This blog has taken me several days to write, and to give you an idea of it's length, it is honestly a short book - 35 pages long in Microsoft Word . In case you want to 'cut to the chase', I have separated this blog into sections, but in doing to, you will be skipping over vital information:
1. Weight Loss and Fitness - The Big Mystery
2. My Personal Story
3. Going On A Diet vs Having A Plan
4. A Word About Willpower (It's not what you think it is)
5. Either You Want It, or You don't (The things that will prevent you from getting it)
6. Fad Diets (You'd be surprised at the list of fad diets!)
7. Fitness Gurus
8. What foods are best to eat to maintain an ideal body weight and good health?
9. So - What are the Good Foods and the bad Foods?
10. When is the perfect time to eat?
11. What’s in your tank, and how far are you traveling?
12. Getting down to the Nitty Gritty - which really isn’t nit or grit at all!
13. The simple stuff you really need to know
14. The Numbers
WEIGHT LOSS AND FITNESS - THE BIG MYSTERY
The Mystery? What mystery??? There is no mystery when it comes to Fitness, Diet and Nutrition. Absolutely none at all. Your body consists of cells, which can be broken down it
Remember this for the next time you are a returning champion on Jeopardy! (Although you will never, ever need to know it for any other occasion, including this one.) The human body is composed of the following substances:
1. 65% Oxygen
2. 18% Carbon
3. 10% Hydrogen
4. 3% Nitrogen
5. 1.5% Calcium
6. 1% Phosphorous
7. 0.35% Potassium
8. 0.25% Sulfur
9. 0.15% Sodium
10. 0.15% Chlorine
11. 0.05% Magnesium
12. 0.0004% Iron
13. 0.00004% Iodine
If those items look like 'pure science' to you, it is because it IS pure science. Not magic. Science. Science that we can account for, and that has a definite explanation. If you could package those items and sell them, your total would come to $4.50. Inflation has to be considered in that number, because the total was $1.87 when I was a kid! Weight loss and good health are just as exact as those numbers.
Good nutrition requires only a little knowledge, and nothing more. Basic knowledge of nutrition and fitness is all you will need. No products to buy. No special equipment is needed. All foods you will eat come from the grocery market that you shop each week
While I will try to be as delicate as I can, I have to disclose that I am not real good at pussy-footing, or beating around the bush. Anybody that knows me well enough can tell you that at my lightest moment, I can make Jillian Michaels from "The Biggest Loser" look like Mother Theresa on her best day. You won't be needing a shield or daggers to ward me off, however, you must be willing to remove all preconceived notions you may have about diet and nutrition, and to be 100% honest with yourself. Even though you should not do so, you can choose to lie to others. The people that you lie to might actually 'call you on it', and direct you in a more reality-based direction, but most likely, they will not have the huevos it takes to confront you, so they will merely smile and nod at you, knowing very well that crap is spewing out of your mouth. The only damage done in this instance would be to your character. If you lie to yourself, and you choose to continue doing so, you can kill yourself. Failing to care for yourself properly is negligence. Negligence is an action - it is a choice, and we are responsible for the choices we make. Although it is somewhat difficult, you can successfully recuperate from lying to others - assassinating your character.. However, if you choose to ignore your health and fitness, and you literally kill yourself, I guarantee you that the chances of your recuperation are extremely slim.
I didn’t weigh over 100 lbs until I turned 30 yrs old. I bicycled *thousands* of miles a year, and did hours of yoga and toning exercises. Arthritis kicked in, and I went from 97 pounds to over 200 lbs.
I have personal reasons for needing to remain as fit as I can. (Which is a constant battle, but, at any rate....)
If you would look through my photos, you can easily determine that I haven't always "practiced what I preach."
I was born with early-onset osteoarthritis. This is the type of arthritis that normal with the aging process, but a small child should not have this disease. Even though there will be a time in my life - and probably in the near future - that no amount of weight loss or exercise will stop the crippling and painful effects of arthritis, I am determined to not sit idly by while I am being wracked with pain. This is one reason I like to explore as much of my world as I possibly can. If I am going to be in pain while I am on this planet, I am going to enjoy myself as much as possible. Can you imagine what a grump I would be if I just sit still somewhere, aching and fuming at the world? My conclusion: If I am going to pay a higher price than most people around me to live on this earth, I am going to get the most for my money!
I was also born with a severely clubbed foot (inherited) that was marginally successfully surgically corrected. I will not go into gory details, but a large portion of that particular surgery failed, and the Doctor in the Emergency room wanted to immediately amputate my foot - in the hallway of the hospital!
Through the persistence of those around me, my the surgical team manage to salvage my right foot, and once again, using auto-transplants (from my own body parts), they managed to rebuild my foot once more. I was never intended to be employed 40 hrs. a week for the duration of a normal career. My ankle just couldn't take it. But... I worked in a restaurant for 8 yrs - standing on hard floors, and I was a nurse for 10 years. I finished my employment by walking 6 days a week on concrete floors on a flower market for 5 years. I did the best I could do with the body that I was given.
Before I became officially disabled, I bicycled 3 times, all or in part, across the state of Missouri on a touring bicycle with 70 lbs of luggage and a touring trailer.
Am I bragging? Well, of course! Why? Because I have worked hard at overcoming obstacles just to be at the level of a normal, functioning person - and then I accomplished feats that many able bodied people haven't even bothered to dream about. If you work hard at achieving a goal, you deserve to be proud of that accomplishment.
OK...OK... We have talked about parts of my body that aren't entire normal that may be visible to the John Q. Public. However, I have other hidden, more sinister reasons to eat a healthy diet.
Please trust me when I tell you that I have not lost my taste for sweets! I envy the person that tells me that he / she "don't like sweets!" I know where the best bakery is in the St. Louis area - Mac Arthur's Backer. I know where every coffee shop and doughnut shop is in this area, and shops such as: My Just Desserts, Ted Drew's Frozen Custard, Marb's Candies..... I think you get the point. While I could be a semi-vegetarian without much coercing (I have never had a steak or ribs in my life - honesty!), I am a great example that a semi-vegetarian can very easily be a fat person. I LOVE MY SWEETS! Somebody pass me a couple Cadbury Eggs - and a box of Peeps!
Since heart disease and diabetes are strong genetic factors in my family, I have to be on an immediate alert for both. I am already in the early stages of heart disease, and I am hypoglycemic, which can be a precursor to diabetes. I do not want to have heart failure or a heart attack, and I like my 1.5 feet right where they are, thank you, very much! So, I will be putting forth my best efforts to ensure those things will not effect my life. If my efforts are in vain, and I still have a heart attack, or I develop diabetes, it certainly cannot be said of me that I did not give prevention my best efforts.
WHERE'S THE BATHROOM?
Due to the urging of a friend, I had a colonoscopy to determine the source of a life-long affliction with severe, chronic diarrhea. I am not talking about having a couple loose stools a day. I am talking about being on the toilet at least 30 times a day, and often sleeping in the bathroom because I can't get back to bed before I have to return to the toilet. Before I had my colonoscopy, I had to take a potassium supplement daily for a few weeks before my test, to ensure that the additional "prep", let's call it, would not further deplete my potassium levels to the point that I could go into cardiac arrest! The only results from my particular colonoscopy was an Emergency room visit at 2:00 AM that evening (early morning), because I had a 103 degree temperature, I was so severely dehydrated to the point that I received 2 litres of saline via an IV that ran straight in without a drip rate, and that I had not stopped passing copious amounts of blood. The diagnosis: My biopsy sites had become infected, and were still bleeding!
Incidentally, I did go to see my rheumatologist concerning arthritis. Her name is Dr. Sandra Hoffman, and she is also a fantastic internist. During the course of a conversation, I told her of my gastrointestinal symptoms. Because these matters are second nature to her, she quickly told me, "If you still have one, your gallbladder has never worked correctly, and you are producing the wrong amounts of certain enzymes. ." Such is the story of my life. If I eat a little sugar, my pancreas sends out massive amounts of insulin - far more than is necessary to cover whatever the amount of sugar I just dumped in my system, whether it is large or small. If I eat more than a bare minimum of fat in my daily diet, I am stuck on the toilet for days because my gallbladder / liver has overreacted to the situation.
Back to Willy Wonka's Accidental Chocolate Factory: I can personally keep Johnson & Johnson in business with my Imodium AD purchases. I will not leave the house to travel more than *2* miles without taking 6 - 8 Imodium AD tablets at least 2 - 3 hours before I leave the house - every time I go anywhere.
With such considerations, there is no such thing as 'impromptu' or impulse shopping in my life! Traveling is an absolute nightmare, and is down-right cruel, given the fact that I am a person that likes to experience as much of the world as possible. I have to start preparing a couple days before I leave for my trip, cutting back on my food intake to the point that I feel absolutely starved. The day before I leave, I start taking 3 - 4 Imodium AD tablets at a time, at least twice the day before, and about 6 tablets a few hours before I leave the house. I am not talking about such a trip that I am boarding a plane for a flight across the country. I'm talking about ANY trip more than 20 miles from my home! I do know several people that would embrace such a routine, but about 30 years ago, that routine quickly lost any of it's original charm for me!
While I am not here to discourage individuals from having a colonoscopy, I am here to encourage the general public to undertake such testing for the right reasons. I spent several thousand dollars of my own money, and the tests turned up 100% negative for any findings. In *my case*, a colonoscopy only added more misery to my suffering.
BOTH doctors that I saw for this problem did tell me the same thing, and they asked me the same questions:
1) "When you go into any public place, whether it is a shopping mall, single store or restaurant, you automatically scan the place, just so you will know where the restroom is located, don't you?"
My answer: "Yes, I do."
2) "Would it be fair to say that you often go to the bathroom more than 30 times a day?"
My answer: "Yes, I do."
3) Statement: "You can't stop eating. I know...I know....'Little in = little out', but you can't stop eating. Most people with your condition choose to stop eating, and they quickly become underweight."
Ultimately, their response is:
"We've seen this before, but don't know what it is." After that closing statement, I was left to my own devices. Please keep in mind that my college education and my only professional license is in nursing. There is **NO** feeling that is worse than being abandoned by people of your own profession!
HOWEVER.... there is now a name for my condition. Even though everybody that has these symptoms are often herded into the same "Irritable Bowel Syndrome" group, there are two conditions that are in this group, instead of one. One is, IBS, of course. The other - the one that my genetic pool dealt me - is called Habba Syndrome.
Most likely millions of people diagnosed with either “IBS” or spastic colon have Habba Syndrome. It is estimated that approximately 45 million American suffer from “IBS” or similar conditions. According to Dr. Habba’s study, 41% of patients had Habba Syndrome.
For more info:
http://habbasyndrome.com/Habba_Syndrome_Diagnosis_Habba_Treatment_Location_Summit_NJ.html
My personal assessment from the information gathered, and from my own research:
a) I do buy into the fact that I overproduce every substance my body has ever put forth. Any stimulation (just a little fat in the diet, or just a little sugar, etc, results in the over production of bile, less production of enzymes that I need, and an over production of insulin. To put it mildly, the effects of all that over production are not something that I either want or need.
b) I have psoriasis. Psoriasis is not "eczema". Psoriasis is an auto-immune disease, much the same as Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Chron's, and many others. There is no creme, no quick fix or cure for psoriasis. On a good day, the symptoms can be treated, but it will never be fully cured.
I do know that psoriasis is often linked with arthritis and gastrointestinal problems, such as Celiac Disease (gluten intolerance). There is a varying degree of Celiac Disease in an effected person. One can be slightly intolerant to wheat (gluten), and have diarrhea, bloating, etc, or as little as 1/8 teaspoon of a wheat product can severely effect some individuals. It has been suggested to me that even though I might not have the worse case of Celiac Disease, the same gene that is causing Psoriasis might be causing the copious number of trips to the bathroom my entire life.
c) I have Chronic dry eye syndrome that is directly related to the intake of fat in my system. A short version of the story: The more fat I have in my diet, and the fatter my body is, the dryer my eyes become. It can get so bad that I get eye infections, and my eyelids literally shred my corneas. OUCH! You can't see with shredded corneas, or at best, you will see 8 of everything! Try to read a computer screen, drive, or watch TV with fly-like vision! It doesn't work for me! I have to keep the fat cut in my system if I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars of my own money EACH MONTH for Restasis.
If help is not readily available, what can I do about my problem? Such is another chapter in "The Story Of My Life", I decided to take the bull by the horns, and fix the problem myself.
I did the following things:
1) I cut the fat in my diet to the point that I get enough for metabolism and to maintain my health, but no more than is absolutely necessary.
2) I cut my wheat / bread items to a minimum (celiac disease), but have not entire eliminated either group.
3) (This would have absolutely killed me, and honestly required me to wear a Depends undergarment if I chose to to this before beginning my plan): I added massive amounts of fruits and vegetables to my diet. There is **no** fruit or vegetable that I absolutely do not like. I love them all, and a conversion to being a complete vegetarian would not be a difficult move for me. If I would have added this high amount of fruits and vegetables to my diet before I cut the fat in my diet, I would have been hospitalized with dehydration because of the diarrhea.
4) I added exercise to my daily routine. Not just 15 minutes - a half an hour to an hour. Dr. Hoffman (rheumatologist) knows of my extensive orthopedic history. She told me, "You cannot jog or walk far, you cannot lift weights. Bicycling and calisthenics seems to be the best exercises for you. You might not be able to do those other exercises, and I would encourage you not to do so. However - you should find an exercise that does not produce pain (swimming is good, too), and DO IT! Please do something!. I got on a bicycle and bicycled across the state of Missouri 3 times. I replaced my computer chair with an exercise bike that has place for a book.... I put my computer keyboard in that slot, and now, when I'm on the computer, I'm on the bike!
What is the result of these things I have incorporated into my life? Weight loss and NO DIARRHEA! For the first time in my LIFE, I do not have diarrhea. Since we're already on the subject, those of you that have given birth knows what it feels like to have a large solid object pass out of an orifice in your body that usually passes a liquid! The first few times - O U C H ! ! ! ! But, it was an 'ouch' that I was willing to get accustomed to. What is the moral of this chapter of this particular saga?
***The things I incorporated into my life produced results. I lost weight, I feel better, and I move better. If I am a gimp, and I can do it, I know that you are probably not a gimp - so you can definitely do it!***
However (don't you just love 'howevers!)... With the lone exception of being able to shop in the boy's section of the department stores, I love the way I look when I have some weight on. I look more manly, this big beard fits my face, and I have very few wrinkles. When I shrink, my beard will look HUGE, with a body parts excluded, I have the body of a 12 yr. old boy - a small 12 yr old boy, at that! - and instead of looking younger than those that are my age (42), I look OLDER than they do!
We all have choices to make. The medication that was prescribed to me to treat my psoriasis merely reduced the 300 lesions I had on my **legs**, alone (not considering the rest of my body!) to mere red spots, and was not successful in ridding me of the lesions. In addition, I was directed to wear gloves to apply this medication all over my body! Why wear gloves? Because the medication is toxic to the liver...yet.... I am still smearing it all over my body! HUH? The only other choice in my treatment is sun bathing! My dermatologist told me to get as much sun outdoors as possible. He said that if that wasn't possible, to go to a tanning bed regularly, and if I didn't have enough time or $$ to go to a tanning bed regularly, that I should buy my own tanning bed. He stated that in the case of the type of psoriasis that I have, my exposure to ultraviolet rays (the sun / tanning bed, etc), my benefits far outweigh my risk of skin cancer. Being told such a thing is like a Dr. telling me to smoke and drink, but hey - who am I to question authority? So.... For two years, I paid a monthly fee and drove to a tanning salon 3 x a week without fail. Having to go to the tanning salon 3 x a week before I went home from work was quickly wearing on me. I eventually went out and spent $4,000 on my own tanning bed. It is now sitting in the basement. I tan every other day for 27 minutes. Lucky me, eh? Not so fast there..... There is a down-side to looking like George Hamilton: An increased rate of wrinkling. The first sentence of this huge paragraph mentions 'choices'. Here is another choice I had to make: I could either look like a combination of George Hamilton and Moses, or I could look like a leper. I quickly got tired of wearing shorts into a store in April / May, and hearing gasps of people as they stared at the scabby, bloody lesions on my body, so I chose the George / Moses thing.
Three of the choices I have made concerning my health so far are:
1) I can eat the same diet as the 'normal' American public, and not move, and I can crap my brains out, or I can alter my diet according to my needs, and be able to go shopping without visiting EVERY restroom in every store that I walk into.
2) I can sit around, and allow arthritis to turn me into a pillar of miserable stone, or I can get moving to the best of my ability.
3) I can be fat and look lovely, and risk dying, or I can lose weight, taking the strain off my guts, my joints and my heart, and look OLD. I chose OLD. OLD is better than DEAD, in most cases.
4) I can look like a bloody leper, or I can look like George Hamilton and Mose's love child. My choice: Put a staff in my hand, and turn a fan on me to blow my hair back! I am baby Moses!
If I had a nickle for every time I heard the phrase, "I am going on a diet.", I would have enough money that would allow me a life style that probably would not include blogging! If I had a nickle for every person that made that statement that actually lost weight, got physically fit, and stayed at an ideal body weight for an extended period of time, I would not have access to a computer, because I would be homeless!
Whether it be good or bad, everything we eat consists of our "diet". Let's reserve the word "diet" for that purpose, only. You have to get a plan - and stick to your plan, you will be successful. See! I told you no magic would be involved!
This plan should be in use all day and night, EVERY day and night! Every morning, you should plan your meals and snacks for the entire day. Any time you veer from this plan, you will certainly fail your mission and your objective to lose weight and live healthier. If you were once impulsive, any impulsive behavior should now be left in the past.
Having a plan prevents you from stopping by a restaurant that originally had no intention patronizing. It will also prevent you from picking up that candy bar while standing line at the grocery store. This is the tape that I want you to play in your head when you are faced with decisions that are originally not in your plan: "No, I will not eat that cake. It is not in my plan." or "No, I will not stop by Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch. It is not in my plan."
However....Let's consider the fact that we all have social functions to attend, such as retirement parties, birthday parties, family reunions, and the over-stuffed Holiday season. You can by all means still have that piece of fudge and a glass of rich egg nog. I will join you! As a result of that behavior, we should have cut calories out of the meal previous to that snack, or the meal after the snack, AND spent an extra half hour on the exercise bicycle. It's all about trade-offs, folks. Nothing magical or mystical about that!
A WORD ABOUT WILLPOWER
When I tell folks that I bicycled 3 times across the State of Missouri (via the Katy Trail), and I talk about fitness or weight control, I will **always** hear, "Wow! You must have a lot of willpower!" Dear reader, you should see their faces when I tell them, "No, I have no willpower at all!" Those folks are all too eager to argue with me, until I tell them that willpower is an emotion. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Let's take a brief segway.
Question: What is the opposite of "Love"?
(The answer I usually get): "Hate!"
The correct answer: "Indifference!"
Why, you ask, is "Indifference" the opposite of "Love" or "Hate"? The answer is simple, really. Love and Hate are both emotions. Love, Hate, Anger, Jealousy, Fear, Willpower.... they are all equally emotions - none are the opposite of the other.
None of us feel LOVE or HATE in the middle of the night. We are all fast asleep! Nobody is angry 100% of the time. It is the same with "Willpower". If you get up in the middle of the night, and you have had a birthday party for your daughter, and there is a rich chocolate cake on the counter, please be aware that your "Willpower" switch will not be in the "On" switch. That emotion will be gone, and so will be the chocolate cake!
A plan is in play at all times, while willpower takes those pesky, unannounced vacations.
A few short realisms before we begin:
1) No excuses will be allowed.
2) "Human Nature is a poor excuse for bad behavior. Even our thoughts are our behaviors, and you are responsible for those, too.
3) "Can't" never did, and never will.
4) The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
“I meant to do good” won’t get you anywhere, unless you back up your efforts with knowledge. You can either intentionally or unintentionally sabotage yourself.
You can gain any and all knowledge you need from this, the internet, or books. You don’t need **any** diet book. Simple science that you learned in high school will do! A calorie-counting book is good if you re like me, and don’t have a smart phone or a computer handy at all times.
5) Being ignorant of facts is no excuse. You can gain any and all knowledge you need from this, the internet, or books. You don’t need **any** diet book. Simple science that you learned in high school will do! A calorie-counting book is good if you re like me, and don’t have a smart phone or a computer handy at all times.. Your local library is also a good resource, although you need information that is quicker than going to the library.
Not knowing (or caring) how many calories is in the food your are eating will not keep you from gaining weight, it will just kill you quicker.
6) Sabotage can be from family, friends - or yourself, and it can be done either intentionally or inadvertently.
7) How many times have you heard this:
"I have to lose the weight?"
HUH? What "THE????" I can guarantee you that people say that phrase to remove themselves from the problem - to create a distance because they either don't want to face reality, or they are embarrassed by the state their body is in. It's "YOUR" weight, baby - not "THE weight! You have to name it to claim it, and now would be as good of a time as any to do so.
Once you have come clean with yourself, the rest is easy. Remember - there is no magic involved here.
8) Eating healthy is a way of life, and requires a life-style change. You will not get permanent results from a “diet“.
Many people want a ’change in their lives’, but want to do nothing different than they have been doing in the past to make that chance possible.
Don’t expect a difference if you don’t want to do anything different! Eating a half a bag (or full bag!) of chips will not produce a thinner, healthier YOU. With the right eating plan established, and an exercise routine in motion, a hand full of chips every now and then will not harm you. Once a week or once a month is ’every now and then’ - don’t make me split hairs here!
9) I can predict with 100% accuracy that if you want to lose weight and get in shape without changing anything in your current life, you will fail 100 % of the time. If you chose to tell yourself - and the rest of the world - “I don’t want to count calories, and I don’t want to exercise. I want to lose weight and be healthy without taking the effort to do those things.” OR “That is too much trouble. I don’t want to do those things.”, I guarantee you that if you are still alive this time next year, you will look, move and feel the same as you do right now. You have to make a HUGE change to make a HUGE difference. There are no miracle fixes or cures, and there are no two ways about it!
10) You are not depriving yourself of ANYTHING. There are a couple ways of looking at this situation:
a) When you were overindulging your entire life, you were enjoying the full-calories sodas, steaks, cakes, cookies, pizza, fried foods (I think you get the picture) at THAT PARTICULAR TIME.
Fast food restaurants, and restaurants, in general were originally created to feed travelers, such as traveling salesmen. Are you a traveling salesman? Probably not. Therefore, *any* restaurant, whether it is a sit-down restaurant or fast food, should not be a part of your daily or weekly diet, and should be reserved as a very rare treat. Human bodies were absolutely not designed for that high of a fat / calorie intake on a regular basis. How natural are those foods? If ihe food is square, pre-frozen, breaded, deep-fat fried, slathered with artery-clogging condiments, slapped on a bun and thrown out a window at you, I guarantee you that it isn’t fresh, wholesome or nutritious. I can back up that guarantee!
b) I can also guarantee you that if Cadbury stopped producing those wonderful eggs at Easter time, I would be the **first** person in line to buy 6 CASES (not boxes!) of them, and I would fight to the death anyone who dared get in line in front of me. The same goes with Sugar Peeps, Crème horns, and much, much more. We have to keep in mind that for years, we enjoyed these things in an over abundance, and we refused to exercise. At this very moment, we have another task at hand. We want to trim down, start moving and get healthier. We can STILL have those things. They are not going anywhere! And when we do reach our goals, we can have **one row** of Sugar Peeps. Actually, they are 100% fat free, and only 150 calories per row. All things considered, if you eat just one row, the nutritional price we pay for this item is quite low, and is well worth including in a daily eating plan around Easter. Trust me when I tell you that the Peeps are probably the best choice you can make in the Candy Isle at Easter, if you eat just one row!
In other words, these items are not going to become extinct. You can have them - in MODERATION - later. IF you choose to think otherwise, you will fail in your efforts to lose weight.
11) “The best way to finish a job or task is to BEGIN!”
12) *ANY* person that abides by good exercise and food intake guidelines that tries to tell you that he / she is never hungry are outright liars.
I don’t care what the advertisement says. I don’t care if it is in writing, on the radio, by word-of-mouth, or on television. Advertisers of crap-products give desperate people false hope, and even though they ethically and morally *should not* lie to you, their freedom of speech allows them to do so. As I just mentioned: It is clear that their conscious hasn’t stopped them, so their right to freedom of speech gives them the right to spew out such crap. It is **YOUR* responsibility to do your homework, and to cut them off at the pass! Have you ever heard the old adage, “Believe only half of what you see, and none of that you hear?”
Desperate people will spend a lot of money on a quick fix. If there was a quick fix, such as a pill or a magic diet that REALLY worked, there would be a line around every Walgreens in the nation - or - there would be no fat people. Period. There would e any fat people on the planet, because they would have bought the miracle product, and used it!
You probably didn’t pack on the weight in a week, and it is going to take much more than a week to take it off. It is truly plain and simple as that.
No tricks are involved. It is simple math and nutrition. That is all you have to know to get weight off, and keep it off.
The following are fad diets:
* Cabbage soup diet
* Grapefruit diet
* Fit for life
* Fruitarianism
* Israeli Army diet
* Macrobiotic diet
* Nutrisystem
* Paleolithic diet
* South Beach Diet
* Gerson therapy
* Low-fat diet
* Atkin's Diet - yes, I said ATKIN'S DIET
Add to this list: Any book that pushes a particular name, any pill that promises to take weight off / keep weight off, and any cookie or nutrition bar that promises that it’s consumption will produce a weight loss.
They just don’t work, people.
The following is criteria that can be used to determine whether a diet is a 'fad diet' or not:
1. The virtue of a particular food or food group is exaggerated and purported to cure specific diseases, and is therefore incorporated as a primary constituent of an individual’s diet.
2. Foods are eliminated from an individual’s diet because they are viewed as harmful.
3. An emphasis is placed on eating certain foods to express a particular lifestyle.
4. READ THIS: "IF IT HAS A NAME, IT IS A FAD DIET!" It's that easy, folks. Good diet, nutrition and exercise does not have a name attached to it. No fad diet is required. Fad diets were created by the people who are perpetuating them to make the seller money!
The only skills required to get to your best body weight and fitness level is good reasoning, simple math skills, and the ability to read.
I have heard the excuse, “I can’t listen to someone who tells me how to eat healthy and to exercise, and they have never been fat in their life!”
Both Richard Simmons and Susan Powter were at least 100 lbs overweight before they got fit and healthy. (There goes one excuse flying out the window, eh:?)
I do back three people in the exercise / fitness world. Please keep in mind that these people never sold packaged food, pills, powders, or nutrition bars of any time. The only items they sold were cook books and fitness videos.
A) Richard Simmons. How much you hate him doesn't matter a bit to me. There is no possible way I could care less. You can find good books from Richard Simmons demonstrating great isometric and toning exercises that require no additional equipment, other than your own body. His videos will get you moving.
B) Susan Powter, of "Stop the Insanity". Oh, you remember her! Think: Short, spiky blonde hair stuck on an energetic, bouncing little body. Her dietary and fitness tips are invaluable, and are as follows:
* You MUST do three things to achieve and maintain fitness: EAT, MOVE and BREATH! There are very specific reasons to do all three. EATING keeps your metabolism up, so your body will not go into a state of starvation, and your metabolism will not decrease in a state of self preservation. MOVING not only burns off calories immediately, but it also does the more important task of keeping your metabolism up, long after you have quit the exercise, including long after you have gone to bed, and deep BREATHING. Your body cannot metabolize the foods we eat with an inadequate supply of oxygen, and most of us to not breath deeply enough.
C) Jack LeLanne - self-explanatory! The man just passed away on January 23, 2011, at the age of 96, and was exercising until just a week before his death. I'm thinking that most of us will be extremely lucky to live to *SEE* 96, much less be doing physical exercise a week before his death. Besides good genetics, I'm thinking the man was doing something right.
Although they are related, and they overlap several times, "Ideal Body Weight" and "Good Health" are two different things. How many times have you heard of a famous athlete, jogger, bicyclist or runner dropping dead during their fitness training, or some time after? Answer: Most of those deaths can be attributed to undiagnosed conditions and predetermined genetics. That is one way of looking at the situation. The other way is that even though somebody can be an absolute twig, they can be nutritionally deficient: They are not getting the proper vitamins and minerals from the foods they are eating. From these samples we can easily see how "Good Health" and "Ideal Body Weight" go hand-in-hand, yet they should be viewed separately.
Along the same train of thought is the fact that an obese person can easily be malnourished. How is this possible? Malnutrition does not only apply to a thin, starving person, but it the term also applies to a heavy person that is living off hamburgers from a fast food joint and candy bars. There is no way possible that this person is getting all the right vitamins and minerals his / her body requires. They ARE getting adequate calories - not adequate nutrition. Therein lies the difference.
Back to the original question:
What are the best foods to eat?
Personally, I know a young man that lost 200 lbs. while attending high school with me. He ate one Snickers candy bar per day, and lost over 200 lbs. I know there is a question, so here is the answer: Although this is not **AT ALL** completely necessary to lose weight and maintain good fitness and health, this particular young man's family paid for him to see a professional nutritionist. He told her that he was not opposed to exercising and losing weight, but there was one thing she had to do for him: She had to work in one Snickers candy bar into his daily diet. So, in other words, there was a 250 calorie chunk of his daily calories that he choose to eat as a candy bar, instead of an entire plate of good food, and that he would have to be satisfied with that one candy bar. Personally, I would choose the plate of nutritious food. You can eat **FIVE** cans of green beans, or one candy bar, since they have the same number of calories. We all have choices, and he chose the candy bar instead of a meal. To each their own, I say.
I am blind in my left eye (inherited), and I suffered severe brachial nerve damage to my right shoulder at birth. My right arm did not function **at all** for the first 2 weeks of my life, before I regained limited use in that arm. Due to the nerve damage, the muscles in my right arm were not correctly stimulated during my growth, and my right arm is now 4" shorter than my left arm, and I can't turn my hand "palm up". HOWEVER....I can still type 80 WPM, and I play one of my may keyboard instruments at least 2 - 3 hours a day.
SO - WHAT ARE THE GOOD FOODS & THE BAD FOODS?
The honest answer: There are *NO* good foods or bad foods. HOW MUCH YOU EAT of those particular foods, in relation to the amount of calories your body needs per day makes the food “good or bad”., not that particular food, itself.
Heed the example above, of the young man the choose a 250 calorie candy bar instead of a meal. About 3 hours, I made myself a huge chicken and vegetable wrap for a total of about 320 calories, and I ate it all. I am still nowhere near hungry, and I won’t think about food for a couple more hours. In a couple hours, I might eat a very light supper, and that is end of my food intake for the day.
I will be the first to admit that the 320 calories in the chicken / veggie wrap that I had for lunch is more than the 250 calories in the candy bar. How can ore calories be good for you? The chicken wrap might have had 3 grams of total fat. The candy bar has 14 grams of fat! The 3 grams of fat and 320 calories is a healthier choice for my specific daily calorie intake than the 250 calorie candy bar with 14 grams of fat (More on the numbers later….)
If you want to feel somewhat full and satisfied, you will choose foods that are higher in bulk, and lower in calories. In this manner, you can eat more, feel ore satisfied, and get your vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that are not found in the candy bar.
I am tipping my toe more into the nutrition pool than I expected to do so at this point, but while we are here wading out in this pool, let’s visit the grocery store.
There are laws and rules on this planet. The Law Of Gravity is one example. It states that if you jump off the roof of a 10 story building without any type of device to slow your decent, you will die. The Law of Gravity is a law that cannot be broken. A Rule is a principle with broad application that is not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation. In other words, a rule generally does apply to most like situations, but not always.
Back to the grocery store. The following image is roughly representative of the typical grocery store lay-out:
As a *rule* it is generally healthier to eat “around the outsides of the grocery store, rather than in the middle.” I am not speaking in tongues, I did not finally break a vessel, and I didn’t just lapse into Swedish . Another visual aid, a diagram of a layout of an average grocery store:
Most foods that can be found in their natural state can be found in the Produce, Meat and Dairy and other departments that circle the ‘outside’ of the grocery store, rather than the inside isles.
As I previously stated, there are exceptions to rules. You must be an avid label reader under all circumstances. The exception to the “eat around the outside of the store rule” is the fact that there are grains and frozen foods in the middle of the store that are better choices than the bakery dept that is on the outside of the store. As a general rule, however, the inside isles are where you will find over processed food items that under no circumstance could ever be found in nature (Review our ‘Survivor” trip, discussed in the following “What‘s In Your Tank“ section). Some good exceptions to this rule is prepackaged Healthy Choice meals, Lean Cuisine, frozen fruits and vegetables, etc. Although many of these frozen meals will not teach you how to cook for yourself, they are great if you are on-the-run, and they will teach you what a portion size should look like, when you cook for yourself.
While I am not one of those “raw foods only” extremists, I will readily lean to the “more natural the food is, the better it is for you.” Even still, you need to familiarize yourself with the calorie count of every bite (or sip!) of food that goes into your mouth every day, until it becomes second nature to you. DON’T FRET and DO NOT tell me, “Oh, that is too much work!” or “OH, that is too much trouble!” It was second-nature for you to shovel pizza in your mouth like there is no tomorrow, and once you learn a new behavor, it will become second-nature, also. Remember, you will not see a change in your life until you do something different to make that change happen.
You can wake me up at 3:00 AM, and ask me the calorie count in virtually *any* food item, and I can tell you the correct answer with deadly accuracy. Luckily, there are nutritional labels on the foods that you buy that are required by law that provides this information for you. With a little work, this information will become second nature to you, too. You can’t get the job done without doing work.
It is an unfortunate fact that a lot of the ‘larger print’ on items is misleading, and it it your responsibility to learn these traps, how to be aware of them, and how to avoid them.
SOME of the traps you will see:
1) 95% Fat Free!
My observation: How many calories and grams are left in the other 5%? These advertisements can be good things, and they can be…traps. If I see an item listed as 95% Fat Free, I will pick up the label, and do the math. If my findings tell me that this is, indeed, a good item to include in a healthier eating lifestyle, I will put it in my basket. Unless you have done this, yourself, you can’t imagine how many times I put it back on the shelf, and seek a healthier choice!
2) Reduced Fat!
My Observation: Not much different than ‘95% Fat Free.! Personally, I am thrilled that these companies have reduced the fat from a previously less--healthy choice, but, is the difference from the original product great enough to make a difference? Sometimes - yes. Sometimes - no. *YOU* have to be an informed consumer, and *YOU* have to look out for yourself. YOU have to do the math to make the ultimate decision, whether the item is a better choice, or not.
3) “Light / Lite” ….syrup…. Brown sugar…. Lite ANYNING.
My observation: In the USA, companies can use labeling to indicate ‘lite’ simply to indicate a color change! A lighter colored pancake syrup vs. a darker colored syrup, for example. By law, the word ‘lite’ does not have to pertain to a healthier food choice, it merely has to indicate a color change. “Lite” does not pertain to a nutritional difference, and this item usually has close to the same calories as it’s ‘normal’ counter part.
3) “Only 100 Calories per ounce!”
My observation: On the surface, I want to be thrilled that food companies are trying to help the consumer make healthier choices, but, there is a more sinister side to this story. 99% of the time, if you look at the serving size on the package, there will be
The following images came from the same packaging for raisins:
This is the actual label from the individual rasin box, in the same package:
Even though the information on the first label (on the outside of the packaging) is not an out-right lie, it is definitely misleading. The average person would pick up this item, and put it in the shopping cart thinking she was getting 100 calories per SERVING, not knowing that each box is 1.3 servings. This is actually a mild case, and such label discrepancies are usually considerably greater. When we review the actual label, we notice that we will be eating 1/3 more calories for this product than we originally planned. IF you include this difference as part of your daily intake totals, it is not a problem - it is a part of your plan. It can definitely be problematic to unknowingly eat 1/3 more calories per day than you originally intended.
It is imperative that you are constantly vigilant in doing your homework.
There is a sub-sub chapter (not a typo!) to this subject:
Let’s visit a couple more dietary urban myths:
1) You need 3 square meals a day.
Visit this link to see where the “3 square meals a day” fallacy began.
It was a British Naval thing (they ate on square plates!), and it had nothing at all to do with nutritious meals!
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070604095545AAuKW5C
2) Breakfast is always the most important meal!
Un - no! They are all equally important! Your metabolism doesn’t take a break, and neither should your general nutrition.
WHAT’S IN YOUR TANK,
The human body has several built-in safety devices. One of them is a mechanism that ensures that you will not starve in the immediate future.
**Any** calories taken in that your body does not need on a particular day, or over a period of time will under no uncertain terms, be converted to excess body fat.
**Any** calories that are burned over and above the daily requirements of your body will result in a weight loss.
Those are unavoidable facts, people, I guarantee you. I am not (yet) a writer of fiction.
Let’s get back to the tank.
If you are taking a trip in your car, you will know that you have “X” amount of gasoline in your tank, and you can probably drive “X” amount of miles before you need to fill up your tank again.
If you put too much gas in that tank at the pump, it will over flow.
Unfortunately, if you put too many calories in your body, they do not simply ‘overflow’. They will stick to you until you decided to do some work to take them off!
As luck will have it, if your car runs out of gas, you will stop dead on the interstate. If your body doesn’t get the number of calories that your metabolism is expecting you will have a weight loss.
Your gas tank (belly!) should be full only if you anticipate taking a trip (functioning throughout your day, a mild work out etc. The only restriction I have with time and food is this that you should not eat within several hours of going to bed. Why not? Your body is sleeping at night - you aren’t going on that proverbial trip. Don’t fill up that tank if you aren’t planning on going on a trip? (Have you had enough of metaphors for a while? )
Let’s take a look at the animal world for more clues. I do know of several species that go long periods of times without eating. Snakes, for example, and wolves sometimes won’t make a kill for a couple days or more. Most other species - fish, monkeys, apes, cows, and many, many more are “grazers”. They eat small, frequent meals throughout the day.
If you stop and think about it, have you ever seen a FAT wild animal?: No, you haven’t. A fat wild animal has the word “PREY” written across his forehead. Animals have to be fit and capable of out running their predators to avoid becoming just another statistic in the food chain.
While we are on the subject of nature, I want you to imagine, if you will, that we are on the reality show, “Survivor”, or that we have to live in a wild state with no protection over our heads, no stores to shop in, and no cupboards at home. What would you eat? This would be your menu:
Fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, grasses and grains, insects, grubs, small mammals, small amphibians and small reptiles.
**ALL** of the foods that you are capable of harvesting for yourself would be extremely lean (low fat) foods. Rabbit, squirrel (and most other animals capable of being captured by a human without a weapon or trap) would, indeed, be lean meats. The vegetable matter that I mentioned above can’t run from you, but you have to be able to reach it.
Another good point that we should explore before we leave the wilderness is that there would be NO sources of concentrated fats (cooking oils, lard, butter, grease, cheeses - none of those things!), and the only source of a concentrated sweet would be honey, if you are willing to fight the bees.
BUT…. Don’t be fooled. Honey is *not* lower in calories than sugar! I’m just sayin’ !
Other than honey there would be no concentrated sweets, such as ready-made cakes, pastries, chocolate, syrups, granulated white sugar (or brown sugar!) , etc, nor would there be anything that depends on them for it’s manufacture.
Taking a look at the Animal Kingdom also reminds us of a couple other issues that we must examine:
When you fill your plate with food, eat **only until you are full**. Animals will never overeat. Having an overly full belly would weigh them down, and they would have a large, flashing neon sign on their foreheads that says, "PREY" or "BAIT". If you get half-way through your meal, and you realize, "I am no longer hungry, and I am eating only because there is food left on my plate.", then you should stop eating. Put the remaining food in the fridge for a snack or another meal. Do this immediately. Do not let half a plate of food sit in front of you. Out of site, out of mind.
You must examine the reasons you are eating. Are you eating because you are hungry, or are you eating because you are bored, because there is food left on your plate, because you are happy / sad / lonely? The only reason you should be eating is because you are hungry. At any other time, you should be doing something else - anything else - but eating.
THE SIMPLE STUFF YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW:
You will not, and cannot be successful without knowing a few basic numbers.
1) Your Ideal Body Weight
There are several ways to determine what is your ideal body weight.
A) Living by the Scale
Some people choose to ‘live by the scale’. From personal experience, I can tell you that if you choose to weigh yourself on a scale every day, you will experience an emotional roller coaster - for months! The number on that scale can single-handedly determine whether you are going to be in a good or bad mood for the rest of the day. DO NOT WEIGH YOURSELF DAILY! I will not be the one to tell you to throw your scale out the window. I offer a compromise which will not bind you to that slave of a scale, but will still keep you informed of the information you need for a successful journey:
Pick one day of the week to weigh yourself. (I picked Friday, for no particular reason.) Sit the sale in the same place in your home, and leave it there. Weigh yourself in the early morning, before you have had your cup of coffee, after you have gone to the bathroom, and stark naked. Your weight can’t be any more honest than that! In summary: Weigh yourself ONE day a week, at the same time of the day on that day every week. Do not get on the scale again until the same time next week.
B) How well (or poorly!) do your clothes fit?
Can you shop in a store where the clothing is made for the average body? If clothing that was designed for your body type in your optimum shape / size does not fit, you have some work to do to get yourself into those clothes.
You will need to know 7 numbers. If you can memorize an average (long distance?) phone number, you can memorize 7 numbers. It isn’t too much work - remember: No excuses!
1) Ideal Body Weight
2) BMR = Basal Metabolic Rate
3) BMI - Body Mass Index
4) How many calories are in a gram of fat (9).
5) How many calories are in a gram of carbohydrates (4).
6) How many calories are in a gram of protein (4).
7) Your daily calorie limit so you will not exceed the above guidelines.
8) The number of calories in a pound of fat: 3,500 calories (explanation follows....)
I will help you figure these out. Once you figure them out, you can write the down, or commit them to memory. Computers are a wonderful aid to help your memory!
(The charts!)
You can use these charts to determine a GENERALLY accepted range for your body type. I don’t like the methods that use ‘wrist size”. When you lose weight, you will learn that your head shrinks, your hands / fingers shrink, even your feet shrink. Your wrists will shrink, too - so a fat wrist is not an indication of ‘big bone structure’. It is an indication of a fat wrist!
Refer to these charts for a general guideline. If you gasp and say, “Well, I’m no where NEAR those numbers, then that would be an indication that you have work to do!
http://www.idealbodyweightchart.com/
My numbers, for example are:
My Small Medium Large
Height: Frame Frame Frame
5'' 4" 132-138 135-145 142-156
In any case, I know that I should not weigh less than 132 lbs, and not more than 156 lbs. As we have previously discussed, there are exceptions to every rule. A perfectly healthy person with an ectomorph build MIGHT weigh less than 132 lbs, and a champion body builder at 5’4” WILL weigh over 156 lbs, the top of this range. Personally, I look acceptable, and I feel wonderful at 135 lbs, which is right in the middle of my ’acceptable’ range. These things are guides, folks. You should aim for somewhere in this range. Being far outside this range indicated not an error in the charts, it merely indicated that you have work to do!
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is a big name for a simple number. This number is the number of calories that your body needs to maintain basic functions. Basic functions are your metabolism, breathing, circulation, etc, and do not include any type of exercise whatsoever. This number is the minimum number of calories you would need, God forbid, if you were in a coma.
This link is for a basic BMR calculator. There are those available by a simple internet search that will include the calories consumed by daily activities, work, exercise, etc. The one that I am going to direct you uses the “comatose” number. I like this number for a specific reason. The number of calories you consume that is LESS than this number will most certainly result in weigh loss - with the surplus fro your daily activities and exercise. Unless you have a misdiagnosed metabolic condition, you are guaranteed to lose weight if you stick to that lowest calorie limit.
There are internet calculators and websites that will calculate the number of calories your body needs per day depending on your age, weight, height, and it will allow you to input several different types of activity or exercise.
A quick Google search will help you find those. The site that I am going to point you to will return your basic BMR, and below the line that reads:
“Total Calories Burned a Day Depending on Activity Level:”, you will find quick calorie counts that apply to your specific BMR if you engage in low, light, moderate, high or very high levels of exercise. Once again, total and complete honesty is the key here. If you lie to yourself, you are the only (and perhaps any dependent children!) are the ones that will suffer.
This is the link to calculate BMR. Use the Ideal Body Weight that you got from the above website. A larger person requires a higher BMR to keep those extra cells in your body fed. If you enter the number of calories that a person at your Ideal Body Weight requires, any extra calories needed by your body to sustain surplus weight will result in a weight loss.
THE BMR CALCULATOR
http://www.bmrcalculator.org/
Body Mass Index (BMI) another long-winded name for a relatively easy concept. BMI simply means are you “Height / weight proportionate?” I’m sure we’ve all heard a 5’4” 350 lb. Person say, “I’m height / weight proportionate - if I was 8 ft. tall!”
Here is a hand link to an internet calculator that does all the work for you. You need to input your HONEST data (your height in feet and inches, and your HONEST current weight), then press “Computer BMI” button. When you get your answer, look over to the immediate right, and see where your number falls. It will be a wonderfully joyous day for you when you come back to this site, and put your numbers in, and you fall in the “Normal Weight Range” category. Trust me when I tell you that if you apply honesty, information and hard work, you will see your BMI fall into the Normal range.
The link to calculate your BMI:
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
540 surplus calories in the Big Mac / 218.75 calories per ounce of fat = 2.46 (or 2 and a half!) ounces of weight gained from this one sandwich on this one day.
I know somebody out there is yelling at their screen, "Oh, come on! What harm can a 2 and a half ounce weight gain be? Loosen up and live a little!" I will accept that challenge, and I can answer you with: "Please don't fool yourself into believing that that one 2.5 ounce surplus is all you ate on *this* day, and we won't talk about the other days...weeks...months... years... that resulted in a massive weight gain."
But....Let's still with the example at hand. If you honestly have a surplus of ONLY 540 calories per day, you will gain one pound over the course of 6.4 days - almost a week. At this rate, you will gain 57 pounds in one year.... multiply that by a couple years.... 114 pounds of excess weight in a 2 year period. This example should put to bed the question, "What possible harm can result from a 2.5 ounce weight gain?"
The moral of this part of this never-ending saga is: Over the course of *any* amount of time, if you consume ANY calories more than that which is required by your body to function at it's current level, you will gain weight by a certain, predictable rate. If you exercise more, or cut the food intake by a certain amount, with 100% predictability, you will lose weight. There are no 2 ways about it. No "ifs, "ands", or "buts". No magic is involved, and there are no shortcuts to work around it. The easy way to remember it is: If I consume any part of 3,500 calories more than I ever need, that will = a 1 pound weight gain. If I cut 3,500 calories from my daily intake, or if I increase my exercise to the tune of 3,500 calories, I will lost 1 pound.
Along the same lines is a quote by one of my mentors, Richard Simmons, when someone asks him, "Oh, what harm can a sliver of cake cause?" His answer, "A sliver leads to a slab and a slab leads to a slob!"
How so? I will cover you 100% in the argument that if you are at or near your goal weight or body type, one single candy bar absolutely will not pack back on the 100 lbs. you just lost, especially **if you work it into your daily plan**. However, this is how it can result in failure, otherwise. If you are in an active weight-loss situation, and you go on a wild binge, it will stop your progress dead in it's tracks. You may or may not gain weight from this particular excursion, but your weight loss will definitely come to a screeching halt. This delay (a form of the dreaded "plateau") can very easily cause you to become discouraged. One of the closest friends of "discouragement" is "failure". They walk around the world, hand-in-hand, waiting for temptation to come along to get the party started! Using this example, we can easily see how eating one candy bar when you did not plan to do so can cause your weight loss to be delayed, causing discouragement and ultimately, failure. Remember: You are not being cheated or deprived. The time that you enjoyed an overabundance was when you were not exercising or eating healthy. Those foods that you crave are not going anywhere - trust me. If they were going somewhere, I would be the first person in line to catch them as they passed me by. Stick to your plan, and don't allow discouragement to get a foothold in your life.
BACK TO CALORIE COUNTING.....
There are many books at Walden Books, Borders, Barns ‘n’ Nobles, etc, that are thick books that list calories in every conceivable food available.
These books are a good source of portable information. There are other resources that are available to you.
Until you are fully aware of every bite that goes into your mouth, and you can be accountable for such, you should have a small pad of paper and a pen on you *at all times*, or within your immediate reach. Record *everything* that goes into your mouth. The act of writing it down, in itself, is a wonderful weight-loss aid. How can writing it down help? There are several ways:
1) Writing down something makes you more conscious of your actions. You can’t do it absent-mindedly.
2) A study was done using those things that I loathe - diet pills. The same number of people lost as much weight on a 100% placebo as with the diet pill they were testing! How can this be? Both groups knew they were testing a diet pill. Both groups had a heightened awareness of their eating and exercise habits. Both groups changed their habits for better choices because they knew they were being monitored, thus both groups lost weight! The diet pill had absolutely nothing to do with it.
3) You have a written account of what you ate, so you can correctly count those calories into your daily plan.
This website has information on virtually anything with caloric value that you can put in your mouth!
Click on either the “Food search” at the top of the screen, or enter the food you are looking for in the box in the middle of the home page:
http://www.calorieking.com/
This page will actually calculate the total calories in a serving of a recipe after you enter the individual ingredients. Although I do eat pre-packaged meals (Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine, etc), I would strongly encourage you to learn to cook healthy for yourself. I teach people how to live in the real world, instead of cling to a program that they are paying dearly for, that keeps you more-or-less a slave to the program, and does not teach you skills you need to function along with the rest of the world.
The page that calculates the calories in recipes:
http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php
In a previous section, I mentioned “Which are the right / wrong foods to eat?”, and we have learned, despite all the hype and crap out there that there are no right / wrong foods, in general. There are better and worse choices to make, and a wide range of those, at that. If you choose to eat candy bars your entire life, you might die from several vitamin / mineral deficiencies, but as long as you stay within your caloric limits, you won’t gain or lose weight!
I’m sure you have heard the hype about “Good / Bad carbs”, too. The people that spew forth such crap make me want to punk until I die! They are doing nothing to properly educate the public, and are only offering them a simple but poor mental crutch.
The scoop on “Good Carbs” vs. “Bad Carbs” is this:
Those people that are hurling this crap at is are saying that simple sugars (syrups, white granulated sugar, brown sugar, even honey falls into that category) are ‘bad’, and complex carbohydrates such as breads, grains, etc, are ‘good’ carbs. At the end of the day, they ALL get converted into energy that your body needs to function, or stored as fat if you have consumed more than your necessary daily calorie limit. It is true: Complex Carbs (Breads, etc), break down more slowly, and will give you sustained energy, while a simple sugar will be absorbed immediately, and be burned off rather quickly. The result of this fast-burn is that you will possibly become hungry sooner, and you will want to eat more calories to satisfy that hunger.
The bottom line is that a carbohydrate is a carbohydrate, and a simple sugar is…a carbohydrate! Both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ carbs have 4 calories per gram. It is simple math. Nothing more than that. I would suggest that you consume a food item that will give you a more sustained energy than a short burst, but the choice is yours. As an example, before I would go on a century (100 miles) bicycle ride, I would eat BOTH a complex carbohydrate AND a simple carbohydrate. One would give me an immediate energy boost, and the other would cover at a later time, when I needed that sustained energy. You must be an informed and educated consumer. To paraphrase a previous ‘chapter’, we should put the appropriate fuel in our tanks for the type of trip in which we are going to embark!
We now know what our height / weight ratio is (BMI) , and how many calories we need to consume a day to maintain, lose….or gain….Weight (BMR).
Technically, you can lose weight and maintain a healthy weight by counting just the total calories for an item, and pay no attention whatsoever to the number of fat, protein or carbohydrate grams in the item. As long as you are staying below your calorie limit for the day, you will lost weight.
If you would like more “bulk for your calories”, these are the last numbers you will need to be fully informed:
1) How many calories are in a gram of fat (9 calories).
2) How many calories are in a gram of carbohydrates (4 calories).
3) How many calories are in a gram of protein (4 calories).
We don’t have to be contestants on “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader” to determine that a gram of fat has over TWICE the number of calories as in a gram of protein or a gram of carbohydrate. In other words, you get twice the volume of protein and carbs as you would a fat for the same amount of calories. (You can eat several CANS of green beans, compared to one candy bar!). We all have to make choices! Considering the gastrointestinal history that I disclosed above, and the fact that I am a pig, in general, most of the time, I would rather have a large volume of lower calorie food, rather than a small volume of high calorie food.
WHAT IS A CARB(OHYDRATE)? (4 calories per gram of carb)
Complex carbs = breads, pastas, (things made with flour or grains!)
Simple carbs = obvious sugars, syrups, etc
WHAT IS A PROTEIN? (4 calories per gram of protein)
Proteins = meats, legumes, etc.
The following link is a list of protein-rich foods to help you:
http://www.indoorclimbing.com/Protein_Foods.html
The same goes for 3 types of nutrients,: carbs, fats and proteins. We have to keep in mind, however, the way these foods are prepared. Broccoli smothered with cheese isn’t necessarily a good choice! Steamed broccoli with herbs is a GREAT choice!
Baked fish with lemon = a great choice! Deep fried fish at a fast food joint = a heart attack in a paper wrapper! See the difference?
WHAT IS A FAT? (9 calories per gram of fat)
While this list is no where near conclusive, this is a general break down of fats:
http://ezinearticles.com/?A-List-Of-High-Fat-Foods-That-Are-Bad-For-You&id=740783
**THIS** is the most important part of being an educated consumer. You must become an avid label-reader, with no exceptions. Remember: The road to hell is paved with good intentions! “Intending” to do good, but inadvertently doing otherwise will produce the same results: Failure with a confused look on your face!
Take a look at the sample label above. Incidentally, this label is from a jar of peanut butter. That I keep for my parrot, Conrad. The message that I am trying to convey here is not that peanut butter is a demon from Hell that we must chase down with a crucifix, I am merely trying to give you samples of foods with varying information on the labels.
Most labels will do the math for you, but I have learned not to trust their math. I will do it, myself.
The total calories in two TABLESPOONS of peanut butter is 180 calories. Just as a comparison, I just had a packaged meal (OK - Lean Cuisine) that is 10 oz, 260 calories and 6 grams of fat. Would you rather eat 2 tablespoons of a foot, or would you rather eat 10 ounces of a hot food that more closely resembles a meal? Trust me that when I tell you that when you are sufficiently hungry enough, you will most likely choose the food that provides the most bulk for the least amount of fat and calories.
Back to that peanut butter label:
Total calories: 180
The label states (under Calories, over to the left) it sal “Fat Cal = 140)
As yet another segway in this story: If the fat calories are 1/3 of the total calories per serving, I will put the item back on the shelf, and look for an alternative where 1/3 or less of the calories comes from fat. That allows me to have more satisfying bulk in my daily diet while keeping down the total grams of fat and the total calories for my day.
Please note on the label the “DV %, for fat calories, for example. The Daily Value (DV) % in this peanut butter is 23% of your allowed daily total fat calories. That is almost ¼ of your entire day’s fat calories - for just tablespoons of food! I would definitely look for a less fat-expensive item, but that is my own personal choice.
Let’s go ahead and do our own math, rather than trust that written on the label:
15 grams of fat per serving x 9 calories per gram = 135 calories from fat, not the 140 stated when they did the math for us, but I digress.
Although I don’t often do **all** of the math on the label, let’s calculate the label for ourselves, just to see how accurate the information is that they gave us to work with. Please keep in mind that it is not necessary to go to this extent. If you multiply the amount of GRAMS of fat in an item, and check to see if that answer is larger than 1/3 of the total calories in the food, you will have all the information you need to make an informed choice. IF the total fat calories is larger than 1/3 - put if back on the shelf, and keep looking.
At any rate, let‘s calculate the entire label:
Grams of fat = 15. 15 x 9 calories per gram = 135 calories
Grams of carbs = 8. 8 x 4 = 32 calories
Grams of protein = 7. 7 x 4 = 28 calories
If you add the 135 + 32 + 28, theoretically, the total should = 180, the total number of calories per serving in this peanut butter.
Actually, 135 + 32 + 28 = 195 calories, rather than the 180 listed on the label! These labels, more often than not, contradict themselves, therefore we need to do the math ourselves. It does make a difference.
Personally, I would rather add 50 calories to this total, and have a bulkier meal, but that is my own choice.
Let’s take a look at this label for canned tuna:
Let’s do the math ourselves:
The label says there is 1 gram of fat per serving, and a total of 50 calories.
9 calories per gram of fat x 1 = 9, not the 10 that is stated on the label, but who’s splitting hairs.
9 calories from fat is not greater than 1/3 the calories per serving in this item (50 total calories / 3 = 17 calories. Since the 9 calories is less than 17, this is a good item to include in our routine.
This brings us to….
The single most important number you must look at is the portions or servings per package. Considering this small can of tuna, who is really going to eat only half a can?
Instead of 50 calories, this entire small can of tuna is 100 calories. We must figure 100 calories, instead of 50 into our plan. Two grams of fat in a serving of tuna is a great deal, nutrition-wise!
IN SUMMARY:
1) You must educate and inform yourself.
2) You must exercise, in some form or other. An increased metabolism will burn more calories than the exercise, itself, burns off.
3) If you aim for lower fat calories, you can eat more food at a less ‘expense’ calorie-wise, thus feeling more full / satisfied for a longer period of time. And….the foods you choose to eat will be nutritionally better for you.
4) Although I absolutely loath any eating program with a name attached to it, if you “eat like you are playing Survivor”, monitor your daily calorie intake, and you exercise, you **WILL** lose weight, and you will keep it off by continuing these methods.
5) This is a permanent life solution, not a “diet”.
You have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired, and you must realize that increased mobility along with decreasing your risk of heart attack or stroke is just a few of the benefits your efforts will be rewarded with. Not to mention the fact that you might live to see your grandchildren, and you can shop at any clothing store your little heart desires! (And walk up a flight of steps without being breathless…and…. )
- Michael
1. Weight Loss and Fitness - The Big Mystery
2. My Personal Story
3. Going On A Diet vs Having A Plan
4. A Word About Willpower (It's not what you think it is)
5. Either You Want It, or You don't (The things that will prevent you from getting it)
6. Fad Diets (You'd be surprised at the list of fad diets!)
7. Fitness Gurus
8. What foods are best to eat to maintain an ideal body weight and good health?
9. So - What are the Good Foods and the bad Foods?
10. When is the perfect time to eat?
11. What’s in your tank, and how far are you traveling?
12. Getting down to the Nitty Gritty - which really isn’t nit or grit at all!
13. The simple stuff you really need to know
14. The Numbers
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WEIGHT LOSS AND FITNESS - THE BIG MYSTERY
The Mystery? What mystery??? There is no mystery when it comes to Fitness, Diet and Nutrition. Absolutely none at all. Your body consists of cells, which can be broken down it
Remember this for the next time you are a returning champion on Jeopardy! (Although you will never, ever need to know it for any other occasion, including this one.) The human body is composed of the following substances:
1. 65% Oxygen
2. 18% Carbon
3. 10% Hydrogen
4. 3% Nitrogen
5. 1.5% Calcium
6. 1% Phosphorous
7. 0.35% Potassium
8. 0.25% Sulfur
9. 0.15% Sodium
10. 0.15% Chlorine
11. 0.05% Magnesium
12. 0.0004% Iron
13. 0.00004% Iodine
If those items look like 'pure science' to you, it is because it IS pure science. Not magic. Science. Science that we can account for, and that has a definite explanation. If you could package those items and sell them, your total would come to $4.50. Inflation has to be considered in that number, because the total was $1.87 when I was a kid! Weight loss and good health are just as exact as those numbers.
Good nutrition requires only a little knowledge, and nothing more. Basic knowledge of nutrition and fitness is all you will need. No products to buy. No special equipment is needed. All foods you will eat come from the grocery market that you shop each week
While I will try to be as delicate as I can, I have to disclose that I am not real good at pussy-footing, or beating around the bush. Anybody that knows me well enough can tell you that at my lightest moment, I can make Jillian Michaels from "The Biggest Loser" look like Mother Theresa on her best day. You won't be needing a shield or daggers to ward me off, however, you must be willing to remove all preconceived notions you may have about diet and nutrition, and to be 100% honest with yourself. Even though you should not do so, you can choose to lie to others. The people that you lie to might actually 'call you on it', and direct you in a more reality-based direction, but most likely, they will not have the huevos it takes to confront you, so they will merely smile and nod at you, knowing very well that crap is spewing out of your mouth. The only damage done in this instance would be to your character. If you lie to yourself, and you choose to continue doing so, you can kill yourself. Failing to care for yourself properly is negligence. Negligence is an action - it is a choice, and we are responsible for the choices we make. Although it is somewhat difficult, you can successfully recuperate from lying to others - assassinating your character.. However, if you choose to ignore your health and fitness, and you literally kill yourself, I guarantee you that the chances of your recuperation are extremely slim.
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MY PERSONAL STORY
I didn’t weigh over 100 lbs until I turned 30 yrs old. I bicycled *thousands* of miles a year, and did hours of yoga and toning exercises. Arthritis kicked in, and I went from 97 pounds to over 200 lbs.
I have personal reasons for needing to remain as fit as I can. (Which is a constant battle, but, at any rate....)
If you would look through my photos, you can easily determine that I haven't always "practiced what I preach."
I was born with early-onset osteoarthritis. This is the type of arthritis that normal with the aging process, but a small child should not have this disease. Even though there will be a time in my life - and probably in the near future - that no amount of weight loss or exercise will stop the crippling and painful effects of arthritis, I am determined to not sit idly by while I am being wracked with pain. This is one reason I like to explore as much of my world as I possibly can. If I am going to be in pain while I am on this planet, I am going to enjoy myself as much as possible. Can you imagine what a grump I would be if I just sit still somewhere, aching and fuming at the world? My conclusion: If I am going to pay a higher price than most people around me to live on this earth, I am going to get the most for my money!
I was also born with a severely clubbed foot (inherited) that was marginally successfully surgically corrected. I will not go into gory details, but a large portion of that particular surgery failed, and the Doctor in the Emergency room wanted to immediately amputate my foot - in the hallway of the hospital!
Through the persistence of those around me, my the surgical team manage to salvage my right foot, and once again, using auto-transplants (from my own body parts), they managed to rebuild my foot once more. I was never intended to be employed 40 hrs. a week for the duration of a normal career. My ankle just couldn't take it. But... I worked in a restaurant for 8 yrs - standing on hard floors, and I was a nurse for 10 years. I finished my employment by walking 6 days a week on concrete floors on a flower market for 5 years. I did the best I could do with the body that I was given.
Before I became officially disabled, I bicycled 3 times, all or in part, across the state of Missouri on a touring bicycle with 70 lbs of luggage and a touring trailer.
Am I bragging? Well, of course! Why? Because I have worked hard at overcoming obstacles just to be at the level of a normal, functioning person - and then I accomplished feats that many able bodied people haven't even bothered to dream about. If you work hard at achieving a goal, you deserve to be proud of that accomplishment.
OK...OK... We have talked about parts of my body that aren't entire normal that may be visible to the John Q. Public. However, I have other hidden, more sinister reasons to eat a healthy diet.
Please trust me when I tell you that I have not lost my taste for sweets! I envy the person that tells me that he / she "don't like sweets!" I know where the best bakery is in the St. Louis area - Mac Arthur's Backer. I know where every coffee shop and doughnut shop is in this area, and shops such as: My Just Desserts, Ted Drew's Frozen Custard, Marb's Candies..... I think you get the point. While I could be a semi-vegetarian without much coercing (I have never had a steak or ribs in my life - honesty!), I am a great example that a semi-vegetarian can very easily be a fat person. I LOVE MY SWEETS! Somebody pass me a couple Cadbury Eggs - and a box of Peeps!
Since heart disease and diabetes are strong genetic factors in my family, I have to be on an immediate alert for both. I am already in the early stages of heart disease, and I am hypoglycemic, which can be a precursor to diabetes. I do not want to have heart failure or a heart attack, and I like my 1.5 feet right where they are, thank you, very much! So, I will be putting forth my best efforts to ensure those things will not effect my life. If my efforts are in vain, and I still have a heart attack, or I develop diabetes, it certainly cannot be said of me that I did not give prevention my best efforts.
WHERE'S THE BATHROOM?
Due to the urging of a friend, I had a colonoscopy to determine the source of a life-long affliction with severe, chronic diarrhea. I am not talking about having a couple loose stools a day. I am talking about being on the toilet at least 30 times a day, and often sleeping in the bathroom because I can't get back to bed before I have to return to the toilet. Before I had my colonoscopy, I had to take a potassium supplement daily for a few weeks before my test, to ensure that the additional "prep", let's call it, would not further deplete my potassium levels to the point that I could go into cardiac arrest! The only results from my particular colonoscopy was an Emergency room visit at 2:00 AM that evening (early morning), because I had a 103 degree temperature, I was so severely dehydrated to the point that I received 2 litres of saline via an IV that ran straight in without a drip rate, and that I had not stopped passing copious amounts of blood. The diagnosis: My biopsy sites had become infected, and were still bleeding!
Incidentally, I did go to see my rheumatologist concerning arthritis. Her name is Dr. Sandra Hoffman, and she is also a fantastic internist. During the course of a conversation, I told her of my gastrointestinal symptoms. Because these matters are second nature to her, she quickly told me, "If you still have one, your gallbladder has never worked correctly, and you are producing the wrong amounts of certain enzymes. ." Such is the story of my life. If I eat a little sugar, my pancreas sends out massive amounts of insulin - far more than is necessary to cover whatever the amount of sugar I just dumped in my system, whether it is large or small. If I eat more than a bare minimum of fat in my daily diet, I am stuck on the toilet for days because my gallbladder / liver has overreacted to the situation.
Back to Willy Wonka's Accidental Chocolate Factory: I can personally keep Johnson & Johnson in business with my Imodium AD purchases. I will not leave the house to travel more than *2* miles without taking 6 - 8 Imodium AD tablets at least 2 - 3 hours before I leave the house - every time I go anywhere.
With such considerations, there is no such thing as 'impromptu' or impulse shopping in my life! Traveling is an absolute nightmare, and is down-right cruel, given the fact that I am a person that likes to experience as much of the world as possible. I have to start preparing a couple days before I leave for my trip, cutting back on my food intake to the point that I feel absolutely starved. The day before I leave, I start taking 3 - 4 Imodium AD tablets at a time, at least twice the day before, and about 6 tablets a few hours before I leave the house. I am not talking about such a trip that I am boarding a plane for a flight across the country. I'm talking about ANY trip more than 20 miles from my home! I do know several people that would embrace such a routine, but about 30 years ago, that routine quickly lost any of it's original charm for me!
While I am not here to discourage individuals from having a colonoscopy, I am here to encourage the general public to undertake such testing for the right reasons. I spent several thousand dollars of my own money, and the tests turned up 100% negative for any findings. In *my case*, a colonoscopy only added more misery to my suffering.
BOTH doctors that I saw for this problem did tell me the same thing, and they asked me the same questions:
1) "When you go into any public place, whether it is a shopping mall, single store or restaurant, you automatically scan the place, just so you will know where the restroom is located, don't you?"
My answer: "Yes, I do."
2) "Would it be fair to say that you often go to the bathroom more than 30 times a day?"
My answer: "Yes, I do."
3) Statement: "You can't stop eating. I know...I know....'Little in = little out', but you can't stop eating. Most people with your condition choose to stop eating, and they quickly become underweight."
Ultimately, their response is:
"We've seen this before, but don't know what it is." After that closing statement, I was left to my own devices. Please keep in mind that my college education and my only professional license is in nursing. There is **NO** feeling that is worse than being abandoned by people of your own profession!
HOWEVER.... there is now a name for my condition. Even though everybody that has these symptoms are often herded into the same "Irritable Bowel Syndrome" group, there are two conditions that are in this group, instead of one. One is, IBS, of course. The other - the one that my genetic pool dealt me - is called Habba Syndrome.
Most likely millions of people diagnosed with either “IBS” or spastic colon have Habba Syndrome. It is estimated that approximately 45 million American suffer from “IBS” or similar conditions. According to Dr. Habba’s study, 41% of patients had Habba Syndrome.
For more info:
http://habbasyndrome.com/Habba_Syndrome_Diagnosis_Habba_Treatment_Location_Summit_NJ.html
My personal assessment from the information gathered, and from my own research:
a) I do buy into the fact that I overproduce every substance my body has ever put forth. Any stimulation (just a little fat in the diet, or just a little sugar, etc, results in the over production of bile, less production of enzymes that I need, and an over production of insulin. To put it mildly, the effects of all that over production are not something that I either want or need.
b) I have psoriasis. Psoriasis is not "eczema". Psoriasis is an auto-immune disease, much the same as Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Chron's, and many others. There is no creme, no quick fix or cure for psoriasis. On a good day, the symptoms can be treated, but it will never be fully cured.
I do know that psoriasis is often linked with arthritis and gastrointestinal problems, such as Celiac Disease (gluten intolerance). There is a varying degree of Celiac Disease in an effected person. One can be slightly intolerant to wheat (gluten), and have diarrhea, bloating, etc, or as little as 1/8 teaspoon of a wheat product can severely effect some individuals. It has been suggested to me that even though I might not have the worse case of Celiac Disease, the same gene that is causing Psoriasis might be causing the copious number of trips to the bathroom my entire life.
c) I have Chronic dry eye syndrome that is directly related to the intake of fat in my system. A short version of the story: The more fat I have in my diet, and the fatter my body is, the dryer my eyes become. It can get so bad that I get eye infections, and my eyelids literally shred my corneas. OUCH! You can't see with shredded corneas, or at best, you will see 8 of everything! Try to read a computer screen, drive, or watch TV with fly-like vision! It doesn't work for me! I have to keep the fat cut in my system if I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars of my own money EACH MONTH for Restasis.
If help is not readily available, what can I do about my problem? Such is another chapter in "The Story Of My Life", I decided to take the bull by the horns, and fix the problem myself.
I did the following things:
1) I cut the fat in my diet to the point that I get enough for metabolism and to maintain my health, but no more than is absolutely necessary.
2) I cut my wheat / bread items to a minimum (celiac disease), but have not entire eliminated either group.
3) (This would have absolutely killed me, and honestly required me to wear a Depends undergarment if I chose to to this before beginning my plan): I added massive amounts of fruits and vegetables to my diet. There is **no** fruit or vegetable that I absolutely do not like. I love them all, and a conversion to being a complete vegetarian would not be a difficult move for me. If I would have added this high amount of fruits and vegetables to my diet before I cut the fat in my diet, I would have been hospitalized with dehydration because of the diarrhea.
4) I added exercise to my daily routine. Not just 15 minutes - a half an hour to an hour. Dr. Hoffman (rheumatologist) knows of my extensive orthopedic history. She told me, "You cannot jog or walk far, you cannot lift weights. Bicycling and calisthenics seems to be the best exercises for you. You might not be able to do those other exercises, and I would encourage you not to do so. However - you should find an exercise that does not produce pain (swimming is good, too), and DO IT! Please do something!. I got on a bicycle and bicycled across the state of Missouri 3 times. I replaced my computer chair with an exercise bike that has place for a book.... I put my computer keyboard in that slot, and now, when I'm on the computer, I'm on the bike!
What is the result of these things I have incorporated into my life? Weight loss and NO DIARRHEA! For the first time in my LIFE, I do not have diarrhea. Since we're already on the subject, those of you that have given birth knows what it feels like to have a large solid object pass out of an orifice in your body that usually passes a liquid! The first few times - O U C H ! ! ! ! But, it was an 'ouch' that I was willing to get accustomed to. What is the moral of this chapter of this particular saga?
***The things I incorporated into my life produced results. I lost weight, I feel better, and I move better. If I am a gimp, and I can do it, I know that you are probably not a gimp - so you can definitely do it!***
However (don't you just love 'howevers!)... With the lone exception of being able to shop in the boy's section of the department stores, I love the way I look when I have some weight on. I look more manly, this big beard fits my face, and I have very few wrinkles. When I shrink, my beard will look HUGE, with a body parts excluded, I have the body of a 12 yr. old boy - a small 12 yr old boy, at that! - and instead of looking younger than those that are my age (42), I look OLDER than they do!
We all have choices to make. The medication that was prescribed to me to treat my psoriasis merely reduced the 300 lesions I had on my **legs**, alone (not considering the rest of my body!) to mere red spots, and was not successful in ridding me of the lesions. In addition, I was directed to wear gloves to apply this medication all over my body! Why wear gloves? Because the medication is toxic to the liver...yet.... I am still smearing it all over my body! HUH? The only other choice in my treatment is sun bathing! My dermatologist told me to get as much sun outdoors as possible. He said that if that wasn't possible, to go to a tanning bed regularly, and if I didn't have enough time or $$ to go to a tanning bed regularly, that I should buy my own tanning bed. He stated that in the case of the type of psoriasis that I have, my exposure to ultraviolet rays (the sun / tanning bed, etc), my benefits far outweigh my risk of skin cancer. Being told such a thing is like a Dr. telling me to smoke and drink, but hey - who am I to question authority? So.... For two years, I paid a monthly fee and drove to a tanning salon 3 x a week without fail. Having to go to the tanning salon 3 x a week before I went home from work was quickly wearing on me. I eventually went out and spent $4,000 on my own tanning bed. It is now sitting in the basement. I tan every other day for 27 minutes. Lucky me, eh? Not so fast there..... There is a down-side to looking like George Hamilton: An increased rate of wrinkling. The first sentence of this huge paragraph mentions 'choices'. Here is another choice I had to make: I could either look like a combination of George Hamilton and Moses, or I could look like a leper. I quickly got tired of wearing shorts into a store in April / May, and hearing gasps of people as they stared at the scabby, bloody lesions on my body, so I chose the George / Moses thing.
Three of the choices I have made concerning my health so far are:
1) I can eat the same diet as the 'normal' American public, and not move, and I can crap my brains out, or I can alter my diet according to my needs, and be able to go shopping without visiting EVERY restroom in every store that I walk into.
2) I can sit around, and allow arthritis to turn me into a pillar of miserable stone, or I can get moving to the best of my ability.
3) I can be fat and look lovely, and risk dying, or I can lose weight, taking the strain off my guts, my joints and my heart, and look OLD. I chose OLD. OLD is better than DEAD, in most cases.
4) I can look like a bloody leper, or I can look like George Hamilton and Mose's love child. My choice: Put a staff in my hand, and turn a fan on me to blow my hair back! I am baby Moses!
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GOING ON A DIET vs HAVING A PLAN
GOING ON A DIET vs HAVING A PLAN
If I had a nickle for every time I heard the phrase, "I am going on a diet.", I would have enough money that would allow me a life style that probably would not include blogging! If I had a nickle for every person that made that statement that actually lost weight, got physically fit, and stayed at an ideal body weight for an extended period of time, I would not have access to a computer, because I would be homeless!
Whether it be good or bad, everything we eat consists of our "diet". Let's reserve the word "diet" for that purpose, only. You have to get a plan - and stick to your plan, you will be successful. See! I told you no magic would be involved!
This plan should be in use all day and night, EVERY day and night! Every morning, you should plan your meals and snacks for the entire day. Any time you veer from this plan, you will certainly fail your mission and your objective to lose weight and live healthier. If you were once impulsive, any impulsive behavior should now be left in the past.
Having a plan prevents you from stopping by a restaurant that originally had no intention patronizing. It will also prevent you from picking up that candy bar while standing line at the grocery store. This is the tape that I want you to play in your head when you are faced with decisions that are originally not in your plan: "No, I will not eat that cake. It is not in my plan." or "No, I will not stop by Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch. It is not in my plan."
However....Let's consider the fact that we all have social functions to attend, such as retirement parties, birthday parties, family reunions, and the over-stuffed Holiday season. You can by all means still have that piece of fudge and a glass of rich egg nog. I will join you! As a result of that behavior, we should have cut calories out of the meal previous to that snack, or the meal after the snack, AND spent an extra half hour on the exercise bicycle. It's all about trade-offs, folks. Nothing magical or mystical about that!
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A WORD ABOUT WILLPOWER
When I tell folks that I bicycled 3 times across the State of Missouri (via the Katy Trail), and I talk about fitness or weight control, I will **always** hear, "Wow! You must have a lot of willpower!" Dear reader, you should see their faces when I tell them, "No, I have no willpower at all!" Those folks are all too eager to argue with me, until I tell them that willpower is an emotion. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Let's take a brief segway.
Question: What is the opposite of "Love"?
(The answer I usually get): "Hate!"
The correct answer: "Indifference!"
Why, you ask, is "Indifference" the opposite of "Love" or "Hate"? The answer is simple, really. Love and Hate are both emotions. Love, Hate, Anger, Jealousy, Fear, Willpower.... they are all equally emotions - none are the opposite of the other.
None of us feel LOVE or HATE in the middle of the night. We are all fast asleep! Nobody is angry 100% of the time. It is the same with "Willpower". If you get up in the middle of the night, and you have had a birthday party for your daughter, and there is a rich chocolate cake on the counter, please be aware that your "Willpower" switch will not be in the "On" switch. That emotion will be gone, and so will be the chocolate cake!
A plan is in play at all times, while willpower takes those pesky, unannounced vacations.
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EITHER YOU WANT IT, OR YOU DON’T
(The things that will prevent you from getting results.)
(The things that will prevent you from getting results.)
A few short realisms before we begin:
1) No excuses will be allowed.
2) "Human Nature is a poor excuse for bad behavior. Even our thoughts are our behaviors, and you are responsible for those, too.
3) "Can't" never did, and never will.
4) The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
“I meant to do good” won’t get you anywhere, unless you back up your efforts with knowledge. You can either intentionally or unintentionally sabotage yourself.
You can gain any and all knowledge you need from this, the internet, or books. You don’t need **any** diet book. Simple science that you learned in high school will do! A calorie-counting book is good if you re like me, and don’t have a smart phone or a computer handy at all times.
5) Being ignorant of facts is no excuse. You can gain any and all knowledge you need from this, the internet, or books. You don’t need **any** diet book. Simple science that you learned in high school will do! A calorie-counting book is good if you re like me, and don’t have a smart phone or a computer handy at all times.. Your local library is also a good resource, although you need information that is quicker than going to the library.
Not knowing (or caring) how many calories is in the food your are eating will not keep you from gaining weight, it will just kill you quicker.
6) Sabotage can be from family, friends - or yourself, and it can be done either intentionally or inadvertently.
7) How many times have you heard this:
"I have to lose the weight?"
HUH? What "THE????" I can guarantee you that people say that phrase to remove themselves from the problem - to create a distance because they either don't want to face reality, or they are embarrassed by the state their body is in. It's "YOUR" weight, baby - not "THE weight! You have to name it to claim it, and now would be as good of a time as any to do so.
Once you have come clean with yourself, the rest is easy. Remember - there is no magic involved here.
8) Eating healthy is a way of life, and requires a life-style change. You will not get permanent results from a “diet“.
Many people want a ’change in their lives’, but want to do nothing different than they have been doing in the past to make that chance possible.
Don’t expect a difference if you don’t want to do anything different! Eating a half a bag (or full bag!) of chips will not produce a thinner, healthier YOU. With the right eating plan established, and an exercise routine in motion, a hand full of chips every now and then will not harm you. Once a week or once a month is ’every now and then’ - don’t make me split hairs here!
9) I can predict with 100% accuracy that if you want to lose weight and get in shape without changing anything in your current life, you will fail 100 % of the time. If you chose to tell yourself - and the rest of the world - “I don’t want to count calories, and I don’t want to exercise. I want to lose weight and be healthy without taking the effort to do those things.” OR “That is too much trouble. I don’t want to do those things.”, I guarantee you that if you are still alive this time next year, you will look, move and feel the same as you do right now. You have to make a HUGE change to make a HUGE difference. There are no miracle fixes or cures, and there are no two ways about it!
10) You are not depriving yourself of ANYTHING. There are a couple ways of looking at this situation:
a) When you were overindulging your entire life, you were enjoying the full-calories sodas, steaks, cakes, cookies, pizza, fried foods (I think you get the picture) at THAT PARTICULAR TIME.
Fast food restaurants, and restaurants, in general were originally created to feed travelers, such as traveling salesmen. Are you a traveling salesman? Probably not. Therefore, *any* restaurant, whether it is a sit-down restaurant or fast food, should not be a part of your daily or weekly diet, and should be reserved as a very rare treat. Human bodies were absolutely not designed for that high of a fat / calorie intake on a regular basis. How natural are those foods? If ihe food is square, pre-frozen, breaded, deep-fat fried, slathered with artery-clogging condiments, slapped on a bun and thrown out a window at you, I guarantee you that it isn’t fresh, wholesome or nutritious. I can back up that guarantee!
b) I can also guarantee you that if Cadbury stopped producing those wonderful eggs at Easter time, I would be the **first** person in line to buy 6 CASES (not boxes!) of them, and I would fight to the death anyone who dared get in line in front of me. The same goes with Sugar Peeps, Crème horns, and much, much more. We have to keep in mind that for years, we enjoyed these things in an over abundance, and we refused to exercise. At this very moment, we have another task at hand. We want to trim down, start moving and get healthier. We can STILL have those things. They are not going anywhere! And when we do reach our goals, we can have **one row** of Sugar Peeps. Actually, they are 100% fat free, and only 150 calories per row. All things considered, if you eat just one row, the nutritional price we pay for this item is quite low, and is well worth including in a daily eating plan around Easter. Trust me when I tell you that the Peeps are probably the best choice you can make in the Candy Isle at Easter, if you eat just one row!
In other words, these items are not going to become extinct. You can have them - in MODERATION - later. IF you choose to think otherwise, you will fail in your efforts to lose weight.
11) “The best way to finish a job or task is to BEGIN!”
12) *ANY* person that abides by good exercise and food intake guidelines that tries to tell you that he / she is never hungry are outright liars.
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FAD DIETS
FAD DIETS
I don’t care what the advertisement says. I don’t care if it is in writing, on the radio, by word-of-mouth, or on television. Advertisers of crap-products give desperate people false hope, and even though they ethically and morally *should not* lie to you, their freedom of speech allows them to do so. As I just mentioned: It is clear that their conscious hasn’t stopped them, so their right to freedom of speech gives them the right to spew out such crap. It is **YOUR* responsibility to do your homework, and to cut them off at the pass! Have you ever heard the old adage, “Believe only half of what you see, and none of that you hear?”
Desperate people will spend a lot of money on a quick fix. If there was a quick fix, such as a pill or a magic diet that REALLY worked, there would be a line around every Walgreens in the nation - or - there would be no fat people. Period. There would e any fat people on the planet, because they would have bought the miracle product, and used it!
You probably didn’t pack on the weight in a week, and it is going to take much more than a week to take it off. It is truly plain and simple as that.
No tricks are involved. It is simple math and nutrition. That is all you have to know to get weight off, and keep it off.
The following are fad diets:
* Cabbage soup diet
* Grapefruit diet
* Fit for life
* Fruitarianism
* Israeli Army diet
* Macrobiotic diet
* Nutrisystem
* Paleolithic diet
* South Beach Diet
* Gerson therapy
* Low-fat diet
* Atkin's Diet - yes, I said ATKIN'S DIET
Add to this list: Any book that pushes a particular name, any pill that promises to take weight off / keep weight off, and any cookie or nutrition bar that promises that it’s consumption will produce a weight loss.
They just don’t work, people.
The following is criteria that can be used to determine whether a diet is a 'fad diet' or not:
1. The virtue of a particular food or food group is exaggerated and purported to cure specific diseases, and is therefore incorporated as a primary constituent of an individual’s diet.
2. Foods are eliminated from an individual’s diet because they are viewed as harmful.
3. An emphasis is placed on eating certain foods to express a particular lifestyle.
4. READ THIS: "IF IT HAS A NAME, IT IS A FAD DIET!" It's that easy, folks. Good diet, nutrition and exercise does not have a name attached to it. No fad diet is required. Fad diets were created by the people who are perpetuating them to make the seller money!
The only skills required to get to your best body weight and fitness level is good reasoning, simple math skills, and the ability to read.
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FITNESS GURUS
FITNESS GURUS
I have heard the excuse, “I can’t listen to someone who tells me how to eat healthy and to exercise, and they have never been fat in their life!”
Both Richard Simmons and Susan Powter were at least 100 lbs overweight before they got fit and healthy. (There goes one excuse flying out the window, eh:?)
I do back three people in the exercise / fitness world. Please keep in mind that these people never sold packaged food, pills, powders, or nutrition bars of any time. The only items they sold were cook books and fitness videos.
A) Richard Simmons. How much you hate him doesn't matter a bit to me. There is no possible way I could care less. You can find good books from Richard Simmons demonstrating great isometric and toning exercises that require no additional equipment, other than your own body. His videos will get you moving.
B) Susan Powter, of "Stop the Insanity". Oh, you remember her! Think: Short, spiky blonde hair stuck on an energetic, bouncing little body. Her dietary and fitness tips are invaluable, and are as follows:
* You MUST do three things to achieve and maintain fitness: EAT, MOVE and BREATH! There are very specific reasons to do all three. EATING keeps your metabolism up, so your body will not go into a state of starvation, and your metabolism will not decrease in a state of self preservation. MOVING not only burns off calories immediately, but it also does the more important task of keeping your metabolism up, long after you have quit the exercise, including long after you have gone to bed, and deep BREATHING. Your body cannot metabolize the foods we eat with an inadequate supply of oxygen, and most of us to not breath deeply enough.
C) Jack LeLanne - self-explanatory! The man just passed away on January 23, 2011, at the age of 96, and was exercising until just a week before his death. I'm thinking that most of us will be extremely lucky to live to *SEE* 96, much less be doing physical exercise a week before his death. Besides good genetics, I'm thinking the man was doing something right.
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WHAT FOODS ARE
WHAT FOODS ARE
BEST TO EAT TO
MAINTAIN AN IDEAL
MAINTAIN AN IDEAL
BODY WEIGHT AND GOOD HEALTH??
Although they are related, and they overlap several times, "Ideal Body Weight" and "Good Health" are two different things. How many times have you heard of a famous athlete, jogger, bicyclist or runner dropping dead during their fitness training, or some time after? Answer: Most of those deaths can be attributed to undiagnosed conditions and predetermined genetics. That is one way of looking at the situation. The other way is that even though somebody can be an absolute twig, they can be nutritionally deficient: They are not getting the proper vitamins and minerals from the foods they are eating. From these samples we can easily see how "Good Health" and "Ideal Body Weight" go hand-in-hand, yet they should be viewed separately.
Along the same train of thought is the fact that an obese person can easily be malnourished. How is this possible? Malnutrition does not only apply to a thin, starving person, but it the term also applies to a heavy person that is living off hamburgers from a fast food joint and candy bars. There is no way possible that this person is getting all the right vitamins and minerals his / her body requires. They ARE getting adequate calories - not adequate nutrition. Therein lies the difference.
Back to the original question:
What are the best foods to eat?
Personally, I know a young man that lost 200 lbs. while attending high school with me. He ate one Snickers candy bar per day, and lost over 200 lbs. I know there is a question, so here is the answer: Although this is not **AT ALL** completely necessary to lose weight and maintain good fitness and health, this particular young man's family paid for him to see a professional nutritionist. He told her that he was not opposed to exercising and losing weight, but there was one thing she had to do for him: She had to work in one Snickers candy bar into his daily diet. So, in other words, there was a 250 calorie chunk of his daily calories that he choose to eat as a candy bar, instead of an entire plate of good food, and that he would have to be satisfied with that one candy bar. Personally, I would choose the plate of nutritious food. You can eat **FIVE** cans of green beans, or one candy bar, since they have the same number of calories. We all have choices, and he chose the candy bar instead of a meal. To each their own, I say.
I am blind in my left eye (inherited), and I suffered severe brachial nerve damage to my right shoulder at birth. My right arm did not function **at all** for the first 2 weeks of my life, before I regained limited use in that arm. Due to the nerve damage, the muscles in my right arm were not correctly stimulated during my growth, and my right arm is now 4" shorter than my left arm, and I can't turn my hand "palm up". HOWEVER....I can still type 80 WPM, and I play one of my may keyboard instruments at least 2 - 3 hours a day.
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SO - WHAT ARE THE GOOD FOODS & THE BAD FOODS?
The honest answer: There are *NO* good foods or bad foods. HOW MUCH YOU EAT of those particular foods, in relation to the amount of calories your body needs per day makes the food “good or bad”., not that particular food, itself.
Heed the example above, of the young man the choose a 250 calorie candy bar instead of a meal. About 3 hours, I made myself a huge chicken and vegetable wrap for a total of about 320 calories, and I ate it all. I am still nowhere near hungry, and I won’t think about food for a couple more hours. In a couple hours, I might eat a very light supper, and that is end of my food intake for the day.
I will be the first to admit that the 320 calories in the chicken / veggie wrap that I had for lunch is more than the 250 calories in the candy bar. How can ore calories be good for you? The chicken wrap might have had 3 grams of total fat. The candy bar has 14 grams of fat! The 3 grams of fat and 320 calories is a healthier choice for my specific daily calorie intake than the 250 calorie candy bar with 14 grams of fat (More on the numbers later….)
If you want to feel somewhat full and satisfied, you will choose foods that are higher in bulk, and lower in calories. In this manner, you can eat more, feel ore satisfied, and get your vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that are not found in the candy bar.
I am tipping my toe more into the nutrition pool than I expected to do so at this point, but while we are here wading out in this pool, let’s visit the grocery store.
There are laws and rules on this planet. The Law Of Gravity is one example. It states that if you jump off the roof of a 10 story building without any type of device to slow your decent, you will die. The Law of Gravity is a law that cannot be broken. A Rule is a principle with broad application that is not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation. In other words, a rule generally does apply to most like situations, but not always.
Back to the grocery store. The following image is roughly representative of the typical grocery store lay-out:
As a *rule* it is generally healthier to eat “around the outsides of the grocery store, rather than in the middle.” I am not speaking in tongues, I did not finally break a vessel, and I didn’t just lapse into Swedish . Another visual aid, a diagram of a layout of an average grocery store:
Most foods that can be found in their natural state can be found in the Produce, Meat and Dairy and other departments that circle the ‘outside’ of the grocery store, rather than the inside isles.
As I previously stated, there are exceptions to rules. You must be an avid label reader under all circumstances. The exception to the “eat around the outside of the store rule” is the fact that there are grains and frozen foods in the middle of the store that are better choices than the bakery dept that is on the outside of the store. As a general rule, however, the inside isles are where you will find over processed food items that under no circumstance could ever be found in nature (Review our ‘Survivor” trip, discussed in the following “What‘s In Your Tank“ section). Some good exceptions to this rule is prepackaged Healthy Choice meals, Lean Cuisine, frozen fruits and vegetables, etc. Although many of these frozen meals will not teach you how to cook for yourself, they are great if you are on-the-run, and they will teach you what a portion size should look like, when you cook for yourself.
While I am not one of those “raw foods only” extremists, I will readily lean to the “more natural the food is, the better it is for you.” Even still, you need to familiarize yourself with the calorie count of every bite (or sip!) of food that goes into your mouth every day, until it becomes second nature to you. DON’T FRET and DO NOT tell me, “Oh, that is too much work!” or “OH, that is too much trouble!” It was second-nature for you to shovel pizza in your mouth like there is no tomorrow, and once you learn a new behavor, it will become second-nature, also. Remember, you will not see a change in your life until you do something different to make that change happen.
You can wake me up at 3:00 AM, and ask me the calorie count in virtually *any* food item, and I can tell you the correct answer with deadly accuracy. Luckily, there are nutritional labels on the foods that you buy that are required by law that provides this information for you. With a little work, this information will become second nature to you, too. You can’t get the job done without doing work.
It is an unfortunate fact that a lot of the ‘larger print’ on items is misleading, and it it your responsibility to learn these traps, how to be aware of them, and how to avoid them.
SOME of the traps you will see:
1) 95% Fat Free!
My observation: How many calories and grams are left in the other 5%? These advertisements can be good things, and they can be…traps. If I see an item listed as 95% Fat Free, I will pick up the label, and do the math. If my findings tell me that this is, indeed, a good item to include in a healthier eating lifestyle, I will put it in my basket. Unless you have done this, yourself, you can’t imagine how many times I put it back on the shelf, and seek a healthier choice!
2) Reduced Fat!
My Observation: Not much different than ‘95% Fat Free.! Personally, I am thrilled that these companies have reduced the fat from a previously less--healthy choice, but, is the difference from the original product great enough to make a difference? Sometimes - yes. Sometimes - no. *YOU* have to be an informed consumer, and *YOU* have to look out for yourself. YOU have to do the math to make the ultimate decision, whether the item is a better choice, or not.
3) “Light / Lite” ….syrup…. Brown sugar…. Lite ANYNING.
My observation: In the USA, companies can use labeling to indicate ‘lite’ simply to indicate a color change! A lighter colored pancake syrup vs. a darker colored syrup, for example. By law, the word ‘lite’ does not have to pertain to a healthier food choice, it merely has to indicate a color change. “Lite” does not pertain to a nutritional difference, and this item usually has close to the same calories as it’s ‘normal’ counter part.
3) “Only 100 Calories per ounce!”
My observation: On the surface, I want to be thrilled that food companies are trying to help the consumer make healthier choices, but, there is a more sinister side to this story. 99% of the time, if you look at the serving size on the package, there will be
The following images came from the same packaging for raisins:
This is the actual label from the individual rasin box, in the same package:
Even though the information on the first label (on the outside of the packaging) is not an out-right lie, it is definitely misleading. The average person would pick up this item, and put it in the shopping cart thinking she was getting 100 calories per SERVING, not knowing that each box is 1.3 servings. This is actually a mild case, and such label discrepancies are usually considerably greater. When we review the actual label, we notice that we will be eating 1/3 more calories for this product than we originally planned. IF you include this difference as part of your daily intake totals, it is not a problem - it is a part of your plan. It can definitely be problematic to unknowingly eat 1/3 more calories per day than you originally intended.
It is imperative that you are constantly vigilant in doing your homework.
There is a sub-sub chapter (not a typo!) to this subject:
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WHEN IS THE PERFECT TIME FOR ME TO EAT?
Let’s visit a couple more dietary urban myths:
1) You need 3 square meals a day.
Visit this link to see where the “3 square meals a day” fallacy began.
It was a British Naval thing (they ate on square plates!), and it had nothing at all to do with nutritious meals!
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070604095545AAuKW5C
2) Breakfast is always the most important meal!
Un - no! They are all equally important! Your metabolism doesn’t take a break, and neither should your general nutrition.
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WHAT’S IN YOUR TANK,
AND HOW FAR ARE YOU TRAVELING?
The human body has several built-in safety devices. One of them is a mechanism that ensures that you will not starve in the immediate future.
**Any** calories taken in that your body does not need on a particular day, or over a period of time will under no uncertain terms, be converted to excess body fat.
**Any** calories that are burned over and above the daily requirements of your body will result in a weight loss.
Those are unavoidable facts, people, I guarantee you. I am not (yet) a writer of fiction.
Let’s get back to the tank.
If you are taking a trip in your car, you will know that you have “X” amount of gasoline in your tank, and you can probably drive “X” amount of miles before you need to fill up your tank again.
If you put too much gas in that tank at the pump, it will over flow.
Unfortunately, if you put too many calories in your body, they do not simply ‘overflow’. They will stick to you until you decided to do some work to take them off!
As luck will have it, if your car runs out of gas, you will stop dead on the interstate. If your body doesn’t get the number of calories that your metabolism is expecting you will have a weight loss.
Your gas tank (belly!) should be full only if you anticipate taking a trip (functioning throughout your day, a mild work out etc. The only restriction I have with time and food is this that you should not eat within several hours of going to bed. Why not? Your body is sleeping at night - you aren’t going on that proverbial trip. Don’t fill up that tank if you aren’t planning on going on a trip? (Have you had enough of metaphors for a while? )
Let’s take a look at the animal world for more clues. I do know of several species that go long periods of times without eating. Snakes, for example, and wolves sometimes won’t make a kill for a couple days or more. Most other species - fish, monkeys, apes, cows, and many, many more are “grazers”. They eat small, frequent meals throughout the day.
If you stop and think about it, have you ever seen a FAT wild animal?: No, you haven’t. A fat wild animal has the word “PREY” written across his forehead. Animals have to be fit and capable of out running their predators to avoid becoming just another statistic in the food chain.
While we are on the subject of nature, I want you to imagine, if you will, that we are on the reality show, “Survivor”, or that we have to live in a wild state with no protection over our heads, no stores to shop in, and no cupboards at home. What would you eat? This would be your menu:
Fruits, vegetables, nuts, berries, grasses and grains, insects, grubs, small mammals, small amphibians and small reptiles.
**ALL** of the foods that you are capable of harvesting for yourself would be extremely lean (low fat) foods. Rabbit, squirrel (and most other animals capable of being captured by a human without a weapon or trap) would, indeed, be lean meats. The vegetable matter that I mentioned above can’t run from you, but you have to be able to reach it.
Another good point that we should explore before we leave the wilderness is that there would be NO sources of concentrated fats (cooking oils, lard, butter, grease, cheeses - none of those things!), and the only source of a concentrated sweet would be honey, if you are willing to fight the bees.
BUT…. Don’t be fooled. Honey is *not* lower in calories than sugar! I’m just sayin’ !
Other than honey there would be no concentrated sweets, such as ready-made cakes, pastries, chocolate, syrups, granulated white sugar (or brown sugar!) , etc, nor would there be anything that depends on them for it’s manufacture.
Taking a look at the Animal Kingdom also reminds us of a couple other issues that we must examine:
When you fill your plate with food, eat **only until you are full**. Animals will never overeat. Having an overly full belly would weigh them down, and they would have a large, flashing neon sign on their foreheads that says, "PREY" or "BAIT". If you get half-way through your meal, and you realize, "I am no longer hungry, and I am eating only because there is food left on my plate.", then you should stop eating. Put the remaining food in the fridge for a snack or another meal. Do this immediately. Do not let half a plate of food sit in front of you. Out of site, out of mind.
You must examine the reasons you are eating. Are you eating because you are hungry, or are you eating because you are bored, because there is food left on your plate, because you are happy / sad / lonely? The only reason you should be eating is because you are hungry. At any other time, you should be doing something else - anything else - but eating.
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GETTING DOWN TO THE NITTY GRITTY
(which really isn’t nit or grit, at all!)
GETTING DOWN TO THE NITTY GRITTY
(which really isn’t nit or grit, at all!)
THE SIMPLE STUFF YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW:
You will not, and cannot be successful without knowing a few basic numbers.
1) Your Ideal Body Weight
There are several ways to determine what is your ideal body weight.
A) Living by the Scale
Some people choose to ‘live by the scale’. From personal experience, I can tell you that if you choose to weigh yourself on a scale every day, you will experience an emotional roller coaster - for months! The number on that scale can single-handedly determine whether you are going to be in a good or bad mood for the rest of the day. DO NOT WEIGH YOURSELF DAILY! I will not be the one to tell you to throw your scale out the window. I offer a compromise which will not bind you to that slave of a scale, but will still keep you informed of the information you need for a successful journey:
Pick one day of the week to weigh yourself. (I picked Friday, for no particular reason.) Sit the sale in the same place in your home, and leave it there. Weigh yourself in the early morning, before you have had your cup of coffee, after you have gone to the bathroom, and stark naked. Your weight can’t be any more honest than that! In summary: Weigh yourself ONE day a week, at the same time of the day on that day every week. Do not get on the scale again until the same time next week.
B) How well (or poorly!) do your clothes fit?
Can you shop in a store where the clothing is made for the average body? If clothing that was designed for your body type in your optimum shape / size does not fit, you have some work to do to get yourself into those clothes.
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THE NUMBERS
You will need to know 7 numbers. If you can memorize an average (long distance?) phone number, you can memorize 7 numbers. It isn’t too much work - remember: No excuses!
1) Ideal Body Weight
2) BMR = Basal Metabolic Rate
3) BMI - Body Mass Index
4) How many calories are in a gram of fat (9).
5) How many calories are in a gram of carbohydrates (4).
6) How many calories are in a gram of protein (4).
7) Your daily calorie limit so you will not exceed the above guidelines.
8) The number of calories in a pound of fat: 3,500 calories (explanation follows....)
I will help you figure these out. Once you figure them out, you can write the down, or commit them to memory. Computers are a wonderful aid to help your memory!
IDEAL BODY WEIGHT
You can use these charts to determine a GENERALLY accepted range for your body type. I don’t like the methods that use ‘wrist size”. When you lose weight, you will learn that your head shrinks, your hands / fingers shrink, even your feet shrink. Your wrists will shrink, too - so a fat wrist is not an indication of ‘big bone structure’. It is an indication of a fat wrist!
Refer to these charts for a general guideline. If you gasp and say, “Well, I’m no where NEAR those numbers, then that would be an indication that you have work to do!
http://www.idealbodyweightchart.com/
My numbers, for example are:
My Small Medium Large
Height: Frame Frame Frame
5'' 4" 132-138 135-145 142-156
In any case, I know that I should not weigh less than 132 lbs, and not more than 156 lbs. As we have previously discussed, there are exceptions to every rule. A perfectly healthy person with an ectomorph build MIGHT weigh less than 132 lbs, and a champion body builder at 5’4” WILL weigh over 156 lbs, the top of this range. Personally, I look acceptable, and I feel wonderful at 135 lbs, which is right in the middle of my ’acceptable’ range. These things are guides, folks. You should aim for somewhere in this range. Being far outside this range indicated not an error in the charts, it merely indicated that you have work to do!
BASAL METABOLIC RATE
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is a big name for a simple number. This number is the number of calories that your body needs to maintain basic functions. Basic functions are your metabolism, breathing, circulation, etc, and do not include any type of exercise whatsoever. This number is the minimum number of calories you would need, God forbid, if you were in a coma.
This link is for a basic BMR calculator. There are those available by a simple internet search that will include the calories consumed by daily activities, work, exercise, etc. The one that I am going to direct you uses the “comatose” number. I like this number for a specific reason. The number of calories you consume that is LESS than this number will most certainly result in weigh loss - with the surplus fro your daily activities and exercise. Unless you have a misdiagnosed metabolic condition, you are guaranteed to lose weight if you stick to that lowest calorie limit.
There are internet calculators and websites that will calculate the number of calories your body needs per day depending on your age, weight, height, and it will allow you to input several different types of activity or exercise.
A quick Google search will help you find those. The site that I am going to point you to will return your basic BMR, and below the line that reads:
“Total Calories Burned a Day Depending on Activity Level:”, you will find quick calorie counts that apply to your specific BMR if you engage in low, light, moderate, high or very high levels of exercise. Once again, total and complete honesty is the key here. If you lie to yourself, you are the only (and perhaps any dependent children!) are the ones that will suffer.
This is the link to calculate BMR. Use the Ideal Body Weight that you got from the above website. A larger person requires a higher BMR to keep those extra cells in your body fed. If you enter the number of calories that a person at your Ideal Body Weight requires, any extra calories needed by your body to sustain surplus weight will result in a weight loss.
THE BMR CALCULATOR
http://www.bmrcalculator.org/
BODY MASS INDEX
Body Mass Index (BMI) another long-winded name for a relatively easy concept. BMI simply means are you “Height / weight proportionate?” I’m sure we’ve all heard a 5’4” 350 lb. Person say, “I’m height / weight proportionate - if I was 8 ft. tall!”
Here is a hand link to an internet calculator that does all the work for you. You need to input your HONEST data (your height in feet and inches, and your HONEST current weight), then press “Computer BMI” button. When you get your answer, look over to the immediate right, and see where your number falls. It will be a wonderfully joyous day for you when you come back to this site, and put your numbers in, and you fall in the “Normal Weight Range” category. Trust me when I tell you that if you apply honesty, information and hard work, you will see your BMI fall into the Normal range.
The link to calculate your BMI:
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
FINALLY….COUNTING CALORIES!
and
3,500 calories = 1 pound of fat
3,500 calories per pound of fat / 16 ounces in a pound = 218.75 calories per OUNCE of fat.and
3,500 calories = 1 pound of fat
This is as good of a spot as any to put the "3,500 calories = 1 pound of fat" law.
Explained:
Remember that over any amount of time, if you consume more calories than your body requires to function, or if you do not burn those calories through exercise, you will gain weight. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If you consume less calories, or through exercise, work off more calories than your body requires to function, you will lose weight.
There no magic time of the day or night when your body decides to pack on a few ounces, or to take off a few ounces. This happens on a continuum - not all at once.
Another example:
Your maximum calorie intake, considering your level of daily exercise is 2,100 calories (this is an example, and not your own personal number!) Through a combination of exercise and your food intake, you have consumed your 2,100 calories for the day. Then....you have a 540 calorie Big Mac sandwich from Mc Donalds. These 540 calories are a surplus that is not needed by your body to function, therefore they will be stored on your body as fat. For this *1* sandwich, let's calculate how much fat is going to be stored:
Here is the math relating to the situation:
540 surplus calories in the Big Mac / 218.75 calories per ounce of fat = 2.46 (or 2 and a half!) ounces of weight gained from this one sandwich on this one day.
I know somebody out there is yelling at their screen, "Oh, come on! What harm can a 2 and a half ounce weight gain be? Loosen up and live a little!" I will accept that challenge, and I can answer you with: "Please don't fool yourself into believing that that one 2.5 ounce surplus is all you ate on *this* day, and we won't talk about the other days...weeks...months... years... that resulted in a massive weight gain."
But....Let's still with the example at hand. If you honestly have a surplus of ONLY 540 calories per day, you will gain one pound over the course of 6.4 days - almost a week. At this rate, you will gain 57 pounds in one year.... multiply that by a couple years.... 114 pounds of excess weight in a 2 year period. This example should put to bed the question, "What possible harm can result from a 2.5 ounce weight gain?"
The moral of this part of this never-ending saga is: Over the course of *any* amount of time, if you consume ANY calories more than that which is required by your body to function at it's current level, you will gain weight by a certain, predictable rate. If you exercise more, or cut the food intake by a certain amount, with 100% predictability, you will lose weight. There are no 2 ways about it. No "ifs, "ands", or "buts". No magic is involved, and there are no shortcuts to work around it. The easy way to remember it is: If I consume any part of 3,500 calories more than I ever need, that will = a 1 pound weight gain. If I cut 3,500 calories from my daily intake, or if I increase my exercise to the tune of 3,500 calories, I will lost 1 pound.
Along the same lines is a quote by one of my mentors, Richard Simmons, when someone asks him, "Oh, what harm can a sliver of cake cause?" His answer, "A sliver leads to a slab and a slab leads to a slob!"
How so? I will cover you 100% in the argument that if you are at or near your goal weight or body type, one single candy bar absolutely will not pack back on the 100 lbs. you just lost, especially **if you work it into your daily plan**. However, this is how it can result in failure, otherwise. If you are in an active weight-loss situation, and you go on a wild binge, it will stop your progress dead in it's tracks. You may or may not gain weight from this particular excursion, but your weight loss will definitely come to a screeching halt. This delay (a form of the dreaded "plateau") can very easily cause you to become discouraged. One of the closest friends of "discouragement" is "failure". They walk around the world, hand-in-hand, waiting for temptation to come along to get the party started! Using this example, we can easily see how eating one candy bar when you did not plan to do so can cause your weight loss to be delayed, causing discouragement and ultimately, failure. Remember: You are not being cheated or deprived. The time that you enjoyed an overabundance was when you were not exercising or eating healthy. Those foods that you crave are not going anywhere - trust me. If they were going somewhere, I would be the first person in line to catch them as they passed me by. Stick to your plan, and don't allow discouragement to get a foothold in your life.
BACK TO CALORIE COUNTING.....
There are many books at Walden Books, Borders, Barns ‘n’ Nobles, etc, that are thick books that list calories in every conceivable food available.
These books are a good source of portable information. There are other resources that are available to you.
Until you are fully aware of every bite that goes into your mouth, and you can be accountable for such, you should have a small pad of paper and a pen on you *at all times*, or within your immediate reach. Record *everything* that goes into your mouth. The act of writing it down, in itself, is a wonderful weight-loss aid. How can writing it down help? There are several ways:
1) Writing down something makes you more conscious of your actions. You can’t do it absent-mindedly.
2) A study was done using those things that I loathe - diet pills. The same number of people lost as much weight on a 100% placebo as with the diet pill they were testing! How can this be? Both groups knew they were testing a diet pill. Both groups had a heightened awareness of their eating and exercise habits. Both groups changed their habits for better choices because they knew they were being monitored, thus both groups lost weight! The diet pill had absolutely nothing to do with it.
3) You have a written account of what you ate, so you can correctly count those calories into your daily plan.
This website has information on virtually anything with caloric value that you can put in your mouth!
Click on either the “Food search” at the top of the screen, or enter the food you are looking for in the box in the middle of the home page:
http://www.calorieking.com/
This page will actually calculate the total calories in a serving of a recipe after you enter the individual ingredients. Although I do eat pre-packaged meals (Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine, etc), I would strongly encourage you to learn to cook healthy for yourself. I teach people how to live in the real world, instead of cling to a program that they are paying dearly for, that keeps you more-or-less a slave to the program, and does not teach you skills you need to function along with the rest of the world.
The page that calculates the calories in recipes:
http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php
In a previous section, I mentioned “Which are the right / wrong foods to eat?”, and we have learned, despite all the hype and crap out there that there are no right / wrong foods, in general. There are better and worse choices to make, and a wide range of those, at that. If you choose to eat candy bars your entire life, you might die from several vitamin / mineral deficiencies, but as long as you stay within your caloric limits, you won’t gain or lose weight!
I’m sure you have heard the hype about “Good / Bad carbs”, too. The people that spew forth such crap make me want to punk until I die! They are doing nothing to properly educate the public, and are only offering them a simple but poor mental crutch.
The scoop on “Good Carbs” vs. “Bad Carbs” is this:
Those people that are hurling this crap at is are saying that simple sugars (syrups, white granulated sugar, brown sugar, even honey falls into that category) are ‘bad’, and complex carbohydrates such as breads, grains, etc, are ‘good’ carbs. At the end of the day, they ALL get converted into energy that your body needs to function, or stored as fat if you have consumed more than your necessary daily calorie limit. It is true: Complex Carbs (Breads, etc), break down more slowly, and will give you sustained energy, while a simple sugar will be absorbed immediately, and be burned off rather quickly. The result of this fast-burn is that you will possibly become hungry sooner, and you will want to eat more calories to satisfy that hunger.
The bottom line is that a carbohydrate is a carbohydrate, and a simple sugar is…a carbohydrate! Both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ carbs have 4 calories per gram. It is simple math. Nothing more than that. I would suggest that you consume a food item that will give you a more sustained energy than a short burst, but the choice is yours. As an example, before I would go on a century (100 miles) bicycle ride, I would eat BOTH a complex carbohydrate AND a simple carbohydrate. One would give me an immediate energy boost, and the other would cover at a later time, when I needed that sustained energy. You must be an informed and educated consumer. To paraphrase a previous ‘chapter’, we should put the appropriate fuel in our tanks for the type of trip in which we are going to embark!
We now know what our height / weight ratio is (BMI) , and how many calories we need to consume a day to maintain, lose….or gain….Weight (BMR).
Technically, you can lose weight and maintain a healthy weight by counting just the total calories for an item, and pay no attention whatsoever to the number of fat, protein or carbohydrate grams in the item. As long as you are staying below your calorie limit for the day, you will lost weight.
If you would like more “bulk for your calories”, these are the last numbers you will need to be fully informed:
1) How many calories are in a gram of fat (9 calories).
2) How many calories are in a gram of carbohydrates (4 calories).
3) How many calories are in a gram of protein (4 calories).
We don’t have to be contestants on “Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader” to determine that a gram of fat has over TWICE the number of calories as in a gram of protein or a gram of carbohydrate. In other words, you get twice the volume of protein and carbs as you would a fat for the same amount of calories. (You can eat several CANS of green beans, compared to one candy bar!). We all have to make choices! Considering the gastrointestinal history that I disclosed above, and the fact that I am a pig, in general, most of the time, I would rather have a large volume of lower calorie food, rather than a small volume of high calorie food.
WHAT IS A CARB(OHYDRATE)? (4 calories per gram of carb)
Complex carbs = breads, pastas, (things made with flour or grains!)
Simple carbs = obvious sugars, syrups, etc
WHAT IS A PROTEIN? (4 calories per gram of protein)
Proteins = meats, legumes, etc.
The following link is a list of protein-rich foods to help you:
http://www.indoorclimbing.com/Protein_Foods.html
The same goes for 3 types of nutrients,: carbs, fats and proteins. We have to keep in mind, however, the way these foods are prepared. Broccoli smothered with cheese isn’t necessarily a good choice! Steamed broccoli with herbs is a GREAT choice!
Baked fish with lemon = a great choice! Deep fried fish at a fast food joint = a heart attack in a paper wrapper! See the difference?
WHAT IS A FAT? (9 calories per gram of fat)
While this list is no where near conclusive, this is a general break down of fats:
http://ezinearticles.com/?A-List-Of-High-Fat-Foods-That-Are-Bad-For-You&id=740783
GETTING THIS SYMPHONY TOGETHER ON THE SAME PAGE
(How to read a nutrition label)
**THIS** is the most important part of being an educated consumer. You must become an avid label-reader, with no exceptions. Remember: The road to hell is paved with good intentions! “Intending” to do good, but inadvertently doing otherwise will produce the same results: Failure with a confused look on your face!
Take a look at the sample label above. Incidentally, this label is from a jar of peanut butter. That I keep for my parrot, Conrad. The message that I am trying to convey here is not that peanut butter is a demon from Hell that we must chase down with a crucifix, I am merely trying to give you samples of foods with varying information on the labels.
Most labels will do the math for you, but I have learned not to trust their math. I will do it, myself.
The total calories in two TABLESPOONS of peanut butter is 180 calories. Just as a comparison, I just had a packaged meal (OK - Lean Cuisine) that is 10 oz, 260 calories and 6 grams of fat. Would you rather eat 2 tablespoons of a foot, or would you rather eat 10 ounces of a hot food that more closely resembles a meal? Trust me that when I tell you that when you are sufficiently hungry enough, you will most likely choose the food that provides the most bulk for the least amount of fat and calories.
Back to that peanut butter label:
Total calories: 180
The label states (under Calories, over to the left) it sal “Fat Cal = 140)
As yet another segway in this story: If the fat calories are 1/3 of the total calories per serving, I will put the item back on the shelf, and look for an alternative where 1/3 or less of the calories comes from fat. That allows me to have more satisfying bulk in my daily diet while keeping down the total grams of fat and the total calories for my day.
Please note on the label the “DV %, for fat calories, for example. The Daily Value (DV) % in this peanut butter is 23% of your allowed daily total fat calories. That is almost ¼ of your entire day’s fat calories - for just tablespoons of food! I would definitely look for a less fat-expensive item, but that is my own personal choice.
Let’s go ahead and do our own math, rather than trust that written on the label:
15 grams of fat per serving x 9 calories per gram = 135 calories from fat, not the 140 stated when they did the math for us, but I digress.
Although I don’t often do **all** of the math on the label, let’s calculate the label for ourselves, just to see how accurate the information is that they gave us to work with. Please keep in mind that it is not necessary to go to this extent. If you multiply the amount of GRAMS of fat in an item, and check to see if that answer is larger than 1/3 of the total calories in the food, you will have all the information you need to make an informed choice. IF the total fat calories is larger than 1/3 - put if back on the shelf, and keep looking.
At any rate, let‘s calculate the entire label:
Grams of fat = 15. 15 x 9 calories per gram = 135 calories
Grams of carbs = 8. 8 x 4 = 32 calories
Grams of protein = 7. 7 x 4 = 28 calories
If you add the 135 + 32 + 28, theoretically, the total should = 180, the total number of calories per serving in this peanut butter.
Actually, 135 + 32 + 28 = 195 calories, rather than the 180 listed on the label! These labels, more often than not, contradict themselves, therefore we need to do the math ourselves. It does make a difference.
Personally, I would rather add 50 calories to this total, and have a bulkier meal, but that is my own choice.
Let’s take a look at this label for canned tuna:
Let’s do the math ourselves:
The label says there is 1 gram of fat per serving, and a total of 50 calories.
9 calories per gram of fat x 1 = 9, not the 10 that is stated on the label, but who’s splitting hairs.
9 calories from fat is not greater than 1/3 the calories per serving in this item (50 total calories / 3 = 17 calories. Since the 9 calories is less than 17, this is a good item to include in our routine.
This brings us to….
PORTION CONTROL
The single most important number you must look at is the portions or servings per package. Considering this small can of tuna, who is really going to eat only half a can?
Instead of 50 calories, this entire small can of tuna is 100 calories. We must figure 100 calories, instead of 50 into our plan. Two grams of fat in a serving of tuna is a great deal, nutrition-wise!
IN SUMMARY:
1) You must educate and inform yourself.
2) You must exercise, in some form or other. An increased metabolism will burn more calories than the exercise, itself, burns off.
3) If you aim for lower fat calories, you can eat more food at a less ‘expense’ calorie-wise, thus feeling more full / satisfied for a longer period of time. And….the foods you choose to eat will be nutritionally better for you.
4) Although I absolutely loath any eating program with a name attached to it, if you “eat like you are playing Survivor”, monitor your daily calorie intake, and you exercise, you **WILL** lose weight, and you will keep it off by continuing these methods.
5) This is a permanent life solution, not a “diet”.
You have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired, and you must realize that increased mobility along with decreasing your risk of heart attack or stroke is just a few of the benefits your efforts will be rewarded with. Not to mention the fact that you might live to see your grandchildren, and you can shop at any clothing store your little heart desires! (And walk up a flight of steps without being breathless…and…. )
- Michael
