Day 9: anti-fragile dieting

Robustness is the ability to withstand shocks, especially when you apply the concept to management. I'm a fan of Nassim Taleb's writings on the idea of robustness and fragility, and his alternative idea of anti-fragility (see Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Incerto) if you are interested). A thing is fragile when it is unable to withstand shocks. Wealth makes us more robust. If you have a fat savings account, when you run into a financial hurdle, you dip into your savings account. To the degree your savings account doesn't run out while you are dealing with your financial issue, you are robust. Most poor people are not financially robust. One of the things Taleb points out is that many seemingly rich people are also financially fragile, but don't realize it. Carrying a large mortgage makes you financially fragile, for example, because if you lose your job, you may lose your house. And then you are jobless and homeless. If you buy a modest house and pay it off, and then lose your job, you are at least not jobless and homeless - you are robust.

So what's this got to do with the diet? Well, on the way into work on Day 9 I stopped at the Circle K to re-stock my office of a few things - some bananas, yogurt, peanuts. All three can last for a while. I also discovered the store carries cottage cheese - Circle K keeps surprising me - the closer I look, the more things I find there. I wonder if they've got onions hidden behind the counter. I really would like some onions. I picked up the three bananas above for $0.56. They don't look great, but they are actually in pretty good shape. Anyway, when I pulled in to the parking lot and got out my bags, I realized I had forgotten the tuna sandwich I had packed for lunch. Ordinarily not a big deal - I would have just gone over to the deli on campus, or the food court in the student union, or maybe even the dining hall. But with the diet ongoing, I was in a bind. No lunch. No real convenience store on campus. Because it was a snow day and I came in late, I had to park a mile from my office (no hyperbole - I hit 10,000 steps before I even got on the treadmill today), so I wasn't going back out to my car if I could help it.I have to confess, I had a moment of panic as a result - a flash back to Day 14 of the $3 Diet when I realized I had lost my egg. Happily, I realized that I had a bag full of food that I had just purchased. So no sandwich for lunch, but I wasn't going to go hungry the whole day. The rules of this diet allow me to be a bit more robust than the $3 Diet did. It wasn't what I planned, but it worked out ok. You might say this was even an anti-fragile moment - not only was I not harmed, but I learned a bit from the experience. In a way, experiments like this are all about anti-fragility. You step out of your comfort zone, shake things up, and see what happens. But it's a low cost stepping out. I could shut this experiment down at any time. The cost of doing it is low. The risks are low. Perhaps you could argue the potential benefits are small - and that may be so - but I'm having great conversations with people about the experience and challenges. I'm learning something, other people are learning something, and thinking about things they ordinarily wouldn't think about. That's anti-fragile.

So my anti-fragile lunch turned out to be:

Lunch	Quantity	Cost	Calories
Chobani yogurt	1.00	$1.79	140
banana	1.00	$   -	90	included in price of yogurt
coffee	2.00	$0.19	3
Peanuts	1.00	$0.50	260
		$2.48	493

I jumped ahead there to lunch, but I didn't mention breakfast. Since we had snow the night before, the school was delayed in opening to allow the trucks to clear the lots. That meant I had time to linger a bit, read the paper, and enjoy breakfast.

Breakfast	Quantity	Cost	Calories
Wheat Bread	2.00	$0.40	160
eggs	2.00	$0.29	150
Frank's hot sauce	1.00	$0.07	-
Coffee	2.00	$0.19	3
I can't believe	8.00	$0.10	30
		$0.95	343

I just thought I'd show you how I know it was 8 grams of butter. I use a digital scale for pretty much everything. I have to say, I don't know how we got by without a digital scale. I just bought this one on Amazon for $13 (I guess it was on sale - it's listed now at $25 (Ozeri Touch Professional Digital Kitchen Scale (12 lbs Edition), Tempered Glass in Elegant Black - you can find cheaper ones that work well, too) . It's a great tool if you're trying to get a handle on your eating. I really don't like the old spring scales with the dials - they were so hard to read precisely, especially when you are dealing with very small weights, like 8 grams. I don't have to guesstimate a tbsp of peanut butter - I just weight it out - 16 grams.

Dinner was, guess what? A tuna fish sandwich. Among other things. By the end of the day I really had a craving for salad, so back to the Circle K I went. This time they had chef's salads - for what that's worth - a couple of cubes of turkey loaf, and some American cheese - but it was a nice change of pace, even if it drove up my day's expenses quite a bit. Variety is sorely lacking in this diet.

 

Dinner	Quantity	Cost	Calories
bread, wheat	2.00	$0.40	160
tuna	1.00	$1.00	62
mayonaise	0.75	$0.06	75
celery	0.50	$0.19	3
chef's salad	1.00	$3.99	140
ranch dressing	1.00	$0.47	129
corn bread	1.00	$0.16	170
egg (in corn bread recipe)	1/6	$0.05	13
milk (in corn bread recipe)	0	$0.02	5
		$6.33	757

I walked on the treadmill for an hour for exercise in the evening while I Face Timed with my wife back in Texas. Good company for a boring activity.

After working out, I had a slice of bread ($0.20; 80 cal) with a tablespoon of peanut butter ($0.21) as a snack.

Day Totals:

Cost: $10.17
Calories: 1,763
Exercise: 620 calories from 17,580 steps
weight: 170.8