going blue

In combined fit of guilt for watching Biggest Loser while drinking wine, and wanting a good solid kick start to getting my health and wellness back on track, last night I committed to a girlfriend to avoid meat and all but nonfat dairy for a month. Starting today. No sense drawing out the anticipation, as god knows where that kind of craziness can lead. She and I are both locked in.

For me, this means I'll be testing the edges of a mostly-vegetarian diet that I've been wondering about for awhile. As I've mentioned before, the more I learn about the care, feeding and upbringing of the animals that make up our diets, the less I've been interested in eating them. I'm not going - ahem - whole hog here, though. I don't see myself ever giving up milk, cheese, eggs, etc. But to aid the progress on my scale and to address my friend's recent bloodwork results, we thought that eliminating most of the animal fat would be good. She's keeping chicken and turkey; I'm not. I'm keeping eggs. We're both keeping fish. Regardless of how you mix and match, this should push us toward lean, healthy proteins, less cholesterol, and good fats.

Twice last week, I found myself intrigued by a book called The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest which talks about the common elements in the diet and lifestyle choices of folks who live well and long in certain areas of the world. And there are common elements, whether in Okinawa, Costa Rica, California or Sardinia, ideals such as physical activity, grain-laden vegetable-based diets, rich social lives and low stress. Huh. Makes a hell of a lot of sense, no. I've done a lot of studying about anti-oxident rich and anti-inflammatory diets (as in, way of eating, not weight loss regimen) and they're awfully similar in nature. But I really like the way the book addresses your outlook and the tribe of people you hang out with as part of the assessment. It does matter how you are wired and how you handle stress. It matters who you surround yourself with. Feels right to me.

I wondered how well I was doing. I haven't had my cholesterol checked in awhile and I know my yo-yo weight over the past 2.5 years won't have helped. So I went to the Blue Zone website and checked out their Vitality Compass. I had to sign up for a free account with them to proceed, naturally. But it took 3 seconds and only required my name, zip code, a user name, password and my email address. Pretty straightforward. Then I took the quick little quiz about my habits around eating, exercise, drinking and social interaction, height/weight, etc and it churned out my age, life expectancy, disease-free live expectancy, and how my habits have affected my biological age. Oh, and the fact that I could add another 8.5 years to my life if I changed a few things. Here we go:

• Biological age - 35.4 years (real age: 37.4)
• Life expectancy - 86 years
• Disease-free life expectancy - 75.2 years
• My habits have added 3.8 years to my life expectancy
• I could add another 8.5

Then the system churned out a little report. My key issues are around my Outlook area: I've been worried, tense and anxious lately and I felt better about my health a year ago. No big shocker there. 20 lbs lost and then regained will do that to a girl. In my Eat area, I don't eat a lot of whole grains and I enjoy my wine too much. I have a wheat allergy which takes out all but my most favorite bread products and the rice I eat is primarily white. Hmm, need to work on that. The wine is a no brainer. In my Move area, I get a pretty decent amount of short-spurt movement (20 mins), but not a lot of sustained movement (60 mins). Easy to fix with some springtime walks. I probably sleep too much with my 8-10 hours a day, but I think this is related to my stress/outlook issues and will likely right itself when I start getting more movement into my day. In my Belong area, I don't have a regular outlet for spirituality and I'm not satisfied with my work today.

All of these make sense to me and yes, I realize it's simply an online tool that doesn't take into consideration my family health history, the crappy economy, etc but it's a pretty decent down & dirty litmus test. And apparently they're now testing a Vitality Coach program: for $9.99 they'll start with your initial results, ask you to pick 3 things you'd like to work on in the next 60 days, and then send you notes each day. Based on your responses to the questions in these notes, they'll adjust the plan as needed. I'm totally intrigued! For now, I'm searhing the library for the book so I can check it out. Can't wait to read this and feel good about my meat-reduced ways this month!