Month: May 2016

This past week, I received lots of great news from people who have been following this blog and have been inspired to either start their own Whole30 or go Paleo on their journey to good health. These stories are amazing, inspiring, and humbling. I’m proud to have been a motivator to these folks, and I’m happy for them in that they took the first steps to getting healthy. The best news: all of these people are already down ~20 lbs!

What makes me really feel good is that people are getting the message that eating healthy doesn’t have to be a horrible thing. You don’t have to suffer. You don’t have to give up on eating delicious foods that fill you up. You don’t have to buy into clubs, medicines, vitamins, pills, patches, powders, or grueling workout systems or plans and most importantly, there’s no surgery involved. It’s just a change in mindset and a change in lifestyle that is sustainable and something you can easily stick with for the rest of your life. It almost feels like it’s too good to be true. I definitely feel that way every morning while I eat bacon and eggs, but the proof is in the lost weight and lost sizes. If it didn’t work, I wouldn’t have lost over 88 lbs since September 1 and over 107 lbs overall. My numerous blood tests and stress tests would have told a different tale than they did (which is clean bill of health and in better health than I have been for the past 20 years!).

I mentioned in a previous post; yes, there is a catch: preparation time and effort. Otherwise, this is something everyone can do easily. It just takes some determination, motivation, and self-discipline. It gets easier as time goes on and you learn to adjust your diet and plan accordingly. After some time, foods taste better and you find foods you may not have liked are now delicious and flavorful. Sugar affects how we taste, and some of the most amazing subtle flavors are drowned out by sugar in foods.

If you haven’t started or are thinking that there’s no way this can work, read the Required Reading on the right sidebar. Give it some serious thought, and do some more reading. You will find that science is finally catching up with what we already know: fat is not the enemy, sugar is bad for you, and the American diet is horrible for our health. There’s a huge industry around losing weight. I think it’s no coincidence that many of the companies that make high-sugar foods are the same that sell diet medicine and programs.

I say, “Bad food” here and there when referring to those foods that are not in my Paleo lifestyle. I call them bad because I avoid them. Much like playing with electricity is bad, or playing with TNT is bad, so is eating foods full of carbs, sugar, and other toxins.

But, as Collin noted in his excellent article about his own journey towards better health, calling certain foods bad isn’t really constructive for everyone. This is a very salient point, and something that bears further discussion.

I’ve stated before that we all have to find what works for us. For some, it’s a grueling workout routine and schedule coupled with sensible eating. For others, it’s counting calories and portion control. For me, it’s living the Paleo lifestyle. Our net result: we all get healthier and lose weight. Though we go about it in very different ways, we each found a way that works best for us. The same goes for how we categorize foods.

I really like what Collin said about foods and lifestyle change: “It’s about an attitude and a positive mental shift about food, not about how you need to deprive yourself of things because you are bad.” This is a great point. If you eat something that’s not necessarily great for you, you’re not bad or being bad. It’s just a food decision you made that you now have to just move on from.

When Sherry and I were on our most recent vacation, we made decisions that included foods that were not Paleo. In some cases, they were so far off the reservation as to be borderline crazy (in terms of our new healthy lifestyle). We made the conscious decision to not mourn our decisions or to get depressed about them. We made peace with what we ate, and continued on to the very next meal eating “On plan.” It’s a lot easier than we thought it would be, and in a lot of ways, was quite comforting. We re-affirmed our ability to control our eating, and we were showing ourselves that we were in charge. We didn’t just say, “Screw it. I ate bad, so I’m just going to eat crazy all day!”

Just yesterday, we went to a fantastic lunch at a local restaurant called B&B Butchers. It’s a steak place with really fancy foods. We always tell our waiters to not bring us breads, but this time we forgot. What we got was an amazing looking basket of breads. One of these was an apricot-filled bread of some sort. Sherry decided she had to have a bit; the curiosity was killing her. She had one bite, said it was pretty good, but she said it was odd, because she didn’t feel the need to eat the whole thing. She was satisfied to have only tasted it. I then decided to go ahead and have a bite as well, and I had the same sensation she did: it was good, but I didn’t feel like I was missing anything by not eating the whole thing, or eating more bread. We stuck to our eating plan and while we may have eaten more in volume than we normally do, it was all food that was good for us and our bodies.

Making good food decisions is tough in the beginning, but gets easier with time. After eight months, Sherry and I are both pretty solidly into the Paleo lifestyle. We love the flavors and textures of our Paleo foods and the fact that we feel so good after eating. We don’t have cravings, we get full, and we’re full of energy. These are all new sensations for two people who have spent a lifetime eating foods that were wrong for our bodies.

Whatever you do, stay positive. Whether you call foods that are off-plan “off-limits, “No-go,” or “Bad,” be able to identify those foods that would sabotage your progress on your journey to getting healthy and avoid them by eating foods that are delicious, that are satisfying, and that ultimately get you to your goal: getting healthy

This morning, I weighed in at my lowest yet: 201.3 lbs. This is nice; I had a setback on Saturday when I had lots and lots of port wine. I knew going into the party that I would drink, and I knew that it would slow or even halt my weight loss progress, but I did it anyway. It was the birthday party for a dear friend, and I wasn’t going to miss out on the fun.

It took me a full five days to begin losing weight again, which seems to be the norm for me. Every time I drink alcohol, I can say goodbye to weight loss for at least five days. Then, as long as I’ve stuck to eating properly, the progress begins anew and I start losing weight. I’m happy to be back into weight loss mode; just 1.4 more lbs and I’m finally into “Onederland;” that mythical place where people weigh under 200 lbs. It’s been over twenty years since I’ve been in Onederland. I can’t wait to be there.

After eating right for eight months, I’m finally learning the effects of imbibing and eating certain drinks and foods. I’m also learning how much of certain foods I can eat and what it will do to my weight loss. Cauliflower? I can eat as much of that as I want; it has no effect. Liver and onions? Chow down! Steak and shrimp with sweet potato? As long as I eat half of the sweet potato, I’m good for losing some weight. Eat the whole thing? I’ll hold steady.

The key is to pay attention to your body: how much you weight, how your clothes fit, and use that data to guide your food decisions.

By now, most of us know how bad soft drinks are for us. They are literally filled to almost saturation point with sugar. It’s shocking the first time you see how much sugar is in a soda.

What many don’t know is how many foods and other items have sugar in them that we would never think have any business having sugar in them. Sausage? Bacon? Table salt? Yep. They can all contain sugar.

One of the very first surprises for me was bacon. I thought for sure bacon would be a food that was sugar-free, but it turned out that it was harder to find sugar-free bacon than you would imagine. Of all the things: bacon.

Sausage is another one that often has sugar in it. Fortunately, there is a growing trend of sausage makers to not use sugar or even nitrates in their sausages, which is nice. I’ve also tried my hand at making bacon myself, and it’s turned out great! I will likely be doing more experimentation with making my own bacon in the future.

Lots of people mistakenly think that low-fat means low-sugar, or that whole grain or brown rice means low-sugar. Carbs=sugars. Grains have lots of carbs.

What to use when a recipe needs sweetness? Honey, agave, or natural maple syrup are three good sources of sweetness. Of course, Sherry and I try to keep sweets to a minimum, but sometimes, a recipe needs some sweetness to it. Fortunately, the three sources of sweetness I mentioned are natural and the body processes them much better than sugar.

Do some reading of labels and eliminate or at least try to greatly reduce your sugar intake. Your body will thank you for it by losing weight, processing food more efficiently, and ultimately, getting healthier.

In the four days since my wife and I returned from our 8 day trip to Seattle and Vancouver, we’ve stuck to our Paleo lifestyle and both of us have been pleasantly surprised with how quickly and easily the weight we put on has come back off. I can’t speak for her weight loss, but I’ve lost almost 8.5 lbs since Sunday morning which means I’m now just .6 lbs up from my lowest weigh-in just before we went on vacation.

THAT IS AMAZING!

Just this week, a story came out in the New York Times about a “study” done on fourteen cast members of The Greatest Loser and how much weight they regained after the show. The story goes on to explain that these people all lost huge amounts of weight in a very small period of time and as a result, their metabolism slowed dramatically. Of the fourteen, only two have continued to either sustain the weight loss or lose more. I began receiving lots of emails and messages from people asking me if I was worried that the same would happen to me.

No. I’m not worried. And here’s why: I’m not starving myself, not doing a deprivation diet, and I didn’t set out to lose the most amount of weight in the smallest amount of time. What I did was NOT what the people on The Greatest Loser did. I did a Whole30 and went Paleo. I ate until I felt full, made sure I stuck to the Paleo lifestyle, and made sure to never sabotage my eating plans by eating non-Paleo foods. My body has been losing weight naturally, without starving myself, without killing myself with crazy workouts, and without taking any supplements, vitamins, pills, patches, or drugs/surgery.

Our bodies want to run efficiently. If we feed them an appropriate amount of calories and nutrients, they will find their ideal weight. All you have to do is eat good foods in normal amounts. My weight loss is proof that our bodies are resilient and can bounce back from temporary weight gain with little effort and some discipline.

+7 lbs on Sunday morning. Ouch.

But, like I said in an earlier post, I know how this happened, and I know why, and I am okay with it. Now, I just have to get back to work with eating right and sticking with good foods.

After returning to our normal foods on Sunday, my weight was down 2.7 lbs from the day prior. That’s great news. It means that my body is bouncing back from the bad food and returning to its efficiency and getting back down to the weight I was at before I went on vacation, and then onward to losing more weight.

The important lesson for me (and Sherry, as she and I discussed this) is that we knew what we were doing, what we were getting into, and we knew that we would have to do more work once we got back. Our weight went up, but it didn’t break our spirit or hamper our fun during our trip. Am I sad to see the scale read a higher weight? Of course! But I’m actually excited to be back on our eating plan and eating better foods. Sherry and I talked about how after one day of eating our “good” foods, we already felt better; less bloated, less achy, and more energetic.

I made our standard two eggs and two slices of bacon breakfast this morning and I brought my chili and sweet potato hash in for lunch. Dinner will likely be something yummy either from the fridge (Sherry made three meals yesterday for us to have over the course of the week as lunches or dinners), but the best part is that it will be food that my body likes and does well with. Oh, and I’ll be back to losing weight again.

So… one step back out of 100+ steps. I’m okay with this.

Current weight: 206.6 lbs (up 4.7 lbs since my lowest pre-vacation).