Before we got out to the country, the country came to us.

The year was 10 days old when town shores received a solid, glassy little southwest swell. As it tapered off Friday, the country rose to 20 feet on a west-northwest swell.

By Saturday morning, some of that energy had wrapped into town: We awakened to hollow, 2- to 4-foot waves that packed that special country punch. As bodysurfer Nicky Droze told me in a recent email, North Shore waves are “a lot more powerful than every other side of the island.”

Yet that morning, for the first time in six months, I took out my newest and shortest board, which I’m far from mastering.

It’s easier to duck-dive. But the riding didn’t go well: I took a pummelling on the fast, steep peaks.

In the lineup, my neighbor Mark gently observed that I needed more velocity when taking off. “The groms are weightless; they just float into the waves on their tiny boards. We old folks have to paddle harder.”

Could Mark be saying I was fat? I had to admit that despite diligent exercising, I had gained weight over the holidays: Taking out my shortest board was the equivalent of trying to squeeze into that skin-tight pair of jeans.

But what difference could a couple of pounds make?

I asked Wendell Au, a bodyboarder and reader of this column who had emailed some tips on diet and surf.

Au said he has found that he performs best when he keeps his weight on the normal-low end of BMI (body mass index).

“When I’m just a couple pounds over, I can feel drag,” said Au, 54, who competes with 12- to 16-year-old bodyboarders at Cunhas, off the Kapahulu groin, as well as boarders and kayakers farther east at Suis, Old Mans and Pops. Exercise, he said, is not enough to keep you trim.

Au said he was overweight until about six years ago, when his primary-care doctor showed him a BMI chart and told him he was fat, despite all the biking, running and bodyboarding he did.

The doctor said Au had to ingest fewer calories rather than try to work off everything he ate.

It was then, Au said, that he began to eat “with the mindset of a warrior (not a king).”

Because his family has a history of heart disease, he’s motivated by longevity as well as surfing.

Since that doctor visit, he’s lost 25 pounds and kept it off, Au said, by following a vegan version of the Hawaii diet developed by Dr. Terry Shintani to treat obese patients in a Waianae clinic 30 years ago. Like those patients, “I eat uala (sweet potato), kalo and ulu (breadfruit) as often as I can get them,” he said.

While Au views his one- to two-hour bodyboarding sessions as “more rejuvenating than a workout,” he said that a plant-based diet can also provide energy and endurance to high-performance athletes like his friend, big-wave bodysurfer Droze.

“Fresh raw fruit eaten in liberal amounts make up the majority of my daily caloric intake,” said Droze, 29, who can stay out in the ocean for five hours at a time.

Droze’s breakfast typically consists of eight to 10 bananas blended with spirulina and a quart of water. Lunch is a big fruit salad. He also eats raw leafy greens, celery, cucumbers and other vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and nuts and seeds in moderation, “never more than a handful per day.”

He eats cooked foods, such as poi and steamed vegetables, only at dinnertime.

“I try to never overeat, but I am also very careful to not under-eat, either,” Droze concluded. But he’s an elite athlete; for most of us, the first part of that sentence should be the rule.

I admire Droze’s discipline — and his bodysurfing — but I prefer the way Au eats: green and orange vegetables, beans and tofu, nuts in moderation, grains and “unavoidable bad habits because I like to ‘crunch’: chips, arare, etc.”

As for whole grains, “My doc said rice color doesn’t make a difference in calories. I love white rice, but I eat it as a side dish, in a much smaller portion than typical plate lunch.”

Call it the local light diet — something I can apply to my approach to surfing, too.