Month: December 2024

The lazy technologist’s guide to staying healthy

TL;DR — I’ve lost a ton of weight from mid-2023 to early 2024 and maintained the vast majority of that loss. I’ve also begin exercising and had great results in my fitness and strength. Here, I’m sharing what I’ve learned as well as a bunch of my tips and tricks. Overall on the diet side, it’s about eating a wide variety and healthy ratio of colorful, minimally processed whole foods, with natural flavor and sweetness, only during meals. On the exercise side, I do both cardio and resistance training. For cardio, I focus on post-meal, moderate-intensity cardio (specifically, 1-mile brisk walks). For strength training, I use calisthenics-based compound exercises (complex multi-muscle movements) 2x/wk, performing a single set to near-exhaustion. I’ve optimized this down from 3 sets 3x/wk, based on my experience and academic research in the area.

In the past 18 months, I’ve lost 75 pounds and gone from completely sedentary to fit, while minimizing the effort to do so (but needing a whole lot of persistence and grit). On the fitness side, I’ve taken my cardiorespiratory fitness from below average to high, and I’m stronger than I’ve been in my entire life. Again I’ve aimed to do so with maximum efficiency, shooting for the 80% of value with 20% of effort.

Here’s what I wrote in my initial post on weight loss:

I have no desire to be a bodybuilder, but I want to be in great shape now and be as healthy and mobile as possible well into my old age. And a year ago, my blood pressure was already at pre-hypertension levels, despite being at a relatively young age.

Research shows that 5 factors are key to a long life — extending your life by 12–14 years:

  • Never smoking
  • BMI of 15.5–24.9
  • 30+ min a day of moderate/vigorous exercise
  • Moderate alcohol intake (vs none, occasional, or heavy)
    • Unsurprisingly, there is vigorous scientific and philosophical/religious/moral debate about this one. However all studies agree that heavy drinking is bad, so ensure you avoid that.
  • Diet quality in the upper 40% (Alternate Healthy Eating Index)

Additionally, people who are in good health have a much shorter end-of-life period. This means they can enjoy a longer healthy part of their lives (the “healthspan”) and squeeze the toughest times into a shorter period right at the end. After seeing many seniors struggle for years as they got older, I wanted my own story to end differently.

Although I’m no smoker, I lacked three other factors. My weight was incredibly unhealthy, I was completely sedentary, and my diet was terrible. I do drink moderately, however (nearly all beer).

This post accompanies my earlier writeups, “The lazy technologist’s guide to weight loss” and “The lazy technologist’s guide to fitness” Check them out for in-depth, science-driven reviews of my experience losing weight and getting fit. 

Why is this the lazy technologist’s guide, again? I wanted to lose weight in the “laziest” way possible — in the same sense that lazy programmers work to find the most efficient solutions to problems. I’ll reference an apocryphal quote by Bill Gates and a real one by Larry Wall, creator of Perl. Gates supposedly said, “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” Wall wrote in Programming Perl, “Laziness: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful and document what you wrote so you don’t have to answer so many questions about it.”

What’s the lowest-effort, most research-driven way to lifelong health, whether you’re losing weight, getting in shape, or trying to maintain your current healthy weight or state after putting in a whole lot of time and effort getting there? Discovering and executing upon that was my journey. Read on if you’re considering taking a similar path.

Hitting my goals

Since my posts early this year, I broke through into my target ranges for both maintenance weight and fitness. In mid-April, I hit a low of 164 lbs. Since then, I’ve been gradually transitioning into maintenance mode, hovering within ~10 lbs of my low. As I write this, I’m about 10 pounds above my minimum weight, at a current BMI of 23. At my lowest, I had a BMI around 22.

On the fitness side, in late May, I broke into the VO2Max range for high cardiorespiratory fitness. (In my case, that’s 47 based on my age and gender, as measured by my Apple Watch.)

In the next few sections, I’ll share how I’ve continued to change what I eat and how I work out to keep improving my overall health.

Evolving what I eat for long-term health

In this section, I’ll share a lot of what I’ve learned regarding how to eat healthier. There’s a lot to it, from focusing on whole foods with enough protein and fiber to eating enough veggies and managing portion sizes, so dig in for all the details!

Keep up the protein

As I wrote in the post on weight loss, high protein is a great way to lose weight and maintain or build muscle. Protein also promotes fullness, so I’ve shifted my diet so that every meal (breakfast included) has a good amount of protein — targeting 25%–30% of daily calories. Previously, I used to get quite hungry in the late morning, before it was time to eat lunch. That’s no longer a concern even when I’m on a caloric deficit, let alone eating at maintenance.

Use Mediterranean plate ratios

Although I’m not officially eating a Mediterranean diet, I’ve found its plate ratios to be incredibly valuable:

  • 1/2 vegetable
  • 1/4 lean protein (white meat, seafood, lentils/beans)
  • 1/4 starchy carb (whole grains or starchy vegetables, avoiding white/processed grains)

Building meals that way makes it very hard for me to overeat, because the vegetables are so high-volume and low-calorie that they take up a lot of space in my stomach. Following this guideline is especially helpful at restaurants, which I’ll detail later.

My main exception is breakfast, where I do incorporate veggies but not as half of my meal. Veggies plus fruits are certainly half of it, though.

Count calories for a while, and then set a permanent weight-gain trigger

After overeating for a sizable fraction of my lifetime, and then eating at a large deficit for a year, I need to teach myself what sustainable eating habits look like because they clearly aren’t intuitive, for me. The “intuitive eating” trend may work for people who already have a habit of healthy eating and weight maintenance, but not for the rest of us — our intuition is broken from years or decades of bad habits.

As a result, calorie counting at maintenance is a good practice to learn what the correct amount of food per day looks and feels like.

My plan is to continue counting calories at maintenance until I’m confident that I’m no longer gaining weight, and then stop. However, that raises the risk that my weight could then start increasing again, because it’s incredibly common for people to re-gain the weight they’ve lost. Around 80%–90% of people fail to maintain their weight loss — mostly those who don’t exercise and stop tracking their eating/weight. There’s great studies on the US National Weight Control Registry about the habits of people who keep their weight off.

As a process control, I’m going to continue weighing myself daily. I’m setting an upper limit of 5 pounds above my target weight that will trigger me to begin calorie counting again. To avoid reacting to the random deviations that accompany daily weight, I’ve started using a specialized app called Happy Scale that is designed for creating smoothed trends for body weight. You could also do this in a spreadsheet, but I like the ease of use of this app.

Dine out at restaurants, safely

Eating out at restaurants (or getting takeout/takeaway) is a challenge that a lot of people on diets — or just trying to eat healthy — can’t figure out how to make work. A lot of people just give up and always order a salad. Surprisingly, that can trick you into thinking you’re eating healthy without actually doing so. I’ve created a set of guidelines that I follow when eating out:

  • Aim for lean protein & veggies, prepared simply (e.g. grilled, roasted, sautéed, steamed).
  • Always start with veggies. If your meal doesn’t come with them, order a starter salad or veggies as an appetizer.
  • Minimize high-fat, calorie-dense sauces & toppings. Watch out for anything based on cream (like Alfredo sauce), cheese, mayo (aioli), oil, or butter. A little bit of a high-flavor cheese is great (like finely grated parmesan, or crumbled feta/goat cheese), but avoid the cheese sauce or a big pile of shredded cheese. Get meals served with tomato-based sauces, slices of lime/lemon or just spices/seasonings, which bring tons of flavor without the calories. If it comes with a calorie-dense sauce, ask for it on the side and dip your bites instead of getting your meal drenched in it. You’ll often be shocked by how big of a cup they provide for the sauce, which would’ve been coating your food.
  • In salads, always get dressing on the side, and prefer oil & vinegar or a vinaigrette. Do the same with any other high-fat sauces — get them on the side. That way, you’re in control of the portion, or you can just dip bites. Salad dressings can have hundreds of calories in them. If you add a huge pile of cheese and croutons, and maybe some processed meats like pepperoni or some oil-covered pasta, then you’ve just turned a healthy meal into the opposite.
  • Avoid breaded, deep-fried foods. This includes the protein as well as French fries or chips/crisps.
  • Don’t eat the table bread when it comes out first at a restaurant. Eat veggies, then protein, and only then starchy carbs. Remember, only 1/4 of your meal can be starchy carbs, according to the Mediterranean plate ratio (bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, etc).
  • Avoid meals that are 1/2 or more starchy carbs.
  • Only eat half of what you order, because restaurant portions are massive. Restaurant portions are big enough for 2 meals, sometimes 3. Split it physically on your plate when you get it, and ask for a box as soon as possible.

As one example, I love burgers. When I order one, I’ll look for a healthier, simpler option instead of the one with 15 fatty add-ons, I’ll stick with a single patty instead of a double, and I’ll often ask for the aioli on the side. That way, I can lightly dip each bite if it needs the flavor. I’ll frequently get a turkey or bison patty instead of beef, and I’ll often order it without a bun — either on a bed of lettuce (eaten with a fork & knife), or wrapped in lettuce instead of the bun. For the side, instead of fries, I’ll get a side salad (no croutons, no cheese, vinaigrette on the side), veggies, or fruit. Sometimes I’ll get coleslaw or a lower-calorie soup, when that’s the best option. I allow myself one “extra” from my guidelines, and it’s usually getting cheese on the burger (the other toppings are veggies).

As another, noodle/rice dishes at Italian, Indian or SE Asian restaurants (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Japanese, etc) are common. Get a stir-fry, add lots of veggies, get the grilled/roasted chicken or seafood, avoid the buttery/creamy sauces, and/or eat less of the rice/noodle part of the dish. If you get sushi, prefer sashimi and rolls over nigiri, which has a lot more rice. When you do order starchy carbs, prefer the whole-grain version when possible (brown rice, whole-wheat pasta, etc). When you can make it work, first eat the veggies, then protein, then grains.

Sometimes you’re stuck at a place that doesn’t fit any of those guidelines. Fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, or Dairy Queen have no healthy meal options — no grilled chicken, no salad or wraps without fried food, etc. In those cases, I’ll order smaller portions, like a kid’s meal, or a single cheeseburger and the smallest size of fries (the one that comes in a little bag instead of a fry holder), with a cup of water. Another option is a double fish sandwich, if you order it without tartar sauce and skip the bun. You can probably manage a meal around 500–600 calories, but you’ll be hungry because you hardly got any veggies or fiber, so you’re missing out on fullness signals. You also will have eaten all kinds of ultraprocessed ingredients instead of healthy whole foods, which we’ll discuss later.

Eat like it’s the 1950s

In the US, if you go back to before we had ultraprocessed foods, people ate very differently. Most of that emerged in the 1960s and really gained popularity in the 1970s, so let’s return to the 1950s.

Eat a savory breakfast

Before we had overwhelmingly sugar-doused cereal, people often ate breakfast differently. It might be leftovers from the night before, or it could be oatmeal, peanut-butter toast, or something like eggs & bacon. In general, breakfasts were much more savory than sweet.

I’ve adopted that philosophy, shifting away from breakfasts like sweet cereal or flavored yogurt (both with plenty of added sugar) to a more savory approach, or at least foods with no sugar added. Most often, I’ll have something with eggs and beans, as well as a separate bowl with berries and plain skyr or Greek yogurt. The fruit adds plenty of flavor and sweetness, so there’s no need to add any more from sugar/honey/etc.

Eliminate snacks

Before ultraprocessed foods, snacks also weren’t really a thing. There weren’t food companies trying to create opportunities for profit through people eating outside of typical meals. You’d eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and that was it. Eating random snacks throughout the day didn’t really exist, although some families might have an extra mini-meal of sorts at some point.

Decrease portion size by decreasing plate size

Additionally, portion sizes have increased dramatically. In part, this is because plateware has increased in size. For example, the diameter of plates has increased from 9″ in the 1950s to 10.5″–11″ between the 1980s and 2000, and as much as 12″–13″ today. People will subconsciously take larger portions and eat more calories when their plates are larger, as academic studies have shown.

This brings us to another easy thing I did to eat healthier — reduced the size of my plates, bowls, and glasses. Even without buying new plates, I started only adding food to the “inner ring” instead of all the way to the edge, and stopped piling anything on top of other food. I bought new, smaller bowls and glasses, because those were harder to manage. And when I eat out or get takeout, I have a mental baseline to compare to their plate sizes. I also watch out for the use of multiple courses to keep me from thinking about how much I’m eating.

To sum up, I switched to a savory breakfast, eliminated snacks outside of meals, and reduced the size of my plateware. Even if you only do 1 or 2 of those 3 things, that’ll make a meaningful difference.

Ultraprocessed foods trick your body

I’ve read quite a bit about ultraprocessed foods. The summary is that they are effectively ways to trick your body into thinking it’s getting something that’s not really there. Artificial sweeteners, things with the taste & consistency of fat that have no fat, and artificial/natural flavors in foods that make your body expect something else are just a few examples.

Sugar that’s not sugar

When your body tastes something sweet, it expects that it will soon get an influx of calories from sugar to digest. Artificial sweeteners mess with this, tricking your body. A number of studies have shown that people tend to make up for these “lost” calories by subconsciously eating more later that day. It’s possible to prevent this with strict calorie counting, but it’s a bias you want to be aware of. It’s also unclear what these mixed signals will do to your body over the long term, when it can’t tell what calories to expect based on what you taste. As a result, I’ve begun avoiding alternative sweeteners, and just getting something with sugar if that’s really what I want.

Fat that’s not fat

This one is especially sneaky, because you can’t always spot it in the ingredient labels. Using seemingly normal ingredients, companies have created fat substitutes with unique structures that provide the same sort of mouth-feel as fat, without containing the expected levels of fat. These can come in the easily identifiable varieties such as all sorts of “gum” — this results in ice cream that basically doesn’t melt, for example. “Whey protein concentrate” is another common one, as is anything with “dextrin” in the name and a variety of emulsifiers such as “polyesters.” You need to work (and typically pay a premium) for things like ice cream or chocolate with a simple ingredient list, because natural ingredients cost more and often don’t transport as well.

Flavor that’s not flavor

Flavors in the wrong foods are another example of tricking your body into expecting a different set of nutrients than it gets. This can cause you to develop craving for unhealthy foods, based on your desire for a particular flavor profile that comes from added flavorings. For example, you might want some orange-, apple-, or grape-flavored drink instead of actual oranges, apples, or grapes. Your body will cause you to crave certain things based upon their nutrient profile, and what your body needs. This is most obvious in pregnancy and in studies done on babies/toddlers, given free choice on what to eat.

Micronutrients that don’t belong

“Enriched” foods are stealing your health, again based on artificially induced cravings for unnaturally added ingredients. A good case study here is flour in bread. In the early 1940s, the United States passed a law requiring enrichment of bread flour to prevent diseases around missing micronutrients (e.g. folic acid, niacin, thiamin, riboflavin, iron). Italy, however, did no such thing — instead, it focused on educating its citizens on healthy diet components. As a result, Italians eat far more beans than Americans, for example, which contain many of the same missing micronutrients. Americans instead eat far more white bread than they should — an ultraprocessed food that our body desires because of the added micronutrients that don’t belong.

Salt that’s over the top

Overly salty foods are another danger area. In the US, the recommended amount is 2300 mg/day, which it’s quite easy to hit even while trying to avoid extra-salty foods. For example, I mostly don’t eat ramen, other soups, preserved meats like smoked salmon or beef jerky, or frozen meals. Another surprising one is sugar-sweetened beverages like soda, which have so much sugar that they also add salt to trick you into feeling like they aren’t that sweet.

Optimize for gut health

Another area that’s become increasingly visible in the past couple of decades is the importance of gut microbiota in health. Keeping them healthy is critical to being healthy. That’s come down to a few key factors for me: fibers, fermented food, and reduced alcohol.

Eat enough fiber — and that’s a lot!

The average American only eats 10–15 grams of fiber per day, while the recommended daily allowance for adults up to age 50 is 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men. I see this as a general correlation with our consumption of ultraprocessed foods, because fiber is primarily present in whole foods. Whole fruits, whole vegetables, whole grains, legumes (beans/lentils), and seeds are among the best sources of fiber.

As soon as you stop eating the whole, unprocessed food and replace it with something more processed, you lose the benefits. Make sure to eat the whole fruit, including the edible portion of the skin. Even something as simple as making a fruit smoothie or fruit juice will chop up or remove the fiber and other long-chain complex molecules, reducing its nutritional value. Personally, I found it surprisingly hard to modify my diet enough to get enough fiber while I was losing weight, because I’d been eating ultraprocessed foods for so long. In the end, the main things I added were raspberries & blackberries, chia seeds, broccoli & cauliflower, and beans/lentils.

Among fruit, raspberries and blackberries are particularly high fiber (you can tell from all the seeds as you’re eating them). Other great options include apples, oranges, pears, grapefruit, and kiwifruit, as long as you eat the edible portion of the skin & rind. Passion fruit is an all-star with many times more fiber, but it’s quite expensive. Dried fruit can be a great complement to fresh fruit in moderation — especially golden berries (another all-star), plums, and apricots. It’s easy to eat too much dried fruit, though, because all the water’s been removed so it doesn’t fill you up as quickly. For example, you can eat 5 dried apricots in a few minutes, but imagine eating 5 fresh apricots in a row.

Vegetables are another great source of fiber, but again you need to focus on the right ones. Among non-starchy options (basically anything but root vegetables), broccoli and cauliflower are great choices, as is kale. I like to begin my meals with one of those, whenever I can. Among starchy options, sweet potatoes, carrots, and corn are great choices.

Whole grains (such as whole-wheat bread, the denser the better, and brown rice) are also high in fiber, but they tend to have lots more carbs — while I optimized more for protein. When I’m eating at maintenance, I occasionally have some dense whole-grain breads such as a Danish pumpernickel or a German roggenbrot/vollkornbrot. They’re nothing like your typical American pumpernickel or rye, so try to find a bakery near you that offers them. Otherwise, any 100% whole-grain bread (they often have a stamp) with low sugar and a decent amount of protein & fiber are a good option. Any bread with no sugar is even better, but it’s hard to find. I’d recommend checking out local bakeries first, then the bakery within your favorite grocery store, followed by national brands such as Dave’s Killer Bread or Ezekiel from Food for Life.

Legumes & seeds are a great source — I’ve saved perhaps the best for last. Beans and lentils are fiber superstars — a single serving around 100 calories could have 5–10 grams. They also offer a complete set of protein (all 20 amino acids) when combined with a whole-grain rice, such as brown, red or purple. I have a serving of black beans with eggs almost every day.

Fermented foods improve gut health

Another great way to improve the types of gut microbiota is eating more fermented foods. These are more common things in the US like yogurts and sauerkraut, as well as cultural food like Korean kimchi, increasingly popular drinks like kombucha, and less common drinks like kefir (basically drinkable yogurt). The benefits seem to fade away after just a few weeks though, so it’s important to maintain consumption instead of thinking you can transform your microbiota once and then you’re done.

I’m regularly eating skyr, which is a thick Icelandic yogurt with as much protein as Greek yogurt but not the tangy, bitter flavor. It’s a great protein-dense option, even when you eat the version based on whole milk (which I do). I’m also occasionally using kimchi on my eggs or drinking a small half-glass of kefir. Sauerkraut is reserved for summer barbecues, and I haven’t gotten into kombucha at this point.

Moderate your alcohol intake

Another thing that made a big difference was reducing the amount of alcohol I drink. Cutting this down from a beer every day to more like once a week has made a big difference. I’m overall feeling more energetic and my gut’s much healthier too.

Appreciate the sweeter (natural) things in life

As I learned more about eating healthy, I came across increasing amounts of material about how added sugar caused major problems, leading toward obesity or diabetes. Interestingly, many parts of the world eat far less sweet food, and there tends to be a general correlation between consumption of ultraprocessed sugary food and obesity. In my own life, I’ve noticed this difference in practice when traveling to Europe and Asia, where many of the desserts are far less sweet (and the obesity rate is much lower). Two great examples are Polish cheesecake (sernik) — which is far less sweet than American cheesecake — and the frequent use of less-sweet ingredients in Asia such as red bean, sesame, or glutinous rice.

Based on this, I’ve cut down on foods with added sugar. Natural levels of sugar are generally fine, such as that in many fruits, but even then I try to bias toward less-sweet options. For example, I’ll typically have an apple or pear instead of mango. Among dried fruit, I avoid dates and figs, tending toward lower-sugar options instead.

Once you start looking, it’s shocking how seemingly every processed food has added sugar. This goes all the way down to even basic staples such as bread, unless you specifically look for the rare breads without it.

In America, we’ve trained ourselves from birth (with sweetened baby food) to eat sweeter and sweeter foods with more and more unnatural levels of sugar, to the point where it tastes too sweet or even sickening to people from other cultures.

As a pleasant side effect of this, I find myself enjoying moderately sweet foods almost in the same way that I used to think of desserts. Fruit like strawberry or mango, chia pudding or overnight oats w/ fruit and no other sweetener, frozen Greek yogurt bars, skyr with cinnamon and just a little honey, dried fruit, trail mix, or 85%+ dark chocolate now taste great.

Try the “No S Diet”

While on my journey, I came across a simple approach called the “No S Diet” that I quite appreciated. It boils down healthy eating into just three rules and one exception:

  • No Snacks
  • No Sweets
  • No Seconds

Except (sometimes) on days that start with “S”

Even this alone would get you a long, long way. Combining it with a Mediterranean diet (plate ratios, whole foods, lean protein) is almost all you need.

I have stopped snacking entirely, as mentioned earlier. I’m a bit more flexible on sweets, if they fit into my calories for the day, but I do try to save more of that for the weekend. For example, I might have a little 85%+ dark chocolate on a weekday after lunch, or some strawberries w/ whipped cream after dinner, but I’ll eat a full dessert serving on the weekend.

Eat in the right order

Interestingly, I also learned that even the order in which you eat can make a difference. Specifically, you can flatten blood-sugar spikes by eating in a specific order: fiber, then protein, then starchy carbs.

For example, start with a salad, then eat the main portion of your entree (e.g. chicken or fish), followed by the sides (rice, potatoes or whatever).

This has served me well at home, but it’s been especially helpful at restaurants. Every time I go out, I make a point of ordering either a salad or a veggie-based appetizer to enjoy before the main course. Eating in this specific order isn’t the only reason that helps — it also uses up a bunch of the room in my stomach on veggies instead of more calorie-dense foods, so I’m often full enough before I finish my starchy carbs.

Add antioxidants

Antioxidants are another great way to eat healthier. These protect your body at a subcellular level from oxidizing reactions, which can damage parts of your cells (especially the mitochondria, basically your cell’s energy factory) over time and contribute to aging.

An easy way to identify foods with higher levels of antioxidants is to look for more color. Instead of the bland-looking food, pick one with a stronger color. It could be dark green, red, orange, blue, purple, or something else — just avoid white and beige options within a food family. Although there are many exceptions, this is a good guideline.

Remember: eat the rainbow.

Go for whole grains and prefer resistant starches

Whole grains are hugely more valuable than the more processed options. You get the germ, which has a lot of the nutrients. With your typical American white bread, a lot of the healthy bits are removed (the germ and bran), leaving you with only the endosperm. With whole-grain bread, the germ and bran are also used, which keeps more of the fiber and micronutrients. This also reduces the blood-sugar spike after meals, which is another great benefit.

Another thing I learned is that there are different types of starches — rapidly digested, slowly digested, and resistant.

Resistant starch takes longer to digest, flattening some of the glucose spikes that can create hunger cravings a couple of hours after meals. Two of the best examples of those are whole grains (type 2 resistant starch, or RS2) as well as pasta, potatoes, or rice that’s cooked and then cooled (type 3, or RS3).

One way to prefer resistant starch is to aim for foods that are higher in amylose and lower in amylopectin. Amylose is a single straight-chain polymer, so it takes longer to break down and digest, whereas amylopectin is branched with many ends (so it’s faster to break down in parallel). That parallel breakdown means you get a sugar spike rather than spreading out the sugar over time. In general, this means whole grains over processed grains, and the more colorful versions of foods. Here are some examples:

  • Bread: Whole-wheat/pumpernickel/rye > sourdough/multigrain/50% wheat > white
  • Rice: Purple/black/red/wild > brown > long-grain white > short-grain white
  • Pasta: Bean-based > whole-wheat > standard (durum)
  • Potatoes: Stokes/Okinawan (purple inside) > sweet > white
  • Oats: Steel-cut > rolled > instant

Another way to get more resistant starch is to eat more grains that were cooked and then cooled. Pasta salad, potato salad, grain bowls, and reheating leftover rice are a few common examples. Yes, that reheated Chinese stir-fry w/ rice can be healthier than it was when you ordered it!

Get nutrients from whole foods, not pills & powders

A lot of people try to add missing nutrients to their diet in the form of a multivitamin or a large variety of supplements. Unfortunately, research has shown that despite containing the same chemical compounds, this is frequently not a substitute. The bioavailability (the amount that actually makes it into your bloodstream) is often much higher when you eat these micronutrients as part of whole foods, rather than taking them in a pill or as powders.

Protein powder is another issue. A lot of people will make protein shakes or add protein powder to foods like yogurt to get enough protein. Unfortunately, protein powders are missing a lot of the nutrients that protein-based whole foods contain. For protein shakes specifically, the below point applies regarding drinking your calories and its poor effect on satiety. If whole foods aren’t an option, I’d recommend looking into protein bars with high fiber rather than a liquid option. RXBar is my favorite protein bar because of its simple ingredient list, high protein & fiber content (12g protein, 5g fiber) and good flavor, and it’s well-priced at Costco at ~$1.25/bar vs $2 elsewhere. When I need a packable meal replacement that doesn’t require refrigeration, I’ll usually grab an RXBar, a Wholesome Medley trail mix (from Whole Foods), and an apple or pear.

Avoid drinking your calories — focus on low- or no-calorie beverages

Overall, drinking calories can confuse your body into consuming too many calories in a day. Your primary beverage should be water. That should be complemented primarily by low-calorie, unsweetened options like coffee or tea (potentially with milk and minimal sugar).

Drop the sugar-sweetened beverages, like soda

Soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages are not recognized by the body as consumed calories. When you consume 500 calories soda, you’re likely to increase your total daily consumption by 500 calories (gaining weight) instead of eating less food later. Not to mention, if you drink sugar-sweetened beverages frequently throughout the day, you’re also destroying your teeth and potentially giving yourself diabetes.

Eat your meals instead of blending them into smoothies

Smoothies destroy much of the nutritional value in whole fruit, such as fibers and other complex molecules, because it’s ground up into tiny bits by a blender. They also make it much easier to consume far more than you normally would. How much fruit goes into a single smoothie, compared to how many whole fruits you would eat in a single sitting?

Drop the sugary alcoholic drinks

Alcohol is another place to be careful. Cocktails are full of sugar from the simple syrup. Trying to save calories by getting a basic mixed drink with Diet Coke? Then you’ve got artificial sweeteners. Your best liquor-based option is probably a mix with soda water and lime — things like a vodka soda, ranch water, gin Rickey, or whiskey highball. High-alcohol beers have incredibly high calorie counts as well. There are some good options for low-calorie or non-alcoholic beer, which I covered in an earlier post.

For coffee, stick to the classics in the smallest size (4–8 oz)

Coffee-based drinks can be incredibly high-calorie, especially in the US. Mochas and blended/frozen drinks can be 500–1000 calories or more, for a single drink. This is especially harmful because of the American tendency to order the largest size instead of the smallest — it’s a better deal, right? A Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino is 560 calories for a venti (large). But this pales in comparison to Caribou Coffee, which offers drinks like the Turtle Mocha for 960 cal (L) / 1140 (XL) or the Caramel Caribou Cooler for 830 cal (L) / 1050 (XL). At Dunkin’, you can get the Triple Mocha Frozen Coffee at 1100 cal (L) and the Caramel Creme Frozen Coffee at 1120 cal (L). So keep your eyes open on any specialty coffees.

When drinking coffee, go for the classics. If you don’t like black coffee or espresso, then get a latte, cappuccino, flat white, cortado, or espresso macchiato. Out of those, lattes have the most milk (so the most calories), while espresso macchiatos have the least.

Also, order the smallest possible size — this is also the most authentic size, with a better ratio of espresso to milk. Starbucks carries a short size (8 oz) that isn’t on their printed menu, but unfortunately many other chains only offer 12 oz as their smallest size. Third-wave coffee shops often have 8 oz or smaller sizes as well, especially for classics like a cappuccino or flat white.

One trick if you want to order a seasonal or flavored latte is that most coffee shops have a “1/2 sweet” option that uses half the syrup, which is usually more than sufficient to add flavor. I’ll often order the smaller-sized cappuccino plus 1/2 the seasonal syrup instead of a latte, which gives me a similar experience in a smaller portion size and lower price.

Non-dairy milks at coffee shops are often full of unnecessary additives and over-sweetened, so try skim milk instead of almond/coconut milk if your goal is lower calories. Non-dairy milks are also full of empty carbs, whereas dairy milk has much more protein. For a richer drink, upgrade to whole milk and add a bit of sugar yourself if needed, instead of letting the barista pour in a huge amount of sugar-packed flavor syrup.

Give tea a try

Another great zero-calorie option is tea. Experiment with different teas, whether it’s black, green, white, masala chai, or an herbal non-caffeinated tea. The only calories come from any milk or sugar you add, but try appreciating the flavor of the tea alone. If you don’t like it, maybe you want to upgrade to higher-quality teas. I particularly like the herbal options from Celestial Seasonings and Twinings. Tazo, Rishi, and Stash come well-recommended as tea brands you can find at many places in the US. If you really get serious, you’ll probably upgrade to loose-leaf tea from a local shop.

Overall, minimize the calories in your drinks. Water, coffee (but not mochas / frozen drinks), and tea are great options, while you should minimize smoothies, soda, and alcohol.

But what do meals actually look like?

That seems like a ton of restrictions and rules, right? How can you, or I, keep track of them all? Overall, it’s about eating a wide variety and healthy ratio of colorful, minimally processed whole foods, with natural flavor and sweetness, only during meals.

Here’s some examples for a day at 1500 calories (a 1000-calorie deficit):

Breakfast

I eat the same thing almost every day, aiming for a savory breakfast rather than a sweet one. The only things I change are additions to the eggs. The veggies vary, and sometimes I substitute salsa with kimchi or sriracha.

  • 2 scrambled pasture-raised eggs, with 2 diced mushrooms, 1/3 diced heirloom tomato, low-sodium lentils / black beans, and sriracha
  • 250g (~9 oz) Costco three-berry blend of blackberries/raspberries/blueberries (microwaved), combined with 90g (~3.5 oz) whole-milk skyr and 15g (~1 tbsp) chia seeds
  • 110g (~4 oz) kefir (fermented milk)

Lunch

Every day for lunch, I’ll have a side salad, a veggie plate, or an entree salad with lean protein in it. I aim for flavorful veggies that don’t require any sort of dip — try your local farmer’s market for better-tasting veggies than the grocery store carries.

  • Big salad with Costco power greens (kale, spinach, baby chard), dressed with 1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper
  • 115g (~4 oz) pulled chicken with mustard-based BBQ sauce
  • 200g (~7 oz) Stokes/Okinawan sweet potato with 1 tsp grass-fed butter

Usually my protein is chicken, canned tuna, canned salmon, or frozen, pre-cooked shrimp. On other days, I might make a chicken-salad open-faced sandwich, or the same with tuna salad. Sometimes I’ll put smoked salmon on Wasa crackers, or I’ll add salmon or shrimp to my salad. I’ll also regularly have tacos with chicken/shrimp, corn tortillas, veggies, salsa, and skyr (instead of sour cream).

Dinner

This day, I ate out at a burger restaurant. Here’s the healthier option I constructed, using Mediterranean ratios and my other guidelines:

  • Crispy Brussels sprouts for a starter
  • Bison burger (6 oz / 180g patty), no bun, on a bed of lettuce and tomato
  • Topped with ~1 tbsp fig jam and ~15g blue cheese (I scraped off half of the blue cheese and got the fig jam on the side, so I could control the portion)
  • Side of steamed broccoli with butter

Maintaining weight is just as hard as losing it

One of my biggest challenges has been making this transition into a sustainable diet, after depriving myself of many foods I enjoy for the past year. In particular, it’s extremely hard to avoid eating too many desserts or snack foods with added sugar, especially when I’m toward the lower end of my target weight range.

I speculate that this is partially related to “set point” theory. My body’s used to being much heavier, and it will take time for my body to realize that I’m healthy at this new level rather than trying to survive a famine, where I should try hard to eat high-calorie foods whenever I come across them. Exercise also helps in maintaining weight loss (there’s a study done on police officers who continued exercise post-weight-loss vs those who didn’t, and a variety of examples from the National Weight Control Registry).

Fitness is a lifelong journey

On the fitness side, I’ve taken an even more efficiency-optimized approach than I had before, with continued success.

I found my energy levels getting extremely low as I approached my target weight while maintaining a large calorie deficit. This prompted me to experiment with whether I could decrease my frequency and intensity of exercise, while still getting most of the results.

Dropping HIIT with no hit in results

I kept my daily walks for low-intensity steady state (LISS) cardio exercise, although I’ve adapted them slightly into 3 per day — with a 15-minute walk after each of my 3 meals. However, I experimented with dropping the high-intensity interval training (HIIT).

Surprisingly, my VO2Max (a measure of cardiorespiratory health) continued to increase at almost the same rate as before. My plan is to watch for a plateau in VO2Max, and consider re-introducing HIIT at that point. Alternately, if I ever get too short on time to continue with enough LISS, I could replace it entirely with my extremely low-volume HIIT program.

I would like to re-add HIIT at some point because a mixture of different intensities is overall better than just one. However I frankly don’t enjoy HIIT so I’m not in a big rush, until I have a clear need (like I mentioned above).

Simplifying and reducing strength training

I was also doing strength training 3x/week, with 3 paired sets per workout. I’ve replaced that with a 2x/week pattern, also dropping from 3 to only 1 paired set — importantly, performed to near-failure. Again, I’ve seen nearly equivalent results. Upon reviewing the academic research and expert recommendations in this area, many experts suggest that sets 2 and 3 essentially serve as “insurance” that you’ve maximized your potential growth in strength & size during a workout. At worst, doing a single set might offer more than 50% of the total benefit of any number of sets. That means a single set — if done well — could provide a majority of the benefits in just 1/3 of the time. This fits nicely into my 80/20 philosophy.

If you’d like to look into this in more detail, go on Google Scholar and look up “resistance training single-set OR one-set review OR meta-analysis.” In general, the research shows a dose-dependent response (more sets produce better results), but there’s diminishing returns from each additional set. You need to carefully look at the effect sizes, comparing the effect size of one set to the effect size of multiple sets. There will often be statistically significant differences, but the effect size is the important part. It’s not about whether the difference is real, it’s about how big it is. Overall, if you’re optimizing for efficiency on time spent working out rather than maximizing muscle growth in a certain period of time (e.g. a year), single sets can be a great approach. My perspective is that I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life, and I’ll be moving increasingly slowly toward a plateau of my biological maximum strength, so I don’t really care how many years it takes.

I may find that I need to increase my set count as I get more experience with strength training, and my “newbie gains” gradually fade away. We’ll see how things continue to develop over time, and whether I hit a plateau where that might be an option I try.

My current strength training routine continues to use a similar routine as described in my last writeup. I use the 8×3 app to track my progressions & progressive overload, and I alternate between two routines, both of which are full-body workouts with compound movements:

Day 1: Vertical push/pull (+core & legs). L-sit pull-ups, dips / handstand push-ups, squats, Nordic curls.

Day 2: Horizontal push/pull (+core & legs). Horizontal rows, push-ups, squats, Nordic curls, hanging leg raises.

Each exercise is part of a progression toward more advanced, lower-leverage movements that will continue to build strength, without the need to use any weights. For example, I’m specifically working on pistol & shrimp squats, handstand push-up negatives, pseudo planche push-ups, L-sit pull-ups, and tucked front levers.

I’ve added two more low-cost, small, and portable pieces of equipment to make this easy, bringing my total to three pieces. I’d already purchased a doorway pull-up bar ($26). Since then, I’ve added gymnastics rings ($32) hanging from the pull-up bar. Rings are extremely flexible — I use them for horizontal rows and dips, but they can be used for ab roll-outs, pull-ups (instead of the bar), and so much more. I’m also using a Nordstick ($27, or a bit more for the Pro) that slides under a closet door, because Nordic curls are tricky without some sort of specialized device. An alternative, equipment-free exercise is a reverse hyperextension, but the unweighted version will plateau pretty quickly.

Overall, I’ve further reduced the time commitment from exercise without significant impact. I’ve removed HIIT, maintained LISS (daily, 15 min x 3), and reduced strength training (2x/wk, 10 min x 1), and I still see nearly equivalent outcomes.

I’m not just maintaining my fitness and strength — it’s continuing to grow, even without any caloric surplus. I do expect that re-composition to plateau within a year or two at a maintenance diet. At that point, I may need to do mini bulks and cuts (gaining/losing weight in cycles to grow my muscle mass).

Learn more

Want to learn more? Here’s some books that I’ve found helpful, roughly in order. I’ve also shared my Kindle highlights for each one, in case you want to see my perspective on the key points before reading the full book.