Eat healthy

I'm not a nutritionist, so just take this as friendly advice. I work with a lot of young people who work long hours on shift work (EMTs). They have bad eating habits. A lot of take-out food, a lot of burgers, fried foods, and sweets. I can't eat like that.  As I have gotten older, I have had to fight a tendency to gain weight. This is pretty common for a lot of folks. Simple common sense says cut down on the soda, doughnuts, and pizza. And that worked somewhat through my 40's. But then the weight started to creep up again a couple pounds per year. 

About 5 years ago I took a major effort at improving my eating habits in order to lose some weight. What worked for me was the very low carbohydrate 'keto' style diet. The logic is that eating carbs directly affects the sugar metabolism system - increasing short term insulin and blood sugar, leading the body to add fat. Low carbs works in reverse, telling the body to activate reserve energy from fat. This worked for me, and in fact many people are able to lose quite a few pounds in just a few months. However, it is very difficult to maintain long term - there are just too many delicious things in the world that are full of carbs. Pasta!  Croissants in Paris! My new approach has been to set a baseline healthy weight, find a set of food habits that let me maintain that weight, and cheat whenever something really good comes along. 

Healthy food for me consists of a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables; coffee and toast plus yogurt and fruit for breakfast; a light lunch; always a salad with dinner; pasta a couple of nights a week; lean meat or fish a few nights; and stuff like curry, stir fry, chili, etc to fill out the week. Keep healthy snacks in the house - and no horrible junk food like cookies. I snack on fruit (when it's peach season, eat peaches!), almonds, peanuts, dry figs or apricots or dates. 

Portion control is also helpful. Take a normal serving with a bit of everything. Eat until full, or the plate is done. Sit for a bit and think hard about if you are still hungry. Maybe just take some more salad, or a bite of meat. I like a bit of sweet after a meal, so I always go for a piece of fruit, or a date or fig to chew on for a minute. Mandarin/clementine oranges are awesome. 

I weigh myself every morning. I always see that I gain 2-3 pounds the day after we eat out. They put so much salt+butter+sugar in everything made in restaurants - even if I order healthy choices. I go back to my normal healthy eating for a couple of days and I'm usually back to my baseline weight. If not, maybe I crunch down and skip the morning toast and mid day snacks for a couple of days until the weight gets back to where I want it.  I think the body has a set point of a healthy weight. You just have to listen to the body, eat properly, keep active, and it will happen pretty much on its own. 

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