Days 26 - 31

I've officially been on the diet a month. It's definitely changed a lot, and changed me a lot. I've lost a total of 20 pounds in the last month, and that's basically with zero exercise, just changing what I eat.

It's been a really crazy week so I've splurged once or twice, but still no meat! I'm realizing how many carbs it's possible to eat when you're eating vegetarian. For example, you can get chinese food from hole in the wall places that use fresh veggies and whatnot, but they still have highly processed sauces and noodles. You can get some vegetarian soup, but who doesn't like bread with soup? It's very easy. Bread and veggies go great together.

I know this is a super long post, but I've not updated in a while and I just feel like sharing these ideas that come to mind.

Unfortunately the best way to eat healthy is to never eat anywhere but home. It certainly gets old, and I've only been doing it a month. There are obviously plenty of things to eat at home. I ordered a book a few weeks ago with lots of plant based recipes and I've been dying to get it - it's taking forever to get here. I'm really hoping it will open up my mind to things I can eat. I feel like I've been eating a lot of the same things, apples, bananas, avocados, oranges, lemons, sweet potatoes, celery, carrots, nuts and seeds, and lots and lots of water. All great things, sure. However, if that's all you eat it's sort of tiring.

That's one of the biggest draws of processed foods and popular restaurants - they can have virtually any food, any time, even when none of it is in season. It's a modern spoil that has changed the way we think about eating. I'm really trying to "unthink" this whole process and relearn how to eat. I think part of it is just getting used to it. Everything in moderation. I'm sure once this "diet" is over I will still be eating healthy and really trying to avoid processed foods, man made foods, meats, and of course fast food and chain restaurants. A burger every now and then won't kill me, but in general I find it much easier to eat vegetarian / vegan than original expected.

I have essentially been overweight by various amounts my entire life, even if just a little bit. I don't think I've ever been my "medically recommend" weight, ever. That's really the ultimate goal of this diet, to lose the weight and keep it off, revitalizing my life and my habits, and hopefully turning my body into a high powered fat burning body rather than a "dieting" body. I want to be able to eat more things that I want to eat! I want to be able to able to have a burger more than once a month. I want to be able to not worry about gaining weight. I want to have a very high metabolism and be like all of my skinny friends that can eat basically whatever they want and never gain an ounce. Seems like the life.

A friend of mine is a vegetarian for religious reasons. I know, Religious reasons. He basically feels like killing animals is a form of murdering God's living creations. Which sure, makes sense, but it's sort of "overkill." Yes, pun intended. I don't get caught up in animal rights this and that. I think cruelty to animals is wrong, but come on, chickens and turkeys don't have that long of a life anyway, and otherwise they'd just die and get eaten by wolves somewhere in the farm. It makes much more sense to use animals and animal products to help aid in population.

However, like I said, this Forks Over Knives documentary has really opened my eyes to think about how MUCH animal products Americans consume. It's a lot...pounds meat and dairy every day, and usually only ounces (if any) vegetables and fruits. And if not meat, it's refined products like sugar, white flours, pastas, etc. 100% Whole Wheat is where it's AT!

Until next time. My goal is to lose another 25 pounds in the next 56 days (i.e., the number of days until my wedding!) There's no way I'm losing 25 pounds in the next 30 days, but hopefully I can at least lose 15 or 20 by my wedding. My long term goal is like I said - to get to my medically "appropriate" weight, which for my height, 5'11, is anywhere from 160-190 depending on build type, genetics, natural body shape and bone structure, etc. Sometimes people just have wider builds - their bones can't just shrink all of a sudden and make them skinny as a pole. Other people have very narrow builds and could probably NEVER get fat just based on their body shape - okay maybe not never but it's very unlikely.

I'd say I have more of the wider/athletic build, wide shoulders like my dad's, long legs and shorter torso like my dad's as well. That's no cop out or anything, it's just the truth. So I guess my end weight goal is to be about 185. Let's backtrack a little bit - the biggest I ever got was freshman year in college: I weighed 256. I didn't look "obese" or "very fat" even though I was really about 70 pounds overweight, again because of my height and build. I never wore clothes that were tight or accentuated my body in weird ways, and if I ever mentioned my weight to skinny friends of mine they'd be like "whoa, really? You don't look like you weight that..."

Regardless, I lost a handful of pounds and got down to about 210 after 6 months or so, gained some back and then hovered around 230 forever. Drove me nuts! I started this diet weighing about 228lbs, so I've lost 20lbs. Now back around 208, I'm feeling great and hoping to lose another 25 ish to put me down in the healthy range for my height. 185 seems like a dream to me. If you can believe it, I've not weighed under 200 pounds since Freshman year in high school. Granted, I grew up quick; I was 5'8 as a Freshman and about 210lbs. I only grew 3 inches in ALL that time since then, but I can now fit into clothes I wore my freshman year in highschool, which yes...for some reason I still have.

Aside from pounds, I have dropped a pants size and a shirt size. I was wearing about a 36-38 waist and usually an XL shirt (L sometimes). Now I'm on my last two belt holes on my 36s and I can fit into mostly 34s and one pair of 32s! That's pretty exciting for me. Shirts have all gravitated to larges and ONE medium. Wow! I haven't worn a medium in I don't even know how long. Probably never. Granted, it's not even a shirt I like, but for whatever reason it's a medium and I can wear it!

Another miniature sub-goal is to lose as many INCHES as possible before May 10th. Why May 10th? I'm going into the tux place to get any final measurements for my tux before they order it for the wedding. I told them I was dieting and of course they said many people do, so I needed to come back in and get double checked in case I lost a lot. Which, I have and I will have lost a lot!

So anyway. That's the goal. 185 as soon as possible, and as many inches as possible by the 10th of May (40 days from now). When I look at it from the standpoint of "it's just 25 pounds" it doesn't seem that bad. When I start thinking about "you haven't weight 185 in forever," it seems intimidating.


EXPERIMENT UPDATE:

I'm going to try to eat only raw foods for the first ten days of April and May as an experiment, so nothing cooked or processed whatsoever. That's TRUE unprocessed foods. So not even granola or bread or anything like that. Pretty much ONLY raw fruits and vegetables for two weeks, just as an experiment. That way I'll have sort of a burst of diet reaction to jumpstart this month as well as another burst right before I have to get remeasured on the 10th!

Days 20-25

Diet has been a little difficult this past week, slipped up a few times but still no meat and very very minimal dairy! I find that it's pretty easy to find vegetarian meals but difficult to find vegan meals (e.g., even a Caesar salad usually has Parmesan cheese in it and some Caesar dressings are made with raw egg...)

I've rekindled my love for citrus fruits, juice, avocados, lettuce, salads, and spinach. Today I made a very healthy sandwich consisting of romaine lettuce, avacados, organic whole wheat bread, and raisins. Sounds like perhaps a slightly strange combination but it tasted delicious. Avocado is a great substitute for a starch because it has that smooth creamy texture but yet it's a vegetable that is very good for you.

My soon to be mother in law was admitted into the hospital today for a heart attack. It had us all really worried, and my hope is that this instance will get my fiance's family much more health conscious and hopefully I can help them! On this diet I have lost about 18 pounds in the last month, I have more energy, I'm sleeping better, and I'm just feeling a lot better in general. I know it's sort of a sad story, but she is doing better and they are going to get more information about it all tomorrow. I am really praying that my fiance's mom and dad both take this seriously at their age and start eating right.

I am going to go into get resized for my tux soon. Since I've lost a handful of pounds, I want the tux to fit pretty slim. Suits never look like you think they will...

That's about all that's in my life of healthy eating.

Days 18 / 19

So now the diet has gotten a little bit interesting as I've been trying to cut out animal products as well. I was having a conversation with my friend Brian about the diet and he said "me and my wife already spend $X per week on food for us and our daughter, I don't know if we could even afford to do an organic diet." I started to ponder this and realized that the 5% animal products diet (which is what I'm sort of following as of now) is actually not that expensive at all. Can you guess what the most expensive products we buy at the grocery store are? ANIMAL PRODUCTS! Chicken, beef, eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt. All of these things are very expensive. Vegetables and fruits are priced per POUND and already are fairly cheap. Pastas and breads can be a little pricey, but they keep for a while and feed a lot!

I don't think I could ever be a 100% vegetarian, because I sure love beef, chicken, and fish. However, I am starting to realize how expensive they are and how many experts say that Americans naturally eat WAY too many animal products in comparison to vegetables, fruits, and grains. The research from Dr. Campbell and Dr. Esselston from the Forks Over Knives documentary is astounding.

In the documentary there was an interesting story containing historical proof that meat and animal products cause all sorts of heart, blood, and liver problems. In WWII the Germans occupied Norway. One of the first things they did was confiscate all livestock in order to provide lasting food sources for their troops, forcing the Norwegians to eat primarily a plant based diet. Now if we look at the deaths caused by Circulatory based diseases during this period, the numbers increase gradually from 1927 until 1940 (23 years) by 150%. 1940 is when the Germans invaded and took the animals. From 1940 to 1944, the rates decrease by 150%. That means when the Norwegians stopped eating meat, they got back to where death rates were in 1927 in a matter of only 4 years. In 1945, the animals were returned to the Norwegians as the war was calming down. By 1949, the Norwegians were back to their same death rate before the Nazi Germans came in. It took just four and a half years to return to their same fatality rate. How could this NOT be proof?

The truth is, I love steaks and meat just as much as the next guy, but there's no problem with questioning how OFTEN I eat these things. We learn behaviors from our families, friends, neighboring communitarian, churches, relatives, schools, jobs, in everything we do. We are absorbing information constantly and doing so much of it instinctively and or subconsciously.

There is no doubt in my mind that living in the southern part of America has caused me to grow up with this mental status quo of how much meat and dairy I should eat. It has caused me to think "yeah I need lots of meat for protein and dairy for calcium and Vitamin D." For some reason, our brains aren't brought up to think "Hmm, vegetables and fruit have protein, too."

In fact, they have plenty of protein. We may have to eat more of them in terms of the physical "size" of the food, but research shows that fruit and vegetables fill us up faster than meat does in terms of calorie comparison. 500 calories of fruits and vegetables satisfies the average male stomach almost completely, whereas 500 calories of animal products only satisfies the stomach about halfway, telling our brains we are not full yet.

The facts are all there. My diet will continue and I continue to feel better every day.

Day 16 / 17 - "Wow"

WOW so I just watched the documentary "Forks over Knives" on Netflix. I was told about this documentary from my friend Brent who, like me, recently has been taking a closer look at what he eats (like most people should! The documentary follows the research of two esteemed professionals, one a scientist and one a medical doctor. The studies followed parts of the world and examined what types of foods people were eating and linked them directly to cancer, disease, depression, hypertension, diabetes, and all sorts of other health problems. The results were astounding and I for one cannot believe more people haven't heard of their studies!

What they found is that those peoples living in more industrialized cities, eating more meat and animal based products, eating more processed foods, had a SIGNIFICANTLY higher rate of liver failure, cancer, heart disease, and fatality. The smaller, undeveloped, and or rural areas eating primarily fruits, vegetables, grains, and seeds and only some animal products showed to have a ridiculously low presence of these sorts of problems.

Another similar study was done with rats in a laboratory. The first study was done with two separate groups of rats, one group being fed a typical "Western Diet" of primarily meat and animal products (other than meat: dairy, cheese, eggs, etc) and the other group fed plant based products (fruit, vegetables, grains, seeds, legumes, etc). What they found is that the rat group being fed primarily animal products all developed symptoms of cancers. The plant group developed none. To double test this hypothesis, they then used a single new group of rates and alternated their diet every three weeks between animal and plant based products. When the test was over, they found that cancer cell production increased in the weeks that the rats ate animal products and actually reversed in the weeks they ate plant based products. If that isn't a definite scientific conclusion I don't know what is.

What they said is that yes, animal based products are somewhat healthy for you and provide some healthy protein and fat for us to have a normal life. They aren't necessary but they help. In these studies they found that eating only 5% of these types of proteins (primarily animal products whose primary type of protein is casein) was acceptable to not promote the growth of cancer cells. What this means is, we should only be eating about 5% animal products, if any. The typical western diet sports a hefty 20%.

Let's put this in real figures. I did some basic math to figure this out. If we assume two and a half meals a day (many Americans only eat three meals every now and then), that's a total of about 912 meals througout the year. The 20% statistic should hold true that we eat a 100% animal meal about 182 of those 912 meals, or put in more logical terms, we eat a 50% (i.e., meat and sides) type meal about 365 times a year. Interesting, that means that we eat meat every single day. Doesn't that seem about right? However, if we examine the 5% recommended study, that means we should only eat meat about four to eight meals a month MAXIMUM. That definitely doesn't sound like an american diet.

I have decided to try to only eat animal products 8 times in the next month and a half that I have of this diet. The rest will be fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, seeds, and other similar products.

PLEASE watch the documentary. It's incredible!

Days 13 / 14 / 15

I'm a quarter of the way through this diet! It's not been too hard, really. I've slipped once or twice, but nothing major. And in fact, who knows, maybe I've been slipping this whole time - it's not a requirement for companies to put that their food, cosmetics, or anything have been genetically modified! Which is so wrong to me. Anyway.

I really thought I'd get tired of apples and peanut butter and wheat bread and granola and water, but you know it really doesn't get old when you're feeling great. Sure, I can't eat it for the rest of my life, but the goal here is to lose weight, feel better, learn things, experiment, and get in good habits. If nothing else, consider it a diet where I'm training myself to eat smaller portions, and it just happens to be all organic and unprocessed food.

I had some salmon the other day, which was great and filling! I hear that salmon (and even salmon skin) is very good for you in so many ways, however, because of pollutants in our water supply and the general areas that salmon populations live, it can actually be very unhealthy to eat the salmon skin, and may even cause certain cancers. It's pretty saddening to think that it's harder and harder to find foods and fish and day to day products that we use that DON'T cause cancer.

I've been doing a lot of reading this whole month and one herbalist-naturalist speculates that the prime reason people are dying of cancer so much more often is because of GMOs, altered products, unnatural products, and the like. Studies have shown that the aluminum in deoderant (used as an antiperspirant) can and does cause Alzheimer's disease. Coca Cola and Pepsi recently were required to change an ingredient in their formula (some food dye) that they found to have cancer, and the FDA said "either change the ingredient or we have to put a sticker on it that says 'this product may cause cancer'." They obviously chose to change the ingredient.

The evidence is all over. It's right in front of us. It's so hard to really admit though since these products are incredible, they make our lives easier, and they seem to really work. I sweat a lot so when I use deodorant I sort of expect it to help me not sweat. One of the only ways to make people not sweat is to put that aluminum ingredient. And to think of it, NOT SWEATING IS NOT NATURAL. Go figure. I caught you red handed.

So this is becoming a lot more about a lifestyle change and less about a diet. The more I research this stuff, the less I want to use a LOT of products that I use. Not out of fear, but out of disgust. Out of the thought that "wow, this was reconstituted in a vat" or "wow this was completely made by chemicals, not by natural oils or plants" or "wow I'm really putting THIS in my body?" I've been getting big on lots of natural remedies and one of them I'm planning is to start drinking a chelator-type drink once a week. A chelator (pronounced key-later) is a concoction that helps remove metals from the body. It's completely natural, and there are many natural drinks out there already that have chelating properties (one of them being black coffee). Little by little, the ingredients in the chelator detract metals from the intestines that we cannot digest, and they help remove unnecessary metals from the bloodstream. Sounds like something I DON'T want in my body.

I've also been getting way into the interesting world of spices and nuts. There are SO many health benefits of so many of these spices and nuts it's unbelievable! Things like walnuts, cashews, and peanuts have amazing health benefits, and in the spice world, things like cinnamon, ginger, rosemary, cayenne, turmeric, nutmeg, and cloves have INCREDIBLE health benefits and contain some of the highest levels of antioxidants in the world. Foods like tomatoes, celery, apples, carrots, blueberries, blackberries, and sweet potatoes are among the best fruits and vegetables available, and they are NOT hard to find! They are very simple foods that anyone can get.

It's looking up for me and my diet - I am starting to realize that the best foods for people in the entire world are right under our noses all the time. Couple that with an organic and unprocessed version of it and you're golden. More soon.





Foods that are Good For You:

Water - This one is given. A glass of water in the morning is shown to increase metabolism by 20%. Roughly your body weight in ounces is how much water you should be drinking every day.

Cinnamon - Lowers cholesterol, unclots blood, provides arthritis and gout relief, improves cognitive function and memory. A great source of manganese, fiber, iron, and calcium.

Nutmeg - Improves blood flow, helps digestion

Turmeric - Antioxidant, Cancer fighting spice. Great with fish.

Cloves –Extreme Antioxidant spice. More than most fruits.

Red Pepper / Cayanne – Natural appetite suppressant, reduces formation of gallstones.

Rosemary - Improves mood and lowers stress, fights inflammation of all kinds

Ginger - can help cure nausea, weak circulation, and arthritis

Black Pepper - improves digestion and regular absorption of nutrients, boosts metabolism

Tomatoes - A four chambered red fruit/veggie that's great for your heart. Go figure!

Carrots - great for your eyes and brain function, even better for you when warm

Apples – Lots of natural sugar and water, filling, tastes great.

Pomegranates – Antioxidant, improved blood flow, natural blood thinner (without the liver damage!)

Blueberries - more antioxidants than any fruit. Lots of natural fiber, more than oatmeal. Even better for you when warm.

Honey – Absolute Natural Sugar! Lowers Cholesterol, Fights Cancer, Anti-Aging, Immune System, and all kinds of other benefits. Mix a spoonful of honey with cinnamon and nutmeg and take daily to improve lots of bodily functions.

Sweet Potatoes – one of the healthiest vegetables you can eat. Carotenoids, Vitamin C, Potassium, and Fiber. Good for your eyes, skin, intestines, and heart.

Walnuts - Improves Brain Function, Nerve functions, great for your lungs, and improves testicular health

Almonds - Great for your colon, helps clear arteries and veins of buildup (reduces cholesterol)

Cashews - good source of magnesium. Magnesium helps fight memory loss and improves brain function.

Spicy Mustard – boosts metabolism 20 to 25% for several hours after eating! Great with all kinds of foods.

Red Wine - amazing for your heart and blood. Improves cognitive functions and has lots of antioxidants.

Black Coffee - without cream and sugar (which reverse most of the effects of coffee) a cup of coffee is shown to help as a natural Chelator (removes metals from the body), can help reverse dementia and improve memory and cognitive function, helps the heart, helps with awareness and also helps circulatory system and respiratory infections.

Day 12

Feeling good still. Been eating more granola, cheese, and fruits. I'm sort of addicted to this Big Sky Granola and the Big Sky Bread. It's sooo good! Totally local, totally unprocessed, totally delicious. My fiance shared this cool link with me today:

http://justlabelit.org/take-action/

It is a petition to have the FDA require companies to label their food if it has been genetically modified. I DEFINITELY agree to this. We have a right to know!

Day 11

So I had sort of a cool thing happen today. A while back a friend of mine suggested to me to try on everything I had in my closet and separate the clothes by what fits perfect, what is too big, and what is too small. I thought that was a great idea. So, I did that. I then picked out a pair of jeans and a shirt from the "too small" section and put them on a separate rack as a "Goal" to fit into. The idea is that this outfit is my standard for comparison since I knew both pieces were too small.

Well I tried it on today for kicks to see how close I was and I fit into both! What a nice surprise! The jeans were a touch too tight in the legs, and the shirt--though it fit well and didn't look bad at all--could have been a little bit looser in terms of comfort. However,three months ago I couldn't button the shirt or the pants!

The last time I seriously went on a diet, I lost about 45 pounds in 6 months. Seems like a whole lot, yeah? I was eating right, exercising, getting enough sleep, etc. I gained about 25 of it back over the course of the next year. NOT good. Luckily, I never got back to my old weight, but I still was not where I wanted to be. The problem was, even after I had lost the 45 pounds, I didn't really feel like I had gotten 45 pounds "smaller" in terms of my stomach, waist, etc. That was confusing to me. Sure, pants and shirts fit better but it seemed like I had only lost maybe 20 pounds.

One thing that is different about my diet now is that I'm focusing a lot more on eating the RIGHT foods. On the diet before, I pretty much just minimized sweets and snacks, cut out soda, and ate less of what I was already eating. Calorie counting in a nutshell. However, on this no processed food diet, I've lost 9 pounds and I feel like I can already tell. It may just be in my head, but regardless, I feel better, I fit into clothes better, and I think part of that old saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" is really really true.

It's not just about cutting calories. By that logic, you could eat a bowl full of ice cream every day that met up to only 1600 calories and be totally fine. Obviously that doesn't work. Certain foods add straight up fat to your body that is not easy to work off. I read an article online that said "Banish Belly Fat by Adding these 10 Foods to your diet". And guess what they were?

1. Walnuts
2. Plain Oatmeal
3. Salmon
4. Apples
5. Egg Whites
6. Casien Protein Powder
7. Brocolli
8. Blackberries
9. Flaxseeds
10. Natural Peanut Butter

Well, I can tell you for a fact that other than Brocolli and Casien Protein Powder, I've eating LOT of the foods on this list naturally! Especially apples, blackberries, peanut butter, walnuts, oatmeal, and egg whites. Wow! Seems like a coincidence - but it's not. These foods are healthy, make you feel great, and coincidentally are NOT PROCESSED FOODS. I am going to start adding these other things to my diet (less the protein powder) to help increase bodily function, support health, and of course, help the pounds come off.

If there's another area I struggle with it's the waist / lovehandle area. Most men in my family struggle with that, too. I learned also that a good rule of thumb for getting rid if love handles is for you to cut "white foods." This includes things like sugar, salt, potatoes, high fructose corn syrup (already cut due to my no processed food diet), white rice, pasta, white bread, and dairy products. I've been eating a lot of wheat bread, and as we all know, sweet potatoes are SO much better for you than regular russets. It's very interesting - these things all aid in love handle fat because of their higher sugar content, their disruption of normal digestion, and their aid in accumulating waste that stays in the body. They have little fiber and are more likely to be processed.

INTERESTING STUFF.

Days 8, 9, 10

I find it hard to get protein that isn't really processed. It's interesting - basically ever protein bar out there is crap, and or contains more soy than I'm comfortable eating. Nuts have great protein, and so do eggs, so I've been eating those. Meat is so darn expensive when it is unprocessed. I've resorted to turkey and chicken since those seem to be the cheapest unprocessed meats around.

I've lost another few pounds since I started, making it a total of 9 pounds in basically 2 weeks. Not bad I'd say. haha. I know a big part of it is just the shock of eating dramatically healthier food from my average American lifestyle, and I know a HUGE part of it is that I am drinking water only! That really keeps me regular and keeps me feeling refreshed.

In general I notice myself feeling very good. During the days I feel alert, ready to face the day, not tired or groggy (granted I get enough sleep). I've always had trouble sleeping, even when I'm really tired I feel like sometimes I just cannot go to sleep - like last night. ROUGH night. Just tossed and turned all night, and I have no idea why. I was exhausted but just couldn't do it. I'm really hoping that the more my body gets used to this diet, the easier it will be for me to fall asleep and get in a routine. I know that food has a lot to do with our sleep schedules. I'm trying not to eat past 10pm, and not after 8pm is preferred. I usually go to sleep around 1 or 2am these days, which is already later than I should, but if I eat at 10 that gives me 4 hours to digest, but I'd much prefer something like 6 or 8 hours to digest before trying to sleep.

It's odd - I feel like there's only a tiny window for me. If I try to sleep when I'm really hungry, it's not happening. I can't focus on anything else but hunger. If I try to sleep and I've eaten within the last 4 or 5 hours, it can often be difficult as well. I feel like there's this magical mystical formula where I have to go to sleep about 5.5 - 7.5 hours after I eat, and if I don't, I'm screwed.

I really need to up my beef and vegetable content. Those are two things I have no gotten a lot of so far. It's been primarily grains, seeds, fruits, and lean meats. I need some hearty stuff like peppers, onions, beef, etc. Maybe I'll make a stew. Mmm...that'd actually be a pretty good investment seeing as stew makes a lot and lasts a long while, and in this weather it's soooo good.


Til next time.

Day 5, 6, 7

These past few days have been good. Slowly I've been finding more foods that I can eat that are not processed like organic eggs, different kinds of fruits and nuts, and certain vegetables. It's tough to eat vegetables raw, and it's really tough to make dishes with just vegetables - it's not really something I naturally enjoy. I do like carrots, celery, peas, corn, potatoes, beans, etc but when you're buying organic not all of these things are in season all the time, like corn! Canned corn is a no-no for this diet, and I guess I'm so used to buying corn in a can I don't even think about it.

Gas prices are super high, I'm engaged, and I'm trying to save up for the future, so this is probably the absolute worst time for me to be spending money on a diet like this. However, I figure at the end of the day it's really important to have my health.

More soon.

Day 4

It's day four and I've already been tempted by the allure of processed foods - a friend of mine at Church had a Chai Latte and it smelled so good, but alas, none for me. For lunch and dinner today I'll be having leftovers from Whole Foods. You know, my take home meal was like $11 from Whole Foods, and it's lasting me two meals. MUCH cheaper than going out to eat. It'd easily be $7 - $10 for takeout per meal. I think I'll be surprised - while "eating organic" seems to be expensive - I still think it will be cheaper than eating at fast food or sit down restaurants.

It's amazing how many calories things really have. When you go by the standard idea that "2000 calories a day" is a pretty healthy number for most people, and then when you actually start looking into how many calories things have, it's amazing how much it adds up. Not that calorie counting is the way to get trim and fit, but still, it's something to think about.

So far I've been feeling great. Still haven't been able to get a hold of my doctor which leads me to believe I have the wrong number. I really don't want to go to someone new and have to fill out paperwork for an hour. Guess I'll do some more searching. Regardless, my body feels good, I feel refreshed, not as sluggish in the mornings. I find myself sometimes getting a bit tired during the afternoon since I'm eating much smaller meals, so I have to remind myself to eat every 4 or so hours to keep my blood sugar up. Lots of fruits, nuts, and I had my first meat yesterday and today from Whole Foods, which was glorious. Unprocessed turkey baked at Whole Foods - expensive but SO good! It was so full of flavor and not plastic-y or rubbery like a lot of lunch-meat. It was dense and flavorful and tasted like Turkey at thanksgiving. Go figure, right?

The biggest thing is finding meat at a decent price. Good organic steaks are like $10-$16 per pound, fish is easily $12-$24 pound, and even organic chicken is like $8/pound. Ground beef and ground chicken are still pretty cheap, but I'm almost considering them as processed foods, even if it's organic and contains no GMOs. It's interesting how that puts a spin on things.

Anyway. Big day tomorrow. Buying a car and getting a tattoo. Expensive day, too. :/

That's all for today.

Day 3

Mmm...Today was a tasty day. Went by Akins and got some Bananas, which I love, but these particular bananas tasted so good and so fresh. Not soggy or slimy, just the perfect banana. Another plus - bananas are dirt cheap just about everywhere. I got one bunch of organic bananas for like $3? That's about 9 bananas. One every day for 9 days - $0.33 cents a day for a great source of potassium, fiber, natural sugars, and they are just really tasty in the first place.

I also picked up some "Big Sky" bread. Big Sky is an Oklahoma City company that makes completely organic breads, granolas, and other grain/seed based products that are just absolutely awesome. They ship their individually packaged loaves of bread and granolas all over and it just so happens they sell it at Akins, and I'm in love with it.


For comparison, here is a list of ingredients of Wonder Bread:

Whole wheat flour, water, wheat gluten, high fructose corn syrup, contains 2% of less of: soybean oil, salt, molasses, yeast, mono and diglycerides, exthoxylated mono and diglycerides, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide), datem, calcium sulfate, vinegar, yeast nutrient (ammonium sulfate), extracts of malted barley and corn, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate (to retain freshness).


Uh...What? Looked up some of this stuff. Most of it is fine, but some of these ingredients are used as preservatives, emulsifiers, artificial coloring agents, and agents that change the consistency of the dough to make processing easier and to extend the shelf life. Yuck.

Here's a list of ingredients in Big Sky organic local made bread:


Whole wheat flour, Water, Honey, Salt, Yeast. Now THAT is what I'm talking about. It's not artificially flavored or colored, it's not preserved, and it tastes FANTASTIC. So much better than Wonderbread or Sara Lee.

It's sort of saddening - the less money you have to spend on organic foods, the more you'll buy cheaper processed foods. The more you buy cheaper processed foods, the more your health dwindles and your energy depletes. The more that happens, the more your quality of life goes down. It's almost like true evidence that "the rich live in luxury" and the "poor live in misery." Not looking to get into a debate or anything, but just something to think about - it's almost like a monopoly of money vs health.

Anyway. Feeling good. Trying to quit smoking, as I know that's 100% not good for my health. I'm already not a pack-a-day smoker or anything, just a few during the day, sometimes more, sometimes none! I started smoking last August, so only about 7 months, but I just don't want to be one of those people on the commercials that say "I smoked for 41 years, had liver cancer twice, I'm missing my right lung, and my wife divorced me...and after all that I realized I should quit." Hah -- noooo. It's sort of a strange thing. I promised my Fiance I'd quit by our wedding (just a few months away) and I can safely say that it will be no problem. I'm realizing that if I spent the extra $6 - $10 / week that I spend on Cigarettes on Organic Foods, it would probably seem less expensive since that's an extra $40 a month to spend on life changing foods rather than life inhibiting cigarettes.


UPDATE:

Dinner at Whole Foods with my lady. I really like that you weigh your food and that's how much it costs you - it really helps you see how much physical weight you are putting into your body. Plus, it's great to be able to go to a place and know that nothing they serve is processed. Really gives you a lot of options. I wish there was a Whole Foods closer to my house - had to drive 20 minutes to get there, and with these gas prices it's ridiculous.

Got a lot of great things at Whole Foods, including some food for me to eat tomorrow for lunch and dinner. I love that you can take away things from their salad bar in their containers. Very helpful to my diet and to people trying to live a healthy lifestyle in general.


Until next time,

K

Day 2

Hey interwebs. Today was a good day. Lots of fun session work with some talented artists. I'm starting to realize already how hard it will be to find "interesting" meals. I feel like part of the spoil of eating processed food is that you can have anything you want just about whenever you want. You can get mexican, chinese, American, whatever food you want at the grocery store, but who knows how long its been packaged and preserved to be able to come to your city.

The most promising place to find good local made food is at hole-in-the-wall restaurants and organic food stores. Period. I bought some cheese at Akins (local organic store) and it was a half pound for $4. Uggg....so expensive. Luckily fruits and veggies are never that pricey, but nuts, grains, dairy, and meat that are unprocessed are PRICEY.

Today I had some organic peanut butter and bread with some organic unfiltered Chilean Honey (which is ASTOUNDING). Some more granola and organic cheese, a few apples, some grapes, and lots of good old fashioned water. It's weird not eating meat - I am DEFINITELY a meat eater, but organic / unprocessed meat is so pricey. Chicken isn't too bad, but beef definitely is expensive.

I've been doing a lot of reading on unprocessed food diets and most of them link back to things called "raw food diets" which as you can imagine are comprised of diets with no cooking involved. I'm definitely not that type of person - I've GOT to have meat. I feel like with my build and my lifestyle I need that protein and fat that meat provides to keep me awake. I do like nuts and granola of all kinds, which definitely has a lot of protein, but still. I'll be going to Akins again tomorrow to try and get a rough idea of how much the meat there costs and hopefully talk to a manager or something about "what do they sell that contains GMOs?" My hope is nothing, but I may be surprised. Like I said, just because it says "organic" and or "all natural" that doesn't mean it's not processed along the way.

Another thing I'm finding about this diet is how often I want to eat. Now that I'm eating smaller meals, I'll find myself wanting to eat about every three or four hours, which puts me at about 5 or 6 tiny meals every day. Not really a problem; any dietitian will tell you this is better for you anyway as it keeps your metabolism up. Another thing I've find is that I'm so used to eating fewer bigger meals, it's hard for me to fall asleep if I'm pretty hungry, and cutting calories by 500 or more per day (which is still plenty for me, I'm just an average american that eats more than they should anyway) makes me hungry at night. As my body gets used to it I am sure I will crave less at night and feel more satisfied with what I eat.

I'm feeling good about this so far; it's not as hard of a start as I presumed it would be. I think what will be really hard is continuing to find meals and continuing to find healthy foods without completely emptying my wallet.

K

Day 1: Post Script

What is "unprocessed" food? One may argue it means food that is not packaged, but then again, apples and oranges are not "packaged" when we buy them - we pick out how many we want. I guess it's unfair to assume that all packaged food is processed and all unpackaged food is unprocessed, because sometime, somewhere, food must be packaged in order to be sent to stores. If you really wanted 100% unpackaged and unprocessed food, you'd have to shop at farmers markets, local butcher shops, or just grow it yourself.

Still, the main focus of this experiment or diet is to eat food that has not been genetically modified, pesticide sprayed, artificially sweetened, or preserved. WHOLE foods as you might say. According to a LIVESTRONG.COM article:

"An unprocessed food diet shuns foods that come in boxes, cartons or wrapped in plastic and boast a long list of ingredients. Instead, fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein, unsaturated fats and whole grains are the basis of this diet. For example, a fresh tomato is an unprocessed food, but ketchup is processed."

(Read the rest of this great article HERE)

I assume that one of the best ways to really see what is processed or not is to read the ingredients. Anything that I don't know what it is, anything that isn't a natural ingredient, has probably been processed and or preserved unnaturally. For example, the granola I purchased today listed its ingredients as follows:

unprocessed Oats, organic Soy Oil, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, honey.

Seems pretty legit to me! Though I am trying to avoid soy as much as possible as it's not a high quality protein and for men it actually increases E [estrogen] counts and reduces T [testosterone] counts, causing all sorts of genital / testicular / prostate problems. For women, maybe not!

Here's another interesting thing I read:

"Weston A. Price was a holistic-minded dentist who travelled around the world in the 1930s, studying the teeth and overall health of primitive cultures who subsisted on diets that were close to their ancestral diets. He found that the closer people stayed to eating whole, unprocessed foods, the stronger and healthier they were, with few signs of disease and tooth decay. His research can be found at The Weston A. Price Foundation."

- Courtesy of http://drbenkim.com/articles-whole.html


Until next time - to your health

Day 1

So today I'm setting up a physical with my doctor to get all of my vitals checked. Unfortunately it won't happen today, but even if it's in a week it should still give me a pretty good idea of where I'm starting from. In case you don't remember, here are some things I'll get checked in the physical:

Blood Pressure
Heart Rate
Respiration Rate
Temperature
Height
Weight
Heart Exam - Listening for Murmurs or Irregularities
Lung Exam - listening to lungs for wheezing or decreased breathing
Abdominal Exam - checking for irregularities in the stomach and liver
Neurological exam - checking reflexes, mental state, and balance

Along with three or four other basic exterior exams and perhaps even a blood test.

For lunch today I'm going to partake in this little hole in the wall called Pita Place. I know that the owner, Fred, gets his meats and vegetables from high quality suppliers, which is one reason it's sort of expensive. I'm going to try to talk to him about where he gets his all of his foods. This might change what I actually order. At the very least, they have a salad bar with lettuce, vegetables, and pita slices. Who knows, I may ask him and then him say "Monsanto!" haha. Again, this is all an experiment, I've never actually had to do this before. Experiments don't restrict me from failing.

Bread is one of those things that unfortunately I will probably just have to eat processed. I can avoid companies on that Monsanto list, but that doesn't mean it's not processed. I can try to shop at organic stores but that doesn't mean it's not processed. I don't have the money or time to make my own bread, and in fact I don't even know how.

The goal here I guess is to "minimize on as much OBVIOUS processed food as humanly possible," like fast foods, packaged foods of ANY kind, packaged dairy, packaged can foods, avoid most sit-down restaurants (since their food is shipped to them, sometimes pre cooked and they just heat it up), stick to small local restaurants with local ingredients, organic food suppliers, farmers markets, etc.

I've got a session tonight and so dinner will probably end up being a combination of fruits and vegetables. A friend of mine gave me a tip - eating these things without the skins can really help cut down on what's actually "processed" here since they are sprayed, not injected. This will surely save me a lot of money when buying vegetables and fruits. Still, call me paranoid but who knows what fruit and veggie seeds have been modified...

I can already see it's going to be difficult enough as it is to have no processed liquids. I'm already craving some apple juice, but don't have enough apples at home to make fresh juice. Water it is.

UPDATE:

Talked to Fred at Pita Place and he said most of the stuff they use to make all of the dishes is local, but quote "some of it comes from Chicago." So, I don't really know what that means, that's all I could get out of him, but that's okay. It's already pretty impressive that most of it is local - and rare. After lunch I went to a local organic foods store and picked up some things. Dinner consisted of local made organic granola (sesame seeds / almonds / pumpkin seeds / organic oats / honey / no sugar or fake sugar substitutes!), apples, and organic sharp cheddar cheese (not pre packaged). That store is a gold mine for me - almost everything in there is either made within the state, and or has no MSG / GMO, and or is organic, and or is all natural. Pricey? Yes. But GOD IT SMELLS GREAT IN THAT STORE.