If you think of good health as an investment in three different kinds of activities — eating, moving and relaxing — then I would say that many, if not most, of the human endeavors that best exemplify these activities actually occur at their intersections.  

As the school bus pulled away almost every afternoon when I was growing up in New Jersey, I would drop my bag and head off to spend time in the 600 acres of woods directly across the street from my house.  Those walks that I took in the woods every day after school cleared my mind, calmed my brain, focused my thoughts, and piqued my appetite.  I came inside ready for food, homework, and whatever else was about to come my way.

Last summer there were many days when I started dinner by collecting arms full of Swiss chard and tomatoes, knowing that my daughter and I had nailed together the boards to make a raised bed, had filled that bed with yards of compost and topsoil, and had watered and weeded and weeded some more.  It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it certainly is mine.  Watching vegetables grow — I can’t think of a more pleasant way to enjoy a late summer afternoon!  

This morning I was invited to share in a most generous meal.  Plans to spend time with my new friend, Judith, turned into an invitation to eat poached salmon with mint pesto, strained yogurt cheese with za’atar [hyssop] and crusty bread, caramelized Brussels sprouts, carrot and blueberry salad, olives, homemade baked goods and dark chocolate truffles.  The mint for the pesto came from the local supermarket, but it usually comes from her mother’s mint patch, lovingly tended not far from here.  The Brussels sprouts tasted as if they had been sprayed with a light coating of honey.  They had not; patience was the secret ingredient, she said.  We laughed together when I shared my own discovery that nothing cannot be made delicious in 8 hours at 250 degrees.  

Also for brunch we enjoyed an embroidered beribboned table runner, matching milky white serving dishes on pedestals, thoughtful conversation, dreams for the future, sincere admiration for all kinds of work well done and stories well told, and friends, silver and gold.   

Yes, you can purchase food for a few coins through a small window while you remain seated in your car.  You can put that stuff into your mouth, and use it to make hunger pangs disappear for a little while.  But it is not an investment in good health.  It is just calories without history, calories to which you have no connection.  And because it consists of eating without movement or relaxation, you receive only a little bit of sustenance.  At the end of the day, it’s a question of how we nourish ourselves, in the broadest sense possible.

Here’s a repost of a popular entry from last December — it’s that time of year!

This month, a lot of people weigh more than they did in the fall at their last appointment.  The problem is so widespread that, especially in people who are working to lose, I make it a point to applaud their efforts even if they have simply maintained their weight at the same number over the last few months. That’s because December is probably the single time of year in which people are most likely to eat large amounts of sugar and white flour.

Some folks don’t want to know what they weigh, so we make an agreement.  I get the number, and I don’t tell them what it is.  I remind them that I don’t really care about the number itself; I’m just looking for changes, up or down, from the last visit.  I really care a lot more about how their pants fit.  Are they looser, or tighter, or the same?  That’s a lot more important to me.   

Why is December such a problem?  It has to do mainly with the amount of desserts.  What happens when you eat a lot of sugar or starch?  You use a lot more insulin.  What happens when you use a lot more insulin? You store fat more efficiently, and you lose the ability to tell when you are full.  Then you increase your food intake accordingly.  In other words, you eat more. 

In my experience, about three days after you start eating a diet that requires less insulin, you notice that your appetite decreases a little bit.  Here’s why:  When you eat a diet like the standard American diet, which requires a lot of insulin, the high insulin levels coat the satiety centers in your brain and make it very hard to tell that you are full.  When you make changes like the ones in my “Four Recommendations,” you end up using less insulin.  On the third day after you start using less insulin, your body finally gets the message that it doesn’t need so much insulin anymore.  That’s how long it takes your body to begin to respond to the fact that it doesn’t need as much insulin.  Then your pancreas “downregulates” insulin production.  Then you’re not as hungry anymore.

Less insulin means less hunger. Three days after you start eating an “insulin-conserving” diet, you wake up noticeably less hungry than you used to be. 

So don’t worry about what you weigh.  That the number will take care of itself as you get back on track making smart choices.  And it does.  It’s okay to celebrate the holidays.  It’s okay to have a piece of wedding cake.  Or birthday cake.  It’s probably okay to have a slice of pie every weekend.  But you can’t have it every day.  Our insulin levels will manage fine if we let them spike only once in a while.  The problem comes when we eat foods that make them spike every day.  Every meal.  Because when your insulin levels are rising every day, they are no longer spiking.  Now they are just high. 

That’s why I say that what happens in December stays in December.  It’s not what we do once in a while that gives us trouble.  It’s what we do all the time.  You can’t live in December and expect to remain healthy.  But you can visit it from time to time.