The Grad School Diet!

During the time I spent in grad school, I completely changed my body. Today I weigh about the same amount that I did in high school, I can run for miles, and I have a lot more lean body mass than ever before. But after my undergrad, I was overweight (by about 50 pounds), and something as simple as walking up a long flight of stairs would wind me.

By far the most important thing that I ever did to get in better shape was to change my eating habits. Thanks to grad school poverty, I cut soda out of my diet entirely, stopped eating out frequently, eliminated most booze and learned how to cook. As I became more aware of what I was eating, I found that my caloric intake went down, and the amount of "real" foods that I was eating went up. Nobody seems to believe it, but you can consume calories far more quickly than you can burn them through exercise, so if you can do nothing else, eat less crap, and your body will still thank you.

The second most important thing (again, thanks to grad school poverty), was to begin walking everywhere. I'm no longer in school, but even today I walk to most of the places that I go. Most people don't realize how little they walk/move around on a daily basis -- my first job out of grad school, I was climbing the walls because the daily car commute didn't afford me a great deal of exercise (I had to start running daily to make up for the loss).

Finally, and least importantly, I got in the habit of going to the gym regularly (I do cardio and lift weights). This probably isn't very important in terms of calories burned, but it keeps me sane, and the weight lifting has definitely improved my body over time. I'm in the habit now -- I actually feel "scummy" if I don't work out every day -- but if I had simply jumped into a gym routine with the expectation of becoming "fit", I'm sure I would have failed. The key ingredient was that I started to go to the gym to deal with stress, and it gradually became a healthy habit. The benefits of the habit took years to become apparent, but like I said...now I'm an addict.

So there you have it -- the Grad School Diet. I should write a book...

Skip writing the book - someone already did. It's called "The Hacker's Diet", and the guy who's responsible for AutoCAD wrote it.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/

Good answer. I agree, eating is key. Up to about 25, you can probably pretty much eat what you want. After that, you have to start keeping track of what you eat. Being active is the second most important thing; it's not easy at first, but it gets easier if you keep doing it. If you're like me, some kind of positive reinforcement is extremely helpful; I'm using Wii Fit to keep track of my weight and BMI. That way, exercising and being healthy starts to feel like playing a game because you can see your progress, and you can immediately see when you start to slack off.

Unless you expect your height to change is there really any point to tracking your BMI in addition to your weight? Wouldn't your % body fat be better?

Yes, tracking body fat would definitely be better; alas, there is no simply, videogame-like way to keep track of body fat (that I know of).

The US Navy uses the following equation to determine the percentage of body fat:

%Fat=495/(1.0324-.19077(log(abdomen-neck))+.15456(log(height)))-450

Appearently they did a study on how precise it is, "Comparison of Circumference-and Skinfold-Based Body Fat Estimation Equations", where they compared their formula with several other methods for body fat estimation, against a baseline set by hydrostatic weighting. I couldn't find the full text online (at least not for free), but the abstract is here:

http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPr...

Quote: "For men, the Navy equation was the best predictor of body fat determined by hydrostatic weighing."

So all you need to track your body fat is a measuring tape plus a pen and a pad. That's too much of an effort for me, though, so I use one of the web-based calculators, e.g.

http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/body-fat-percentage-calcu...

(you need to allow JS to use it).

Interesting, thanks!

You should. I was a few seconds away from googling it, then I saw the closing statement.

I've been pretty seriously interested in natural health for a long time. To condense what I've learned into a few of the most important ideas:

- Research what a good vitamin is. There's a HUGE spectrum in quality. Expect to pay $1-$2 per day, and take more than one capsule. A good indicator of a high quality vitamin is that it packages b12 as hydrocobalamin, not cyanocobalamin

- Exercise in the first part of your day. Your metabolism is then boosted all day.

- Read the label on every food product you buy: the ingredients list is the least dishonest part of the label.

- Avoid high glycemic sweeteners: sugar and corn syrup. Excellent substitutes are agave nectar and stevia.

- Diversify your grains: Try quinoa ("keen-wah"), amaranth, buckwheat, spelt

- Diversify your oils: coconut oil (often a good substitute for butter when baking), avacado oil (can be fried at high heat), flaxseed oil (do not heat!)

- Reduce/avoid: sodas (the acid causes your body to remove calcium from your bones!), homogenized cows milk, hydrolyzed or hydrogenated oils, monosodium glutumate (or "yeast extract" which always has MSG in it), artificial flavors and colors, and American style cured meats (nitrates.)

- Increase consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables, raw nuts, berries, etc. The smaller the berry, the better it is for you.

- Seek moderate exposure to sunlight without sunscreen.

If you stick to the above, you'll have to prepare most of your own food. It's fun, creative, and a socially useful skill. With practice, it's often less time consuming than going out. Essential supplies include a high end blender, good cutlery, and pans without teflon.

Find the health food store in your community. Sometimes you'll pay much more for the food. The bargain is your long term health and quality of life.

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."

Throw in regular exercise, and that's how you can maintain a good healthy lifestyle. Don't obsess over it; just learn to enjoy the healthy stuff. There's a lot of great, healthy food that tastes good. I'm not an expert on getting away from an unhealthy lifestyle, but once you're to the place you want to be, it's dead simple to maintain.

wii! (and by that I mean like wii sports|wii fit|ddr, and for more than like 10-15 minutes a day)

I haven't had mine for long but some friends|family keep telling me that I look better than before. I have an elliptical at home and I try to go to the gym often but I don't have any motivation to bore myself to death that way. Playing wii games like the three I named above helps me because they're entertaining and I'm more likely to go to the gym when I don't have flab bouncing around everywhere.

Diets never work for me, so I don't consider them. The only thing I do if at all is drinking tea in lieu of soda and switching white rice for brown when I can (and since I eat a lot of rice, this is pretty significant, but whole grains in general are awesome). I also eat smaller portions spread throughout the day, and since I love baking and making ice cream, I try to go "healthy" with my favorite but most unhealthiest part of meals (dessert!). I think the way I eat is massively influenced by my diabetic dad (who I have to cook for occasionally), cause he eats like that as well.

Lastly, I live in LA. It's a pretty big city but it's really hard to walk/bike around because I have to travel a lot (think as much as 100 miles/day). I try to walk to the market and take the bus to local (read:convenient) areas, but other than that I can't do much. But I do notice that every time I take a trip to San Francisco I end up walking a ton. Dunno what it's like in NYC but if it's convenient enough, you should try to walk around where you can, it's a really simple change that can have a big impact.

Yeah, whole grains are good for 'ya. I usually have brown rice with dinner, but from time to time I am in the mood for this:

http://store.kashi.com/heritage_pilaf.aspx?SID=1&Categor...;

It ends up a bit gummier than brown rice, though, probably because I don't have a water line for "7 grain Pilaf" on my rice cooker.

I play soccer a lot(who came up with this stupid name for football anyway) And basketball and sometimes volleyball, when there is nobody to play with i run, jump, climb and stuff. Its called parkour and if you are careful and concentrated it beats gym and its more fun too, and it requires creativity. I eat a lot of unhealthy food, i think that if my body slows down when i get older, i will get really fat, now im just skinny and stringy.

Ah... there are tons of things you can do in NYC! Besides the normal gym routines, here are a few things I recommend:

- There are excellent bike trails all around Manhattan. You can bike along both East River and the Hudson on the west side, there are also excellent bike trails in Central Park

- You can run along the bike trails, too, of course

- There are always pick up soccer games in Central Park, especially when the weather is nice -- very common in the summer time

- Great place to play basketball is Stuyvesant Town (14th and 1st, they have 5 outdoor courts, lots of people playing)

- ZogSports runs sports leagues all year around, from basketball to dodgeball. It costs money but keeps you committed, they also have happy hour after each match :)

- Diet is important of course, I would subscribe to Men's Health, one of my favorite magazines. Great exercise routines, and also tell you various ways to eat healthy for cheap.

- Oh, NYC also has a ton of events throughout the year. Look into the 5 boros bike tour (just passed, but def do it next year), the JPMorgan 5k Corporate Challenge, etc. Look into them!

Yoga.

With a good instructor, it can be a surprisingly strong workout, while also helping to preserve sanity during those long weeks.

since you're in NYC, i would HIGHLY suggest taking up sport/olympic fencing.

its really quite similar to tennis, except it requires less space. NYC is one of the best locations to do it. its both physically and mentally challenging and is competitive enough to suck you in, if you enjoy competing, so that you'll want to exercise and train to become more fit so that you'll do better.

its how i stay healthy. for reference, i'm an ex personal trainer, ex lifeguard, and ex professional martial artist.

I too live in NYC, recently transplanted from Seattle. I coughed up the (not insignificant) cash in order to get a gym and make sure to work out every morning as a start to my day. Do at least 30 minutes of cardio at a good clip (most machines give you numbers, so try to burn 400 calories at least). Lift some weights too, because it increases muscle mass, which will increase your metabolism.

If you're really into something prescriptive, I highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Core-Performance-Revolutionary-Workout...

I know the cover looks cheesy, but it's actually really well written and very detailed (it tells you on a daily basis what to do). Workouts are an hour long, six days a week, and they incorporate flexibility and injury prevention exercises, which are quite important.

For diet, here in NYC I stop by Whole Foods or something similar right after the gym and make my own salad. Almost always, it's purely vegetarian. Make sure you get a lot of greens in there, and as many other colors of vegetables as you can.

Dinner is a highly social meal, and I end up messing it up often.

I do miss all of Seattle's outdoors though ...

Find a gym that is on your route home. The days when you skip your workout, you will walk/drive/ride by and feel extremely lazy for not stepping in.

I just work out daily. Don't really have time for sports(too big of a time commitment).

As far as diet, I don't really watch what I eat, I have a high metabolism and with working out I burn through the extra calories right away...so I can sustain myself on nothing but junk food w/o gaining weight(I actually lost a few pounds the one week I ate nothing but McDonalds, Wendy's, Taco Bell, KFC).

I run. I ran 3 miles this morning.

When I'm at my best, I'm eating nearly vegan and I feel great. I also avoid sodas and get lots of sleep.

I'm not at my best right now. :-)

I realized about a week ago that I'd been shorting myself on sleep, and drinking too much soda. I've cut way down on the soda and cut back on my late night activities and after just a week I feel much better.

It really does make a difference.

I disagree.

I cut back from 4-6 sodas a day to zero for a little caffeine-free experiment I ran on myself. I was drinking no sodas for about 2 weeks.

I felt no different (after I quit having caffeine headaches, that is).

Thus, in my opinion, your difference is (very much nearly) all in the fact that you're now getting enough sleep.

I cut back on soda for two reasons - 1) my weight varies pretty linearly with my sugar intake, and I've been getting a bit pudgy of late. And 2) the caffeine prevents me from sleeping well. I can't say for sure if the drop in soda intake is responsible for my feeling of well-being but it certainly is easier on my wallet.

I live in a fairly large city (Seattle), but it's not QUITE like NYC...

I walk a fair amount, mainly to and from the bus, and within downtown Seattle when I go to after-work gatherings and events.

I also spend a lot of time in the dojo, both as a teacher and as a student. I tend to take advantage of being a teacher to raise the level of intensity enough to give myself a workout, but I also carry that intensity to other styles where I'm a student. It makes for better training overall.

I also do a lot of hiking, nearly every weekend, usually in the mountains, and with a 50-pound pack full of, in addition to the usual supplies, my large-format camera kit. The camera gear accounts for around 30 pounds out of the 50.

Other less obvious things I do are eat a healthy breakfast (almost) every morning, do a lot of my own cooking, and drink herbal tea rather than a lot of caffeinated beverages. That is not to say that I avoid caffeine; I do like to have a cup of coffee in the mornings, but I try to avoid caffeine beyond that, mainly to avoid dehydration.

Time is the limiting factor as I am building my application and working full time. Every morning, I run 1 mile and do 25 pushups. Starting next week I'll repeat that in the evening. I make sure to stretch and do some of the katas I can still remember.

I monitor my basic nutrition intake. The only thing that is important to remember is that 3200 calories = 1 pound of fat. Eat 3200 more than you burn, gain a pound. 3200 less? Lose a pound. Muscles are formed by destroyed strands of muscle fiber and letting them be rebuilt (during recovery) with protein. So, I calculate my basic needs (~2800 calories, 60g protein, 15g fiber) and try to stay within that area.

As long as you maintain these parameters, you will stay in good condition. If your life is stable, you can of course do all sorts of other interesting things - but if you are time crunched like me, this is enough.

Get a home on the suburbs.

I live in Colorado and we have trails behind us where we have occasional visits from deer. This really give me no excuse to stay away from a jog.

I used to live in the city but driving to a park to go jogging added 30 minutes to my time to workout and so it frequently got postponed.

I also lift weights at the gym.

I stopped driving and biked everywhere remotely feasible instead. That took off 20 pounds in three months, though I also ate less food and chose lower glycemic index foods that kept me full longer.

People always talk about how staying healthy requires a lifestyle change, and that's definitely true. I've never been one of those gym or running everyday kind of people, so every time I've lost weight, I always ended up slacking on exercise and gaining it all back. I'm more optimistic about my current strategy. I'll always have to go places, and biking is more enjoyable to me than driving (Except when it's 100 degrees and humid outside. Thanks Austin.), so in theory, it should be easier to keep up.

I live in Atlanta and have essentially been sedentary since graduation a few years ago (I average 1 or 2 30 minute workouts a week). This isn't enough to keep the creep off.

I moved right into the middle of the city so that walking opportunities would be more prevalent and that's helped as a lifestyle change.

I had a hard time keeping up with going to the gym on my own and recently joined a sort of group exercise thing. There's a little more accountability with this as people expect me to be there in the morning. So far that's working well, and it has motivated me to start running in the afternoon so I don't suck so much in the class.

1. Eat right 2. http://crossfit.com

I've been CrossFitting for just over a year. My body fat % dropped from 22% to currently 11-12%.

So for me, it's CrossFit + Zone macro-nutrient balance + Paleo.

Can you explain this a little more?

Start going to gym or running or "insert activity here" regularly. One of these things has to be something you like or will like when you get good at it. Personally, I find the gym boring and...vain.

It will suck at first, but eventually you will reach a point where you feel guilty not going to the gym or running or "insert activity here". This has worked well for me in San Diego (running my second half-Ironman in a week).

Cut back on sweets (limited to one oatmeal cookie per day) and work out 2 hours 6 days a week. Nothing else works.

Good news: I'm stronger than ever - on a moment's notice I can help someone move a piano or push a car down the street; I can work all day and not hurt the next, I don't get hurt, and my old back injuries don't bother me anymore.

Bad news: Less time. So I read while on the treadmill or recumbent bike.

Luckily my wife works out with me.

2 hours a day 6 days a week? You're nuts. I work out twice a week (weights), plus a 40 minute run every week or so, and I'm fit enough! 1m83, 75kg, 17.5% body fat.

How about foregoing that cookie (and all the other junk.. crisps, sodas, burgers, chips, etc) and working out an hour 3 times a week?

I think recent research has shown that less frequent but longer workouts are as effective as more frequent shorter workouts. Previously it was believed that more frequent workouts are required to improve fitness.

It's actually been proven that shorter, high-intensity, workouts are the most effective.

People who work out longer can actually shrink their hearts a slightly over time, where as high-intensity (i.e.: Sprinting at 90% for 30 seconds, jogging for 30 seconds, for a total of just 8-12 minutes) strengthens your heart.

My advice: Cut out sodas and sweets after 7PM, work out in the morning, Focus on consuming more and more lean meats (chicken breast, tuna, etc.), more whole grains, more organic fruits and veggies, and less milk, but more cheeses and yogurts. Drink a glass of wine with dinner every night.

A good workout is running up bleachers or stairs. it doesn't take but 10min tops, and you'll get your heart racing and getting stronger. The key to being healthy is having a healthy heart.

Do not squander your health. It's all you've got when it all comes down to it.

Yea, but the OP is doing longer and more frequent (2hrs x 6d). That's hardcore.

I walk a lot (e.g. if your only excuse for not doing something is that it's far to walk, it's a chance to walk more).

I also pay attention to drinks...for example, if I buy a bottle of Coke, I leave half of it, take it home, put it in the fridge and forget about it. The next day, I'm happy to see it, and it's like a 2nd drink. Only, it's fewer calories.

Nightly visit to the gym. At first it was tough to get into a routine, but it got easier when I started bringing my iPod loaded with podcasts. And of course, the podcasts are usually about hacking with Cocoa, Django, or Rails.

Quitting soda helps a lot too.

I play soccer. Not only good for health (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20893097/), it's also fun. You have a bigger risk of injury, though, than e.g. jogging.

I eat food, not much, mostly plants. And for exercise I do offroad cycling.

> eat food, not much, mostly plants.

See what you did there :-P Here it is for the others: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.... Great article, do yourself an article and read it.

Cycling 30 miles a day, and avoiding processed foods.

Unicycling (it's an amazing workout). And lifting.

Walk everywhere, excercise, keep track of what you eat, play sports with friends, and pick up a new outdoor activity like rock climbing.

skateboarding :)

I workout at home, 6 times a week.

1. Walk. A lot. 2. Balanced diet.

I surf as much as I can.

Bloody Caesars.

I don't. :) I like to hike and do yoga, but only because it feels nice to do, not because I care about healthy.

I'll live 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 years and die. You'll live 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 and die. Maybe I'll die a little sooner then you. So what? Maybe you'll get hit by a bus and I'll laugh at all your wasted exercises. I'll have more fun.

Decline with old age is a curve. Most people I'd imagine would prefer quality of life to remain high, then drop sharply just before death, to decades of low quality of life. That's what fitness gets you, not longevity.

Also, living a little longer may give you a chance to enjoy what these guys are working on (a cure for aging):

http://www.mfoundation.org/

predicating my life on these hucksterish immortality wishes would rob it of all meaning while I'm alive, and then I'd still be dead.