February 26 Progress Report
Just to “weigh in” here…
I have been following the Paleo Diet more closely lately, and have thrown in a little bit of exercise here and there. While I still eat dairy, as I believe that it is not harmful, the Paleo diet has been gently putting my body back into balance. I am more alert, active, and happier. Not that I wasn’t happy before, but I was more moody than now. Case in point: my spouse and I have been arguing about how we wanted things to go on a certain project. Before, on the high carb diet, I would have bitten his head off. Now, I am listening to what he is actually saying, and we got the argument cleared up almost immediately. There was not the moodiness that was present before…protein and fat, baby!
So, here is my official weight loss report:
I am now at 268 pounds–down from 285 starting weight in December! That is a total weight loss so far of 17 pounds in a time period of 2 months!
I have lost about 2 inches off my waist, and my face is glowing with health. This is on a diet that our ancestors ate long ago, before the agricultural nutrition scam–the biggest scam in history!
Actual Truth? Or Insane Advice?? (part 1)
My mother is battling kidney cancer, and has been for a couple years now. She is overweight and has been almost her entire adult life. She is following a high carbohydrate, low fat vegetarian diet as she believes this is healthy. (I will not go into why this is not–at least on this post anyway.) But she is trying to lose weight and put her body into balance, so that the cancer will disappear. But the most insane thing I have ever heard was when she told me what her primary care physician told her: “Don’t try to lose too much weight while you’re on the chemo, because your immune system will not work properly.” HUH?? My jaw hit the floor!
But it gets better…one of her friends agreed and said the same thing! So I asked her, “What does your friend do?” “Oh, she’s a therapist.” Okay, so I was thinking maybe a physical therapist…or some type of therapist who would actually know about the body and how it worked. Nope…her friend is a psychological therapist! A doctor of the mind–not the body. While we all know that the mind and the body are deeply connected, the above statement made to my mother had nothing to do with psychology and her friend has absolutely no training in that area.
What I want to know is–how does a doctor come to the above conclusion, when the entire medical community preaches that obesity has been linked to a host of diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease? Why would he tell her that? In many cases, when people are being treated with chemotherapy, they tend to lose interest in eating, and will simply not eat as a result. This is very dangerous, as the body needs extra nutrition during this time of extreme treatment. Many people will waste away and become even more ill as the body tries to repair itself.
And yet…while someone in the clutches of the doctors’ extreme measures needs the extra nutrition, do they need to keep the extra weight? People who were treated for cancer who were overweight experienced recurrences of the cancer shortly after being treated. My mother has had the cancer twice–the first time, it was completely removed by surgery. The second time–well, she still is battling it. And she is still overweight, and maybe in the obese category. One would think that the doctor, instead of telling her not to lose weight, would actually tell her how to eat in a way that will provide her with the nutrition she needs, while being able to lose weight. Oh wait–no, I don’t think he would even know the correct nutrition that she needs…he is operating a disease management system, not a health care system!
(Tomorrow’s post will contain what she needs to get rid of the cancer, and how she can lose weight effectively, while at the same time, keep her immune system at top performance. Don’t miss what will be the most controversial post yet!)
February 16th Progress Report
While I have stayed on the Paleo diet, I have not exercised for the last 3 weeks. So, I have not gained any weight, but I have not lost any either.
And, with Valentine’s Day, I’ve had a little more candy than I needed, but then again, I don’t need any candy. 
My goal for the month is to lose 10 more pounds before I see my doctor. Which means that I need to start exercising more….
I will let you know more about how that turns out…
No-Trans Fat Margarine is Still Trans Fat!
Last night, my family and I went to a large restaurant chain, open 24-7, for supper. My kids ordered pancakes and when they got their order, they got margarine instead of butter to top it. The problem is that our family has not consumed margarine for the past 4 years now, and they absolutely hate the taste of that artificial crap. Plus, margarine, no matter how many companies claim it has no transfats in their products; margarine is always going to be transfat. How is this? Because when you heat up the oils, and then process it the way margarine is, the properties of the oils are going to be forever altered in a transfat form.
Well, here’s what happened. We asked our server if the kids could have regular butter. However, here is the answer they gave us:
“The company has decided that butter was unhealthy because of the saturated fats in butter. We had butter until the inspector came out last summer, but he made us get rid of it.” Even the manager came over and told that they were not allowed to have butter there, because of the corporate decision that they must change things to make the food healthier. He even claimed that the margarine they had was non-tans-fat. I told him that no matter what the companies say, their products are still going to be transfat. He just ended the conversation then, and walked off.
Then, I learned later that the only state where they can have butter is in Wisconsin, because that is the “dairy state”. Huh? What sense does that make? What makes one state immune to the saturated fats while the other states aren’t? But here is the worst part–saturated fats are nowhere near the enemy that we are being led to believe it is. You can read more about that here…
A summary of the above article:
“Cholesterol may be ingested in animal products, but less than twenty percent of your body’s cholesterol needs will be supplied in this way. Your body then makes up the difference. If you eat less cholesterol, your body merely compensates by making more.”
Saturatd fats are not the enemy, but grains. In future articles, I will tell you why grains will make you sicker than just eating saturated fats. You can cure most nutrition related diseases by not eating grains…but until then, have some butter!
Carbs, Junk Food, Oh My!
So, I backslid a little this past weekend. I had pizza, pop, and a bit of junk food. And my weight went back up a few pounds. And…I got really cranky as a result. Apparently, there have been some studies done that shows how depression, violence, and suicide happens more in people who are eating large amounts of bran, soy foods, high carb diets, and/or are vegetarians. You can read more about it here.
The basics of the article states that:
- Carbohydrates are often recommended by nutritionists to be eaten at night, because of the sedative effects it has on your system. In someone who is already prone to depression, this could have disastrous and debilitating results! The article states that, “But with depression, if you are tired, you really don’t feel like doing anything: it’s an effort to get up, work, play, interact with people, get meals, and so on. And under these conditions, carbohydrate meals have exactly the opposite effect from what you might expect. They make you relaxed and slow your reaction times…“
- Low cholesterol can lead to suicide and violence.
- The simple solution is to get rid of the high carb diet, and eat more of a protein/fat diet.
It’s not a wonder I got really down and cranky, then…if grain based carbs, and a low-protein diet is to blame for depression, suicide and violence, then maybe it would be better for me to eat high protein and fat, and a low carb (no grains) diet. Worth a shot, eh?
January 31st Progress Report
Just to back up a little bit, I wanted to share with you where I was and where I am going in my weight loss journey. Two years ago, I lost a significant amount of weight–60 pounds, to be exact–by going Vegan, and then going back to being vegetarian, but avoiding sugar and by exercising. After a while, though, I got really tired and had low energy…got really cranky too. It wasn’t a pretty picture! I started eating meat again, but that didn’t start me gaining weight. Why I started gaining weight back again was because I began eating sugar products, grains (including refined), and fast food crap…
But now I’m back in the game, and actively working on researching the best way to lose weight for the long term, as well as fight off diseases and illnesses. I found the Paleo diet.
I have been following this for the last month–eating only meats, vegetables, and fruits. I changed my caffeine source from Mt. Dew to green and black tea. So, not only do I get the health benefits of the tea, I also don’t have all the sugar and corn syrup that causes weight gain. Grains are out, but I have found some great recipes for using nut flours and meals in baked goods…
For the month of January, I have lost a total of 15 pounds.
So, I have eaten some sugar products here and there. And in the past month, I have had pizza twice. So, while grains are not on the menu most of the time, I realize that it can be a little easier to transition slowly to a no-grain diet, since grains have been a part of my diet pretty much since I was born. And I know that is how many of us grew up. It doesn’t have to be hard to give all that up all at once, but the closer I get to a no grain diet, I know the better I will feel. Already, I have felt so much better when I do not eat grains.
Stay tuned for more of my progress…
Fred Flintstone was Right!
That familiar tune starts out with a bird’s tail getting pulled, followed by Fred sliding down his work dinosaur, hops in his car, races to punch out from work, and then while he’s on his way home, the song starts: “Flintstones, meet the Flintstones. They’re a modern stone age family…” Ya know, Fred always ate a lot of meat–I mean, a LOT of meat! And whenever he was supposed to be on a diet, he was given one leaf of lettuce for a meal. And in the end, he couldn’t keep up the diet, because he was always way too hungry. Can’t say I blame him!
For starters, the cavemen seemed to know a lot more about nutrition than the writers of that cartoon knew back in the ’60’s. They had Fred going on a starvation diet–which, today, we know is just a recipe for disaster. Starving yourself is the last thing you want to do to lose weight, for a number of reasons. First, your body will hold on to as much fat as possible, because it thinks that there is a famine and needs all the fat it can get to keep for survival.
Next, eventually, your organs will not get the nutrients it needs to operate efficiently, and they will eventually shut down. It has been documented several times over how the survivors of the concentration camps from World War II had irreparable damage in their organs from being starved in the camps.
And last, it’s not as simple as calories in, calories out for weight loss. It seems that all the diets out there have it wrong–even most of the low carb diets. For instance, did you know that eating any grain in any form is going to make you fat? Or sick? Or diseased? Carbohydrates that come from grains are going to make it a lot harder for you to lose weight and keep it off, than if you were to get your carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables. Protein and fat have gotten a bum rap in the past 30 years or so, very much to the detriment of our health. I won’t go into it now, but proteins and fats are much better for you than grains…
In the end, if I were to write the diet episode for Fred Flintstone, I would have written that he eat a lot of meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables–he would have never had to join a meeting, nor would he have ever been hungry. And he would have gotten to be an “after” picture.
