There is some debate about the role of dairy in the diet and, indeed, there are a growing number of  people who avoid it completely for both health and humanitarian reasons. Still dairy plays in important role in many people’s diets and there is evidence that –when used moderately — it can help in weight control and provide vital nutrients.

One common problem with dairy is the presence of lactose, which is a sugar that is found in most milk products.  As it turns out, most mammals become lactose intolerant after weaning (humans are the only animal that drinks dairy other than “mother’s milk”) and many humans also have some inabilities to fully digest lactose.

According to the National Institutes of Health National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse,  most people with lactose intolerance “can tolerate some amount of lactose in their diet,” but as we age, we often find ourselves having problems handling lactose. Some populations are more susceptible, including African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, and Asian Americans.  Symptoms of lactose intolerance include abdominal pain, bloating, gas diarrhea and nausea.

Green Valley Organics lactose free kefi

The good news is that there are now plenty of lactose free dairy products, including an excellent line of yogurt, kefir and sour creme from  Green Valley Organics. All of the products sold under this brand are said to be lactose free. The company sent me some samples of its yogurts and kefirs which my husband and I put on our breakfast cereal nearly every morning.  Their lactose free kefir — which is delicious — is also gluten free and Kosher certified. The company’s yogurt (also Kosher and gluten free) is probiotic with “10 live and active cultures,” according to the company.

Green Value Organics is from Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery that also makes a line of goat cheeses, yogurt and kefir. The owner is Jennifer Lynn Bice who’s family has been in the goat dairy business since 1968. The company, which is based in Sebastopol, California  employs 45 people and is committed to being both socially and enviornmentally responsible.  Its milking parlor is run with solar powered hot water, its manure and hay terms are composted and used for vegetable gardens and, where possible, its reclaimed water is used for cleaning.

No Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO)

The company does “not support the concept of GMOs in food,” and pledges to “never knowingly use ingredients that contain GMOs.”

And, if you’re curious about how to milk a goat, check out this video from Redwood Hill Farm.

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Going to the Fancy Food Show for Nobelly Prize.com is like a pilgrimage for our staff. We get our gear all ready, good walking shoes, research done to check out where we should all go, and a discussion of what we think the new products will be.

We each have our focus.  Katherine Magid likes checking out the olive oils and tasting new crops and old favorites.  She really likes Lucero Olive oils, but this year she also really liked the flavor Nudo olive oil. She likes the Food Channel, so for her it is also fun to meet  “stars” from the shows.

My favorite this year is Souley Vegan. I liked their greens, black eyed peas, and the sweet potatoes, and fried “chicken.”  The first day their Mac and Cheese was really salty.  So I said something to them and I talked with the chef/founder  the next  day..and it was perfection.  I had a batch that had been sitting around too long.

Greens and black-eyed peas (Credit: Souley Vegan)

Souley Vegan is marketing to grocery stores  to carry their frozen packaged meals.  They also have a restaurant in Oakland California.  Which Katherine Magid ( NobellyPrize.com contributing editor) has eaten at many times.  I look forward to going to the restaurant and reporting back.

My new product winners are:

fomz.  This product is packaged and comes out like canned whipping cream but the ingredients are water, juices, cane sugar and other ingredients.    I have been using it for a topping on my version of banana split.  I cut a banana, put a berry or whatever fruit I have, spray a little of the lemon-lime fomz on it (4 calories of dairy free delight), and then put some nuts or dark chocolate bits on top.  I find it absolutely amazingly new and refreshing.  Some do not like it.  They find it weird and expect something sweet and it comes out more tart.

avitae caffeinated water

aviate: My other product winner is a 0 calorie and tasteless water that has caffeine in it.  You might want to know why I like it.  Not all people like coffee/tea…or the taste or calories of caffeine drinks.  The other reason I like it is because I go to listen to my son’s band  the Will Magid Trio and stay up late and drive home.  The water can stay in my car…for the drive home.  I get the water that I need and also the boost of the caffeine.  This is such a simple concept but it was a find at the show.  http://myavitae.com/  It also doesn’t stain if you spill it on your clothes or stain your teeth like coffee or tea.

It was also a joy to see so many GMO free products.  For some it was a moral decisions and for all it was a marketing decision.

I look forward to going to next year’s Fancy Food Show. Our next show will be the Natural Product Expo in Anaheim.  I really like this show because it is geared towards my lifestyle and eating habits with not only the food but its products.

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It’s no secret that people who lose weight likely have to work even harder than naturally thin people to maintain their lower weight. I’ve always assumed that this was mostly a psychological challenge, but Parker-Pope quotes research that suggests that we literally need to consume fewer calories (or burn more) than people of our same weight and age who didn’t have to diet to get there.

“The research shows that the changes that occur after weight loss translate to a huge caloric disadvantage of about 250 to 400 calories,” wrote Parker-Pope.  She gave an example of a woman who lost 40 pounds (17% of her body weight) who — based on a metabolic study — needed 2,300 calories to maintain that lower weight. That’s fine, but a typical woman or her age and weight could consume 2,600 calories a day without gaining weight. In other words, in addition to all the other factors, it appears from this data that people who have lost weight need to consume even fewer calories than their naturally thin counterparts.

For instance, one woman who entered the Columbia studies at 230 pounds was eating about 3,000 calories to maintain that weight. Once she dropped to 190 pounds, losing 17 percent of her body weight, metabolic studies determined that she needed about 2,300 daily calories to maintain the new lower weight. That may sound like plenty, but the typical 30-year-old 190-pound woman can consume about 2,600 calories to maintain her weight — 300 more calories than the woman who dieted to get there.

My own struggles

I’m writing this on New Year’s Day after weighing in a 174 pounds.  A few weeks ago In October I weighed 165 pounds after losing 21 pounds since February of 2011. In other words — in about two months I put back nearly half the weight I lost during seven months of dieting.

Unfortunately, this is not new for me. When I was in high school I was obese and lost 50 pounds the summer between my junior and senior year to get my weight down to about 150.  By the time I graduated from college I weighed 230 but I lost 80 of those pounds when I was 24.  Over the ensuing years my weight fluctuated between 150 and 200. I’d reach that high weight, go on a diet and lose it and then put it back on again.  In 2001 I dropped 45 pounds from 200 to 155 and kept much of it off for about five years. It crept back and in February 2010, I hit 186. It wasn’t quite the 200 pounds I weight in 2001, but it was too close for comfort.

Larry in October 2011 after losing 21 pounds

Larry Dec 26, 2010 -- 2 months before losing 21 pounds

Larry Magid at age 22 weighing in a 230 pounds

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by Larry Magid

For the past several months I’ve been on a “social media diet.” No, I haven’t been refraining from using Facebook, Twitter and other social media. I’ve been on an old-fashioned food diet with a 21st-century twist. I’ve been using social media and other technologies to help me lose weight.

The diet began on a Saturday morning in February — the day after I gorged at the Poor House Bistro, which bills itself as “San Jose’s New Orleans Joint.” There’s nothing wrong with moderate amounts of blackened chicken wings, Cajun popcorn or fried seafood, but in excess they can definitely add to your bloat. But the real problem wasn’t one meal — it was months of too much food and too little exercise.

So, I when I got on the scale and saw that I weighed 186 pounds, I vowed to take off at least 21 of them and, thanks in part to my use of technology, I accomplished that goal.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been on a diet. Ten years ago I dropped my weight from 200 to 155 pounds and many years before that — when I was in my early 20s — I dropped from 230 to 150 pounds. And there were a few other gain-and-loss spurts along the way, which makes me an expert when it comes to weight loss — I’ve lost hundreds of pounds during my lifetime.

Until this last diet, every successful weight-loss program I’ve been on has involved a human diet counselor. Either I would use the services of a company like the Diet Center or I’d work with a nutritionist. These weight-loss professionals would not only provide good advice but plenty of motivation.

At this stage, I don’t need a lot of advice. I’m well aware that if you consume 3,500 calories more than you burn, you gain a pound and if you burn 3,500 calories more than you consume, you lose one. I also know what foods are low in calories and have a pretty good idea of what is good for me. My problem has always been motivation. Without a counselor or nutritionist to “report to,” it’s too easy to abandon my diet. I have to admit that I need external validation.

But instead of hiring a counselor this time, I decided to rely on public exposure of my weight loss by using Twitter, Facebook and my fitness blog (NobellyPrize.com) to share my progress and setbacks. And to help me keep track of food intake, exercise and progress I used LoseIt.com, which is both a website and an iPhone app that allows you to set your goal, log your food and exercise and track your progress. The site gives you the option of sharing your progress with other LoseIt users and it has links to Twitter and Facebook, allowing you to automatically share the information with your friends and followers.

So as not to spam my Twitter followers (who care more about my tech postings than my fitness regime), I set up a special Twitter address at @NoBellyPrize. I posted to Facebook on a selective basis — occasionally but not every day.

I’m not suggesting that LoseIt.com is necessarily the best weight-loss site and app. There are plenty others out there, including SparkPeople, CalorieKing and of course WeightWatchers.com. But LoseIt, which is free, served me well. Its search engine makes it easy to locate foods by ingredient and brand name. It allows you to create your own foods, like my 275 calorie “Larry sandwich,” made of whole wheat bread, tomato, pickle, mustard and avocado. And in addition to its database of foods, it knows how many calories a person of any weight, gender and age burns per minute for most exercises.

For those of us who need a little help from our friends, the best thing about LoseIt is its “motivators” that allow you to automatically post your progress on Twitter and Facebook or email reports to others. My diet isn’t medically supervised but if it were, I’d probably send results to my doctor.

Another tool I’ve employed during this diet is the Withings Wi-Fi body scale ($159) which can be configured to automatically record your weight on a password-protected website and, if you want, can pass that information on to LoseIt.com, Twitter, Microsoft HealthVault or you can embed the information on any Web page. You can track my progress at NoBellyPrize.com but, truth be told, my data is incomplete and not necessarily up-to-date for a number of reasons, including my frequent travel.

In addition to its Wi-Fi scale, Withings also makes a blood pressure monitor ($129) that connects to an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to take your blood pressure and — at your discretion — share it with others. Even though my blood pressure is normal (and lower since my weight loss), I’ve decided not to share it. But for those who need close monitoring, it’s a great way to keep their health providers or loved ones up-to-date on how they’re doing.

Of course, the only way my “social media diet” will work is if I stay with it. Just as with human diet counselors, it’s easy to find excuses to disengage, which is one of the reasons I’ve had a lifelong battle with my weight.

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LoseIt Reports Progress towards goal

It took nearly 5 months but I reached my weight goal of 165 today on what I’m calling my “social media diet.”

It’s by no means the first time I’ve lost weight, but it’s the slowest weight loss I’ve ever sustained which, I’m told, is a good way to loose weight. My average loss was exactly one pound a week.

A little help from my friends

At other times that I’ve lost weight, I’ve used the service of a diet counselor or a nutritionist but this time I got the necessary support I needed via Facebook and Twitter.  To keep track of my progress I used LoseIt which is both a website and an iPhone app that lets you track your intake and exercise. LoseIt has a direct link to Twitter so my followers @NoBellyPrize got regular updates on my progress.  I don’t know if anyone following me really cared that much about these updates but dieting in a public way was helpful to me because it made me accountable — much as if I were “reporting” to a diet coach.

Another tool I experimented with was the WiFi Body Scale from Withings.  It’s a Wi-Fi equipped digital scale that not only tracks my weight on Withings site but Tweets it as well.  Frankly, I didn’t use that scale very often during my diet because I preferred to update LoseIt manually. But for people who like the idea of being forced to report their weight to friends or who just want an automated record of their progress, it could be a useful tool.

Withings WiFi Body Scale

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It’s taking a bit longer than I had expected, but I am making steady progress towards my goal of 165 pounds which is now just under 5 pounds away.

This is hardly the first time I’ve been on a weight-loss diet but what is different about this one is that I’m loosing it a bit slower than in the past which is actually a good thing. I’ve read that gradual weight loss is healthier and that you’re more likely to keep the weight off, though I have no illusions about the difficulty of maintaining a weight loss.

Feeling great

One thing I can say is that I’m feeling great now and have felt good since just after the first week of the diet. I think part of the reason is because I’ve been exercising consistently which not only burns calories but improves over all conditioning and plain makes me feel better.

Although I set my goal at 165 — which isn’t a bad weight for me — I’m likely to continue to about 160 which is closer to my ideal weight. Technically, I should get down to about 150 but I have no intention of doing that this time. I think my body will be happier around 160 to 165.

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For the past couple of weeks I’ve somewhat increased my food intake but greatly increased exercise and, based on “net” calorie consumption I should be loosing a pound or two a week.

As far as I can tell I’m doing things right.  I log all my food and exercise on LoseIt.com which tells me I’m well below my net calorie budget.  Of course, the body doesn’t work with the precision of an accountant.  Despite the well documented formala that 3,500 calories equals a pound, the amount of weight one loses during a period of time is not predictable.

Part of that could be measurement error. I don’t weight and measure everything I eat so there is the possibility of some inaccuracy though it shouldn’t be that far off.  Part could be muscle gain. As I exercise more, I should be gaining muscle but even though muscle weighs more than fat, I’m not exactly getting buff from my bike rides and light use of strength training machines.  The answer could also be that my metabolism isn’t what it used to be.  As we get older, we burn fewer calories so weight loss is a bit harder.

I’m not sure of why I’ve stalled but there is one thing I do know. I’m not going to let it discourage me. Getting into shape is a marathon, not a sprint and I’m in this for the long haul.

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It’s been about six week since I started cutting back on calories and increasing my exercise and I’m happy to report real progress.  My goal is to lose 1.5 pounds a week and I’m pretty close to it having lost just over 10 pounds so far.  The image below shows my progress as charted by LoseIt which is both an iPhone app and a website.

I have cut down on food but, for me, the key is exercise. With the exception of a couple of days on the road,  I haven’t missed a day using the elliptical and weight training machines at the Y or my indoor bicycle at home.  That’s what makes this easy and causes me to feel great. On days when I feel I’ve eaten a bit too much (or plan to eat a big dinner), I just add a half hour to my exercise routine and that makes up for about another 300 calories.

You can follow my progress (and find tips and resources for yourself) at NoBellyPrize.com and by following @NoBellyPrize on Twitter.

Chart shows drop from 186 to 175.6 since Feb 14, 2011

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