Publisher’s Message

eat fresh.

Like most people, I’ve gone through points in my life where I could have afforded to lose a few pounds. The low point for me came probably eight or nine years ago, shortly after our first child was born. As the story goes, I told my wife that I was headed out to the garage to run on the treadmill and try out our new Ab Lounger—one of those infomercial contraptions that promises “rock hard abs in 30 days.” Anyway, I turned on the game, hopped on the treadmill and started my run. When I finished, I ripped off a few dozen sit-ups on the Ab Lounger. After a while the football game started to tighten up and become really interesting, and since I felt that I had done enough exercising, I decided to reward myself with a beer (from the fridge, also conveniently located in the garage). I took a seat on the Ab Lounger, reclining back as far as possible with my beer in one hand and the remote in the other. At some point my wife wandered out to the garage with our newborn. Her laughter said it all, but being the great wife that she is, she simply offered me another cold one. I was busted. And my abs were not getting rock hard as the Ab Lounger people had promised. I needed help. And it turns out that salvation would come in the form of a Subway sandwich commercial. The third quarter ended with a tie game and the television flashed over to Jared, who was hoisting up his 60-inch pants against a shadow of his former self, claiming that I, too, could overcome all odds and shed my beer belly—all I had to do was “Eat Fresh.” Sounded easy enough.

The next day I wandered into a Subway near my office. A bubbly young girl behind the counter enthusiastically greeted me and offered all sorts of appealing weight loss options. I settled on tuna, one of my all-time favorites. “Would I like to have double meat for just a dollar more?”… “Of course!”... “Cheese?”... Although not something I would normally put on tuna sandwich… “Sure!”… “Extra mayo?”… “Yes, ma’am!”… “Oil and vinegar”… “Yup, and yup!” I settled into my seat and savored every bit of the healthy goodness. My delight was compounded as I read the back of my napkin which detailed the calorie and fat content of a variety of Subway sandwiches versus places like Burger King and McDonalds. Incredibly, most of the sandwiches contained just six grams of fat, my particular variety was not listed but tuna, of course, is every bit as healthy as turkey, probably much more so. I tapped my feet with happiness under the table. My Subway diet continued for about a year. And I ate the same sandwich religiously every day for lunch prepared by the same girl who greeted me by name each time. That Jared guy was a genius and, as I told my friends, the Subway diet fit my lifestyle really well. The only problem was that I didn’t appear to be losing any weight. Actually, it was quite the opposite. So, I went online to subway.com to learn about their “additional nutrition facts.” Their sandwiches were listed in order of fat content starting with their vegetarian options. I scrolled down the page looking for tuna, scrolled some more—now with panic starting to set in—I scrolled down some more. Finally, there it was, dead last! A standard tuna sandwich at Subway, which did not include any of the extras was 48 grams of fat! Accounting for double meat, extra mayo, and oil, I was easily chomping down somewhere around 100 grams of fat every day… for lunch alone! Turns out that my sandwich was much less healthy than the Big Mac they had been comparing it to on the back of the napkin—actually make that less healthy than two Big Macs! So much for Jared and his stupid pants... I hope that 2013 is off to a healthy start for you. As always, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who had a hand in producing this issue of SLO LIFE Magazine and, most of all to our advertisers, who have made it possible. Live the SLO Life!