Jimako’s Blog

The following is a post that I made over on the Powerbasic programmer forums, in response to Paul Pank’s posting asking dietary advice. Why he thought to ask about diet on a programming forum is beyond me. I have edited out the references to other posts but the entire thread can be seen at the PowerBasic Forum.

First, let me get some credibility here, then make a disclaimer, then express my opinion.

I am 47 and have been overweight pretty much all my life. My dad’s side of the family is very prone to Diabetes. In 1994, I was diagnosed with diabetes. At the time, I weighed about 130 kg (about 295 lb and I am 177 cm tall). I led a very sedentary lifestyle — my thinking was that exercise doesn’t really make you live longer, it just feels that way .

When diagnosed with diabetes, I went through the brainwashing — err, pardon me — nutrition education. I was on 4 insulin injections a day, and had the whole food pyramid thing drummed into me. You know the one — lots of complex carbs with fibre (like vegetables and grains), far less proteins and even less fats.

I followed the advice. Strictly. Under supervision. Really.

And I ended up in 2003 weighing nearly 160 kg (360 lb)!

So I took matters into my own hands, educated myself and did what I needed to do.

Today, I weigh in at around 105 kg (240 lb: yes, that is over 50 kg/110 lb lost). I take no insulin or any other diabetic medication. My blood pressure is 110/70 and my bloodwork is terrific.

Disclaimer: do your own research and make your own decisions. This may NOT be right for you!

I read everything I could find. I went through Atkins and thought he had part of the picture. Then I found out about Glycemic Index (GI) and that completed the picture for me.

Here’s how I understand it. Insulin is the hormone that allows sugars to cross over the cell membrane and be used for energy. If you don’t have enough, or it is somehow flawed, you are diabetic — the sugars accumulate in your blood while your cells slowly starve.

But insulin does something else, too: it causes excess sugars in your blood to be stored as fat.

This is important: it is the excess SUGARS (ie carbs) that are stored as fat, and this is done in the presence of insulin.

To avoid this, you need to ensure that the food you eat does not cause a spike in insulin production. Foods that cause a rapid rise in insulin levels have a high GI. Glucose has the maximum of 100, and pure water has 0, with everything else inside that range. If you eat low to medium GI foods at each meal (so that the combined GI is low to medium) then your body’s ability to store fat is severely curtailed, so that even if you do eat a bit more than you absolutely need, most of the excess is not stored. That’s not to say you can pig out, but it does mean you don’t need to live your life counting calories or fat-grams or whatever.

As for eating fats, the actual evidence of their effect on things like cholesterol is flimsy. Recently, here in Australia, the National Heart Foundation said words to the effect of “we were wrong: go ahead and eat the egg yolk too — it’s good for you and does not raise cholesterol”. My personal experience is that the level of cholesterol is largely genetic, and the environmental factors that influence it are far more likely to be related to simple starches (high GI foods) than fats. Consider this: what foods are high in fats and not also high in simple carbs? Pretty much nothing. If you eat a fast-food burger, the bun is not only white bread, it has added sugar. Fries? They’re potato! Chocolate? Sugar. Think about it.

Calorie intake is important, but don’t get too hung up on it. If you restrict your calorie intake too much, your metabolism slows down, and stores fat more aggressively. It is better to eat regularly throughout the day, and DON’T SKIP BREAKFAST whatever you do! I try to eat six small meals every day. It is also good to give yourself a regular “free” day, where you don’t do any workouts and you eat freely. For me, that is Sunday. Nothing is off-limits on that day. The first few weeks, you go a bit nuts, but the novelty soon wears off, and knowing that you can have that chocolate “on Sunday” seems to make it easier to not have it the rest of the week. It is important to have more calories on these days, because you want to use it to kick-start your metabolism again.

Hydrogenated oils are really bad karma. The evidence against them may not be concrete, but the anecdotal evidence is pretty overwhelming. I’ll eat butter, but not margerine.

Finally, BMI is the biggest load of codswallop ever. It is a formulaic representation of the old height/weight charts which have been discredited for decades. You see, a given volume of muscle weighs about four times what the equivalent volume of fat weighs. So if you have a low percentage of body fat, you will way MORE than a person with exactly the same dimensions with a higher percentage of body fat. Elite athletes have TERRIBLE BMI scores — they are HEAVY for their height because they are very lean.

And you want to be lean (and therefore heavy for your size) because that means that you need to burn more food just to live. As well as being stronger, both in terms of muscles but also in terms of calcium retention in bones, you will be able to eat more without putting on weight. So while aerobic exercise is good for you, losing fat really requires you to add muscle mass, and that needs strength training. Someone mentioned martial arts in a previous post — I would strongly recommend that, even if you are not particularly young. I started at 45, and am now a 1st Kye Brown Belt in the Kempo style. Find a good, family-friendly school. You will find that martial arts training is a really good mix of strength (resistance) and stamina (aerobic) work. Aikido is great — that is next on my list after I achieve Black in Kempo.

To summarise (with all the disclaimers assumed):

• eat low and medium GI foods. If you eat anything with a high GI, include something low GI with it at the same meal.
• don’t stress about fat intake (be sensible here).
• avoid hydrogenated oils
• get into a regular, weight-bearing exercise regime
• do NOT starve yourself
• try to eat more, smaller meals
• forget your weight — instead, focus on your belt size, the only figure you really need to care about
• enjoy life – the point of looking after yourself is to enjoy yourself

Again, do your own research.

My daughter forwarded me an email just today, to which she had simply added a single line at the beginning. She said:

I LOVE YOU DAD !!!

And here is the rest of the email, which she had obviously forwarded from one of her friends who had sent it to her:

When you were 8 years old, your dad handed you an ice cream.
You thanked him by dripping it all over your lap.

When you were 9 years old, he paid for piano lessons.
You thanked him by never even bothering to practice.

When you were 10 years old he drove you all day, from soccer, to gymnastics, to one birthday party after another.
You thanked him by jumping out of the car and never looking back.

When you were 11 years old, he took you and your friends to the movies.
You thanked him by asking to sit in a different row.

When you were 12 years old, he warned you not to watch certain TV shows.
You thanked him by Waiting until he left the house.

When you were 13, he suggested a haircut that was becoming.
You thanked him by telling him he had no taste.

When you were 14, he paid for a month away at summer camp.
You thanked him by forgetting to write a single letter.

When you were 15, he came home from work, looking for a hug.
You thanked him by having your bedroom door locked.

When you were 16, he taught you how to drive his car.
You thanked him by taking it every chance you could.

When you were 17, he was expecting an important call.
You thanked him by being on the phone all night.

When you were 18, he cried at your high school graduation.
You thanked him by staying out partying until dawn.

When you were 19, he paid for your college tuition, drove you to campus carried your bags.
You thanked him by saying good-bye outside the dorm so you wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of your friends.

When you were 25, he helped to pay for your wedding, and he cried and told you how deeply he loved you.
You thanked him by moving halfway across the country.

When you were 50, he fell ill and needed you to take care of him.
You thanked him by reading about the burden parents become to their children.

And then, one day, he quietly died.

And everything you never did came crashing down like thunder on your heart.

If you love your dad, send this to as many people as you can. And if you don’t… then shame on you!!!

I was just so touched, it moved me to tears.

I was touched because my daughter thought of me, and acknowledged that I am at least trying to do what is right for her.

But I was also touched because I don’t think that I can honestly say I got the same attention from my father. He was — is — unarguably a good man. He always cared and provided for his family, and his devotion to my mother, now that she is in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s disease, it truly inspirational. But in all my memories, he was in the background, working at his day job, or on one of his investments, in a never-ending battle to ensure that we wanted for nothing, and instead managing to deprive us of the most precious gift he had to offer — his time, his experience, his wisdom, his companionship.

His friendship.

And now, when he is in his eighties and despite living with us, his sense of duty means that he is not spending time with his grandchildren, again robbing them of the precious gifts he has, and robbing himself of the joy that they bring.

But maybe there is one more gift he has given me. He has taught me that just doing your duty, earning money and looking after your family, although admirable and even necessary, simply is not enough. You need to give of your time, your attention. Your self.

So Dad, I love you. Thank you for what you have done. I do understand it was the best you could do.

I just wish I had been given the chance to know you better as a person.

Sometimes, the pressures at work distract us from the other parts of our lives that are important but, well, never seem to be urgent. It struck me over the weekend that I had spent an incredible amount of time either at work, or thinking about work, over the past few months. It’s one of those traps that are always there, ready to spring, and I seem to get lured into it time and time again.

This time, the realisation came to me during a meeting that we were holding at our home. It was a meeting of the Social Committee of the Lodge that I am a member of, and we had twenty or so people attend, comprised of members of the lodge and some of their partners. The Social Committee is an opportunity for our women folk, who are not able to participate in the ritual of the Craft, to take an active part in the charitable and social work that we do, and to meet the other members of the Lodge and their families.

After the business part of the meeting was over, and everyone had partaken of the food and drink, a core group of people stayed on for a few hours to catch up and socialise in an informal setting. Maria (my decidedly better half) and a number of the ladies had a great time. Much sparkling wine was consumed by the ladies, a few snifters of various flavours of spirits by the guys, and all of us had a chance to catch up and spin a few stories. It was a really nice time, and we got to talk about a wide variety of things.

As it inevitably does in these circumstances, the conversation turned to why it is that men today are not drawn to Freemasonry. Now, the membership numbers are not in the absolute free fall that they were a decade or so ago, and indeed the latest word is that the membership numbers are pretty much stable. The reality, however, is that there are far fewer members of the Craft today than there were in past generations. The same is true of service organisations like Rotary and Lions. It wasn’t all that long ago that a young man with ambition would have thought it absolutely part of his future to join a local Lodge, but today many (probably most) of them don’t consider the option at all. We all had our theories as to why this was the case, but most of us agreed that one of the reasons is that they are all too busy!

Today, the 40 hour week is a distant memory for most working people. Sure, you may only be in the office for 37.5 hours, but when you add in the ever-increasing commute and the inevitable “just one small thing” that you take home with you, or the research or background reading that you do at home, I think that fifty hours is closer to the average work week. Then there are all the structured activities that we do for the kids — every night, someone has to drive one child or another to a music or dance or drama lesson, a sport event, a school function or some other event that, somehow, has become a totally necessary part of life today (even though we all grew up without any of them).

So in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, we lack that moment of stillness that is necessary to realise that something might be missing.

For anyone reading this that is not a Freemason, let me give you a little bit of information. In the three levels, or degrees, of the Craft, a lesson is taught using a combination of role-playing and oral recitation. The lessons are on many levels, and the whole point of the lessons is to have each individual interpret them in a way that will benefit himself, will help him to become a better person in all aspects of his life. There is no masonic dogma — none at all. The whole point is for you to use your own mind and intellect to better yourself, not to adopt the ideas of someone else.

All of which is necessary to understand that when I talk about “the lessons” of each degree, I am talking about ONE way that they can be interpreted, and by definition anything that I say is going to be coloured by my own personality and perception. Neither am I divulging any secrets here — there are surprisingly few secrets in Freemasonry. So, with that out of the way, here’s what the three degrees teach. Or perhaps I should say here’s what I learnt.

In the first degree, you are taught that you are here for a reason, and that you, yourself, are going to discern that reason. You are taught that you are inextricably connected to the rest of humanity, and that as a member of the family of man you would do well to assist others to the best of your ability, while always being mindful that your charitable activities must not be allowed to impact negatively on the welfare of your family and other responsibilites. Your are taught that you need to be ever industrious, that you are expected to take care of your own needs and the needs of those who depend on you, and not to rely on the charity of others except when there are no alternatives open to you.

The second degree teaches that you also need to work on yourself. You need to balance your time between working at your profession, craft or employment, and working on improving your mind, your body and your spirit. Without doing this, your ability to contribute to the world is going to be limited, both to the world at large and to those nearest and dearest to you.

Finally, the third degree brings you face to face with the fact of your own mortality, emphasising that you don’t have eternity to do what you want to do — you may not even have tomorrow — so do what you need to do now, and be ever mindful of your priorities.

I suspect by now you know where I am going with this. I seem to be regressing time and again to the first degree, being industrious, giving freely of my time and energy to try to benefit all those around me, both at work and at home. But I seem to lose track of the time, to forget (or ignore) the need all living things have to improve themselves, to grow, to realise their potential. And I’m not getting any younger.

So with this posting, I reaffirm my commitment to strike a balance, to work daily on improving myself in some small way, to take the time out from my schedule to THINK about what I am doing and where I am going.

I’m sure I’ll slip again. But that’s OK. I hope it will be longer before the next time I slip back into old habits, and that I’ll pick up on it in a more timely manner when I do so.