In a Thousand Pieces

: My Thoughts on Food


So I've never been one to care too much about food and how it works when it is consumed. That is until at the end of last summer I gained about five pounds in a little over two months. Sure, I know that to some people thats not a big deal, but honestly it kinda shocked me. It was the first time I noticed a more drastic spike in my weight over a relatively short period of time. Also in the past working at camp I always got in really good shape, but having my job moved into an office it definitely changed my level of activity. At that point I got up to about 155lbs, the most I had ever weighed.

So after camp I was determined to get back down to 150, which is a weight I am much more comfortable with. Over the next couple of months I managed to cut back on my food intake as well as picking up my level of activity. I did manage to get back to that weight.

Then came December where I went out to Colorado as a ski instructor. Moving into a small space, very similar to a dorm room was a pretty drastic change. With no access to a kitchen or even a refrigerator, my diet drastically changed. I had to get fairly creative with what I could manage to fix and eat. After a month or so of this, I would imagine my food intake was lower than back home. Then in about the second week of January I fell pretty ill. I believe during the next two and half to three weeks I had bronchitis. I completely lost my voice, I had all the cold-like symptoms, and I just felt very weak everyday. During these following weeks I was unable to eat much of anything and hardly able to ever get out of bed most days. So at the end of January I came back home.

When I got home my parents thought it looked like I had lost some weight.  So I weighed myself and discovered I had lost eight pounds since I was gone. At 142lbs I felt that was definitely a bad thing. Ever since then I have been trying to gain that back. Thus far I am up to 146, with a gain of four pounds since I have been back home.

A few of days ago, my friend Casey recommended I watch the movie - Supersize Me. I knew the premise of this film about a guy doing a documentary on the effects of McDonald's food on your body. Luckily it was on Netflix so I watched it. Overall I thought it was pretty interesting. I did feel like the ending didn't conclude with results in depth enough but I think the film got its point across.

Supersize Me Summary - An average guy decides to go on a McDonald's binge for 30 days eating nothing but McDonald's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He ate an average of "5000" calories a day and walked about one mile a day. Come the end of his experiment he gained 25lbs and everything from cholesterol to blood pressure had increased.

After finishing this film I noticed a "Recently Added" film that had a similar cover to Supersize Me, the film was called "Fat Head". Hovering over the description I thought it was merely a spoof of Supersize Me, but falling under the category of documentary I thought I would give it a shot.


To my surprise this was a follow-up film to Supersize Me and basically a rebuttal to it.  It was a much more scientific film with a more direct approach to understanding what causes people to gain weight. It didn't blame it on McDonald's at all, it simply expressed some of the things that actually do cause your weight to increase. The guy's experiment was to eat fast food for 30 days and prove that you would actually lose weight with this diet. As a matter of fact, he did.

Now I know those are brief summaries so you will just have to watch the films for yourself. They are very interesting and really bring some interesting points into the light, especially Fat Head. I highly recommend them even if you aren't a fan of documentaries.

The reason I write this blog is the subject matter of food and nutrition has piqued my interest. I am going to start reading a book my dad recommended called "Maximum Energy" written by Ted Broer. He is a Christian that writes about what you should and shouldn't eat based on biblical and scientific principals. I like information so I guess for the next few weeks or months I plan on acquiring some on nutrition.

Here's the trailers for these two films just so you can get an idea of them -




I think I need a cheeseburger now... : )