Below is an excerpt from the book Downsize Sooner than Later – 18 Rules for Retirement Success available on Amazon.com.
Does it seem unusual for someone in their mid-50s to have six-pack abs?
As I write this, that is my current condition. Years ago, I would not have imagined this as likely. I remember thinking, when I first began to get wider around the middle in my 40s, “Well, I guess that’s just the way it is.” Have you ever had someone walk by you and bump into your stomach? That was me. I wasn’t technically overweight, but I was developing a typical middle-aged middle-section.
I have generally always been a person who exercised at least some. Currently, I have a routine that gets me to the gym four to five days a week for roughly 20- 25 minutes of moderate exercise per session. As for the abs, while exercise played a part, it was really a change in diet that made the difference. I know this to be true because for a long while I exercised, but did not have the abs. And my exercise routine was about the same before and after the six-pack so enchantingly appeared. One day, while brushing my teeth and not wearing a shirt, I happened to look in the mirror and noticed: “What the hell?”
The knowledge I acquired to make the change was stumbled upon by accident.
The root cause stemmed from a different approach to eating that was relatively easy to put in place and has been similarly easy to maintain. I stay on track about 85–90% of the time and don’t feel significantly restricted. This means I still have ice cream and cheesecake on occasion. But for the rest of the time – roughly 17 out of 20 meals in an average week – I have a routine and an “environment” for eating that keeps me on track.
Dispensing information about dieting is difficult because there have been so many fad diets over the years. Most seem great at the time but eventually fade from view. Compounding this challenge is the fact that people are different, and different approaches work better for some than they do for others. Additionally, sometimes people have legitimate medical issues such as autoimmune disorders or allergies that can affect how and what they can eat healthfully.
Understanding that diet is a tough space and can be bewildering, I would like to share with you one small idea related to dieting that I have found to be most useful. This idea has worked well for me and my wife for several years. Feel free to take it or leave it. If it works for you, great. If not, perhaps it will inspire you to seek out a diet that would work for you, if desired.
It started a few years ago when my wife came across a book in a dollar store called, Your Personal Paleo Code, by Chris Kresser. The title has since been changed to, The Paleo Cure. I had not heard of Chris before, but flipping through the pages, my first impression was, “Wow! Whoever this guy is, he worked his tail off to write this book!” So, I thought, for a dollar, I’d give it a whirl.
It’s funny how some of the most valuable things we discover in life are often stumbled upon. More than once, I have, by accident or luck, found something that later proved to be life changing. I suppose the lesson here is to always remain curious and on the lookout for hidden value.
I brought the book home and started reading it. Perhaps it was an example of the “teacher appears when the student is ready,” but it made a huge impact on me. I had heard of ancestral or “Paleo” dieting before in passing, but this was the first time I heard it presented as an evidence-based force-multiplier for improving diet and general health. One of the biggest takeaways I got from the book was the concept of “nutrient density” as relates to food.
The Magic of Nutrient Density
We hear endlessly about “junk food” and “empty calories,” but I never stopped to think what those words really mean. In the modern era of low sugar diets and “counting carbs,” it seemed all that mattered about most food was the “macro” or total calorie count. “Junk food” meant high sugar and/or high fat which, in turn, meant high calories. Conventional wisdom said that for a better diet, avoid such foods or consume them in moderation.
It turns out there is more to the story.
It begins with the fact that our bodies and digestive systems are monumentally complex. The digestive system consists of a vast universe of “microbiota” with an almost immeasurable number of agents working in concert to sustain our lives. Humans evolved these systems over millions of years, living as hunter gatherers and eating a diverse array of naturally occurring foods.
With the onset of the agricultural revolution, an unintended consequence was diets becoming substantially less diverse. This happened because only a relatively small number of plants and animals proved to be domesticable and cultivation friendly.* Some of these foods worked out well for our diets, while others were not always the best in terms of nutrient quality or digestibility.
*An excellent and fascinating resource that discusses the story of food domestication is Jared Diamond’s landmark book, Guns, Germs and Steel.
We arrive at today, dependent on diets with comparatively fewer food choices and with the widespread adoption of many foods – such as those that are grass-based like corn, rice, wheat, and refined sugar – that often conflict with our anciently evolved digestive systems.
So, what does it all mean?
Eat Food Your Body Will Recognize
Feeling hungry? This is your amazing body – literally developed over millions and millions of years – telling you it needs something. The question is: what? I know people who get very focused cravings for particular food items. Maybe it’s just me, but I have never experienced hunger with such focus. Instead, I seem to just get broadly hungry without much tilt toward specific foods.
Being “hungry” is, as it turns out, a generalized condition. Your body could be looking for some specific nutrient or fuel that you may not even be aware of (e.g. like sailors suffering from scurvy and having no clue what’s going on). One way to think of it is to imagine the body as having a limited vocabulary. It might need calcium, vitamin B12, citric acid, or some other nutrient, but because your body can’t directly ask for it, it just says, “I’m hungry!”
In the modern world, the cycle goes something like this:
1. Needing some combination of calories and nutrients, the body says, “I’m hungry!”
2. In response, I feed it high-calorie, low-nutrient junk food.
3. My stomach, now filled with calories but limited nutrients, provides me temporary relief. But it is a false summit.
4. Soon, my body, still lacking the nutrients it wanted in the first place and despite the fact it recently got a load of extra calories, repeats, “I’m hungry!”
5. Return to “2” above and repeat.
In such a cycle, I end up with an excess of calories and a deficiency in nutrients (i.e. overweight and less healthy). In truth, the body’s vocabulary is much more expansive. Yearning for what it wants, it may “speak” by saying things like: headaches, joint aches, depression, sleeplessness, digestive issues, cramping, pain, gas, various types of inflammation, and more.
Selecting a diet with diverse and nutrient-dense foods can alter the steps above to look more like this:
1. Needing some combination of calories and nutrients, the body says, “I’m hungry!”
2. Instead of giving it junk, I feed it nutrient-dense, real, whole, actual foods.
3. I get the calories I need and more of the nutrients my body wants. This gives me improved nourishment, greater energy, and relief from feeling hungry as often.
4. In time, I average toward a more stable diet, better nutrition, optimal body weight, and improved overall health.
Again, the body and digestive system are exceedingly complex. Knowing or attempting to predict what micronutrient the body might want at any time would be extremely difficult. By selecting in favor of more diverse and nutrient dense foods – as our ancient ancestors did – I increase the odds of giving my body the fuel it needs.
Below are some examples of foods I regularly eat.
- Fruits (mandarins, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, kiwis, bananas, blackberries, plums, grapes, apples, cherries, occasionally melon).
- Nuts (walnuts, pistachios, almonds).
- Legit dark chocolate (60%+ cacao – small wrapped 3–4 per day, 8–12 dark chocolate chips).
- Eggs, beef, chicken, pork, salmon, trout, tilapia, sardines, occasionally tuna.
- Vegetables (avocados, artichokes, brussels sprouts, asparagus, cauliflower, broccoli).
- Sweet potatoes (a mainstay and prime source of “good carbs”).
- Carrots and celery with homemade ranch dip.
- Cheese (occasionally, dairy for those who can tolerate it).
- Coffee.
- Almond milk.
- Ice water with lemon.
- Red wine (one glass per day, when indulged).
Note the commonality in the list above that just about any ancient ancestors would recognize most of these foods (i.e. less the almond milk, chocolate, coffee, and red wine). However, they would not recognize a loaf of bread, a bag of corn chips, candy bar, or a can of soda. Hence the epithets “ancestral” or “Paleo” (i.e. stone-age) eating.
Below are some examples of foods I try to avoid.
Note the two important commonalities of many of the foods avoided: grass-based and legume-based.
- Grass-based foods. Wheat, corn, rice, and sugar cane are all grass plants. It seems hard to imagine today, but for millions of years before the agricultural revolution – only around 10,000 years ago to the present – our ancient ancestors didn’t really eat much grass or foods derived from grass plants. For perspective, “humans” separated from chimpanzees around 7,000,000 years ago. Our more direct relatives, like homo erectus (upright man), first appeared about 2.5 million years ago. Our specific species, homo sapiens (wise man), has been around roughly 250,000 years. Animals that thrive on grass are called “ruminants” and have special digestive systems evolved to accommodate such eating. Humans are not ruminants. Grass-based foods, as we know them today, take on a variety of forms which are sweet, flavorful, and calorie dense. They are also inexpensive to produce and easy to ship and store. Unfortunately, however, they are light on nutrients and frequently misalign with our ancient digestive systems.
- Legumes and legume-based oils. Legumes are plants like beans, peas, peanuts, and lentils. Many of the cooking oils common today are derived from oils extracted from legumes. Again, wonderfully flavorful, cheap to produce, easy to store, and filled with calories, such foods and their derivatives often run afoul of our long-evolved digestive systems.
While I do eat many of the food items listed below on occasion, I try not to subsist on them as a major part of my diet. They are OK for the three meals a week or as an occasional side, but these are not foods I rely on to provide a significant source of nutrition.
Bread. (Wheat is a type of grass. Baked flour, while delicious and mouthwatering, is still essentially processed grass. If you must eat bread, bread made from almond flour or other nut flour may be much more recognizable to the body.)
- Peas, beans, string beans, cut beans, lentils, baked beans (legumes).
- Cereal (wheat-based, processed grass).
- Soda (high-fructose corn syrup is highly refined corn – another type of grass), cane sugar (saccharum officinarum is perennial grass).
- Cookies made with wheat flour and refined sugar (grass and grass).
- Pasta (better than many other kinds of breads, but still bread).
- Chips, cookies, pretzels, convenient “bagged” snacks (grass, grass, and more grass).
- Fruit juice (fruit juices can be squeezed or juiced from a real fruit – but even then, you’re probably better off just eating the fruit).
It has been said: “People are hard to change, but environments are easy to change.”
When my wife and I wanted to change our eating habits, one of the biggest areas of impact we discovered was changing our food environment at home. We started with snacks. We got rid of all the snack foods we wanted to avoid and replaced them with fruits, nuts, and easy-to-grab veggies. From there, we did the same with bigger meals. Eventually, we solved for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. We did not calorie count or starve ourselves through portion control. When hungry, if it was on the “good” list, we ate as much as we wanted.
In time, our bodies picked up on the micronutrients we had been missing and our appetites began to curb. No more ten o’clock at night, “OMG, I’m freaking starving!” followed by crushing two bowls of cereal before bed. It wasn’t a question of willpower; the intense crashes of hunger just stopped happening. Personally, I began to feel better physically with fewer aches and pains. Additionally, my general level of anxiety and propensity for over-worrying and stress dropped like a rock.
From there, we continued to look for more interesting ways to prepare the “real” food we were eating more of. We collected cookbooks and expanded our list of recipes. Now that we know what to eat and how to prepare it well, staying on track is easy.
Can you imagine?
- Baked wild salmon with garlic and herbs, served with asparagus, diced sweet potatoes, and a glass of red wine followed by a dessert of strawberries smothered in dark chocolate.
- Grilled filet mignon with sautéed mushrooms, steamed artichoke, baked sweet potato, Mediterranean side-salad sprinkled with feta cheese, followed by a small bowl of ice cream.
- Chicken fajita with caramelized onions and green peppers served over steamed cauliflower rice and dark chocolate-covered almonds for dessert.
Does this really seem restrictive?
You be the judge.
But wait, didn’t our ancient ancestors live comparatively short lives?
Some people point to reduced life expectancy among our long-ago ancestors as a reason to avoid eating more in alignment with the way they ate. But this is a misreading of the facts. People had lower “average” life expectancy, due to the combination of untreatable infections, unrecoverable diseases, and extremely high infant mortality. Such factors pulled the overall numbers down drastically. By contrast, coupling modern medicine with ancestral eating opens the door to the best of both worlds.
As with any major life alteration, making positive changes in something as important as diet requires ongoing study and diligence. For my part, I am glad to be on the path. As with any system for healthful eating, no one size fits all. Consult with your physician or qualified health practitioner to be sure any diet you choose makes sense for your individual situation.
Questions or comments?
I can be reached at this link – contact Ted Stevenot.