Seven things to add if you want a healthier body.

Originally posted June 23, 2022 (amended for this blog).

Yesterday, a friend and I were discussing our plans to get fit in 2022. We have starkly different approaches.

She’s jumpstarting the year with a diet program consisting of less than five hundred calories a day, supposedly to restart her metabolism. The company calls it fasting without fasting, and in her words, she will suffer five long days of horrid soup packets, dry wafers, and a special drink mix to keep her from passing out. Hmm.

I’m taking another route. I’m creating a better body by going for more — a lot more.

1. More protein

Good sources of protein include meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, beans, pulses, nuts, and tofu.

The recommended daily intake in a healthy adult is 0.8 to 1.0 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. We will do the math in a minute.

If you are healing from surgery or an accident, you need a higher protein intake of 1.25 to 2.0 grams per kilogram of body weight. This is according to Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocols, which are evidence-based care pathways aimed to enhance recovery.

For reference, 1 kilogram is 2.2 pounds.

I weigh 140 lbs., which equals 63 kilograms. I multiply this by the numbers above to reach my requirements. When healthy, I need 50g to 63g of protein per day. When healing, I need 79g to 126g of protein per day.

Did you do the math? Okay good. Protein is important, especially as you age.

Have protein in every meal (and snack) to keep you feeling satisfied and maintain blood sugar. This prevents the shaky, hangry hunger you get when you eat primarily carbs or excess sugar.

2. More vegetables

Pack your plate. Cram your bowl. Stuff your face with vegetables. If you’re like me, you like to feel full. You can do that with veggies and not blow out your calories. Making eggs for breakfast? Throw in cherry tomatoes, peppers, onions, and spinach. Sandwich for lunch? Pack in lettuce, tomato, avocado, and sprouts with your meat and cheese. Fill your dinner plate with two vegetables first, then add smaller portions of the meat and potatoes.

Basically, the plants come first, then you add protein, and then little bits of everything else until you’re full. If you structure your diet with this in mind, your body can’t help but improve both in health and composition.

My secret to easy nutrition is to keep my freezer stocked with frozen fruits and vegetables. This saves me time and money, and they’re shown to hold their nutrients.

3. More legumes (beans and pulses)

Legumes are rich in nutrients, fiber, and protein. The fiber is soluble, meaning it absorbs water in the digestive tract, forming a gel-like texture. Soluble fiber improves bowel regularity, lowers cholesterol, enhances heart health, and stabilizes blood sugar. Legumes are a great option if you don’t want to eat a lot of meat, or your food budget is tight.

This assumes you can digest the little buggers without polluting the room.

Beans make you toot due to raffinose, a non-digestible carbohydrate that ferments in the colon, resulting in noxious gas. To help prevent this, soak dried beans overnight, using four times the water to beans. The next day, drain the beans into a colander and rinse thoroughly. Put them back in the (rinsed) pot and add enough water to cover the beans plus two inches. Bring to a boil and then turn down to a simmer for roughly 45 minutes. Even if using an Instapot, do the soaking and rinsing.

The other option is to use canned beans. Stick with me long enough and you’ll learn I’m all about healthy shortcuts. Dump the beans into a large bowl of water and stir. You will notice the water gets foamy. That’s a fart in a bowl. Skip this step at your own peril. Drain into a colander and rinse well before cooking.

Start with small amounts of beans to help your digestive system get used to the fiber. Soon you can use less meat in your soups, stews, and other dishes by adding more legumes. I find lentils the easiest to digest and thus, minimize trumpeting.

4. More fruit

Fruits got a bad rap when everyone was freaking out about their sugar content thanks to the glycemic index. Relax. Fruit contains incredible amounts of health-promoting vitamins, as well as fiber, which makes you feel full. If my stomach growls in the afternoon, I usually have an apple smeared with a bit of peanut butter, or an orange and a small handful of nuts (protein!)

My sweet tooth always rears up about an hour after dinner and is relentless with its demands. Instead of fighting it, I learned to embrace it. I keep it happy with frozen grapes, frozen black cherries, sliced apples, pears, oranges, and clementines. I’m less likely to go through the mental gymnastics of denial vs. cravings when I know I’ll get my fix.

When bananas are neglected in the fruit bowl and the skin is turning black, I make banana ice cream. Mash over-ripe bananas with nut milk, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt, and pop it in the freezer for an after-dinner treat.

5. More iron

No, not the Popeye obsession with spinach, although that’s not a bad thing. I plan to lift more weight this year and make it habitual. See, I don’t care what the scale says. I want to be free of my menopausal muffin top. Instead of starving myself, I’m going to build muscle, which will naturally burn more fat and change my body shape.

Weight-bearing exercise will also protect me from osteoporosis and the risk of breaking a hip when I trip over a dog, or the cat is racing me down the stairs, which she seems to think is great fun.

6. More rest

When you take rest days, your muscles repair from your workouts. When you’re older, you may need more rest. I caught myself pushing it too hard this year, and while I avoided injury, I was right on the edge. Instead of following my head, which told me I was being a lazy sod and needed to work out more, I listened to my body which was begging for a break.

I also sleep more. Obviously, I want to know what happens in the next episode of Yellowstone or Succession, but there’s no need to stare at the tv with bleary eyes. It will be there tomorrow.

A lack of quality sleep messes up your hormones, creates stress, induces cravings for caffeine and sugar, and causes you to hold on to body fat. Get your rest, especially if you’re exercising more.

7. More kindness and compassion

I missed the boat on ordering a panettone for Christmas. I live in a small mountain town so it’s not like I can swing into a Whole Foods or gourmet shop to get one. As I sadly noted that my panettone (a divine type of bread) would arrive on December 29th, I closed the page. I couldn’t have panettone after Christmas. I was jumpstarting my diet (a-bloody-gain). I was getting fit. I wasn’t allowed to have bread. I mentally whipped myself for my folly and was scolded by my internal judge.

I was struck by the ensuing wave of grief that ran through me. Why wasn’t I allowed to have something I loved? Since when did denial actually help me achieve any health or fitness goal? As I sat with the feelings, I felt a rebellion brewing.

I decided to trust myself. I reopened the page, ordered a panettone, and threw in two Italian nougat bars I adore. I chose to have more.

I believe I can reach my fitness goals and have my beloved panettone, even after Christmas has come and gone. I am giving the middle finger to the psychological mind mess of binge behavior — the all-or-none attitude. How deliciously liberating.

11. More patience

Headlines scream at you to lose ten pounds in ten minutes by taking this pill, drinking this tea, or fat-blasting with this workout. It’s exhausting. And it’s false. Diet brainwashing tells us that it’s easy if we just do what they say. If we fail to drop three dress sizes in a week, it’s our fault. Demoralized, we stuff our faces with all our denied foods and start afresh on Monday, often giving away more money on the next latest craze, book, or fitness routine.

Can we please stop this madness? Let’s have the patience to let our beautiful lives unfold. We need time, consistency, courage, and trust to allow the changes to show themselves. Believe me, I’m just as guilty as the next person with wanting it all right now. I had green smoothies for a week — where the hell is my six-pack? It doesn’t work that way. It never does.

Join me and create a life based on more rather than less.

Fill your stomach with more nutritious foods. Drink more water. Drink more tea. Build more muscle. Walk more. Rest more. Practice more kindness for your beautiful human self. Have more patience with the process. Trust that the health and body you want are attainable. You can do it and eat the panettone.

Let’s have more, not less.