Special K? More like Stupid K.

I'm going to be honest, I've been looking forward to writing this post for a while, but I wanted to wait until I had the results of my body composition test. I got my second body comp test done today, and the results were really exciting: In a month, I've lowered my body fat by 2.3%, and am currently 17% body fat. This is the result of hard work in the form of working out 2-3 hours a day, six days a week, but relatively little change in my nutrition.

Here's the part I was waiting on: I actually have only lost three (total) pounds in the last month.

Now, I feel like I can write the post I've been planning on writing. And the premise is this: Special K is the embodiment of everything that's wrong with America.

Honestly, I could talk about Atkins or Nutrisystem or whatever. My point is, these diets focus on the wrong thing and are completely unsustainable, and that's a problem.

So let's talk about Special K. The cereal promises that by following their "diet plan," you can lose six pounds (!!!!) in two weeks! You do this by eating a bowl of cereal with skim milk and a piece of fruit for two of your three main meals a day, then eating a healthy meal for your third meal. You also get two snacks, like a Special K bar(!!!!!).

How is this healthy? How is it healthy to encourage women to substitute a cereal whose ingredient list includes "defatted wheat germ" and high fructose corn syrup and a myriad of other unpronounceable additives for real food?

The answer is, it's not. The Special K challenge is a diet. It's not a lifestyle change, and you're most likely losing water and muscle mass, not a significant amount of fat. I'd be interested to see how many women quickly gain back the 4.8 pounds (the average weight loss specified in the fine print) they lost when they go back to eating real food.

Diets are stupid. And you know what? Any diet that encourages you to substitute chemicals for real food is beyond stupid. If a diet tells you that you're not allowed to eat a potato, you should probably rethink the diet. Last time I checked, potatoes have one(!!!) ingredient, come from the ground, and supply you with lots of nutrients, even helping to prevent colon cancer. There is absolutely nothing wrong with eating a potato.

I digress.

My point is, if you're stressing over the number on the scale fluctuating by a few pounds, don't. If you've been eating fairly well and staying active, it's probably the result of water retention, or could be the result of fat loss but muscle gain. Instead of focusing on making yourself weigh less, focus on making yourself stronger or making it easier for your body to do the things you love.

And any way you slice it, eating cereal for two meals a day and supplementing it with low calorie protein bars isn't normal or sustainable. I lost 2.3% body fat while still eating cake AND ice cream AND peanut butter AND potatoes, among other things. And eating zero Special K. You can do it too.

Fake Food Friday

Part of being passionately curious includes loving to learn. In an effort to learn as much as I can, I’m currently working through the books I own that I have yet to read. I’m sure you have them too – books you bought with the intention of reading, books friends leant you, books you bought for school and never got around to reading… After going through pretty much everything I own, I went ahead and separated out the books that I own but haven’t yet read.

The first one I tackled, and finished on my ride to Rhode Island last weekend, was Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food:



I really enjoyed this book, and learned a lot about the development of the Western diet, the way our obsession with nutrition (taking lots of vitamins vs. just eating food to get nutrients), and ways to eat in order to live better and healthier. It definitely made me want to pick up the rest of Pollan’s books; I enjoy his writing style as well as the content.

Anyways, at the end, he provides food rules to follow – one of which is to just eat food. Food, not “food.” The way he puts it is that if your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize it as food, it’s not food. For example, did you realize that most breads in the supermarket today have tons of ingredients, most that are unpronounceable? Even whole grain bread? Or that skim milk isn’t just milk, but also additives to preserve flavor? In the last week, I’ve spent time reading food labels, and it’s definitely pretty eye-opening.

Which brings me to today. Last night, I was in the grocery store picking up a few things, and I came across this:



Kelloggs Krave. Obviously a “food,” and not FOOD. Inspired by my find last night, I bring you Fake Food Friday.  This may or may not become a regular feature, but I thought it’d be interesting to break down what Krave is, and isn’t.

I would guess that Krave is pretty tasty. I say I would guess because I didn’t actually purchase it, but in theory, it sounds like it could be a crunchy, delicious treat. It also sounds like it would make Cookie Crisp or Reeses Puffs look like granola. I mean, those at least spell their names right. I also kind of want to write Barbara’s and ask them to create chocolate-filled Peanut Butter Puffins (the world’s most perfect cereal). I digress.

Anyways. This is the nutrition label:



130 calories! It almost seems like a dieter’s cereal! Until you realize that it’s only for 3/4 of a cup (let’s be honest, nobody eats only 3/4 of a cup of cereal) and that it only offers two grams of protein. Which means you’re going to krave, errr crave, more pretty quickly.

The ingredients list has over 30 ingredients. Some of which I can’t pronounce. And the first two ingredients are Chocolate Flavored Filling (read: sugar) and sugar. Plus four different artificial colors. WHY on earth do we have a need to artificially color our “food?”

Last lesson from this edition of FFF": if you have to add the vitamins and minerals, it’s probably not Food. And Krave? Krave is definitely “food.”

Plus the font on the packaging reminds me of an alien.

Should Fake Food Friday become an ongoing feature? And more importantly, has anyone tried it? Is it tasty?