It Isn't Easy Being Green

It isn't easy economical being green. *FIXED!

Since I started my new job, I have been toying with the idea of using public transportation once a week, simply because I could.  The thought has been relegated, mostly in favour of sleeping in, but the idea itself has lingered in my mind as the possibility remained unexplored.  Then, National Dump The Pump Day came along on Thursday, June 19, 2014.  It was the ideal day to try it out!

Fortunately, my employer will provide All-Day passes to employees, so I requested them a little more than a week in advance, and I got them in hand on Tuesday.  That was pretty simple.

Based on where I live and where I work, I only needed two buses to get to work: one westbound and one northbound.  The westbound bus has a stop less than 1/10th of a mile from my entryway, and the northbound bus could pick me up across the street at the same intersection where I would exit the westbound bus.  That is not complex.

My exit would be in front of a shopping plaza, just past which is the office building where I work, so that walk was about three times longer than the other two combined, but the grand total of walking would be less than a half mile.  Not hard at all.

I dismiss Kermit's mantra that it isn't easy being green (maybe he's just doing it wrong).  Except, there are a few issues preventing this route from being a regular path for me.

First, the shopping plaza has several restaurants that I could frequent during my lunch break, but all of their meals are $10 plates on average.  For example, Pei Wei and Paradise Bakery are the cheapest.  Conversely, my lunch schedule consists of weekly visits to Taco Bell, Subway, and either Jack In The Box, Burger King, Wendy's, or Arby's (the average expense at any of them is under $4).  Then, I splurge once a week on my favorite pizza in Scottsdale, which is still cheaper than the first two options.

Secondly, the bus is scheduled to arrive at my first stop at 7:08 a.m daily.  On a normal day, that is the same time my alarm is set to go off (and I can still hit snooze once without being late).  My drive home can take longer, sometimes pushing 25 minutes where my quickest commute on Valley Metro is 45 minutes.

Finally, the gas prices are increasing.  Fortunately, my commute is 12 miles and my car gets at least 30 miles to the gallon.  All-Day passes are $4, and gas prices are currently at $3.50/gallon.  But, my employer covers the cost of the passes, so in that regard, public transportation comes out ahead!  At least for me personally.

Realistically, traveling to work through public transportation is not a bad option for me, but at this stage, there is no benefit except to vary my week occasionally (so I may consider this route once a month, instead of once a week).

In fact there is one plus for public transportation that I have not mentioned: I have a friend who takes the same southbound bus as I would.  If I coordinate my schedule with him, then it may justify taking the bus once a month (ignoring the fact that he and I could alternatively meet in the shopping plaza next to where I work, and then I'd just give him a ride home after happy hour or such.)

The Difference of -Er

I read an article from an outdated Reader's Digest this week comparing the health food industry to the fast food industry.  Its conclusion was essentially that the health food industry may get what it wants, and lose all it has now.  It compared the demands of time and money on shopping local, buying organic "healthy" meals to getting the fast food alternatives available now.

It noted that fast food industry has developed that much healthier menu that health food advocates have been wanting, but they have done it in a way with mass appeal (instead of targeting the vocal minority) that most of the improved changes to the menu are unnoticeable.

There was a line that focused on what I have been saying ever since I started eating healthier myself.  That is, the problem is not that everyone has to eat healthy; they just need to eat healthier.

Book like Eat This, Not That have said it, and maybe it takes becoming part of it in order to know it, which I did when I topped my scale at 190 lbs. a few years ago (back when I was spending $100+ week at restaurants), but you can never eat healthy enough, although eating healthier is probably all you need.

The health junkie niche market is never going to be full satisfied.  They are never going to agree.  It is as improbable as the sci-fi fanatics all agreeing on one set of facts (or, rather, opinions).  As loud as they can holler, they are still the minority.  People have decided for themselves where the costs of time and money rate against the benefit of eating purely healthy (which, again, is subject to opinion, and unlikely to yield universally favorable results).

However, they have given rise to the validity of their cause.  There are a lot of changes that could improve the fast food industry from years ago, and many of those changes are getting attention, thanks in large part to successful alternatives like Subway and Chipotle.

When I set out to lose weight in 2008, I counted calories.  I decided to limit myself to 150 calories in the morning, 300 calories at lunch, another 150 calories at 3:00 p.m., 500 calories for dinner, and another 150 calories in the evening.  One immediate benefit was that eating smaller meals more often was healthier than gorging at lunch and again at dinner.  The other was that my selection of meals required me to budget calories, so regular soda was immediately nixed and replaced by diet sodas.

Critics say that diet soda is extremely unhealthy, even more than regular soda, but Mayo Clinic reports that "drinking a reasonable amount of diet soda (...) isn't likely to hurt you," so I will stick with the independent researcher.  Add to that the reduction in pounds from the reduced calories, and the simple assessment that diet sodas are healthier than regular soda reclaims its validity.  While its research on the matter has been inconclusive, I will vouch that it has been an improvement for me.

My favorite improvement, though, was how I ate at Taco Bell.  It had recently introduced its Fresco menu, but it had not started advertising it under the Drive-Thru Diet slogan yet.  I found that the tacos were significantly lower in calories than their counterparts, so I could eat two Fresco soft tacos for lunch with a diet soda for less calories and less money than almost anything else anywhere else.

Initially, my goal was to drop 25 pounds in five months.  As it turned out, those minor improvements I made helped me lose 20 pounds so quickly that I decided to loosely count calories afterward and just work off the rest as I could.  I abandoned my strict diet and just focused on making permanent changes to my lifestyle.

I had critics throughout that time, telling me that I was not doing enough (or that I was doing it wrong, which was hilarious placed against the actual results).  As it turned out, eating healthier for me was very easy, and I did not even have to drop eating from fast food restaurants.  Namely Taco Bell, because it was the best example.  Critics assault Taco Bell for its questionable meat products.  But, after my diet and ever since, I've eaten their chicken tacos, which (treatment to the chickens aside) is not in the same conversation as the meat for which Taco Bell gets its flack.

Then, Taco Bell started to actively promote its Drive-Thru Diet, featuring the Fresco menu offerings, and the media backlash was immediate -- and ironic to me, since I just had an equally successful story as its spokesmodel.  That experience may have taught Taco Bell and other giants in the fast food industry about marketing, which is that the secret is to promote the healthier selections as delicious and desirable.  Do not challenge the health food fanatics to prove it was not the healthiest option, but simply give regulars an option to eat healthier without it costing more time or money , and then it has the ammunition to fire back against the pundits with its improved menu options.

This past October, I had another similar experience with working out.  I inaccurately assumed that I was in better health than I actually was, so when I decided to challenge myself to run, non-stop, for 20 minutes, it only took two minutes before I got in touch with reality.  I was nowhere ready or able to run 20 minutes straight (without risking unnecessary injury to myself).

Therefore, I immediately scaled back my expectations and my goals.  I had the benefit of the real world on my side now, and I was able to improve slowly through reasonable results.  I had set my mind to running for 20 minutes, but now I was just set myself to run longer than two minutes, then three minutes, and so forth.  I was able to improve through success, instead of failure.  To this day, I am not sure whether I could run 20 minutes straight in the fashion that I had initially envisioned.  But I improved my fitness levels by taking small steps toward real improvement.

For all but one, being the best is a goal of failure.  But everyone can make small improvements, and given persistence and priority, those small improvements will make a big difference.