Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection - Couverture souple

Jacobs, A. J.

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1416599088 ISBN 13 : 9781416599081

Editeur : Simon & Schuster, 2012

Synopsis

Book by Jacobs A J

A propos du livre

Extrait :

Drop Dead Healthy Chapter 1

The Stomach

The Quest to Eat Right

I’VE MADE A LIST of more than a hundred diets. The Mediterranean diet. The USDA diet. The Michael Pollan eat-what-your-grandparents-ate diet. The Blood-type diet. The Paleo diet. The Okinawa diet. Veganism. Raw foodism. Not to mention the more outré ones, like The Cookie Diet. The Rastafarian diet. The Master-Cleanse diet.

I want to try them all. Well, maybe not The Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet (it exists). But most of the others. Eventually, that is. The thing is, studies show that if you switch habits too rapidly, the changes don’t stick. So my plan is to wade into my new diets slowly, like my five-year-old son entering a chilly pool.

Which is how I’ve decided on my first dietary reforms: more chocolate, booze, and coffee.

“Salud,” I say to Julie as I pour a cup of Starbucks Gold Coast on my first morning.

That night, our friends Paul and Lisa—who are visiting New York from D.C.—come over for an informal Thai dinner. Before the meal, as we wait for the delivery guy, I hand out glasses of Pinot Noir, and dig out a Toblerone bar from the fridge.

“So when does your health thing start?” Paul asks.

“It started today,” I say, breaking off a triangular chunk.

Paul gives me a questioning look.

“He also had two cups of coffee this morning,” says Julie. “That’s his new health plan: chocolate, coffee, and wine.”

“All very good for you,” I say.

“Huh. Sounds like you’re really committing yourself to this project,” says Paul.

“How about heroin?” asks Lisa. “I hear that it’s loaded with antioxidants.”

Everyone has a good laugh.

Clever. But Paul and Lisa have to acknowledge, science is on my side. Consider:

· As the Mars Corporation gleefully and regularly points out, dark chocolate is, in fact, loaded with antioxidants and has been shown to cut the risk of heart disease and stroke. It also might be good for the eyes: According to at least one study, chocolate improves contrast sensitivity.

· A bunch of studies has shown that alcohol is good for your heart in judicious amounts (one glass per day for women, one to two for men) and that moderate drinkers live longer than both teetotalers and heavy drinkers. That includes drinkers of beer or liquor, not just the highly trumpeted red wine, though red wine does contain the much beloved resveratrol, which might have age-resistant effects.

· Coffee lowers the odds of several types of cancer (bladder, breast, prostate, and liver) as well as Alzheimer’s. It has some downsides (more than two cups can cause sleeplessness and raise cholesterol), and isn’t quite as healthy as its cousin green tea, but drunk in moderation, coffee’s benefits outweigh the risks.

Sadly, I do understand my Vice Diet won’t lead me to everlasting health. Chocolate, alcohol, and coffee are outliers. In general, food that tastes good is bad for the body. As Jack LaLanne liked to say: “If it tastes good, spit it out.”

Which is a bizarre situation. Evolution has betrayed us here. The human body—as miraculous as it can be—is in many ways a malfunctioning machine, a biological version of a 1978 Ford Pinto.

If evolution worked perfectly, healthy food would taste delicious and unhealthy food would make us gag. On Halloween, kids would fill their pails with quinoa and cauliflower. Dairy Queen would sell millions of bok choy Blizzards.

The problem is, we live in a modern world, but we’re stuck with caveman taste buds. When our ancestors roamed the plains, our preferences actually did make sense: Our tastes aligned with healthy foods. We evolved to like sugar because it’s in fruit. And fruit—which is rare in the wild—is high in nutrients, fiber, and calories. We evolved to like salt because the body needs salt to retain water. Salt—also rare in the wild—was an occasional lifesaving treat.

But then we figured out how to extract sugar from plants and put it in pastries and Frappuccinos. We mined salt and stuck it in our soups and burritos and neon-orange cheese snacks. And in large quantities, sugar and salt are not so good for you at all.

We also started to live longer. We cured a lot of infectious diseases, but this presented a new problem. Foods that were healthy in the short run—like those loaded with fat to allow the caveman to survive the famine until the next kill—turned out to be damaging in the long run.

My question is, can I reprogram myself to love healthy food? And can I figure out how to prepare and buy healthy food that doesn’t taste like a roll of double-ply Bounty?

The answer, it turns out, is yes. Sort of. But not yet.

Right now I’m still comforting myself with my holy trinity of chocolate, coffee, and booze—three of the rare foods that are both tasty and healthy.

At least somewhat healthy. The more I research, the more I realize the situation is complicated. Consider chocolate. What’s really healthy is the 100 percent cacao chocolate. No sugar, no butter.

I click onto rawcacao.com and order a bag. The mouthwatering write-up says it’s “certified organic, raw, low fermentation, non-fumigated, fair traded, strict farming standards, training and equipment provided, fair wages, profit reinvestment plan, purity testing.”

My bag of certified-organic-raw-low-fermentation-etc. chocolate arrives three days later. I take a pinch of the sprinkle-size nibs and pop it in my mouth. I can taste the chocolate I know from Hershey’s Kisses, but it’s faint and muffled, like a clock radio stuffed under a heap of pillows. Mostly I taste the bitterness.

“What’s that?” Julie asks, walking into the kitchen for a snack.

“Natural chocolate,” I say.

Reflexively, I offer her the bag. She takes a handful and puts it in her mouth.

I probably should have mentioned the tastes-like-detergent part, but, well, it happened so fast. Also I was curious to see her reaction.

A second. Two seconds. There it is: the same face she made when our friend showed us an Internet video of two women violating several cultural and hygienic taboos.
Taming the Portion

In my quest for healthy eating, I know I’ll have to do better than my Vice Diet. But I still haven’t committed to veganism or Atkins yet. I’m still too overwhelmed by choices.

I do, however, notice that there’s one thing almost every nutritionist agrees on: We eat too much damn food.

We have a size problem. You can see it in the puberty-like growth spurt of portion sizes. In 1916, a bottle of Coca-Cola was 6.5 ounces. Today, it’s 20 ounces. A hamburger used to be about 300 calories. Now you can enjoy Hardees’ Monster Thickburger with 1,420 calories, not counting fries. (The average man should eat about 2,500 calories a day.)

So I’ve decided to split up my food reforms. First, I’ll deal with quantity. Then I’ll take on quality.

How to eat less? One idea is to suppress my appetite. I’ve read reputable studies saying a glass of water before a meal reduces the average number of calories people consume. Same goes for cayenne peppers. And an apple. And a handful of walnuts. So that’s my breakfast this morning: cayenne peppers, water, an apple, and walnuts.

I won’t be hungry for days! Or at least until 10 a.m. when I get the urge to snack again.

I’m going to need some professional help. Which is why, on a Sunday afternoon, Julie and I drive to a house in secluded hilltop Westchester.

I’m here to meet the leaders of the Calorie Restriction movement. You might have heard of CR, as it’s called. It’s the most extreme diet you can find that isn’t technically a psychological disorder or human rights violation.

The idea is that if you live on the edge of starvation, you will increase your life span. If you can survive on 30 percent fewer calories a day—say 1,750 instead of the usual 2,500 for an adult male—you’ll slow down your metabolism and be free of disease. You can easily break the century mark, maybe even the 120 mark or more.

It’s not an insane notion. Actually, there’s a good amount of scientific data behind it, going back to a Cornell University study in 1934. Researchers were able to double the life span of mice when they fed them extremely low-calorie diets. Similar results have been found for worms, spiders, and monkeys.

Scientists still aren’t 100 percent certain why calorie restriction lengthens animal life spans. One theory is that the famished animals produce fewer cell-damaging free radicals. Another says that their bodies sense starvation and switch into a defensive state, slowing their metabolism.

Does it work on humans? Studies are under way, but it’s too soon to tell. The prospect, though, has attracted thousands of Calorie Restrictors, folks who weigh their food on digital scales, plot precious calories on spreadsheets, eat two meals a day, and treat their mouths like an exclusive SoHo VIP club where only the most deserving morsels can enter.

The house is perched on a steep hill atop a series of perilous turns that leave Julie frazzled. “If they want to live forever, they might want to move to a safer street,” she says. Julie drops me off, and drives away to visit some friends nearby. She says I can fill her in later.

A man answers the door. He’s Paul McGlothin, the director of research for the nonprofit Calorie Restriction Society, and coauthor of the how-to book The CR Way.

He’s skinny, but not the POW skinny I was expecting. More like lead-singer-of-an-emo-band skinny.

“Welcome,” he says. “Would you like some tea?”

I agree to some naturally low-calorie dandelion tea. We’re in a room with minimal decorations and a huge window overlooking a forest of oaks. An event organizer by day, Paul is slope-shouldered but sprightly for a man of sixty-four years. He’s got piercing green eyes, a deep voice with a little twang from his native Tennessee, and is partial to wearing tracksuits.

We sit at the table with his wife and coauthor, Meredith Averill, sipping our tea.

“The goal of calorie restriction is not to lose weight. It’s to be as mentally and physically healthy as possible. But you will lose weight.” Paul went from 163 pounds to 136.

Paul eats a big breakfast (e.g., salmon, barley, lots of vegetable soup), a smaller lunch (e.g., veggie smoothie, veggie spread, and sprouted grain bread)—and no dinner.

I have to restrain myself from making the same joke I know they’ve heard a thousand times. Yes, maybe you’ll live longer, but without lasagna and waffles, who the hell wants to? (Or the alternate: You may not live longer, but you’ll sure feel like you’ve lived a century and a half.)

Paul shuts down that cynical line of questioning before I get to it. He loves his gorge-free life. Loves it. “I literally get high from it,” he says. “Calorie restriction makes me feel better in every way—physically and mentally.”

His hand is resting on his chin, the wrist at a sharp ninety-degree angle. I can see a road map of blue veins in his arm.

Among other things, says Paul, the diet clears him of brain fog—he competes in chess tournaments against people half his age. “I played this one guy—a grand master—who was overweight and scarfed down three pizzas. I knew if I could just hold on, his body would crash. So that’s what I did.”

But I’m still puzzled as to how they can sustain the diet in a world that is so food-centric. Humans organize our very lives around meals.

“There’s such an unbelievable myth that eating a lot is a way to have fun,” says Meredith. “But of course, it isn’t. When you’re around CR people, they’re usually quite active and elated.”

Paul jumps in: On Christmas and Thanksgiving, he likes to fast instead of feast. No eggnog necessary: “If you’re on CR, you’re kind of high because you’re feeling good in the first place. You feel like interacting with people and that brings out great conversations.”

When you’re doing CR, you have to make every bite count. Which is why Paul invented something called “savoring meditation.” I had read about the practice in his book, and ask if we could try it out.

Paul obliges, and gets a bowl of blueberries from the fridge.

We close our eyes and breathe in and out for a few minutes, like “leaves blowing in a wind.” Then he starts.

“And can you imagine in your mind’s eye that someone has left you a gift.”

Paul speaks soothingly, in a Mr. Rogers–ish tone.

“And that gift is going to nurture your body in very special ways. And as you enjoy breathing in and out, you’re coming to know that gift is a blueberry. Can you imagine reaching into a bowl and taking just one blueberry, just one, and putting it up to your lips? You begin to smell what that blueberry smells like. And how does it smell? Would it be musty?

“And so in your mind’s eye, you take that blueberry and put it into your mouth . . . and imagine how it might get from your lips to your teeth. And without biting into it, just have it there on the tip of the tongue . . .”

By this time, Paul has me salivating. He’s a tongue-tease.

“Could you taste it on the back of the tongue? On the roof of your mouth? Can you let the taste sensation permeate your entire brain, your entire mouth, your nose?”

I. Want. That. Blueberry.

“And now, can you actually put one blueberry into your mouth in slow motion, just like they do on those instant-replay cameras in sports? And hold it there without biting it? And your brain and your tongue and the roof of your mouth and your cheeks are all participating in the experience. And when you’re ready, can you begin to bite into it? Just very slowly. Can you taste the very subtle skin of the blueberry and how it meshes with the fleshy inside?”

Oh man, can I.

It went on like that for several minutes. I tell you, a blueberry never tasted so good. It’s an odd and goofy ritual, if not bonkers, but if you can’t appreciate a blueberry after doing twenty minutes of savoring meditation, you have a tongue made of stone.

I leave Paul’s house with this lesson: I need to be mindful of what I eat. Maybe I don’t need to spend fifteen minutes contemplating a blueberry. But focusing on what I put in my mouth is a key to health. As Cornell psychology professor Brian Wansink points out in his book Mindless Eating, one of the major causes of the obesity epidemic is that we thoughtlessly shove omnipresent food into always-open maws.

We love to multitask while eating, a sure way to get fat. Studies show that we eat up to 71 percent more when we’re watching TV. (And the number also varies depending on what we’re watching; one study showed that subjects who watched Letterman ate more than those who watched Leno, which seems a good marketing opportunity for NBC.) We eat more when we eat while driving, and working, and walking.

I know whom to blame for this epidemic, incidentally. When I read the encyclopedia, I learned about the father of distracted eating. He was an eighteenth-century British gambling addict who invented a food he could snack on without interrupting his card game. His name was John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. So the humble sandwich, much as I love it, has caused a whole lot of trouble.
The Most Mindful Eater in the World

I get home, determined to be the most conscious and aware eater in America. That went to hell the next day.

I was busy with an article for Esquire magazine—where I work as a writer—and at about 11 a.m., I noticed an empty plastic container a...

Revue de presse :

"Packed with fascinating information and studies from experts, the book is a highly entertaining and sharply written personal odyssey ... The perfect book to slip in the suitcase before exposing that shameful midriff on the beach." (Daily Mail)

"A.J. Jacobs is very, very bad for your health. He will keep you up reading til 2 a.m., disturbing your circadian rhythms, making you sleep through breakfast and overeat at lunch. He is delicious. He's habit-forming. He will give you infectious titters and terminal glee. Don't let that stop you. Indulge." (Mary Roach, author of 'Bonk' and 'Packing for Mars')

"Who wouldn't want to be fitter, happier, more productive? In this riotous, madcap book, AJ Jacobs sets himself an ambitious goal: to become the person we all wish we could be. It's vintage AJ. Do your future self a favour and buy this book." (Joshua Foer, author of 'Moonwalking with Einstein')

"I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book, and once again, the brilliant A.J. Jacobs had me laughing out loud - and also deciding to change the way I live. Drop Dead Healthy is a rare mixture of the hilarious, the absurd, and the scientifically sound. Who knew it could be so entertaining to read about broccoli puree and shoeless jogging?" (Gretchen Rubin, author of 'The Happiness Project')

"His quirky tone makes it undeniably hilarious ... Amongst the laughter you’ll find genuine fitness and nutrition tips from someone who is willing to try anything, no matter how embarrassing it might be." (Huffington Post)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Simon & Schuster
• Date d'édition: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1416599088
• ISBN 13: 9781416599081
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 416