A Tale of Two (Univer)sities

I think that picture pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.

For a little background, I am currently employed at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. It was my first job after my Master's in Aerospace Engineering at Penn State. When I graduated from PSU I swore I was done school forever... after all, I crammed the whole degree into 1 year, and...it...was...awful.

Fast forward 8 months, and my job is so boring I can almost feel my braincells committing Seppuku in my skull. One of the first things I did after coming to the lab was write a few computer programs to automate the extremely boring tasks I had to do. As a result, I had to push a button and wait for said boring tasks to complete. In order to satiate my remaining, dedicated brain cells, I went back to school.

A little over 3 years ago I started my Doctorate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. 2 years later, classes were done, and it was time for the Quals and my research. At this time, I changed groups at work to concentrate on my research which is in... ahem... Experimental Measurements of Pyrolysis Gas Chemistry Under the Influence of a Plasma Environment. While this year has been an absurdly painful, masochistic experience filled with the sweat and tears of shattered dreams... I am almost done, which means the defense, emasculation, and more pain... and then a degree. Perfect.

But wait! Rewind 6 months, I am bored with my lack of class and learning new things, so I have a brilliant idea... stay in school!! I started shopping around at universities for my next poison, the MBA. Well, I am now about a month into my MBA at University of Maryland, and it is going quite well. A foolish idea it was indeed to start this before finishing my doctorate, but it did save me from having to take the GMAT (they took my soon-to-expire GRE scores). All in all, the extra work hasn't been too bad, but here is a taste of what October has in store for me:

Oct 6 : final paper due in MBA
Oct 11 : preliminary defense of research (dry run, basically)
Oct 18 : Another final paper for MBA
Oct 17-21 : Finals for MBA
Oct 28 : Dissertation due.

Here is to the power of determination... and beer.

What the devil is paleo?

Anyone who took the time to read my last post knows what lead me to paleo, but for those curious about what it is you have come to the right post.

Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Dairy-Free and Legume-Free -- According to Dr. Cordain, author of "The Paleo Diet," the Paleolithic environment, including foods, shaped human genes; therefore, health and well-being can be achieved by consuming the foods that humans are "genetically programmed" to eat.

Among the nutritional goals of a Paleo diet are the consumption of large amounts of fiber from non-starchy fruits and vegetables, the inclusion of mono- and polyunsaturated fats, a more balanced consumption of pro- and anti-inflammatory fats, raising the dietary potassium to sodium ratio, ensuring a more alkalizing diet, and eating foods rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Foods that were not part of the diet in Paleolithic times should not form part of the diet today. Forbidden foods include refined sugars like candy and baked goods; dairy products like milk, yogurt, butter and cheese; cereal grains like barley, wheat, corn, oats and rice; legumes, including all beans, lentils, peas, peanuts and peanut products and soybeans and soy products; starchy vegetables like potatoes and all potato products; salty or processed foods such as deli meats, pickled foods and ketchup; and sodas.

Protein from grass-fed meat, game meat, wild-caught fish and seafood, as well as free-range fowl and eggs, is central in the Paleo diet, which explains why many refer to this diet as a carnivorous diet. Proteins are important to maintain your lean body mass and keep you satiated between meals. Natural sources of protein are preferred to grain-fed meat and poultry, cage eggs and farmed fish because of the healthier fatty acid profile they offer. Grass-fed and wild meat have a better omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. Both omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids constitute essential fats in your diet, but modern diets contain disproportionally high amounts of omega-6 and a smaller amounts of omega-3, which is not optimal for human health. One of the goal of the Paleo way of eating is re-establishing a better omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in your diet.

The Paleo diet is not only a carnivorous diet because it allows the consumption of seasonal fruits and vegetables, although fruits and starchy vegetables are not recommended if you want to lose weight. Eat non-starchy vegetables in generous amounts, as they are an excellent source of health-protective phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals in the Paleo diet.

The Paleo diet recommends getting enough healthy fats in your diet. The best sources of fat for your health are monounsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids. These fats can be found in olive oil, avocados, nuts, seeds, wild-caught fish and grass-fed meat. Coconut oil is also a good source of lauric acid, a type of saturated fat also found in human milk and thought to have antiviral properties.

So is this diet really the best way to go? I don't know. Is this the final stage of my diet? I am not sure... hopefully I am not done learning and it will evolve. What I do know is that a majority of my inflammation problems have gone away and that it is fairly inarguable that my diet is more nutritious. Where a typical breakfast for me used to be a muffin and a bowl of cereal it is now generally 2 cups of spinach, a cup of strawberries and a cup of raspberries, and sometimes with a side of fish. In my eyes, I have made the correct decision.

Ref:
--"The Paleo Solution"; Robb Wolf; 2010
--Robb Wolf: Paleo Overview
--"Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy"; The Importance of The Ratio of Omega-6/Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids; A.P. Simopoulos, et al.; October 2002
--"Diabetologia"; A Palaeolithic Diet Improves Glucose Tolerance More Than a Mediterranean-Like Diet in Individuals With Ischaemic Heart Disease; S. Lindeberg, et al.; May 2007

Why does this guy do paleo?

After all, he is an engineer, what the frack does he know about nutrition?

I grew up in a small town in PA where there was always a plethora of things to keep you busy. As long as the only things you wanted to do was drink copious amounts of booze, eat yourself into obesity, and get into trouble.
I give you exhibit A.

That lovely creature is me, as a sophomore in high school. I tipped the scales at 295 lbs and what I can only assume was around 30+% bodyfat. Eventually I got so unhealthy I had no choice but to lose weight, by junior year I was 185. Enter the gym. After discovering weight lifting I went back up to about 200lbs and have hovered between 190-210 pretty much ever since (barring injury).

My diet "Improved" while in college. I went from a dairy heavy diet short on grains, meat, fruits and veggies to a diet heavy on dairy [7 gal of milk per week] and grains (whole grains) with moderate meats and fruits... sans veggies.

Post college a bit more balanced, a few veggies snuck in, less dairy [3-4 gal per week], more lean meats, some fruit. Eventually it payed off, but to get any really low bodyfat numbers I had to do more extreme diets. Probably my most fit to date was my trip to Greece 2 years ago after an entire month of eating no flour at all.
Exhibit B.

That was after a short swim off the cost of Santorini (best part of Greece I saw) where I shared the water with approximately 1.7 trillion sea urchins per square inch. Awful, but I digress.

I spent most of my post grad-school (the first time) career cycling my diet with my lifting to get stronger, but at the cost of my connective tissue. Many injuries and surgeries later, my joints hate my guts down to it's soul. I noticed that I was having a ton of inflammation related issues as well, terrible episodic stomach pain, joint issues, dry skin, cerebral conditions... very similar to the autoimmune based issues faced by my father. The final straw came on about 6 months ago.

While at the gym doing pull ups I noticed the tips of my fingers were numb, within weeks my hands, then by month 2 up to my shoulders -- Peripheral neuropathy without degenerated muscular involvement. Essentially, I felt no pain in my arms. That's awesome!! right?? wrong. I have a permanent burn scar on my left hand now due to not noticing my flesh being seared off until I hit the latter stages of a second degree burn. I'll spare you the Exhibit C of a photo of it.

The diagnosis was vitamin B6 poisoning... what? A water soluble vitamin poisoned me, yup. It was time to overhaul what I thought I knew about nutrition. I read a small library's worth of books and scientific journals on inflammation, acid/alkaline, paleo, vegan (as if I could have pulled that off), zone, Atkins, food pyramid, etc., and after digesting a bit of it decided to go paleo. Mainly, because it naturally swayed towards anti-inflammatory and alkaline balance, avoided glycemic spikes, and also because I could get balanced vitamin and mineral intake without the multivitamin that apparently poisoned me.

But what is it you ask? Well for those of you who stayed through that overly long back story, the next post explains...

Why is this here?

I decided to do this blog, as it's name might suggest, as a way of discussing with others Paleo diet and food. As one friend mentioned to me, when I go to restaurants, I should just request that the chef "hold the flavor" and I should be fine. I have now made it my goal to experiment with food, as I often do, to attempt to develop good healthy food (with flavor).

For those of you who are not familiar with the Paleo diet, I will make my next post(s) as an explanation of it, how strictly I follow it, etc. I envision this as a place for me to dump recipes of treats that I have developed or adapted. That way others out there who need some help making tasty treats on paleo, or if they just sound enjoyable, can get some ideas here. I will start all of the recipe posts with the title Recipe: "name" so that people interested in only food related posts can find them more easily. Hopefully you get something useful from the site, and that I can stick with making posts in some reasonably frequent pattern.