four weeks is 4 x 84  or 336 individual portions correct? That is not exactly the right number as we had defined a complete meal as containing 3 items. This means our Made To Order, A La Carte, and Snack-style meals all may be constructed of individual items such as a portion of chicken, rice, and say roasted corn. The Made To Order may also be complete as is such as fried rice with pork and vegetables. 

That leaves us with roughly a need for the following minimum and maximum items for a meal. 

Min and Max Items per Meal Worksheet

Putting this all together we would need a minimum and maximum number of meal portions, as shown below.

Combined Totals Worksheet

When we multiply those totals by our NDpM of 4 you will notice that we get absurd numbers of between 352 and 672 portions of food to feed a group of 4 for a month. In our case, we are only two so we get between 176 to 336 portions of food. 

They Are Real Numbers

They are real but not scary. Remember that is how much you need for 4 people for a month. We also need to realize that If you buy a 2lb bag of corn, depending on your and your diner’s calorie budgets, you may get eight 4-ounce portions of vegetables from it. When you cook a 3lb roast, after water loss, you may get ten 4-ounce portions from it. What happens if you throw in some mashed potatoes which are just as easy to create twelve 4-ounce portions?

What happens is that you have just covered a Made To Order meal that covers creating up to two complete meals for four plus extra portions left over to use for another meal. You just knocked out 20 portions in one meal. Wait, it gets better. What about pre-made or takeout? In each of these cases, you may end up with more food than can be eaten in one sitting. Those extra portions can be used to make meals later as well.

Well Duh! 

We spent a lot of time telling you something you already knew….maybe? We all inherently do this type of planning from week to week but maybe not month to month. By being cognizant of how we can plan longer term, and reduce food making to portions we need rather than having not enough or too much. 

As we started to cook at home more, we thought we needed a lot more than we did. We found ourselves cooking and storing too much. We arrived at thinking about portions over serving size or complete meals to help us plan. We also focused on a calorie budget to make sure our meals were appropriately sized. This began to save us time and money over the aggregate. 

This is also a rolling plan meaning after a while, the meals you make help support the extra portions. This happens more naturally as you learn to think about the trade-offs of say doing individual items such as a roast vs a casserole. It also eventually leads to having a larger mix of items you want to eat at home which can reduce dependency on eating out. 

Wrapping Up

In this post, we have discussed the nuances of planning with portions over just meals. At first glance the numbers are scary however they are simply numbers. Once you understand this is a month of food numbers aren’t that absurd.

Further with some lifestyle tweaks, we found we could quickly fill them with very little effort. They do give us an approach to managing our food, shopping, and eating out with a goal of efficiency and reduced waste. Lastly, this approach helps us keep an eye on our calorie budgets whether we want to slim down, maintain, or bulk up. 

The post How To Make Meal Plans With Portions first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

To start thinking about a plan, we needed to break down our meals into some taxonomy so we could talk about how many of each type we would want. As discussed previously in our budget post, this will give us a rough idea of how many of each we want and the trade-offs of making them.  Here is our meal taxonomy:

• Made To Order: Any meal we are preparing to eat when done cooking
• Homemade One Dish: Any meal containing protein, starch, and vegetables in one dish such as Beef Stew.
• Pre-made One Dish: Any meal such as frozen store-bought lasagna or burritos purchased to be cooked by us that contained protein, carbohydrates, and vegetables.
• A La Carte: Individual portions of protein, starch, or vegetable such as roast turkey, mashed potatoes, or corn but not mixed.
• Snack Style: Any meal that is composed of items we think of as snacks like crackers, cheese, smoked fish, etc. 
• Restaurant: Any meal where we plan to go out to eat which can run the gamut from a 3-star Michelin restaurant to the local convenience store hot case.

Why do we need a taxonomy to plan? Because we want to define what we need to store in our fridge, freezer, and pantry in some manner so we can have a known number of things. This classification allowed us to plan how we would use what was stored when we stored it. This eventually led to understanding how much time and money we needed to spend to keep us fully stocked. More on that later.

A La Carte Further Defined

We defined this as a specific way to think about how we stored parts of meals that were interchangeable. The point of a la carte is to have multiple ways to address both our Daily Required Intake (DRI) while attempting to handle ideas covered by MyPlate. Let’s work through an example.

If we have roasted corn as a vegetable side frozen, we can use that corn with many different things. The same for store-bought frozen carrots. We can have them with turkey, steak, or pork tenderloin. They also pair well with starch such as rice, mashed potatoes, and a dinner roll. Due to this mix-and-match form, we stuck to calling it a la carte as each was an individual item to be eaten on its own.

Doing Some math

Okay, we have to do some math here. If that’s not your cup of tea, that’s fine, you can skip ahead to the table. For those feeling a need to understand how we got there, here is the skinny. Also, note we are discussing meal plans first and leave total portions for another part of the post. First some definitions:

• The number of Meals per Day (MpD) and Total Days to budget for (TD) should be self-explanatory. To develop our plan, we will assume most people eat 2-3 meals daily and consider a week 7 days. 
• The Total number of Meals (TnM) is MpD x TD so if you have 3 meals a day for 7 days you will have 3 x 7 =21 meals to plan. 
• Weeks to Plan (WtP) is how many weeks we will be planning for.

Let’s do some math now. We want to plan for 4 weeks of eating 3 meals a day. Based on our math TnM = MpD x TD x WtP. We then get 3 x 7 x 4 = 84 meals. That means from our taxonomy of different meal types we need to decide how to fulfill 84 meals over four weeks. Let’s not let the numbers scare us yet. We will prove that creating that amount of food is easier than it sounds. 

We Figure You Already Know This

There is nothing rocket science here in the math we have discussed so far but we feel we need to start here. Anyone can come up with the above in some shape or form. We started here to set a baseline. As planning grows in complexity, with the number of dinners, calorie budgets, portion planning, etc. we wanted to have some set of initial kick-offs to ground us. Those nuances will follow in additional posts.

Breaking It Down

Let’s put that into a table spread across our meal types. This is our ‘plan’ for what we need. We did this with a spreadsheet but you can visualize this any way you like. This is an example as you may choose different combinations for your needs based on calorie, time, and financial cost of meals.

In this table above, the keywords are running the total needed and we can dig in there a bit harder to explain. 

The running total means the total number of meals we must have in stock for the next four weeks. It doesn’t mean the number of meals we must make for the next four weeks. What this gives us is an idea of how much we need to buy, make, or eat out to satisfy our calorie budget goals for the next month. It is also a predictor of how much we can use in the next four weeks. 

Part of the challenge we faced was overstocking. We want to keep enough meals around to fit our needs without making so many we need a large amount of space to keep them. We found ourselves having too much at times which took forever to use up. Also, we found we would become unbalanced which caused us to spend more time making one-offs than we wanted. 

The totals are not related to the number of meals we have to make from scratch. We can get economies of scale here by making extra portions for a meal, buying multi-portion meals like frozen pizza, or even taking home some leftovers from say our favorite Thai takeout. 

Portions vs Meals 

What we have intentionally avoided discussing portions in this post. We will follow up in another post on how portions play into planning. It is in the portion sizes that the economies of scale start working for us. Since the number of portions needed is a function of how much we make, which style of meals, our calorie budgets, and the number of diners we have, it is best to have it in another post. 

Wrapping Up

In this post, we have discussed how to make a basic plan for the amount of meals you need. This planning helps budget food, storage space, time,e and turnover of items. By doing a little math based on a loose taxonomy of meal types, we can define our needs more accurately. Once this plan is understood, we can look next to how to use it to fulfill our meal and portion needs. 

The post How To Make Usable Meal Plans first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

With winter and holidays, many of us find ourselves eating above our calorie budgets. That is easy to do considering what fall and the holiday cycles bring. We find ourselves tempted by the treats, and for most a bit more sedentary due to the weather changes and decreased sunlight. Instead of denying this or worrying about it and feeling bad when we go over it, let’s embrace it for growth.

Grow, cut, maintain, then do it again. That is a very oversimplified way to think about how bodybuilding works. Yes, there are a lot of nuances and other parts to body building but let’s use this over trivialization to simplify our holiday eating dilemma. Let’s use this type of formula to talk about a yearly cycle as if we were going to train for a yearly competition. 

Most of us want to maintain some sort of mobility and physical capability. For many, it starts with a New Year’s resolution. Other people may have a life-changing event or news that challenges them to do something. That was my case. In any of these cases, the catalyst and starting point are usually random. 

Because the starting point in the year can be so random, we can end up fighting things that we don’t need to. Let’s be honest, cutting weight during holidays is harder than when we have a more fixed diet. You can do it, but it will be harder. What if your goal was to grow in size? That seems like it would be a no-brainer to do in the fall. If you are trying to gain, the longer and more active days of summer create other barriers. 

A Year At A Glance

Let’s try and bring some order to the year to stop making it so hard. What if we looked at the year as if we were training for a competition? We will use the idiom ‘Sun’s out, guns out’ as our goal where the beginning of summer is our ‘competition’ we are training to be in shape for. This is how we define our year:

• October to February: Use the additional treats and food to build lean muscle.
• March to May: Work on the definition of body structure by cutting unneeded fat. 
• June to September: Maintain target weight while working to increase mobility

In the sequence above we are working with the seasons to make our goals easier.  Whether you are gaining weight or losing it, each season can help you in your goal. We would assert that this is what most of us want to accomplish. We want the strength and mobility of increased muscle while limiting the unneeded fat which is not considered healthy. 

It’s Your Routine Not Ours

There is no way we can write a routine for this. Why? It’s your body and your goals. This is a roadmap for us to think about our goals and easier ways to attain them. For example, we can give an idea of why this helps with an imaginary routine set to those periods.

• October to February:
  • Increase time under tension and progressive overload to grow lean muscle.
  • Expect to gain 2-3% of body weight as a mix of lean muscle and some additional fat.
  • Use additional sedentary periods as recovery cycles to push muscles to grow.
• March to May:
  • Lower working weight and increase reps as well as tempo to increase calorie burning.
  • Manage a diet closer to the calorie budget for weight loss to reduce unneeded fat to achieve the body weight you desire.
  • Use improving weather to increase activity levels outdoors.
• June to September:
  • Focus exercise on full range of motion and optimizing for proper form.
  • Monitor weight to verify it is not spiking high or low and adjust the calorie budget as needed.
  • Work to improve symmetry over producing more lean muscle to recover for the next year. 

But I Don’t Want To Get Swole Bro! 

This is what we hear commonly from many people as soon as we say anything about gaining lean muscle and increasing weight. It seems counter-intuitive but we are not talking about bodybuilding to gain size per se. Bodybuilding uses these phases very efficiently to train for a competition. We can use that format but for a different purpose.

You can choose the intensity of your workouts to create the muscle structure you want. We don’t feel most would argue that increased lean muscle helps us. That being said, I don’t want 23” biceps so my muscle goals are not about bulk. I want to be able to lift a bag of concrete and carry paint cans up a ladder and not feel worn out the next day. That can be achieved by simply having more lean muscle over fat. At the end of the day, you do you is what this is about.

Back to the Cycle

Our point is that if you are in a seasonal cycle like many of us, why not simply adjust your goals to take advantage of it? Trying to exchange fat for lean muscle through body recomposition is not realistic for many of us. You will find sources that say you can but the devil is always in the details nutrition and exercise-wise. It takes a great deal of dedication to make body re-composition happen.

We know bodybuilders increase their lean muscle over time through a cycle of building and cutting.  Also, we know that we can’t always be building as we need recovery to maintain our healthy bodies and mobility. If you are going to gain muscle you will probably increase your overall fat which means you will likely want to cut size at some point.

We feel having a yearly goal that is seasonal helps structure the cycles of gain and loss. Every season brings different benefits and challenges. We can use them to our advantage to optimize for our goals if we are aware of them and can align to their benefits. While it is a bit of planning in advance, we feel it can help you avoid the opposite problem which is seasonal failure and giving up during certain parts of the year.  

Wrapping Up

In this post, we discussed how to take advantage of seasonal changes to optimize your body goals. We talked about how you can approximate a bodybuilder’s build and cut cycle to increase your lean mass and reduce unwanted fat. By doing this you can optimize your workouts while handling seasonal changes gracefully. 

Also, just because it is similar to bodybuilding doesn’t mean you have to ‘get swole’ as some call it. Lean muscle and what your ‘guns’ look like are personal choices. But, by taking a yearly seasonal approach, you can be ready for the time when ‘Suns out, guns out’ comes around. 

The post How To Make Fitness Seasonal first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

Digging Right In

There is a difference between a portion and a serving even though many people consider them the same. However, they are not synonymous and that fallacy can cause many people to overeat.  We will abbreviate the AHA site here:

• A portion is the amount of something you eat that aligns with your personal dietary needs and goals.
• A serving is the amount of something that is suggested as commonly consumed by everyone based on the USDA’s Nutrition label.

Seems simple? How much you choose to eat vs what the suggested amount is for an item but unfortunately, it isn’t simple. Packaging, marketing, and labeling are focused on serving size and not portion size. Even the AHA will interchange the two in their writing which re-enforces the challenges of the meaning of a serving size. 

Why Does That Matter?

That messaging leads many of us on low-calorie budgets to have frustrating choices between over-consumption or wasted food. Why is that? The reason that is a challenge is that serving sizes are not tied to what we need for our DRI. 

According to the FDA: By law, serving sizes must be based on the amounts of foods and beverages that people are actually eating, not what they should be eating.

As people’s consumption changes, the serving size changes with it. As the serving size changes, the packaging may need to change with it. According to the FDA, this leads to overconsumption. For example, we used to drink 8 oz of soda. We now, as a population, usually consume 12. How did that happen? 

The best way to answer that is by understanding marketing, eating trends, human motivation, economies of scale, availability of products, business, affluence, health trends, etc. We feel that is outside of the scope of this post. While we feel there is a salient thread that runs through this topic, it is only a set of hunches. For now, knowing the correlation between serving size and population generalizations should be enough to make us think about stopping using serving as a size.  

Portions over Servings FTW

One of the most challenging things is learning what the portion size of something is vs the serving size. If you are like us, it is a letdown to see how much less a portion of something is than its serving size. There is a silver lining to less is more we will get to. Right now, let’s talk about how to reset your visual expectations. 

A big challenge when moving from serving size is defining what it looks like so you can recognize it. What irks us is most times that information and visual representation come with opinions on ‘healthy’ alternatives. Yes, we all want to be healthy but change isn’t so simple as snapping our fingers. 

The reason it irks us is the fact that we are already taking something away when we go from servings to portions. We know through experiences that not everyone can change everything at once. To us, this is one of the reasons people who want to reduce their body size may fail to change or ride a diet rollercoaster. I know I can lose weight and eat fried chicken. Whether what we eat is healthy or not is open to interpretation but I know I didn’t cheat on my goals by doing it. 

Let us climb down from our little soap box and get back to the visualizing portion sizes which is much more helpful. We found a good way to visualize portions from the British Heart Foundation which is based on a specific calorie per day calorie budget. No matter what your goal is, this gives you a great visual guide. Eating more, eating less, eating healthy or not, here is a visual of a portion based on a calorie count. You can do the math for your needs.

With Every Cloud

Ah, yes, the benefits of knowledge. By using portion over serving size, we can more accurately buy food. Looking at your plate in a restaurant you can decide how much you need and take home. For us, this increased knowledge has had a direct impact on our food and restaurant budget. It has also made it much easier to stay on a calorie budget as we package our food accordingly. 

When we know what a portion is to us, we can buy it in bulk and then portion it into containers. This is why vacuum sealing became important to us. Restaurant meals now also generally produce a second take-home meal. If the single serving size is too big of a portion, say a 20 oz bottle of soda, we opt for something smaller. 

Wrapping Up

In this post, we discussed why we tightened up our terminology around portions and servings. Serving Size is a terrible way to understand what you need to eat for your body goals. You are essentially tying yourself to the rest of the general population’s eating habits. Not only are you tied to it, but you are adding to it by positive reinforcements as a buyer in the market. You do you is always what we preach. We believe it is hard for you to do you if you are tied to everyone else’s body goals and calorie needs. 

The post Here Is How Serving Size Lies To Us first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

In another post, we talked about trade-offs with organic produce. In this post we revisit organics but from an animal and meat point of view. Topics of animal welfare and environmental issues are emotional for many. Let us just acknowledge that right out of the gate. We will discuss some of that and what organic means when it comes to livestock and what it doesn’t. We found that organic meat gives us all better options but they come with costly trade-offs.

Emotional Callout; You Do You

We will start with the emotional part first. Many of us are happily far removed from how our food is raised and slaughtered. The reality is, that an animal must die to produce meat and nothing can change that outcome. If you eat meat, that must occur. How the animal lives and dies and whether it is humane or not is the question of organic meat. Even if not slaughtered, as in the case of dairy and eggs, organics look for humane conditions for the animals.

We assert emotions are born out of personal ethical context due to this process and not in our purview to discuss. A person’s morals and beliefs are personal in nature and subjective. What is humane to one person is inconsequential to another. Even if someone wants to purchase organic food to support the humane treatment of animals their finances may not support paying the premium. This is why we are not going to try and persuade anyone one way or another what is right and wrong for them.

What does Organic Mean?

The USDA defines a set of rules that define organic known as Organic Livestock and Poultry Standards (OLPS). Animal welfare advocates had a part in defining these rules. There is no need to restate what the USDA has written so we won’t. In summary, the organic program is really about the environmental impact of and issues with raising livestock in factory farms. 

We started to look into this subject for our health based on our calorie budgets and economics. We could find very little evidence it was other than an increased risk of becoming resistant to antibiotics. Yes, some items sound terrible in non-organic production such as ionic radiation and sewer sludge. Taking a completely emotionless look at this subject proved challenging though. Every straight answer had a counterpoint or felt like marketing over fact.

It’s Opinion not Facts

What we ran into was all of this is opinion and debate. Unfortunately, opinion and debate are not facts. The name sewer sludge sounds terrible which is why it is being called Bio-solids now. It is used as fertilizer, is highly regulated, and is tested for safety. It is not allowed to help grow crops for organic meat to graze on. On the flip side, many people take pride in using Zoo Manure in home gardens. Zoo Manure is regulated composted fecal matter. Both are regulated, so why is one better than the other?

This leads us back to the subjective problem based on our understanding and risk factors. There are trade-offs when reading up on both of these types of fertilizer. Is it a case of words and perceptions that we are dealing with? The reality is, that even farm labor has caused outbreaks of E. Coli. It isn’t simple. 

No on GMO?

We also ran into other statements around synthetics (chemicals) and non-GMO-based foods. Again, organic farming may bar GMO-based foods from organic labeled products however, there is no real evidence of GMO-based products harming a person. In the sciences, it takes years and years of evidence before something is labeled ‘correct’ so again this is subjective.   

In terms of synthetics, some may still be part of organic food. The USDA does limit but does not bar all chemical use in organic foods. There are specific limits and requirements around their use but it is not necessarily 100% chemical-free. 

We Gave Up Here

Because everything was becoming subjective we simply gave up on some areas of this topic. We felt like we were looking for an answer to the unanswerable. The more we read, the more it felt existential and personal over scientific. It was like asking are cars good? We decided instead to look at the animal welfare and environment parts of the story.

The Animals and Environment

Organically raised livestock does have benefits. These benefits include

• The animals have more room and a better quality of life.
• Raising animals in a  much more environmentally friendly
• Limits the possibility and impact of outbreaks of disease.

All of that is great. We don’t believe anyone wants to be less humane or less environmentally friendly. Here is the problem, it costs more and yet still has problems. When we looked into organic for our needs we expected to find it was simply better. There are trade-offs to it as well. 

Buy or Don’t, That’s Up To You

Unfortunately, the more we tried to peel the onion, the bigger the onion became. Because data takes time to accumulate, and we are discussing planet-scale problems, it is hard to have a simple yes or no answer for everyone. There are over 8 billion of us running around on this planet. No one choice fits all. 

Wrapping Up

We started this seeking clarity but found enough unanswerable questions that do not allow a simple answer of whether organic is good or bad. What we have discussed is the positive aspects of organic in terms of animal welfare. We also know that, in general, organics help preserve local biodiversity. Organic-raised meat also provides checks and balances for stopping disease outbreaks. All of this comes at a premium cost-wise. That leaves this subject as being a personal decision to pay the premium for those benefits. 

The post Get Better Options With Organic Meat first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

Big Meals Can Mean Big Calories

As we looked to reduce our calorie intake we faced a big challenge in our three full meals a-day diet. When growing up, we were trained to eat what were known as three square meals (considered high-calorie and hardy). While in decline, we still have a cultural norm around it. Remember, food isn’t just about the intake of calories. For some, it is also a time for family and socialization. 

Not Everyone Does It

The reality is not all cultures share this type of meal. In other cultures, the day’s main meal may historically be mid-day. This was the case with the Canadian half of our family. Other cultures such as Greek and Spanish may share later meals or multiple smaller meals.  Our mention of that is to point out that there is variance in our world in styles and times of eating.  

Getting Past Old Habits

For our goals, we started to question what a full meal was and how to create a similar nutrition profile with items that many consider snacks. For us raised where a meal has a main dish and sides that shift can be hard to break through mentally. A meal could be a ham sandwich and chips with pickles or a steak with green beans and baked potato. This differs from what we would call snack items such as cheese, trail mix, and even beef sticks. In the snacks as a meal model, there is no primary entree to build the meal around. There is only the balance of items such as those recommended in the USDA’s MyPlate. 

Do we need to have a full meal main and side dish prepared by ourselves or others? More and more people are saying no, however, the 3 a day is a simple way to break up caloric intake evenly over our waking hours. More importantly, how we change our perception about meals can have a large impact on our calorie budget. As America has become more of a snack culture, the challenge has become that those snacks are not healthy choices. 

Change the Portion, Not the Balance

This is where snacks get a bad name but they don’t have to be. We aren’t saying to eat chips, candy, and soda as a meal replacement. If we revisit the idea of a meal with sides its origin was a balanced plate. This is not different from the idea of tapas or the USDA’s MyPlate. We can drive that need for the big three in a diet through snacks without the challenging portion sizes.

Why is this concept important? How do snacks as meals benefit us?  When homemade or created from from foods we already have on hand they can:

• Allow flexibility in meal schedules.
• Use existing staples such as cheese, nuts, fruits, and crackers already on hand.
• Align our intake of food to our nutrition needs and calorie budgets. 
• Help manage hunger spikes without over-eating.

Snacks Aren’t Evil, Choices Can Be

What foods are we talking about? Are we talking potato chips, clam dip, and pizza rolls? No. But you do you if that is what you like, is in your calorie budget, and fits your nutrient needs. Our guess is they won’t. What we are talking about is more about balanced food created or on hand at home. Here are a few examples of meals:

• Tuna salad, crackers, pickles and cheese.
• Jerky, trail mix, dehydrated broccoli florets, yogurt.
• Beef sticks, granola bars, fresh vegetables such as carrots or cucumbers.
• Hard-boiled eggs, tortillas, cheese and salsa.
• Smoked fish, crackers, cottage cheese, celery.   

Each of the above has a mix of items that contain the big 3 and can be kept readily on hand. Are they healthy? Healthy is a subjective term based on your needs and life choices. Many of the items discussed can be produced at home to have better control over ingredients.  The more important thing is that they can all be created from items that can be kept on hand, and are mostly shelf-stable or refrigerate/freezer-friendly. 

Are We Saying Eat UHP Foods?

We understand that items such as beef sticks, jerky, and even fruit-flavored yogurt are now considered Ultra-High Processed Food. These new guidelines include granola bars, ham, ice cream, and candy. Our approach to dealing with these guidelines is to keep all things in moderation. We know that there is mercury in Tuna therefore, not being in an at-risk group, we may only have it twice a month. 

We also produce items like jerky, bread, and granola bars so we can control much more of our food supply. You do you because it’s your body. You will make me give up my homemade jerky, ice cream, and candies when you pull them from my cold dead hands.  We want to live simply and still eat better more often than not.

We’re Deconstructing a Meal

In truth, all of the above are very similar in concept to deconstructed meals.  Let’s take the first one with tuna. Isn’t this simply a tuna melt which is tuna salad, bread (a starch, but we use crackers), pickles, and cheese (which makes it a melt)? Doesn’t the one with hard-boiled eggs and tortillas seem a lot like Hueveo Rancheros? That is the point. 

By using a snack approach to balanced meals we can reduce the amount of time we spend cooking. To do this look at a meal and break it down. Can you substitute different parts of the meal for other items? If you can’t then can you use the ingredients on hand together as a full meal? Balance is the key.

Many of us have one-off items such as grabbing an apple as a snack. The challenge is balance. This is not to say we don’t enjoy a bag of chips or cookies once and a while. Our blog’s premise is not about right or wrong or healthy or not. We want to reduce the barriers to simplifying getting to your goals by pointing out alternate ways of getting your Daily Required Intake or DRI. When we hear snacks there is a perception it isn’t healthy. 

Wrapping Up

We have discussed many aspects of snacks as meal replacements. As with all health and food-related topics, it is your choice. We assert that eating 3 big meals a day, even if homemade, can be outside our caloric needs. The timing of the meals may or may not be the best for your body and lifestyle. Rather than sitting down to a full plate of food, it may help to just grab some roast deli chicken crackers, cheese, and some trail mix instead. 

The post The Best Meals Can Be Simple Snacks first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

Separating Fact and Fiction Takes Clarifications

In an earlier post, we talked about the big three and why fat was important for the Body. If that is so, why does fat have such a bad rap? As with everything, the devil is in the details. Not all fats are good, bad, or created equal. 

Let’s start with a quick 411 on the  major types of fats

• Monounsaturated
• Polyunsaturated
• Saturated
• Trans Fats

What we found challenging was understanding what was in what. In another post, we talked about where calories hide in items like nuts. Of course, this led us to stop eating nuts since they have so much fat. Oh wait, salmon has fat as does olive oil. There goes the salmon and pesto dishes. The home-fried chicken was right out! Not so much. 

We are not going to try to explain as these fats have been studied extensively. We have linked to several really smart folks who can explain their chemistry and their impact on your body and health. All we want to do is give people a heads up of where to look why you need them and why ‘low-fat’ doesn’t always mean good for you. According to many such as Harvard Health and the USDA, you need fat as part of your DRI we mentioned in another post. Here’s the TL;DR: we walked away with:

Trans Fats Are Out

Let’s get Trans Fats out of the way first. There are two types; non-artificial and artificial. There are natural sources of trans fats that come from unaltered saturated fat. These are not the ones we have heard of as being bad for you. According to experts, while it may be best to avoid them they don’t have the same impact on our health as artificial trans fats. 

Artificial trans fats are a non-starter in terms of being good for us to the point they have been banned in some shape or form in some countries like the US. Trans fats are also known by their other name which is PHO or partially hydrogenated oils. PHO is created by putting vegetable oil through a chemical and heating process to keep the fat solid at room temperature.  Originally thought to be better than regular fats, that opinion has changed. You can make your own decisions on trans fat but they are now specifically called out on nutrition labels to help us avoid them. 

Unsaturated Fats Are Good

All fats contain the same calories per serving. It is not that one is ‘less’ fatty than the other.  Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated fats are triglycerides your body needs. They can be grossly generalized as fats that stay liquid at room temperature. Think nuts, vegetables, and olive oil as well as fish. If the fat comes from something that grows in the ground or it swims, the fat from it is fat your body needs. The exception to this generalization is the oil of fruit of tropical plants such as coconut or palm. 

Saturated Fats Are Problematic

Saturated fats tend to come from meat, dairy, or tropical plants and are generally solid at room temperature. The labeling of unhealthy saturated fats is due to their impact on cholesterol levels. Of course, they are plentiful in some of our favorite foods like red meat, cheeses, and baked goods. 

We found some evidence that newer studies are challenging the opinion that saturated fats are 100% bad for everyone. Cholesterol, and its impact on the body, maybe as much genetics as it is the food we eat. In any case, we still want to know how much we can have since they come at a high risk-to-reward ratio.    

According to the American Heart Association, the guideline is only 6% of the fats you eat should be saturated. As usual, many health professionals disagree and we have seen as high as 10%. Let’s take the harder road and go for 6% for the sake of an example. For someone on a 2,000-calorie-a-day calorie budget that is 120 calories from saturated fat or 13 grams.  At first glance that is a terrifying number. That is about a single slice of cheddar cheese, right? 

Let’s Do Some Math

This is where we feel things get sideways. No, it is not a single slice. We need to revisit our nutrition label and do some math. Bear with me as we get nerdy with numbers and a word problem. 

Question: How much cheddar cheese can I eat if I have a 2,000-calorie-a-day budget and want to control my saturated fat?

Additional Info Needed: According to Google a single slice of cheddar cheese averages 30% or 6 grams of saturated fat per ounce. 

Answer: Right now I could eat 3 and ⅓ ounces of cheddar cheese to meet that 6 percent goal if I had no other saturated fat in my diet that day. That is simply adding up something from 30% to 100% which is straightforward.  Crisis averted. We can even have a ⅓ lb. burger made from 80/20 beef with a slice of cheddar and stay within our goals if our calorie budget allows it. 

We Can But Should We?

But should we scarf down that cheeseburger? What about switching to home-fried chicken to avoid trans fats? Empirically what we found was that we cheated on our diet less when we ate some level of fat in our meals. We found a good middle-of-the-road approach by creating that same sense of a ‘fat’ budget like our calorie budget. While that may not work for some with specific medical conditions, it worked for us. We aren’t into taking chances so we do get our cholesterol levels tested every year to make sure our choices are staying healthy. 

Closing Thoughts

We discussed many of the high-level pros and cons of fat in our diets. Based on everything we read we we learned for our goals we shouldn’t fear fat. This post gave the evidence that we used to support the decision that our bodies need some fat. We also have provided information about some of the myths of fat through the disambiguation of the different types we learned. Based on all the learning and evidence we found, we embraced fat in our diet. Armed with this knowledge you can make your own informed decision instead of simply avoiding all fats unless otherwise directed by a health professional.

The post Our New Perception Of Fats In Diets first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

We hear all sorts of advice about making sure we eat enough protein. Previously, we discussed it as a key building block of the body. In this post, we will ask what is enough and give you some tools to answer what enough is for you. As with all things human, we found there isn’t a single answer. What is worse is that not all proteins are complete. By the end of this post, we hope to give you the tools you need to come to your own conclusion on what is enough. 

Not all Proteins are the Same

First off, not all proteins are the same. There are two basic types; complete and in-complete. To be complete the protein must contain all nine essential amino acids. What is an essential amino acid? An essential amino acid is something your body needs but cannot synthesize out of other nutrients. 

We bring protein up completeness as an FYI. Completeness will become more important to understand later as many things like nuts and legumes don’t supply a complete protein. Many people feel uncomfortable with consuming meat and dairy. If you do, it is best to know about complete vs incomplete proteins so that you can choose a balanced approach. This is a reason that vegetarian and vegan diets can be more complex to maintain. 

TL; DR; Let’s Talk About How Much

Yes, but what do I need for protein? Guess what, like all things health it changes with age, weight, activity, and other factors like pregnancy. This all sounds similar to our post on BMR which uses BMI. The general formula for adults in the US is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight or 0.36 grams per pound.

That 0.8 is close to the 0.75 grams recommended by the British Heart Foundation. Like BMR, the devil is in the details. The good news is that the USDA has a Dietary Reference Intakes (DRI) calculator you can use. The even better news is that the calculator also shows things like carbohydrates and fiber. That’s correct, we are now talking about macronutrients. 

Back to Logging

If you read our post on being honest with calories, we discussed logging your meals in an app. If you have done that work, you can probably see the macronutrient breakdown. Some apps sell this functionality as an add-on. The important takeaway is that when you log your food, you should pick from verified sources or use the barcode. By doing that, you will allow yourself to see your macronutrients to have the data to answer if you are lining up or not with guidelines and/or your goals. 

Yes, we did say earlier we will stay away from nutrition in this blog. We just used the words nutrients. Worse still, we said macronutrients. What’s going on? After we researched calories, we realized we were no longer willing to take the nutrition labels for granted anymore. While we don’t make any assumptions about your needs or goals, we want to understand if we could remain balanced in our approach to food. The only way to know if we were getting enough was to track it so we are being as transparent as possible.

But I Want to Gain?

But this begs the question but what about those wanting to gain muscle mass? If you spend any time around time around sports training programs or gyms you will hear protein is where it is at. Mass Bingham General recommends that to gain muscle mass you may need to increase from 0.8 grams to 1.2 to 1.7 grams per kilogram of body weight. That increase roughs out to between 0.45 to 0.76 grams per pound.

Which is right for you? We feel this is where things descend into confusion. That depends on your goals. Do you want to increase or decrease your weight? We didn’t say gain muscle and lose fat in the same sentence. Of course, we all want to do that. Why is that so hard for many people? We will do another post on that later because that is called body recomposition which is complicated. It is complicated because it is applying two different processes which are contradictory. 

Let’s Stick to the Basics For Now

If we stick to DRI, we get from it a recommendation of protein. Now to figure out how to get it into our diet. Eat more steak? What about more fish and chicken? Maybe some jerky and peanuts would work. We can even substitute it with a protein shake! Each of these comes with a cost either financial or health related. That is another subject for another post.

Researching included here helped us reset our thoughts on protein. We will pause here as we, and you, now have the tools to at least determine what we all need. From here we can use these tools to help us towards our goals. We have discussed the types of proteins and some of the confusion in this area of how much is needed. We still need to address how to get them and the costs associated with them but both of those can wait for another post after more research.  

The post How To Establish Basic Protein Need first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

What we call the big three of diets are fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Like many people, we have tried to lower carbs and fats to lower our weight. We have also tried using extra protein, and mass gainers to add more muscle to add weight. We found the results inconclusive so we decided to learn about each of them instead of relying on pundits claims. This post will cover our learnings and why we returned to a balanced diet over any other based on our new understanding.

Let’s Start High Level

We will begin with a high-level understanding of the big three; Protein, Fat, and Carbohydrates. In other words, we don’t feel the post is going to help a super athlete tune their macronutrient balance information for performance enhancements. Instead, our goal is to use basics and simplicity to understand how to reach our goals. That means if you’re training for the next Olympic games probably need to seek a nutritionist’s help. 

Like any machine, the human body needs fuel to convert to energy. The body also needs lubricants to keep the machine operating without damage. Unlike other machines, the human body must grow and repair itself. It also has to produce its fuel. Each of our three items plays a role in that machine’s operation. 

We are taking a 10,000-foot view here on purpose. There are extensive studies on each of these elements of our diets and their impact on our personal goals. There are also extensive and egregious misunderstandings around them. These misunderstandings negatively impact our perception of balanced diets. That is another post that comes after basics.

So What do the Big Three Do

 Protein: 

• Rebuildes and grows the body.
• Acts as a chemical messenger to help the body run.
• Helps block cravings and hunger.
• Forces the body to use energy to digest it creating calorie burn.

Fat:

• Creates a calorie battery of stored energy. 
• Used to support organs and internal structures.
• Necessary for absorption of some vitamins.
• Helps regulate temperature. 

  Carbohydrates:

• Help create the fuel to run your body.
• Keeps our plumbing clean through fermentation in digestion.
• Provide and direct energy to the brain and cells.
• Preserve muscle.

We found that unless we had some specific dietary restrictions or medical conditions we needed all three. Why then do we hear about cutting carbs or low-fat diets being all the rage? With all things human, because it is not so cut and dry. It is how much, and of what type, of each of these you need to support your goals.  Let’s start with an extremely contrived example of why to store fat to kick that train of thought off. 

A Hyperbolic Example

Animals store fat for hibernation or migration. They have to actively seek out their food which requires energy so they are consuming a portion of it while trying to add weight. That fat is their calorie bank for their fast. They eat as much as they can of carbohydrates and fats until it is time to hibernate. The better their stores, the better their chances of survival. In other animals, the layer of fat they have also helps regulate their temperature. There’s a reason seals, whales, and other animals have a layer of fat for harsh conditions. They need that fat.

For most people, our food rarely runs out and we have learned how to control the climates in our homes and workplaces. We don’t need to store that extra fat that occurs in those extremes. If you want to for some personal reason, you can. Our food can be found easily and everywhere. We expend very little energy in getting it as well. For most of us, there is no need to store excess calories. Sadly no one told our body that we have evolved so we still store the excess. 

But We Need Fat and Carbohydrates Right?

But we have guidance from medical professionals we do need some fat and and carbohydrates. Why the carb-cutting diets? Why the low-fat diets? Each attempts to leverage one aspect of the trio to leverage its outcomes in the body. By limiting or increasing one of the three, the diets attempt to place you in a specific state however we found that to backfire on you.

The idea is simple. The more protein you eat the more you feed your muscles. Protein also is calorie sparse so it is harder for your body to convert it to fuel. Doing so causes further calories to be burned due to the thermogenic actions needed to do so. Now picture you are trying to gain lean mass and burn fat. Don’t carbohydrates deliver energy or does protein? Can you work out efficiently without some? Don’t they help preserve muscles to keep you from cannibalizing them for energy? 

Oddly enough, cutting carbs and fat has the same net effect. The premise is that by eliminating carbs and fat your body will consume the fat it has stored over time. You are effectively reducing the amount of calories your body can turn into energy and at some point, your body will use what it stores. What it stores is not only fat but muscle. When it starts to consume that fuel, it will let you know.

You Won’t Read This in the Fine Print

This is the part that is generally not discussed in these plans. When you are hungry, your body will tell you. If it has no fuel, you may feel tired. Most of us have been hungry to the point of not being able to think at some point in our lives. Like any machine running on fumes, you can’t be working at an optimal efficiency. What happens then? You may not feel like you can function and give up as this article discusses at the end around high protein diets.

We feel this is what we learned the hard way. By keeping balance in our meals, and simply reducing portion size, we learned to manage this. Whenever we become extreme in one area, the negatives cancel out the positives. We found ourselves not being able to sustain the diet requirements. This led to the diet roller coaster problem. 

Wrapping Up

You now have the basic building blocks of diet in your back pocket. You also have some tools to help you evaluate diet choices. With these two items, you can start to question if the diet you are looking at will help you or not. We have also provided you with a set of links that will give you deeper professional advice to help you tailor these building blocks to your goals.

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