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FOOD RULES (an eater's manual) by Michael Pollan

Today was our last day of our "64 DAYS OF FOOD RULES" campaign.  We hope that you have a new and healthier relationship with food now.  Operation Boot Camp Los Angeles selected this particular book as the focus of our "food relationship" series due to the content, easy-to-follow chapters, and the easy-to-understand/implement information.

This is a great book and one that we suggest be part of your personal lobrary.  Continue practicing these very basic, yet common sense rules and you will continue your healthy journey feeling better & looking great! 

For more information, please visit www.michaelpollan.com.  This book may be found online or at a local Whole Foods store.

OBC Food Rules Day 64: Break the rules once in a while

Obsessing over food rules is bad for your happiness, and probably for your health too.  Our experience over the past few decades suggests that dieting and worrying too much about nutrition has made us no healthier or slimmer; cultivating a relaxed attitude toward food is important.  There will be special occasions where you will want to throw these rules out the window.  All will not be lost (especially if you don't throw out rule 60).  What matters is not the special occasion but the everyday practice-the default habits that govern your eating on a typical day.  "all things in moderation," it is often said, but we should never forget the wise addendum, sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde: "Including moderation."

OBC Food Rules Day 63: Cook

In theory, it should make little difference to your health whether you cook for yourself or let someone else do the work.  But unless you can afford to hire a private chef to prepare meals exactly to your specifications, letting other people cook for you means losing control over your eating life, the portions as much as the ingredients.  Cooking for yourself is the only sure way to take back control of your diet from the food scientists and food processors, and to guarantee you're eating real food and not edible foodlike substances, with their unhealthy oils, high-fructose corn syrup, and surfeit of salt.  Not surprisingly, the decline in home cooking closely parallels the rise of obesity, and research suggests that people who cook are more likely to eat a more healthy diet.

Last day and food rule is tomorrow!  Check back for one more great peice of advice regarding living a healthy and fit lifestyle.

OBC Food Rules Day 61: Leave something on your plate

Many of us were told by our parents while growing up that we should always clean our plates-an instruction that in later life we have perhaps taken a little too much to heart.  But there is an older and healthier tradition that holds it is more genteel not to finish every last morsel of food: "Leave something for Mr. Manners," some children were once told, or, "Better go to waste than to waist."  Practice not cleaning your plate: it will help you eat less in the short term and develop self-control in the long.

OBC Food Rules Day 60: Treat treats as treats

There is nothing wrong with special occasion foods, as long as every day is not a special occasion.  This is another case where the outsourcing of our own food preparation to corporations has gotten us into trouble:  It's made formerly expensive or time-consuming foods-everything from fried chicken and french fries to pastries and ice cream-easy and readily accessible.  Frying chicken is so much trouble that people didn't use to make it unless they had guests coming over and a lot of time to prepare.  The amount of work involved  kept the frequency of indulgence in check.  These special occasion foods offer some of the great pleasures in life, so we shouldn't deprive ourselves of them, but the sense of occasion needs to be restored.  One way is to start making these foods yourself; if you bake dessert yourself, you won't go to that much trouble every day.  Another is to limit your consumption of such foods to weekends or special occasions.  Some people follow a so-called S policy:  "no snacks no seconds, no sweets-except on days that begin with the letter S."

OBC Food Rules Day 59: Try not to eat alone

Americans are increasingly eating in solitude.  Although there is some research to suggest that light eaters will eat more when they done with others (perhaps because they spend more time at the table), for people prone to overeating, communal meals tend to limit consumption, if only because we're less likely to stuff ourselves when others are watching.  We also tend to eat more slowly, since there's usually more going on at the table than ingestion.  This is precisely why so much food marketing is designed to encourage us to eat in front of the TV or in the car: When we eat alone, we eat more.  But regulating appetite is only part of the story: The shared meal elevates eat from a biological process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community.