Last night, I had the second of three consecutive business dinners.  These occasions tend to be taxing on me but last night I was able to stay intellectually and emotionally present, without exasperation or getting disconnected with a desire to bolt.  I believe that’s progress.

New York is an awesome place for foodies. Turkish Kitchen is another of my favorites.  I unfortunately don’t go there often enough (once a month maybe?) because I run the risk of taking more time than I’d like including walking there and back.

The food was just fabulous.  I was very happy to see they had one of their lunch menus available for dinner (they called it the “Early Bird Special”).  I like fully structured meals.  They’re aesthetically beautiful.  Also, they ease one small anxiety I have in these situations.  Here’s Dirty Little Secret No. 3: I loooove dessert.  I never skip it at any lunch or dinner.  I find that most people in business settings will skip it.  I don’t.  So I will typically make the point upfront that I will be having dessert.  But a full prix fixe or pre-set menu accomplishes it automatically.  I like to completeness and balance associated with it.

I try to stay vegetarian.  To the extent that I can have a balanced fully vegetarian meal, I will.  At home, my wife is a kind artist who will structure meals just right for me.  Her gift of love.  But I love eating out too much and I will choose balance over vegetarian.  So I will eat fish at restaurants 3-4 times a week.  I also have to confess that I ate a pork medallion (in fig compote) in December at a place where there were no better choices; I loved it and my body tolerated it well after 7 years of no meat.

How did I get here?  Do I think it’s a good thing?  What does my body say?

I have always loved food (and dessert).  But I was not properly educated to think about it.  Never had any criteria for eating other than “do I like it?” and “am I full?”.

I have very bad genes relative to heart and autoimmune diseases.  By the time I was in my early 40s, I had ballooned up nicely to close to 200 lbs., size 42 pants and a slew of “lifetime maintenance” drugs.  A very dear friend of mine changed my life by gently suggesting that maybe I should read “The Zone” by Dr. Sears.  My friend knew me well enough (we’ve been buddies since we were 6) to appreciate that the accounting style suggestions in the book would resonate with me.  The book has enough science to sound credible for someone who had always ridiculed diets as fads of temporary hope and lunacy.

“The Zone” did indeed resonate with me to the core.  Two key messages came through: portion control, and balance.  For about a year, I carried a spreadsheet in my old brick Palm Treo (this was before iPhones) and would populate the numerical description of the meal I was about to eat to make sure that the “counts” worked.  That habit sounds crazy but came quite naturally to me.  After about a year, I got the hang of it and decided to drop the spreadsheet.  It was enlightening though.

“The Zone” doesn’t tell you “don’t eat potato chips” but if you do and follow the counts, it doesn’t work; you’ll go hungry all the time.  So I became a salad eater just to feel full.  After six months, I had indeed lost 50 lbs (which never came back).  After a year, my medical stats improved enormously and without telling my doctor, I stopped taking all medication.  Today, I take no drugs, legal or illegal, with the very rare exception of a headache pill every now and then.

But The Zone had its bad consequences as well.  I started drinking more because alcohol counts are so small, so I was very comfortable with a couple of glasses of wine with lunch and dinner every day.  Then, I ate a lot of meat and fish regularly, including smoked salmon for breakfast every morning.  After six months, my psoriasis was breaking out intrepidly.

Then, I read another book (still on paper) on psoriasis (of which I don’t remember the title but there are tons of them out there) that argued that the only way to improve psoriasis is through diet.  It pretty quickly went through the list of foods to avoid: alcohol, coffee, red meat, processed sugars, the usual suspects.  I decided to try it out for 6 months.  So while staying “in The Zone”, I eliminated red meat and coffee, moved to just fish and tea, kept my desserts and reduced the alcohol to 3-4 glasses of wine per week.  I tend to exaggerate my rituals, so fish became my staple 3 times a day every day.

My medical stats continued to improve and the psoriasis got significantly better.  But ultimately everything has a cost.  No free lunch my dear readers.  I discovered that my mercury counts were off the charts, so I had to reduce the fish dramatically.

Book #3 then came to my attention: “Diet For a New America“, by John Robbins of Baskin Robbins fame.  What a beautifully articulated book.  Extraordinarily convincing.  The argument flows at 3 levels: 1) health stats are better for vegetarians and even better for vegans; 2) the food industry treats animals horribly; and 3) producing meat protein consumes multiples of the resources used to produce vegetarian protein.  I was sold.  And then came the new experiment to go vegetarian, tending to vegan.

I tried it for a full year.  Quite a balancing kinda stressful act to stay veggie, mostly within The Zone and eating out a lot.  I tried new restaurants and came up with a list that covered foods, expected times, costs, etc.  This is really when I started appreciating Indian because I came to realize that there really is no better vegetarian eating than Indian.  Second place is Middle Eastern, which covers many similar cuisines.  But going vegan and eating out is almost impossible.  There are just not enough yummy choices.

After a year, my next annual physical came and my medical stats had actually deteriorated, particularly my colesterol.  I was baffled and sad.  Thus I abandoned full-time vegetarianism and drifted back to where I am today: pescaterian with the occasional “sin”.  Sometimes I’ll have escargot at my favorite French place and even though I don’t get tempted by beef generally, I do salivate a little bit around fois gras and pate.

Alcohol was another story.  Trying 3-4 glasses of wine a week became a nightmare.  I was constantly asking myself how many glasses I had had that week.  My hangovers increased over small quantities of red wine the night before.  And my cheeks would tingle when I drank it, like a novice.  I decided to solve the stress by simply taking the decision off the table: no alcohol.  Zero.  That helped me in social situations because I didn’t have to think about making exceptions.  And people started to know that I don’t drink and that was that.  That is one of the greatest decisions I have ever made since I have an enormously addictive personality as the 1000s of hours I spent playing Sudoku in years past would attest, and alcoholism runs in my family.

Michael Pollan wrote another fabulous book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma“.  So much thought and background work went into it.  I admire authors who will go deep into their subjects and research and toil to build their story.  It’s not all about the ability to put words together beautifully but also about having something to say to begin with.

While “The Dilemma” didn’t swing me to eating meat again, it does present very convincing arguments.  Even though little pigs make very cute pets, the idea hasn’t become popular (I don’t think my wife would agree to keep one at home).  Also, don’t remember the last time I saw someone with a cow as a pet in their backyard.  The point is that by consuming and utilizing domestic animals, we help their species survive.  Doesn’t justify brutality, but is a great case for humane treatment and allowance for carnivorism.

I don’t stress about food and counts as I used to.  I’ve learned to enjoy it and leave it there.  But I do watch my weight and my medical stats.  I also exercise a lot, for which New York is great given the opportunities we have to walk around.

So dear readers, that’s the story of how you got to have a healthy Doctor Conde puttering around.  Food is a critical part of the story.  Who knows, without these life changes maybe I wouldn’t have made it this far.

Here’s to life and health (and desserts).