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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (March 16, 1987)
plement a frozen meal with a fresh salad, and you’ll do fine, in a pinch. Order out for barbecued chicken and some cole slaw once in a while, or some Chinese food, to keep things interesting and healthy; it might take a bigger bite out of your budget than you’d like, but if you're going to cut corners in the kitchen, you’re going to have to pay for it someplace else. Unlike Dr. Waylen, Harvard's Dr Stare isn’t much of a calorie counter, but he does admit that knowing the caloric values of foods does have its value. “I think one should understand that those foods which provide the most calories are those which contain generous amounts of fats," he says. "Also, most people don’t realize it but alcohol, next to fat, is the most potent source of calories. Now, I like to have a cocktail in the evening before dinner, but you have to ask yourself, do you want a cocktail or two, or do you want dessert? Take your choice." If you ask Dr. Stare, the worst eating habit you can have is to rush yourself, particularly through breakfast. Neither Dr. Waylen nor Dr. Stare puts much weight on the countless "fad” diets now on the scene, particularly those which claim that when you eat is as important as what you’re actually eating. "I think that's mostly a lot of bunk,” Dr. Stare argues. "Our eating patterns are designed pri marily by the way we were brought up, and by our jobs. It really doesn't make much dif ference when you eat, because you figure the food intake, the caloric intake, over a period of time, let’s say 24 hours." If possi ble, though, you should try to put yourself on something at least resembling an eating schedule; it doesn't matter when you eat lunch, but it's a good idea to try and eat it at the same time every day, allowing your digestive system to adjust to a routine. CASE IN POINT William, 28, was until recently a mid western attorney with a lot of bad habits to break. Now he's just a midwestern attorney who's decided to restore order and balance to his life and lifestyle The bad habits, most of them anyway, started in law school. He lived on campus then, in a single dormitory room with a small kitchenette; he thought he'd save board money and take his meals in. First mistake An avid soccer and tennis player as an undergraduate, William also decided to leave his athletic gear back home, thinking he'd have no time to mix work with play Second mistake. “I had no idea what I was getting into," William recalls now. “I'd kept hearing about how people lived their lives during first year of law school, about how it was so hard and everything, and I didn't know what to ex pect. I got there not expecting anything, really, which is why I didn't want to tie myself down to a meal plan, or to an intramural league. I wanted to leave myself open, you know, but then I /ust sort of got swept up in things. The time just flew by so fast, and I didn't pay any attention to myself, any atten tion beyond how I was doing in my classes." What William got swept up in was three years of not eating regularly, of relative physical inactivity, of sleepless nights. He did well in law school, well enough to land a $45,000 job with an Illinois firm, but he was running himself ragged. In retrospect, he feels he was a physical and emotional wreck "I didn't know what was happening to me at the time," he confesses. "I mean, I'd look around and I was no different than almost everyone else in my program I felt lousy, sure, and I was tired all of the time, but so was everybody else. Come on, this was law school, it wasn't supposed to be easy." It wasn't until he graduated and started working that William realized something was wrong "In school it was like I was treading water," he says, "you know, /ust struggling to keep up, and in the back of my mind I told myself I’d get out there, I'd start working, and things would be different, things would be better But then I started working, and things didn't get any better If anything, they got worse " William moved into his own apartment, but it took him nearly a year to set up his kit chen with plates and utensils and cookware. "I figured I'd be eating out most of the time," he explains, "but the way it worked out was I wound up skipping meals. I’d get home late from work, I don't know, nine, ten, eleven o'clock, and I'd just go to sleep without eating. And when I wasn't working late, I'd go out with friends for drinks or something All these appoint ments for drinks, and I'd never get a chance to eat Even if I just went out for a drink after work with some of the other associates, it'd be nine o'clock when I got home, and I'd be too tired to think about making any dinner On weekends I'd sleep In, and it became an effort just to move myself out of the apartment" Things might have deteriorated even fur ther for William if he hadn't met a certain special someone, a health-conscious girlfriend who helped motivate him to take better care of himself. “She worked out all the time," he says, "I don't know, four, five times a week, and at first I went to the gym lust to spend some time with her But then I got there and what I found was that I was out of shape, hideously out of shape, and this is someone who used to be something of an athlete I was really awful." But he kept at it. and slowly he worked himself back into form. He consulted the nutritionist at the health club and put himself on a diet that was strict only in the sense that he made himself eat three square meals a day The girlfriend who motivated him to shape up is history, but William's kept up with his new routine. "You have to," he says. "I mean, you work so long and hard to get to a certain place, it just doesn't make sense to run yourself into the ground. It gets to a point where it affects your work, and eventually, if you let it go long enough, it gets to a point where it can cause real problems, real physical problems. I used to be sluggish all the time, tired and pale. I used to have to drag myself out of bed, but now I try to work out as often as I can, get home early as often as I can. get to sleep early as often as I can, and I get up in the morning and for the first time I feel ready to start a new day. "I think about what things were like in law school, about how things were the first year or so on this job, and it's a world of dif ference. It sounds corny, but it's true, you really have to take care of yourself because you reach a certain point where no one's gonna take care of you anymore. You reach a point where it's up to you."
