Monday, April 27, 2009

Tommy Bahama all the way!


This is the first of five consecutive daily blogflections by middle-age men guest bloggers. Today’s middle-age man guest blogger is Tom. 

Tom is the father of two beautiful young adult daughters, an accomplished karate martial artist, and musician by night and Japanese language high school teacher by day. More importantly, Tom is a bona-fide middle-age man who has been preparing for old manhood by taking private lessons from his 96-year young father. 

What follows is Tom’s guest blogflection.

A year and a half ago I started my diet. It has worked very well for me, allowing me to maintain my present weight or to even dabble with a lower weight via lower bodyfat percentage. Currently I am 183 lbs/ 6' 1". Below is some of the combination that worked for me. Each could be it’s own article, I suppose, but I’ll just outline it here. I chose the categories that seemed unique and/or were surprising self-discoveries.

Invisible
A diet must be invisible. No one likes a dieter. They can be annoying - "I'm on a diet. I'll just have salad." Shut up. Don’t be the only one who orders a simple salad when the others order a burger, fries, and shake.

Support group
You may not have one. As for your family, friends, and loved ones, they often don't care if you're pre-diabetic, you have high blood pressure, or look fat. To put it kindly, maybe they like you so much that the idea of you changing makes them afraid they will lose you and your wonderfulness. Or, maybe they are just insecure, guilty, and jealous. You are on your own.

Advice
One thing I have learned from my diet: I am so sick of advice. Advice is too often ignorant, self-serving, narrow, and negative. I’m doing my best to become a reformed ex-advice-giver. Hey, you came to this blog. When I want advice, I will go to some well-reasoned books, information websites, some internet acquaintances, and a very limited number of personal friends.

Exercise
With your diet, work on your diet. You will not always exercise, but you will always eat. That’s how you got fat after playing sports in school. There are some exercises that will give you an irresistible hunger. It is easier to not eat a bagel than to work off that amount of calories.

Nutrition
Learn what insulin response is. For the record, I eat everything, only the proportions and portions have changed. I have no cravings or deprivations. Learn which food satiates hunger for the longest time.

Nosdiet
That is my foundation. Adjust as needed. It's simple, free, and genius. It is the ultimate invisible diet.

Intermittent fasting
There are workable variations for everybody. If it means hunger to you, you are doing something wrong. Intermittent fasting is the best way to learn about your own eating habits and needs. My strong opinion: meals are like bureaucracies; they only get bigger, never smaller.

Hardwire
We are hardwired to search out and eat food. There was a pre-modern humanoid species that was hardwired to avoid food. They became extinct. Their bones were recently discovered in Africa. Really skinny little bones. Learn our animal nature and what we are built to eat.

Rewards
Introspection, self-knowledge. I can look as good as when I was in college. I can shop like a girl. Dang, I’m fine. Tommy Bahama all the way!

5 comments:

Brian said...

Tommy Bahama -- Great post. While I'm far away from my goal weight, I have settled upon an approach that is almost identical to yours. I especially agree with your statement about keeping the diet invisible.

fishhead said...

Hi Tom,
Some good observations. Isn't it great what you learn when you get older?
Thanks for the IF advice, even though you don't like giving advice-hehe. I couldn't stick with it. I was too hungry mid- morning. I definately agree with the exercise comments. The more I work out, the more I want to eat. It's easier to not eat the food than to work it off.

Have you heard from Pierini? Now they've had an earthquake down there. I hope they're doing ok.

When are you starting your own blog??????

Take care,
Donna

Charles Long said...

Nice job on the guest blog. Yeah, dieters can be annoying so best to keep it to yourself.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, folks.

Donna, a 12/24 is better than the common 18/24 IF. Midmorning, eat a fried egg drowning in butter. More ideas available on request if PMed.

They always have earthquakes down there.

Tom

Franklin said...

Hey Tom, I think you implied it without saying it .. you also have to have a good sense of humor about living .. you certainly do .. still laughing here .. thanks!!