Lifestyle Change 86 Poison ~ Year One

  Have you ever wondered how to un-fat yourself? The scientists at According to gf have been busy working on the system for your healthy future.

  "Fit at fifty" was a common dream of mine; therefore, in earnest I started to investigate how to accomplish that goal. I tried counting calories for the previous two years, and the result was a total loss of ten pounds and hunger for two years. However, I did learn several things during those years. First of all, when I ate more fiber I was less hungry. Secondly, the more sugar I ate, the less I could actually eat on my allotted one thousand calorie a day goal. High fiber, low sugar was the ticket. This translated into high vegetable, low processed foods and breads. However, this type of "diet" was unsustainable. As soon as the counting stopped, weight came back. One thousand calories a day for my 6 '2" 275+ pound frame was not an easy task. I needed fuel to function. I needed a sustainable long-term lifestyle change, not just a diet.

  A visit with the family resulted in a discussion about how to combat and/or control diabetes. Juvenile diabetes is debilitating and life changing. Researching lead to the conclusion that carbohydrate control was the key to success. The carbohydrate management research lead to the Atkins Diet. The Atkins diet that I had known seemed to have changed since I had last heard of it. I was not overly excited about the plan, as I had heard that the founder dropped dead of a heart attack. Upon further investigation, I discovered that he actually died of a severe head trauma after slipping on some ice. Click here to read a USA Today article written by his widow.

  The information that my wife and I found in the program lead to our researching glucose or sugar control. This is right up the alley where we needed to go to find out about controlling diabetes.

 " Eating the right foods can improve your body’s metabolism, particularly how it handles fat. When you eat fewer carb foods—relying mostly on vegetables rich in fiber—your body switches to burning fat (including your own body fat) instead of carbs as its primary fuel source."

  This is the golden information. Sugar is the poison. Food high in carbohydrates (which are converted easily to glucose in your body) is the enemy. Upon researching sugar, several other enemies of the body came to light. The next evil poison to come to light from this research was High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Inexpensive, and two to three times more sweet than sugar, this poison is in everything processed these days. Cheap non-food is what I call it. It is processed in your body similarly to alcohol and or other poisons. It robs your body of the ability to feel satisfied from eating. Listen to this video to hear more about HFCS. While researching HFCS and the body's trouble processing/digesting that substance, another poison reared its ugly head. Hydrogenated oil is the reason that more than half of America has a fat belly. It is processed oil that was designed not to separate, and to be "shelf stable". It is "shelf stable" in our bodies as well!

  Having armed myself with this information, I set some new lifestyle change goals. Having my lovely wife jump right in and research, cook, and read a thousand labels and articles helped us get healthy this past year. "Net Carbs" is a catch phrase used by Atkins that started to make more sense as we moved down this path. Not digesting poison in any form is our lifestyle change. In our "eat-on-the-run" society, this can be a challenge.

  From the 275 pounds that I weighed last year, I have lost close to fifty pounds in one year. I am not ever allowed to speak of my wife's weight, but she has had to change her entire wardrobe. Not bad for a lifestyle change. We just changed the way we ate with out trying exceptionally hard at all. We have done so without any pills, gadgets, or anything sold on the TV. We did not purchase an expensive gym membership or even workout very much, other than walking on occasion.

Preparing your mind is a vital part of a lifestyle change. If you do not diligently prepare your mind for success in this endeavor, you will most likely fail. A lifestyle change is needed. The loss of weight and a slimmer, more toned body are the mere results of the changes that you make in your everyday routine. I think that people focus too much on the results and not enough on the lifestyle change. This issue causes a short-sighted focus on the lifestyle change. Dieters get discouraged because they do not see immediate and fantastic results. Then they quit trying. Focus on a life style change, and there should be no disappointment. Set goals for yourself. A goal for me was not to eat sugar for a day, then a week, and then a month. Another was not to purchase or eat anything made with hydrogenated oil. Once I did those, I moved to High Fructose Corn Syrup elimination from my diet. A goal of walking two to three times a week was reasonable. Be realistic. Losing the weight slowly and the right way will be the result of a lifestyle change and not a quickie diet. If you were to lose two pounds a month, that would be twenty four pounds a year. I think three to four pounds a month would be a fantastic result. That is thirty six to forty eight pounds in a year. A better goal may be to follow this BMI chart provided by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.

Make a plan for success. Our plan is simple:

• Stop eating poison (hydrogenated oils, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and sugar/high carb low fiber food). I simply started off with not eating sugar. I copied my son's girlfriend Katelyn's idea of not eating sugar for a week. I did not realize how challenging that was going to be, or how much it would change my life. Poisons also include diet soda and fruit juice. Yes, fruit juice.
• Always eat breakfast (I also eliminated milk from my diet as it hurts my stomach. I believe I am lactose intolerant). Dairy is not your friend. By the way, 99.4% of all "breakfast food" is poison. Please be careful. I recommend two eggs.
• Eat until full. Eat often. Prepare healthy snacks (apple, veggies) for when you get hungry between meals. Full equals fiber. Fiber is the antidote for sugar in the body. 
• Treat yourself. Drink a glass of wine on occasion (Jesus made wine, it's OK.). Drink a beer on occasion, as long as it is a light beer like Michelob Ultra. Eat a treat on occasion. When I first started eliminating sugar from my diet, the treat eating was particularly important. Make sure that you have plenty of Atkins Bars or similar health bars on hand when you have a treat attack. Make sure that they are low in Net Carbs. I don't need those treat bars anymore, since I have beaten my sugar addiction. 
• Eat organic as often as possible. Another reason that we steered away from the Atkins bars for treats was their long ingredient list. That teamed up with long words on an ingredient list is not a good thing. An ingredient list for an apple bar should read apples, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, organic flax seed. 
• Purchase the tools. Tools for losing weight? I am not talking about some junk you buy on that info channel on TV. The tools of losing weight are: 
• A scale that you will put your chunky butt on every day when you wake up. 
• Food. Real food. No processed food. Food that is God-made, not man-made. Food free of hydrogenated oil, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and sugar. Yes, 86 sugar. Purchase food with fiber; white flour is junk.
• Shoes. Walking shoes and appropriate work out wear. Don't go crazy on this one. You are not on TV.
• Get a Posse. Help and encouragement are essential when making a lifestyle change. If you have a partner eating the same way that you do, it makes life easier. You will have less desire to eat junk if there is none of that junk to eat. Shopping with your partner and making wise purchases will keep you from "slipping". Talking about how you ate during the day will help you through the ups and downs.

Year one, check.

gf

Bacon or Sausage?

I have been reevaluating what I eat of late, and questions like "Bacon or Sausage?" randomly pop into my head. Inspired by a favorite youngster; I decided to follow her into the land of eating no sugar. This decision of course had to include three other substances. High fructose corn syrup, chemical sweeteners, and hydrogenated oils were part of the purge as well; because, as I had studied briefly, they were all poison.

These decisions made changes to my diet that I did not clearly envision at the time of the decision making. Sugar in America is king. I did not realize that everything had sugar in it. Bread was out of the question; doughnuts were a memory; cake was a bad dream. Then I continued with the label reading and found that, in America, if sugar is not in food it has been replaced with high fructose corn syrup. Most likely, if it is processed food, and it has neither sugar nor high fructose corn syrup in it, it has other nasty chemicals and hydrogenated oils.

This food enlightenment was actually easy to execute. I could eat meat and vegetables mainly. Fruit is good, but one must be careful. Not eating the average American bowel clogging foods, and eating too much fruit, will send you into a state of "over fruiting", which requires more time than necessarily desired on the pot. Initially the craving for bread and sweets was easily deterred through eating fat. Bacon and butter were my friends. I know that this sounds bad, but I figured that they were not on my poison list. Pork and fats are on another list. I realize they are not foods that should stay in my diet but I used them to curb my sugar/sweet dependence.

It has been over four weeks of no poison eating. I took a survey from employees, who all have an opinion, about eating pork (and usually everything else). Somehow, the conversation morphed into carbohydrates instead of pig consumption. Once I got past the whole "Carb" deal we were able to get some good feedback. Here is the unofficial accordingtogf survey.

1. Pigs do not sweat. That is why they are salty and taste so good.
   
2. Bacon is empty food, it is just fat.
   
3. Sausage usually had sugars added to it.
   
4. The Old Testament in the Bible forbade the eating of pork.
   
5. Pigs are dirty and eat anything.
   
6. Pork raises blood pressure etc and is bad for the heart.
   
7. Every Doctor recommends that you stop eating pork if you have health issues.
   

I figure seven is enough. It is also a good Biblical number.

Eating like this is fairly boring. I have decided that it is neither bacon nor sausage moving forward. Red meat is next on the chopping block, but I am not sure if one can live on fish and chicken alone. Broccoli has been the annoying choice of vegetable too many times. What is the obsession with broccoli? It must be cheap to grow; we Americans like to eat cheap food and food that is void of nutrition. I often walk through the grocery store and look into a shopper's basket; then I compare the basket to the shopper's shape. Here is a quick accordingtogf breakdown:

1. 80% Coke products, chips, and processed boxed foods 18% Processed Meat 2% Dairy = Morbidly Obese
   
2. 50% Coke products, chips, and processes boxed foods 25% Processed Meat 23% Chicken/Meat 2%Dairy =Obese
   
3. 40% Coke products, chips, and processes boxed foods 25% Processed Meat 23% Chicken/Meat 2%Dairy 10%Vegatables =Overweight
   
4. 30% Coke products, chips, and processes boxed foods 25% Processed Meat 38% Chicken/Meat 2%Dairy 5%Vegatables= Husky
   
5. 10% Coke products, chips, and processes boxed foods 5% Processed Meat 35% Chicken/Meat 5%Dairy 45%Vegatables= Normal
   
6. 25% Chicken/Meat 5%Dairy 70%Vegatables= fit
   
7. 5% Chicken/Meat 1%Dairy 90%Vegatables 3%Bottled Water 1% Toilet Paper = Weird/Thin
   

Eliminating the junk we eat starts with the junk that we buy!

Eating in this day in age for the more or less wealthy has become an activity instead of a necessity. Back when we had hair on our palms, we ate out of necessity. There was no luxury eating then, save when an elephant was snared. Even then, we could not keep that red meat too long before it rotted, or some Saber Tooth Tiger took it from us. Red meat was definitely a luxury and a rare meal. Chickens we could probably catch and breed. I have discussed this with my wife, but I don't think the neighbors would like chickens in the back yard. I am also unsure of my ability to raise chickens. There are many chicken questions that need to be answered before I attempt to be a chicken herder.

Fishing was the best option for dinner most likely. Being clever with a bow and arrow definitely helped in the dinner menu. Any berries, nuts, fruits found when scavenging about would have been eaten. Boxes of pre-made macaroni and cheese, and Lay's potato chips, however, were hard to come by. Eating has become an obsession for modern man. When the big asteroid hits, this will all change. I just hope we remember how to make beer and Bourbon. Bourbon has no Carbohydrates fyi.

I am going to continue not eating poison, and now I will not eat pork (so much). I have lost one belt loop and seventeen pounds in about a month. I have been exercising fairly regular except for this morning, as I decided to finish this blog. I feel fine and I do not crave sugar or bread anymore. I ate a strawberry yesterday and almost got a sugar high. I suppose I will update this story occasionally, but I do not think that the accordingtogf board of directors would approve of turning this into a weight loss blog.

gf