Mar 31 2014
Pure clean living sweet but sugar free
Like others on this site I analyzed my habits pre-injury and post-injury and, at least while I am recovering and healing, but hopefully moving forward I endeavor to improve my diet.
Four vices that I really enjoy, but think contributed to the reasons I suffered an ATR:
a) Caffeine in the form of coffee
b) Alcohol in the form of beer, mostly but occassionly wines and spirits
c) Refined sugar in the form of processed food treats: candy, donuts, cakes, etc.
d) Tobacco - once or twice a month cigar.
The most noticeable beneficial outcome of reducing all these four to ZERO or near zero levels (refined sugar is VERY hard to cut out because almost all processed foods are made with it) is less visits to the bathroom to pee, which for me during recovery means less in-the-middle-of-the-night-groggy-navigating-prone-to-error-and-falling episodes. So while surely the reduced bathroom visits are mostly due to the elimination of caffeine and alcoholic products, I figure getting rid of refined sugar (completely unnecessary for normal healthy living and functioning) and the tobacco are helpful as well.
4/1 update on this topic: I was thinking about how variety is the spice of life. And everything in moderation yada yada. So I think what I am coming around to is merely replacing a percentage of my favorite vices with exercise. So I don’t want to rule them out completely forever, but simply that I was spending too little time exercising, stretching, relaxing, and paying attention to diet, and more time consuming the delicious junk because it made me happy, or so I thought. But I am pretty unhappy with the current state of affairs, looking at weeks and weeks of no driving, the cast, the boot, the rehab, etc. etc. So for me, I was out of balance.
15 responses so far
Eliminating coffee and booze during ATR rehab sounds sensible, though moderate intake of both is now associated with better health outcomes than abstention.
Norm that is great news! well sorta great, in that coffee is my favorite vice of the four I listed, that I was afraid I’d never be able to give up over the long haul. Which reminds me of this story: When I worked for one of the National Laboratories in Albuquerque New Mexico they had really great benefits. One of the training programs the powers-that-be organized was on techniques to avoid repetitive strain injuries. One “trick” that they taught us was to avoid injuries by consuming beverages. The idea being that this would get us up from the computer station more frequently and head to the lavatory, forcing a break from the keyboard and reducing the chance for repetitive strain injury. In retrospect it seems funny, and I could imagine a humorous news headline: “Government Trains Workers to Pee.” At the time I thought it was a good idea and I used the technique for myself to get over some repetitive strain problems. I guess I should have mixed it up a bit and not used only coffee as the beverage.
Sandia? It sounds like a good regime, especially now that they’ve discovered that sitting is quite bad for us, even if we’re otherwise active! I think most good studies on coffee have failed to find ill effects (& often found beneficial ones) even up to 4+ cups/day. Alcohol more like a glass or 2 of wine /day.
Yes Sandia. But even if 4 cups is good, I was drinking 6 or more and in the middle of night every night was having to visit the latrine 2, sometimes 3 times. I am glad to NOT have to do that now with cast on.
So Norm, what is your view on refined sugar?
I’m way less up-to-date on these matters than ATR treatment (and I’ve got big gaps there, too!), but I’m not a fan. My impression of what I’ve read and heard is that the still-ongoing vilification and avoidance of dietary fat — and its large-scale replacement with dietary sugar — has probably contributed significantly to the current obesity epidemic in the US and (to a lesser extent) elsewhere.
Myself, I’ve largely avoided refined grains for years, and ~totally avoided fruit juices and soft drinks. Almost 20 years ago, I stopped adding sugar to my morning coffee “cold turkey”. For around 2 days afterwards, I didn’t like the taste much, but I persisted. Soon after that I accidentally tasted some of my wife’s coffee — with milk-or-cream and sugar, exactly the way I took it less than a week earlier — and I thought somebody was trying to gag me with unwanted sweets! Now I whip skim milk into my morning coffee (no sugar), and it seems like a luxurious treat every morning.
In diet as in much of the rest of life, every addition or subtraction has a short-term effect, followed by a surprisingly rapid “reset” of our “thermostat”, so we take last week’s diet (or activity level, or wealth level, or. . .) for granted, as “normal”. Learning to be grateful for what’s “normal” is the best trick of all!
I just returned from my twice-annual ski week in Whistler, and as usual in Whistler, I found that I usually got up to pee many times during the night — sometimes every 2 hours all night! At home, I often sleep 7 or 8 hours straight, without getting up, but not on ski trips. I did drink a few ounces of Sake each night, but I drink red wine every night at home, roughly the same quantity. And my water consumption didn’t seem very different than at home, either. Altitude? Skiing? Something else? No idea.
I personally have always noticed an immediate increase in bathroom visits when I go visit higher altitudes. So maybe there’s a correlation there, albeit loose with our currently small two-sample data set size
A promising source on nutrition is Authority Nutrition (google it, if I provide links, my comments appear to automativally disappear into som hole of ‘need moderation’). He claims to be evidence-based, and is good at linking up to relevant studies to base his claims. But, I haven’t really had the time to dig into the issue, hence I refer to him as a ‘promising’ source.
When it comes to coffee, it supposedly have beneficial health effects even in very large quantities, with the peak at around 6 cups a day. However, I assume that is filter, not espressos or french pressed coffee, as the latter contains much more of the harmful fatty acids that will otherwise be left in the filter.
Regarding alcohol, it is true that 1-2 units may have a positive effect on middle aged males. However, you better keep in mind that the studies supporting this view does not properly control for much other lifestyle factors, and they do point to so many effects, that it is hard to devise the biolgocial response mechanism. Also, keep in mind that a unit isn’t a bottle of beer, it’s 10 millilitres of ethanol. I.e. 1 unit equals 200 ml/6,5 US fl oz of beer at 5% per volume, so it’s a lot less than most people think.
That being said, there is no evidence of small amounts of alcohol being harmful. Personally, I think small amounts of alcohol doesn’t have any effect at all on your health, except that if it makes you happy, it’s probably a good thing
And, the abstention issue: Most people in these surveys who abstain, do so for medical reasons. They already have a medical condition, and, nope, the studies don’t control for that. Cause they’re paid for by the industry.
Sorry, not all of my statements above are perfectly accurate. Here are primary sources (hoping not to be sent into the black hole of ‘needs moderation’):
Coffee: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1112010#t=abstract
Alcohol: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.12104/full
Again, my apologies for being inaccurate in the first place. Cheers, and happy healing!
I tried to post this, with links. Did fell down the black hole of ‘comment awaiting moderation’. Sorry for that - this time without links.
Sorry, not all of my statements above are perfectly accurate. Here are primary sources (hoping not to be sent into the black hole of ‘needs moderation’):
Coffee:
Alcohol:
Again, my apologies for being inaccurate in the first place. Cheers, and happy healing!
thanks tord, I just took a look at the Authority Nutrition web site and looks interesting. Will have to dig deeper later this week. cheers!
p.s. I just looked at your home page and noticed in a post that you also had trouble uploading pictures. I tried this morning using Chrome and Firefox, and I just could not figure out how to get the image I wanted to embed in my post using the Add Media button. If you figure it out please post or send me email. thanks. -Jon
update on image placement: I just happened to be reading a post from http://achillesblog.com/kellygirl/2013/05/16/for-bam-bam-how-to-upload-a-picture/ and she describes image uploading this way:
1. Re-size your photo. I use a free photo re-sizer on line and reduce it by 50-75% depending on the file size. I save it as a jpeg.
2. On your dashboard, click the asterisk next to “Add Media” directly above the area that you are typing your text. This window has three tabs on the top “From Computer, From URL and From Media Library.” If you are selecting a photo from your computer, you will upload on that tab. Click “Browse” to find your photo.
3. Choose your re-sized photo and upload it. After it is uploaded, select the third tab that says “Media Library” and copy the URL address of your photo. At this point you, can select how whether you want the photo aligned left, right, center in your post and also select the photo size. Check the appropriate box before closing that window.
4. Switch to the HTML view and place your cursor where you would like the photo inserted in your text and select “img.” A window will come up that allows you to copy your picture’s URL address (from step 3.) Insert the address. Close the window.
5. You should see the code for the photo insertion on your blog post. At this point, you can “Preview” your blog post using the “Preview” button on the left side of the Dashboard.
About nutrition: As a runner I also like Scott Jurek’s thoughts on nutrition, but I see them as complementary to AN, not a substitute. Unlike Scott, I am certainly not a vegan.
I think we bloggers can make our pages more or less sensitive to that Awaiting Moderation black hole, though I forget the details. When posting a reply, leaving out the http part helps, and also the www part. And fewer links is better than more. I’ve recently gotten sent down that hole by including more than one Smiley, too!