Snacking Hierarchy
habitformed.com
habitformed.com
First, I must take a sip of water.
Next, I have to eat a serving of vegetables or fruit.
Next, I can eat a serving of nuts or more fruit.
Last, I am allowed whatever terrible yet tasty treat I want, up to one serving.I'm sorry, since when did playing video games become "mentally passive"? (I say that somewhat half-jokingly.)
While reading I'm sure is much more healthy than playing video games, I don't think you can put video games -- for the most part -- in the same "mental" classification as watching a movie. Most video games require thinking and coordination.
Movies, on the other hand, barely require thought, zero coordination, and free your hands up to stuffing your face with processed goodies.
In this example it's a personal aspect of how they fit into my life - the games I tend to play these day aren't very mentally engaging. Tends to be something I've played so much it's routine & reflex (CounterStrike) or really easy that I play for other reasons (Pokemon).
I actually 'invented' the snacking hierarchy because of CounterStrike. Time between rounds was brutal for eating goodies.
Whatever the medium, whatever the degree of explicit interactivity, a good example of that medium's literature will require plenty of thought.
1. Water: Drinking water is, of course, necessary, and quite a few people don't actually hydrate enough during the course of a day. +1 on this from me.
2. Fruits/vegetables: Now, fruits and vegetables are an essential part of any well-balanced diet, but if you're using them to satisfy an intermittent craving, I'm guessing you're probably going to reach for fruits. The problem with this is that if you're reaching for that apple a few times a day, you're still ingesting ~25g of carbohydrates (~9% daily recommended intake), and ~100 kcal. Eat four apples (or similar fruits), and you've suddenly consumed 1/5th of your caloric requirements and almost 40% of your carbs. In terms of macronutrients, an apple has about the same nutritional value as an 8oz bottle of coke.
Now don't get me wrong. Reaching for an apple instead of a muffin or a cupcake is unarguably better.
If you're reaching for vegetables instead of fruits, then most of what I stated above doesn't really apply. However, when those food cravings come around it's usually in response to a drop in blood glucose levels, which makes you reach for carb-laden foods first.
3. Nuts. Sigh. I don't know why people think nuts are actually something that's supposed to exist in a well-balanced diet. Perhaps it's the recent popularity of paleo. Anyways. Yes, nuts do contain a high percentage of poly- and monounsaturated fats, and fat is good for you. No one is going to argue that. But for the same caloric cost (~150 kcal for a serving of almonds, and that's a pretty tiny serving), you can eat a whole lot of more interesting and nutritious foods. Again, I'm not saying that nuts are inherently bad.
I do actually go for carrots and broccoli before apples and bananas quite often. I like them a lot. Often I end up eating just a few raisins before it's time for my next actual meal (which is balanced and full of veggies).
What are the more interesting and nutritious foods you're talking about? I would like to try them!
- low-fat/non-fat greek yogurt: http://www.presidentschoice.ca/LCLOnline/products.jsp?type=d...
- 1%-2% cottage cheese: http://www.presidentschoice.ca/LCLOnline/products.jsp?type=d...
- Smoked salmon
- Flaked tuna: http://www.presidentschoice.ca/LCLOnline/products.jsp?type=d... (great in salads)
Edit: Oh, and a good mix of vegetables is always good. Just watch that your fiber intake doesn't get out of control, since that can cause some digestive... issues.
If you're talking about satiety, then there is ample evidence that protein is much more effective than fats or carbohydrates in that regard: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18469287.
There's evidence that a low GI diet can reduce the incidence of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
This is technically true, but useless. A calorie, as you surely know, is a measure of increasing the temperature of water. Imagine cooking one pot on high, increasing the temperature as fast as possible, and another gradually over the course of hours, applying the same total increase in heat energy to both. Do you really think the contents would cook identically in both pots?
As leoedin eloquently described, glycemic index was what I meant; do the calories hit you gradually, or all at once? But biology is freakin' complex, so at some level these concepts are all just leaky abstractions.
It depends on your dietary goals and expected physical activity, bur personally, I'd reach for for some quinoa or make a lentil-based dish as a pre-run meal instead of nuts.
Do you have some cites for this? I've heard some of the dumbest damn things about water (like the 'eight glasses a day' myth) and it's hard to keep them all straight.
This is highly variable, of course. If you go out an run a 45 minute 10k, then you're going to need a lot more water than someone who has done minimal physical activity all day.
I actually find it easier to completely abstain from unwanted behaviour, than allowing myself some and keeping a tally.
The author's method would probably still work for me, as it doesn't require keeping a tally. Not so much for eating, since I don't have any problem with willpower in that area. But for choosing activities.
Great tip - I've come across it myself when learning emotional maturity. A part of self-awareness is the mental equivalent of trying and failing to sudo - understanding that who I am at the moment isn't who should be making long-term decisions... and being at peace with that. This doesn't dissolve my discontent, but simply adds a sensible maximum to the damage my emotionally-charged moods can have.
Irrespective, it's a great idea - starting with water is really good too, as we're a bit rubbish (technically speaking) at differentiating between thirst and hunger.
I don't really put a time frame between levels. It takes a lot for me to feel full so that hasn't been something I've paid attention to. When I say it takes a lot I mean it...I've been denied further service at all-you-can-eat restaurants. For me the craving isn't really about fullness, it's just a desire that can often be sated with water and veggies.
I've heard about a 20 minute gap between being full and your stomach letting you know that, so I'd probably put 10 minutes between each snack. But I'm not scientific about this at all so I'm just throwing that number out there.
2. Fruit.
3. Nuts or different fruit.
4. One serving of crap.
5. #1 again, etc.
You might have different priorities than the OP when it comes to nutrition, or leisure activities - that's fine - substitute in your own priorities so we can talk about the process (Snacking Hierarchy) and its merits.
Whether step 2 is Vegetables or Nuts is immaterial. The point is that it's a progressive stepwise motion towards those tempting things that you're trying to avoid.
Yoghurt and cottage cheese are go-tos for me. Jerky. Some fruit, more veggies. Definitely nuts.
And lots and lots of water & tea.
To be clear, this is my snacking hierarchy, not my entire diet. I do have regular meals as well that are more balanced.
To people who make rice the staple of nearly every meal, it looks insane.
Over time, this adds up. Sarcopenia is age-related muscle loss, which amounts to 0.5%-1% of muscle mass per year. It's reversible through strength training and proper nutrition.
While this doesn't require eating hundreds of grams of protein per day (though strength athletes may eat, and benefit from, such quantities), ensuring that your protein intake is spread throughout the day is helpful.
Rice is interesting in that, while a carbohydrate, the insulin response to it differs from that of wheat and sugar. That and total dietary intake largely account for the lower prevalence of obesity among traditional Asian diets.
The Standard American Diet has a lot to condemn it. While it can be high in protein, it's generally higher in processed carbs, trans fats, and questionably raised and prepared proteins (CAFO / feedlot / factory-raised meats, with beef highly treated with hormones and antibiotics).
Among the fitness geeks I know, the first response to those looking to drop fat is to vastly increase the intake of green/colored/leafy/cruciferous vegetables. Just sayin'.
Protein intake? 0.5g - 1.25g per pound lean body mass, for general public through advanced strength/cardio athlete. The catabolic effects of long-duration cardio may require more protein even than strength training, ironically.
That's not what the data suggests.
Elite Kenyan marathoner's diets are approximately 10% protein (or 75g per day), 75% carbohydrates and 15% fat. Corn is the primary energy source. Non-Kenyan runners who have adopted a similar diet have done so with excellent results.
http://jonathaninthedistance.blogspot.com/2008/06/nutrition-... http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=1452065 http://dailyrunningtips.com/kenyan-runners/kenyan-runners-an... http://www.runaddicts.net/health-nutrition/secrets-from-the-...
Elite Kenyan marathoners aren't particularly known for being heavily muscled. Elite sprinters, on the other hand, typically are.
I could dig for some more rigorous research, no time presently.
Agreed. Their goal isn't to be heavily muscled. It's to run fast over long distances. What's your point?
A champion Kenyan marathoner, say, Geoffrey Mutai, weighs roughly 53 kg (123 lb) at 182 cm (6 ft). If he's representative of the Kenyans consuming 75g of protein per day, he actually illustrates my points fairly well:
1. He's consuming 0.6g protein per pound body mass. Which is in the range I'd suggested for general health.
2. I'd suggested that athletes engaged in long-duration cardio should eat more protein, or suffer catabolic effects. Mr. Mutai exhibits the second part of that statement. While it's an absolutely horrid measure of anything resembling health, BMI gives us at least a scale to compare relative body mass to height ratios. Mutai's clocks in at 16.6, where "normal" is generally given as 18.5-25, and a bodybuilder, at 3-6% bodyfat, may clock in at 30-40. The argument here isn't fitness or appropriateness to task, it's to point out that our Kenyan here is at the very low end of the body mass-to-height scale, as a consequence of having both exceptionally low bodyfat, and very little muscle.
3. The unanswered question and unstated assertion is how this affects longevity and quality of live, and that we're discussing snacking habits, nutrition, and exercise in the context of general fitness in a general population that's not, as a rule, prone to trotting off for 26.21875 mile jaunts on a daily basis, though some may partake occasionally. Longevity of athletes is a mixed bag: American football players pretty notoriously die young (55 or so median). Finnish Olympians, according to one study, showed a few added years of longevity. The Stanford Runners Study (long-term longitudinal research) shows very consistent benefits of regular exercise, though I believe this is generally not inclusive of daily marathon-distance bouts. I'm not aware of the specifics of Mutai's training, but suspect much of it takes place at sub-marathon distances as well.
There's also the matter that extreme devotion to a single mode of exercise can lead to other problems. Long-distance cyclists, it turns out, suffer from both muscular and skeletal weaknesses due to the specifics of muscle stimulus, bone loading (or lack), and biochemical changes induced by hours spent on a bike. They're now encourage to strength train to make up for this, though it's another sport that rewards a light, wiry frame.
And finally, yes, if your goal is to be very, very good at winning marathons, you want to be tall, light, slow-twitch, very efficient at metabolizing glycogen, and very good at metabolizing fats (former for higher output, latter as lipid metabolism is generally rate-limited). In a fitness-for-goals perspective, Mr. Mutai is precisely where he needs to be.
For the average Joe or Jane, perhaps not so much.
These, and the sharp bit at the end, are my points.
Even if you're eating brown rice exclusively, that's still terrible for you from a health standpoint. The glycemic index alone greatly advises against it.
If the empirical results from eating so much rice are actually good, it doesn't matter what the glycemic index says. It's just a proxy.
The system works for me because I end up satisfying the craving on healthy stuff before I can get to the unhealthy a lot of the time. That said, everything I write about is based on personal experience and I just try to distill some of the general tips that anyone could use.
Most people would probably make themselves sick before getting too many calories under a reasonable interpretation of this hierarchy.