Drop Dead Healthy

by A. J. Jacobs

  “Welcome,” he says. “Would you like some tea?”

  I agree to some naturally low-calorie dandelion tea. We’re in a room with minimal decorations and a huge window overlooking a forest of oaks. An event organizer by day, Paul is slope-shouldered but sprightly for a man of sixty-four years. He’s got piercing green eyes, a deep voice with a little twang from his native Tennessee, and is partial to wearing tracksuits.

  We sit at the table with his wife and coauthor, Meredith Averill, sipping our tea.

  “The goal of calorie restriction is not to lose weight. It’s to be as mentally and physically healthy as possible. But you will lose weight.” Paul went from 163 pounds to 136.

  Paul eats a big breakfast (e.g., salmon, barley, lots of vegetable soup), a smaller lunch (e.g., veggie smoothie, veggie spread, and sprouted grain bread)—and no dinner.

  I have to restrain myself from making the same joke I know they’ve heard a thousand times. Yes, maybe you’ll live longer, but without lasagna and waffles, who the hell wants to? (Or the alternate: You may not live longer, but you’ll sure feel like you’ve lived a century and a half.)

  Paul shuts down that cynical line of questioning before I get to it. He loves his gorge-free life. Loves it. “I literally get high from it,” he says. “Calorie restriction makes me feel better in every way—physically and mentally.”

  His hand is resting on his chin, the wrist at a sharp ninety-degree angle. I can see a road map of blue veins in his arm.

  Among other things, says Paul, the diet clears him of brain fog—he competes in chess tournaments against people half his age. “I played this one guy—a grand master—who was overweight and scarfed down three pizzas. I knew if I could just hold on, his body would crash. So that’s what I did.”

  But I’m still puzzled as to how they can sustain the diet in a world that is so food-centric. Humans organize our very lives around meals.

  “There’s such an unbelievable myth that eating a lot is a way to have fun,” says Meredith. “But of course, it isn’t. When you’re around CR people, they’re usually quite active and elated.”

  Paul jumps in: On Christmas and Thanksgiving, he likes to fast instead of feast. No eggnog necessary: “If you’re on CR, you’re kind of high because you’re feeling good in the first place. You feel like interacting with people and that brings out great conversations.”

  When you’re doing CR, you have to make every bite count. Which is why Paul invented something called “savoring meditation.” I had read about the practice in his book, and ask if we could try it out.

  Paul obliges, and gets a bowl of blueberries from the fridge.

  We close our eyes and breathe in and out for a few minutes, like “leaves blowing in a wind.” Then he starts.

  “And can you imagine in your mind’s eye that someone has left you a gift.”

  Paul speaks soothingly, in a Mr. Rogers–ish tone.

  “And that gift is going to nurture your body in very special ways. And as you enjoy breathing in and out, you’re coming to know that gift is a blueberry. Can you imagine reaching into a bowl and taking just one blueberry, just one, and putting it up to your lips? You begin to smell what that blueberry smells like. And how does it smell? Would it be musty?

  “And so in your mind’s eye, you take that blueberry and put it into your mouth . . . and imagine how it might get from your lips to your teeth. And without biting into it, just have it there on the tip of the tongue . . .”

  By this time, Paul has me salivating. He’s a tongue-tease.

  “Could you taste it on the back of the tongue? On the roof of your mouth? Can you let the taste sensation permeate your entire brain, your entire mouth, your nose?”

  I. Want. That. Blueberry.

  “And now, can you actually put one blueberry into your mouth in slow motion, just like they do on those instant-replay cameras in sports? And hold it there without biting it? And your brain and your tongue and the roof of your mouth and your cheeks are all participating in the experience. And when you’re ready, can you begin to bite into it? Just very slowly. Can you taste the very subtle skin of the blueberry and how it meshes with the fleshy inside?”

  Oh man, can I.

  It went on like that for several minutes. I tell you, a blueberry never tasted so good. It’s an odd and goofy ritual, if not bonkers, but if you can’t appreciate a blueberry after doing twenty minutes of savoring meditation, you have a tongue made of stone.

  I leave Paul’s house with this lesson: I need to be mindful of what I eat. Maybe I don’t need to spend fifteen minutes contemplating a blueberry. But focusing on what I put in my mouth is a key to health. As Cornell psychology professor Brian Wansink points out in his book Mindless Eating, one of the major causes of the obesity epidemic is that we thoughtlessly shove omnipresent food into always-open maws.

  We love to multitask while eating, a sure way to get fat. Studies show that we eat up to 71 percent more when we’re watching TV. (And the number also varies depending on what we’re watching; one study showed that subjects who watched Letterman ate more than those who watched Leno, which seems a good marketing opportunity for NBC.) We eat more when we eat while driving, and working, and walking.

  I know whom to blame for this epidemic, incidentally. When I read the encyclopedia, I learned about the father of distracted eating. He was an eighteenth-century British gambling addict who invented a food he could snack on without interrupting his card game. His name was John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. So the humble sandwich, much as I love it, has caused a whole lot of trouble.

  The Most Mindful Eater in the World

  I get home, determined to be the most conscious and aware eater in America. That went to hell the next day.

  I was busy with an article for Esquire magazine—where I work as a writer—and at about 11 a.m., I noticed an empty plastic container and spoon on my desk. Somehow, I had managed to consume an entire cup of syrupy peach slices. It wasn’t me, actually. It was some semisentient, high-fructose-loving, zombified version of me.

  I need help. What I need to do is treat myself like a lab rat. I need to work from the outside in. I need to change my food environment. I call up several behavioral scientists—including Sam Sommers at Tufts University, who wrote a book called Situations Matter—to figure out how to design a fat-fighting apartment.

  On Wednesday night, I invite—or force—the family to join me for a special dinner. It’s my wife and I, and our three sons—Jasper, who is five, and his twin brothers, Lucas and Zane, who are three.

  “That’s quite a setup you have there,” Julie says.

  “Thank you.”

  My place setting consists of:

  • My son’s plastic dinosaur plate, since it’s only nine inches across. (We tend to eat whatever’s on our plate, so smaller plates mean fewer calories.)

  • A cocktail shrimp fork, since that will make me eat more slowly than if I had a big fork. (The more slowly we eat, the less total food we stuff in. This is because the body, God bless it, is dumb and slow. It takes twenty minutes for the “I’m full” message to go from the stomach to the brain.)

  • A small makeup mirror propped up by my place mat. (Studies show you eat less if you watch yourself doing it.)

  Tonight’s dinner is whole-wheat pasta with tomato sauce and carrots. I’ve plated my food in the kitchen so as not to have extra on the table, tempting me.

  We’re not a religious family. We don’t say grace. But I want my kids to realize the food didn’t spontaneously generate on their plates.

  “Should we talk about where this food comes from?” I ask.

  “The grocery store,” says Jasper.

  “Well, yes. But even before that, someone had to grow the tomatoes. And someone had to pick them. Someone else had to put them in a box, and someone had to drive them in a truck. So we should appreciate how much it takes to get food on the table.”

  My sons pause.

  “And after we eat it
, it will go in the toilet,” Jasper says.

  For the five-and-under set, this is a bon mot worthy of George S. Kaufman. They are off and laughing.

  “And after it’s in the toilet, it goes into the ocean,” adds Zane.

  I’m still amazed at my sons’ ability to convert any topic—not just food, but airplanes, LEGOs, Australia—into scatology. I guess it’s better than nothing. Food mindfulness doesn’t have to stop in the stomach.

  I take a bite and chew. And chew some more. I’ve been reading these pro-chewing websites on the Internet. It’s a surprisingly passionate movement. One member calls it “chewdaism.” They quote Gandhi (“chew your drink and drink your food”) and pro-chewing poems (“nature will castigate those who don’t masticate”). They sell chewing aids, such as a CD that chimes every minute, directing you to swallow. They revere the grandfather of the pro-chewing movement, a nineteenth-century health guru named Horace Fletcher, who counted John D. Rockefeller and Kafka among his followers. They say chewing will cure stomachaches, improve energy, clear the mind, cut down on gas, and strengthen the bones.

  Those claims are overblown. But chewing does offer two advantages: You can wring more nutrition out of your food. And more important, chewing makes you thinner, as it forces you to eat more slowly.

  Julie wants to ask me something, but I keep my finger in the hold-that-thought position. I chew thirty times, until my noodles are so liquid they slide down my throat.

  After fifteen minutes, the kids have abandoned the table. Julie is in the other room checking her e-mail. But I’m still here, alone, chewing my food and watching myself in the mirror. Slow food and children under six—that’s a tricky combination. Something to work on.

  Eating for Longevity

  Maybe I’ll have better luck with a meal with my grandfather. He’s ninety-four, so I figure perhaps he’s got more patience. And better yet, I can learn a thing or two from him about longevity.

  He lives in a small apartment on Sixty-first Street, where I have visited him every couple of weeks for the last ten years. I open the door, and find him in front of his huge computer screen, glasses perched on the tip of his nose, tapping out an e-mail. The font size looks to be seventy-two, about two characters per page. But the point is, he’s approaching the century mark and still typing e-mails.

  He gives me his usual raised-fist salutation. “Give me one second to finish this up,” he says.

  My grandfather is a remarkable man. His name is Theodore Kheel, and he has the relentless energy and hearty build of Theodore Roosevelt, for whom he was named. If I want to feel insecure, I need only think about his CV.

  His job was a lawyer. But that doesn’t begin to describe his range. He worked as a labor mediator, helping to resolve hundreds of strikes—transit workers, bakers, conductors, you name it. He supported the civil rights movement and threw fund-raisers for Martin Luther King, Jr. He owned a midget-pony dealership. Well, that last one didn’t work out so well.

  But the point is, he continues to be involved in an absurd number of projects. He promotes education in rural areas via computerized lectures. He’s investing in an eco-friendly hotel in the Caribbean. He encourages sustainable cuisine and fights overpopulation (though he did have six kids before he converted to that cause).

  Naturally, in the last couple of years, he’s slowed down. But not totally. At age ninety-two, he started a campaign to make the New York subways and buses free, arguing in op-eds that it would ease traffic congestion.

  He is not going gentle. And that’s no doubt one of the secrets to his longevity. The MacArthur Study of Successful Aging—a respected eight-year-long study of more than one thousand New Englanders—concluded that one of the keys is to stay active, connected, involved, and cognitively challenged. You can retire, but you must find something you’re passionate about in your retirement. You need some reason to wake up in the morning.

  My grandfather shuffles over to join me at the table. He’s stooped over, but he still has a full head of hair. His eyebrows are thick, shaped like arrows that point to the ceiling.

  We eat our meal unhurriedly. I’ve brought my shrimp cocktail fork, which I use to spear a salad. Usually, when he’s finished with lunch, my grandfather smacks his hand on the table. But we’ve been chatting and dining for an hour, and so far there’s no hand-smacking. We would make those slow-food Europeans proud.

  We talk about mass transit and the legacy of highway booster Robert Moses (my grandfather is not a fan). We discuss the movie he watched last night: one of his all-time favorites, Inherit the Wind, based on the life of another accomplished lawyer, Clarence Darrow.

  “Did you ever meet Clarence Darrow?” I ask.

  My grandfather shakes his head.

  “But I did see him speak once at City College,” he says.

  “You remember anything he said?”

  “I do remember.”

  “And?”

  “Well, it was about the sheer improbability that we even exist. The strange fact that out of millions of people in the world, your mother and father met and decided to get married to each other. And out of the millions of sperm, that the one with your genes was the one that made it to the egg and fertilized the egg. I’ll never forget it.”

  It’s a little weird to hear your ninety-four-year-old grandfather talk about sperm. But it’s still a great point. We should be amazed we exist at all. We ought to be in a constant state of wonder. Maybe we should spend fifteen minutes on a blueberry after all.

  Checkup: Month 1

  It’s been a month since I began Project Health. Here’s where I am: I’ve lost three pounds. The blue digits on my bathroom scale stop flickering at 169. In Julie’s estimation, I’ve gone from looking four months pregnant to three and a half months. This mindful eating is working, at least a little.

  Mindfulness has been the big theme of the month. It’s invaded every part of my life. Thanks to reading piles of books about health, I’ve become excruciatingly aware of all my body parts.

  When I breathe, I picture the tiny alveoli sacs in my lungs swelling with air. As I type, I visualize the stringlike flexor muscles tugging on my finger bones. As I eat, I imagine the pancreas squirting out its enzyme-filled juice, which swarms the peanut butter in the small intestine.

  It’s a mixed blessing, this mindfulness. Because with it comes anxiety. Lots of it.

  I’m more aware of all the horrible ways my body can malfunction. The Centers for Disease Control lists hundreds of diseases, running alphabetically from abdominal aortic aneurysm (a ballooning of the aorta) to zygomycosis (a fungal infection). I watched a TED talk from a doctor who said that our bodies are made of 300 trillion cells, and each of these cells is constantly replicating, and it takes just one of those replications to go slightly awry and a cancer could be born. My mother warned me this would happen. She told me the story—which is only half apocryphal—that med students panic their first year when they learn all the diseases. It’s not until the second year that they learn the cures.

  I’m more aware of my body’s many imperfections, the aching lower back, the receding gums, the posture of an exhausted marathoner in the twenty-fifth mile.

  I’m more aware of all the many, many changes I have to make to be optimally healthy. That fifty-three-page to-do list I keep on my desk, it haunts me.

  My overall strategy is to emphasize one body part at a time. That said, whenever there’s an opportunity, I’m also checking off items on the list—no matter which body part is my focus that day.

  Last week, for instance, I passed by a plant shop, and stopped in to buy an Areca palm, a task on the fourth page of the list. It’s supposedly good for air quality. Unfortunately, its fronds engulfed our entire living room. The boys had to eat dinner hunched over to avoid the branches. Julie made me return it. I replaced it with five smaller plants known, poetically enough, as mother-in-law’s tongue (they got their name because of the sharpness of the leaves). Mother-in-law’s tongue also effective
ly cleans the air, according to a NASA study.

  But there are hundreds of things left to do. I have to start sleeping longer. I have to eat better and stop swiping mac ’n cheese and pizza crusts off my kids’ plates. And exercise. Aside from an occasional quarter-mile jog in the park, which wipes me out for the next two days, I haven’t yet begun to sweat. That’s got to end. Or to start.

  Chapter 2

  The Heart

  The Quest to Get My Blood Pumping

  I’VE NEVER BEEN A FAN of exercise. I haven’t worked out at a gym my entire adult life, a fact Julie finds deeply upsetting. I have several arguments to justify this.

  Argument 1: The Jim Fixx argument.

  Here we have perhaps the most classic line of reasoning against exercise, and against healthful living in general. I’ve heard it often, and I’ve repeated it just as often. It goes like this:

  Jim Fixx—the man who helped start the modern fitness revolution, the author of the 1977 classic The Complete Book of Running—died at age fifty-two. He collapsed of a heart attack after his daily run in Vermont. So why bother? You never know when death will take you.

  The brilliant comic Bill Hicks—who himself died young, at age thirty-two, of pancreatic cancer—had a famous bit about Jim Fixx. He imagines an angry Fixx in the afterlife grumbling that he jogged every morning, ate nothing but tofu, and swam five hundred laps a day, and now he’s dead. Whereas hard-living actor Yul Brynner drank, chain-smoked, and had young women stroking his “cue-ball head” every night of his life. And he’s dead, too. At which point the frustrated Fixx utters a long, stretched-out “shiiiit.”

  My friend Paul gave me his own version of this argument recently. Actually, he whispered it to me, because he didn’t want our wives—both gym fanatics—to overhear us. “Think about it. An hour a day. That’s three hundred hours a year. That’s three thousand hours in ten years. Think of all the crops that could be planted in that time. Think of all the community service that could be done. And you’re extending your life. Why? So you can have five more years of drooling in a bucket?”