eat for health

Not great, not perfect, but ok. And that is good enough.

I’m going to leave the list up for a bit, but I’m in the maintaining phase now.

I’ve officially quit dieting—with my doc’s approval. My goal is to not get any bigger, to eat reasonably and get a reasonable amt of exercise.

And I’m doing all that. It feels so interesting to NOT feel guilty about food.

I want to read Michael Pollan’s books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, to learn more about nutrition. I suspect some of the stuff I think is gospel, isn’t.

This is so hard to do, when one lives “on the road” much of the time.

Here are my basic, I “can’t break ‘em” rules:

1. Eat Breakfast. There must be protein in the breakfast.
2. Big salad with variety of veggies at least once daily. Minimum of dressing.

I am learning that houses of worship seem to be riddled with sweets. Not sure what that is about. So far I’ve been good at leaving them alone.

I am also learning that my eating habits deteriorate Rapidly if I drink even a little alcohol. Actually, I already knew that. But I need to remember it.

Sigh.

were NOT great. I didn’t know where to find healthy food, and didn’t know where to look.

By day three, I had figured out where to get a good salad at almost any hour, and come up with the beginnings of a routine. The hotel has a breakfast bar, but I need to persuade them to offer some kind of protein other than pork sausage patties. I love bagels, but they are not what I should be eating for breakfast. On the other hand, they don’t object if I take an apple for a midday snack, which keeps me out of the sweets that seem to be everywhere in that office!

in a congregation. Everyone likes to feed the rabbi, it seems.

So the rabbi has to learn to say, “May I have more salad?” and “Gosh, those veggies are DELICIOUS!”

no breakfast…
peanut butter sandwich for lunch…
salad for dinner (that part was good)...

WITH a chocolate milkshake.

Holy moly.

Today has been better.

So was yesterday. And I’m giving myself points for it!

especially after the two days in Disneyland, weirdly enough, because we all ate for pleasure there, rather than health, and even two days of that was too much for me!

I’ve been trying to think about a concrete, measurable point at which I would declare this goal “done,” and I think I’ll retire it when it has become a habit. How I will know that I do not know YET.

Some goals are measurable, others are not. I guess that’s just how it is.

redefining it as “eating for health” was a good idea.

Anything with a whiff of “weight loss diet” seems to have failure built in for me, but the weight is drifting away as I eat good meals, healthy snacks, and the occasional, VERY occasional, treat.

I like this trend.

I have a lifetime of “dieting.” I am not doing that anymore, because it did really awful things to my health on more than one occasion. I’m one of those folks who get all messed up on it.

I’m taking a new approach to this, and taking my cues from the writings of a 12th century doctor, HaRav Moses ben Maimon, also known as the Rambam, or Maimonides. He’s adamant that many illnesses can be avoided by proper lifestyle, getting enough sleep, proper exercise, and proper food choices. Overeating is the greatest threat to health, in his writings. And all of this is grounded in the 613 commandments, according to the section of Mishneh Torah called Hilkhot Deot.

So here’s the deal: I’m committed to eating for health. That is, I will eat things that are good for me, and I will eat no more than I need. I’m taking this on as a spiritual practice, not as a diet.
Along with it I’ve got some other things for my Life List, but I’ll deal with them in other entries.

Here I go!