If you didn't read my last post I will catch you up to speed. I have lost 100 pounds in about 7 months. I am not going to lie to you and say that it was an easy process. Losing weight, especially a large amount of weight is very difficult. The light at the end of the tunnel is that the really hard part doesn't last for more than about a month.
Lets talk about food. What kinds of foods lead to weight gain? If you read weight loss magazines or diets, or watch tv, this is a very difficult question to answer. Everywhere you turn someone is claiming that one ingredient or kind of food is bad, and it becomes difficult to find out what the real culprit in your weight gain is.
What I have learned through hours and hours of research and personal experience is that fake foods and excessive simple carbohydrates are really at the root of the problem. Most people realize to some extent that fast food is bad (although we still continue to eat it), but many other foods that are common American diet, and even some supposed health foods will cause weight gain and make it very difficult to lose weight. Some of these common foods would be refined wheat bread, cereal, crackers, weight loss foods (ie frozen diet foods, etc), diet soda, low fat ice cream, and granola bars.
Some people might look at that list and say that carbs are getting the blame. I would disagree. Carbs are not inherently bad. The amount of carbs in the American diet and the kinds of refined grains we eat are harmful to the body. Spelt for example is a good alternative grain for bread. Its delicious, healthy, and processed in a very different way in your body from other kinds of flour. The pattern I have found is food that is processed or fake.
What is fake food. Fake food is candy, frozen food, most things that come in a box, snack food, fast food, diet food, etc. Fake food is the illegal drugs of cuisine with fast food being the crack cocaine. These foods get us high and are easy and convenient. Those are some of the primary reasons they are successful in the marketplace. There is another more sinister reason for the success of these foods and that is marketing, but once again for another post.
The greatest lie that advertisers ever told was that what they sell makes you happy. This is true of food and pretty much every product in the marketplace. This was the fundamental lie that I had to unlearn before I could stop compulsively eating.
So you may ask, what do I eat? Well, that has changed and evolved over the process as I have learned more and more. The first rule is no sugar. Well not "no sugar," but not very much. And if you are going to eat sugar, eat natural forms of it. Natural forms being things like modest portions of fruit. Ingredients like bbq sauce and other condiments are often based in high fructose corn syrup and should be avoided.
I also eat greens. And by greens I mean collard, kale, etc. They clean out your body, provide it with its necessary fuel and help restore health.
While eliminating most sugar (especially fake sugar, like aspartame, sucralose, etc) and eating greens is a large step, I feel it is important to understand basic principles instead of rules. When you understand the why behind what you are eating, it is much simpler to vary the diet and not get tired of your healthy dishes.
!st principle - You must eat food that the body can process. This 1st principle is really the only one you need if you can wrap your mind around what it means. Your body is a well oiled machine and requires proper fuel to function properly. When we replace real food with food substitutes are bodies dont know what to do. The end result is obesity, disease, and death. So what is the solution? A natural diet.
This mean organic produce, all natural breads (in moderation), eating foods with 1 ingredient,such as almonds, eggs, cheese, milk, vegetables, and organic good quality meats. It means choosing foods that are not pre made for convenience, but doing your own cooking. It means a lifestyle change and a perception change. It means making your own salad dressings, and sauces, and buying more expensive and harder to find food items. It means being picky at the grocery store and putting your health above your pocket book. It means eating out becomes a special treat and not an everyday occurrence. It means letting go of some of the foods you think you love, and realizing that you are simply addicted.
Breaking food addiction is an act of will. It is not easy, but the truth is once you are free from the bonds, you get your life back.
More tomorrow, thanks for reading. Post a comment and let me know what you think. Keep fighting the good fight and be your own advocate for your own health.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
I Lost 100 Pounds
This is my very first blog entry and I am excited to chronicle the changes that have happened in my life over the past year. I want to talk about food, and how it is perceived. I guess I should start from the beginning.
I have struggled with my weight for most of my life. The pictures of me as a very young child I was thin, but after that overweight. I have often wondered why certain people fall into the patterns that lead to obesity. You might ask if its learned behavior, or if its a genetic predisposition like other addictions supposedly are. I think in my case it was a learned behavior.
The perception of food is the key.
What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that the way you think about food and what its purpose is in your life will impact how you eat. This may seem like a simple concept and thin people either understand this intuitively, or are taught. But for me, coming from a family with obesity it was a foreign idea. So the question becomes, what is the purpose of food for obese people?
Food is not unlike drugs. It is powerful in the way that it an affect your mood and behavior. When a person is eating a healthy diet, the cravings for the foods that are killing you disappear. I want to reiterate that last point. THE FOODS THAT ARE KILLING YOU. Cancer, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and the list goes on, are all interconnected with our diet. Eating foods that make you obese are addictive. Which is why people continue to eat them, even when they know its killing them. The simple truth is that the business of food production has taken a higher priority than our health. But for now lets get some more details.
I have been able to lose 100 pounds in about 7 months. Most of it I lost in the first 5 months. I have about 30 more pounds to go to get to what I think will be an ideal weight for my body size. This is the second time I have done this. I feel that I learned some very valuable lessons from the process and by the grace of God, I will never have to do it again.
My next entry will get more into how that was done, both times. And why I pray this time with the new knowledge I have acquired I will be able to maintain a healthy eating plan and not relapse into abusing food. What I would like to bring up today is the psychological element of food addiction.
Depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness, anger, self destruction, boredom, and habit are some of the many reasons I have abused food in my life. Another common reason for abusing food is the association with celebration. In my family, food was always the center of every event. My family didn't drink, so food was the center of holidays, the reward for accomplishments, and the comfort in despair. Never did it occur to me as a child that food is fuel.
I never grasped in my young mind that the real purpose of eating is to supply your body with what it needs. It was not to feel better about your day, or to have a fun night out, or any other reason, but to give your body fuel. The reasons for why this perception of food as reward, is so powerful in our culture is for another post, but this realization was incredible for me. And it has changed my life.
When you stop thinking of food as something to give you pleasure, and start to see its real purpose, eating healthy is much easier. This is not to say that the food I eat now is not delicious, because I eat way better now than I ever did before. I do however think differently about what goes in my body. I think that this change in perception has been the key factor in my weight loss success.
What I hope to do with this blog is teach people how to free themselves from the bonds of their food addiction, and open dialog about food in America. Obesity is destroying America more than drugs, weapons and crime. It is effecting our children and needs to be changed.
Check back tomorrow and I will try to explain how I did what I did, and how you can do it too. Thanks for reading. Please comment.
I have struggled with my weight for most of my life. The pictures of me as a very young child I was thin, but after that overweight. I have often wondered why certain people fall into the patterns that lead to obesity. You might ask if its learned behavior, or if its a genetic predisposition like other addictions supposedly are. I think in my case it was a learned behavior.
The perception of food is the key.
What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that the way you think about food and what its purpose is in your life will impact how you eat. This may seem like a simple concept and thin people either understand this intuitively, or are taught. But for me, coming from a family with obesity it was a foreign idea. So the question becomes, what is the purpose of food for obese people?
Food is not unlike drugs. It is powerful in the way that it an affect your mood and behavior. When a person is eating a healthy diet, the cravings for the foods that are killing you disappear. I want to reiterate that last point. THE FOODS THAT ARE KILLING YOU. Cancer, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and the list goes on, are all interconnected with our diet. Eating foods that make you obese are addictive. Which is why people continue to eat them, even when they know its killing them. The simple truth is that the business of food production has taken a higher priority than our health. But for now lets get some more details.
I have been able to lose 100 pounds in about 7 months. Most of it I lost in the first 5 months. I have about 30 more pounds to go to get to what I think will be an ideal weight for my body size. This is the second time I have done this. I feel that I learned some very valuable lessons from the process and by the grace of God, I will never have to do it again.
My next entry will get more into how that was done, both times. And why I pray this time with the new knowledge I have acquired I will be able to maintain a healthy eating plan and not relapse into abusing food. What I would like to bring up today is the psychological element of food addiction.
Depression, anxiety, fear, loneliness, anger, self destruction, boredom, and habit are some of the many reasons I have abused food in my life. Another common reason for abusing food is the association with celebration. In my family, food was always the center of every event. My family didn't drink, so food was the center of holidays, the reward for accomplishments, and the comfort in despair. Never did it occur to me as a child that food is fuel.
I never grasped in my young mind that the real purpose of eating is to supply your body with what it needs. It was not to feel better about your day, or to have a fun night out, or any other reason, but to give your body fuel. The reasons for why this perception of food as reward, is so powerful in our culture is for another post, but this realization was incredible for me. And it has changed my life.
When you stop thinking of food as something to give you pleasure, and start to see its real purpose, eating healthy is much easier. This is not to say that the food I eat now is not delicious, because I eat way better now than I ever did before. I do however think differently about what goes in my body. I think that this change in perception has been the key factor in my weight loss success.
What I hope to do with this blog is teach people how to free themselves from the bonds of their food addiction, and open dialog about food in America. Obesity is destroying America more than drugs, weapons and crime. It is effecting our children and needs to be changed.
Check back tomorrow and I will try to explain how I did what I did, and how you can do it too. Thanks for reading. Please comment.
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