Originally published in the Men's Health MVP Network, May 6, 2015. Part of the Eating Clean campaign. Illustrations by the author.
There's an effect, in physics, called The Observer Effect, that states that the mere act of observing phenomena alters its behavior. Pretty heady stuff when we're talking about particle physics, but certainly applicable in broad terms to many less specialized situations. Nutrition, for example. It wasn't until I turned 30 and received my first bad doctor's report (high cholesterol, overweight, high liver enzymes) that I considered the idea of health as something to strive for and to maintain, as opposed to an intrinsic, inexhaustible gift that can be treated as a teflon shield against the ravages of pizza, beer, bacon cheeseburgers, and chocolate shakes with little to no maintenance required.
Since that time, I've been forced to deal with the reality that health is a gift, not like perfect pitch or a large penis, but rather like a houseplant; with continued loving care and nurturing, it will reward you year after year with beautiful flowers. Ignored, it will dry up, turn brown, droop, and ultimately, die.
To that end, I started weighing myself regularly for the first time since high school. I am not a data junkie by any stretch. In fact, I might go as far as to say I hate data. I don't keep a food diary, and I don't want a smartwatch or a fitbit telling me my average steps so I can cross-reference that with my simple carb consumption on Wednesdays. If being healthy requires me to spend hours crunching numbers, I'd rather just eat nachos and ribs and die young with a bbq sauce-slathered smile.
Luckily, despite many things I read online and in books, very little was required to make significant changes. As plants need sunshine, water, and a little attention, so do we humans require sunshine (exercise), water (clean food and drink), and a little attention (in my case, weighing myself).
As a man who has traditionally put beer and cheese on a pedestal, sometimes literally, I knew that the hardest part of my journey back to a good check-up would be a drastic reduction in these forbidden food groups. That's not to say I cut them out completely, because as I've stated above, I want to enjoy my life. I've seen obnoxious tee-shirts that say "Nothing tastes as good as being skinny." I invite anyone boorish enough to wear that shirt (or post that quote to Facebook) to join me for the chocolate cheesecake at Junior's. But for the most part, I cut the bad stuff that we've all heard about by now down to one (glorious) day a week. Cheese, carbs, ice cream, sausage, processed foods, alcohol…once the contents of my menu for the week, now nearly eliminated, I was angry. I was uncharacteristically snippy with my wife, kids, coworkers. If weakness is pain leaving the body, then snippiness is pork-derived products and double ipas leaving the diet.
I substituted in things like baked chicken, black beans, grilled fish, occasional lean cuts of beef, and tons of green veggies including kale: a green that I used to make fun of people for eating. Now I stir fry it with some olive oil, whole garlic, and Chinese chili peppers and it's a delight! And a ton of water.
Additionally, I started to become conscious of what constituted normal human-sized portions and not the Applebee's 'Murca sized portions I'd become accustomed to. You know, the mountains of buttery potatoes and stacks of greasy ribs that make you feel like you need a shower and 12 hours of sleep when you're done? I found that staying close to a 1500–1800 calorie diet was more than enough food to feel fulfilled. The trick was just to only prepare that amount of food, plan it out beforehand, and don't deviate or go scavenging. We are conditioned to eat what's in front of us – probably from childhoods full of "there's children starving in China" propaganda. So if you just put less food in front of yourself, you'll get used to it. It doesn't even require THAT much discipline, because, frankly, I have almost none to start with and I was able to do it. A week of self-control and your body acclimates, your stomach shrinks a bit, and you no longer crave those extra helpings.
At the end of a week of these new behaviors, something happened. Something my skeptical sensibility couldn't argue with. I dropped five pounds! Seriously. I was no longer sabotaging my workouts by melting cheese over them, and what was burned at the gym stayed burned. As a result, the weight started to drop off. I felt validated and empowered, because I had made a decision and lived by it. And the best part, it wasn't even really that bad. It was less about "dieting" or "denying" and more about just trying to act like a normal human being and not the frat guy everyone called Humvee, or Cargo Bay, or Sasquatch. That stuff is fun in college, but college ends, and now you're just a guy sweating through his button-down, at increasing risk of heart and cardiovascular disease. The sooner you start to pay attention to your health, the sooner it becomes an unconscious set of good habits, freeing your attention for more worthy things.