Archive for the ‘Diet’ Category

How to Improve Your Life!

Monday, April 29th, 2019
Success is Like an Iceberg: Stuff You see... Stuff you don't see. ..
Success is Like an Iceberg: Stuff You see… Stuff you don’t see. ..

Introduction

Background

First, let me tell you that my life is far from perfect. Do I have it better than some. Sure. I have a home, food, clothes, a car, cell phone, and internet. Yes. But, my life has its issues too. We all do.

If you are looking for some suggestions on how to clean-up or improve your life or just try to figure out how to possibly make things a little better, then here are some of my suggestions. Usually I will just blurt out my trifecta: Diet, Yoga, Chiropractor!!! But, I thought, now I would expound on the possibilities a little bit more than that so that someone might benefit from it.

Pace Yourself

Don’t think that you can just pick up the entire list below and do it all at once. Not going to happen. Look through the list and find ONE that looks good. Work on that, integrate into your life, and then add another one once you have the first one integrated and stable. As you get going then you may find that making two or more changes may work together, but do not rush it, otherwise setbacks may seem like a negative thing and ending setting you back. Be realistic. Know your limits. Pace yourself.

Take the Time to Take Care of Yourself

You may even have to give yourself permission to do so. Never ever feel guilty about taking care of yourself. No one else can do it for you. No one else will do it for you. Only you can take care of you, so YOU will have to take time out for yourself in order to take care of you.

You cannot help anyone else if you are a complete and total wreck. You can only serve others if you are well. You could even inspire others to do the same by showing that you are trying to take care of yourself and that it is important.

If you have kids then you will also be setting a good example for you kids too by showing them that taking care of yourself is something that is important. I have a daughter and I try to show her that.

Taking Care of Your Mind

  • Everyone is fucked up in their own little special snowflake way, but everyone IS messed up. You are NOT alone. I am messed up. My wife is messed up. We are all struggling in our own way and we all need support. You are not alone which is something that you need to remember.
  • Do not be afraid to ask for help. As an introvert, I know it is difficult, but people cannot help you if they do not know you need help. We all need help sometime.
  • Everyday is a new day. Today is NOT yesterday. Today is NOT tomorrow. Do not look to the past. Do not look to the future. Only look to THIS moment now, because NOW is the only moment you have, so make the best of it.
  • There is no failure. There are only moments to challenge yourself to grow and learn, and to better yourself. You will have only failed if you have stopped trying to learn from those growing opportunities. Remember, there is a tomorrow where you can try again, and you will be one step closer to achieving your goals – to becoming the person you want to be.
  • Change takes time. It will not happen this week or next month. It will also NOT be easy. It is going to be hard work, but it will be worth it. Working towards making yourself better is always worth it.
  • There is no shame is getting a therapist. My wife and I have gone to one and I am thinking about going back to one. If you are thinking of it then you do need one. Go. Take care of yourself. You are the only one who can.
  • Start a meditation and mindfulness practice. Reconnecting to oneself and claiming your inner peace is a great way to start your day and to start taking control of your life. If you are centered then you will find life and the more difficult moments easier. Your yoga studio may be able to help with this too. There are mobile apps for this. Insight Timer is one that my wife and I use on Android.
  • Seriously, get enough sleep. Sleep is what is needed for a healthy mind. If you are tired then that is evidence that you mind is suffering. Know your body’s requirement for sleep and try to honor it as well as you can so you can be ready and balanced to face the cruel, cruel world.
  • Read a freaking book! Really! Take some time to read. It is good for your mind.
  • Learn something new each day.
  • Listen to calming or positive music.
  • Go out for at least a little social time each week. We are social creatures and we need some socialization to feel good.

Taking Care of Your Body

Fix Your Eating Habits

Fix your diet. Food is healing. If you pollute your body then you are polluting your body and you shall suffer for it emotionally and psychologically!

Professional Support: Talk to a doctor and see a dietitian or nutritionist if you can when you start to look at the food you eat and your eating habits. It can be dizzying once you start to really get into it.

Read the Labels: Start to read the labels on your food and then get ready to cry. Once you start looking at the labels for the foods that you eat you will never look at your food the same again, which is a good thing. I am NOT kidding when I say this, but when you start this process you will start to see that most foods available in the grocery store are trying to kill you. Let that sink in for a moment. And, if is says ‘diet’ then start to think ‘chemical shit storm‘,

You will want to eliminate foods with added sugar, high fructose anything, hydrogenated anything, fried anything, flour anything, as well as anything high in sodium/salt. Start by replacing one bad thing with one good thing.

Look for non-gmo and organic food if you can. Lingering pesticides and other chemicals can cause physiological reactions which can be bad for you. You should also wash your fruits and vegetables if you can just to make sure.

The best ways to have food is:

  1. raw
  2. steamed
  3. baked

The ways you should absolutely avoid cooking food if you can help it:

  • deep fried
  • fried

If you are not sure about where to start when looking at fixing your diet, then a great place to start is the AIP (Autoimmune Protocol) which aims to eliminate all possible foods which could possible cause you physiological problems, especially targeting potential foods which cause an inflammation response. Try that for a few months and then you can gradually phase in the foods your like to see how you react.

Fixing your microbiome can have radical changes to your mental health. Recent research found a correlation to autism and our microbiome. So, start taking a probiotic and a prebiotic to help support this process.

CBD oil is your friend. It may help with anxiety, stress, pain, and many other things. It can also help with sleeping. I have never slept well and it has been life changing for me and my ability to sleep.

Exercise

There is only NOW to start taking care of yourself.

Right NOW You are in the perfect shape to take charge of your life and to start taking care of yourself.

YOU CANT DO IT!!
YOU WILL DO IT!!

  • Movement is life. Get exercise every week – cardio is necessary. Walking is a great start. I have a 2.1 mile walk I try to take a few times each week. Start with whatever works for you.
  • Take Yoga a few times a week which will most likely help in some way for all for all of your life issues – physical, mental, emotional. It is one of the most transformative physical practices you can do. Tai Chi or Chi Gung would also be great substitutes.
  • DDP yoga is a great power yoga based practice which gives amazing cardio too. The best of both worlds.
  • Go to a chiropractor. Chiropractors make sure your nervous spine and nervous system is working well. I love my chiropractor.

Take Care of Your Relationships

Positive People

Surround yourself with positive and supportive people and cutout the negative people. You have the right to do that. Life is too short to allow toxicity in it. I have had to do it too. Having negative people in your life can drag you down and effect you in powerfully negative ways. Stress can effect you in physically, emotionally, and physiologically. Stress has biopsychosocial effects.

Family is no exception to this rule. It is your life and you do not have to suffer with people just because you are related to them. You DO get to pick your family. Just because someone is related to you by blood does not mean they are your family. Family is not just who you are related too. Family is the people who really care about you and support you when you need it. It is a reciprocal relationship.

Romantic Relationships

Here are 3 things to consider with unhappy romantic relationships especially new ones:

  1. Unmoderated Expectations
  2. Romantic Myths
  3. Negative Emotional Responses

1. Unmoderated Expectations

We all may have unrealistic expectations of our partners based on assumptions and expectations which have not been moderated by what our partner’s actual availability is as well as that powerful and exciting NRE (New Relationship Energy) which may very well have us not thinking clearly.

Every partner we have is going to be different. Clarifying how available a person is and adjusting your expectations based on that availability is important otherwise there will be much pain for both of you. If you expect one thing and they cannot give you that then no one will be happy and that is not a great way to start a relationship.

Talk. Spend time telling each other what each person:

  • is capable of giving
  • is capable of receiving
  • is available for

… and then base your relationship on the realities of your existing real relationship and not the one you have in your head. In a sense, negotiate your relationship parameters so it is all clear to each of you, and then your expectations can then be set to your real partner and not your imagination.

If you partner cannot be available to give you what you need then you may need to find a different partner or and to find another partner which can fulfill your needs in that area. There is no harm in saying no to a relationship for now that cannot make you happy or meet your needs. Perhaps, when life circumstances are better for either of you, then a relationship which might make you both happy might be possible. Forcing it will NEVER work. Allow it to happen when it can and NOT when you want it to otherwise only pain will follow.

Saying no to a relationship or ending an existing relationship that is not making you happy does not make your relationship a failure. Almost all relationships will end at one time or another. What will make them failure is when you fail to communicate. Ending a relationship that has run its course or that cannot work is what needs to be done for both of you to be happy. It is the mature and responsible thing to do. Prolonging suffering is not a good relationship modality.

To sum it up:

  • Good communication
  • Correct expectations
  • End the relationship when neither can be happy.

2. Romantic Myth

Perhaps, another potential reason for some severe relationship anxiety that people might feel may be because of the horrors of monogamy that can have us have believe that all of our happiness depends on another person. That horrific and most harmful romantic myth that finding that one magical person in all of the world will make us happy. That – you completely me – thing. That idea that we need someone else to make us happy or to complete us. Or that idea of a one true love. If we let this one go then we may never find love again. It is not a real thing. It one of the most powerful societal lies that destroys people, families, and relationships.

This harmful myth puts an incredible amount of pressure on you and your partner for everything to be perfect otherwise your relationship is a failure. This is insanity, because ALL relationships are work. Anyone who says otherwise is lying or selling you something.

Only you can make you happy. Those other special people that you allow into your life are there only to bring joy to your life in specific ways that complement your own self cultivated happiness.

3. Negative Emotional Responses

I wrote an article on my blog on managing jealousy which is not the subject of this section, but the steps there may be useful to those of you who are dealing with some negative emotions in relationships:

  • identify the trigger of the negative emotion or response
  • identify and clarify you emotional response
  • identify and clarify the reasons for that response

Once you know the reason for your emotional response, it can be easier to deal with it, although that can still be a difficult thing to ascertain, but such internal work can be powerful and enlightening for you and your partners.

Posted in Diet, Health, Life, Marriage, Poly, Relationships, Yoga | No Comments »

Dietary Evolution and Geographic Isolation

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Linguistics Evolution and Geographic Isolation

This post is brought to you by the letter “L” for linguistics. I have come to think about this because of my reading about linguistics. In linguistics it is thought that humanity’s languages all stemmed from a single language called Proto-Indo-European, and then as the tribes broke up and migrated to other regions cutting themselves off geographically and culturally from their original tribe, culture, and language their language eventually evolved into the language families that we see today like the romance, slavic, germanic, etc; and then those individual language families evolved into the individual languages that we see today.

The key point here is isolation brings about a different evolutionary path, albeit, in this case,  a linguistic one.

Dietary Evolution and Geographic Isolation

As early homosapiens separated from their tribes and developed unique cultural and linguistic traits they also traveled to areas where the climates and therefore food sources were different and, as thousands of years passed I believe that our bodies developed a physiology more tuned to processing the foods that were a part of  the normal diet for that region, and potentially lost the genes that allowed efficient and/or health processing of other foods which were not staples of their current dietary intake.

People who lived in inland areas where they are used to drinking cows milk and eating wheat products will have the genes to efficiently make use of eating those products.  People who lived by the sea would develop genes to more efficiently eat seafood, seaweed, and other sea products while potentially losing the genes for wheat and milk. You can come up with many situational examples like this from region to region as to what is common and what is not.

Genetics and Dietary Requirements

With all of this being said what I am really going to postulate here is that I bet that if we trace where our geographical genetic lineage is based we can have a better idea as to what foods we will most likely be able to take advantage of.  Genetic testing can help us to eat better and be healthier by knowing what foods we may be tuned to take advantage of.

Another Option

Perhaps an easier solution would be to come up with some baseline nutritional food source that has all of the USRDA recommendations and then take blood test, urine and fecal tests, etc to find out how we process nutrients and how much our body’s we really need in a day. By knowing how much is removed from the body and so on we can see how much we, individually, really need each day.

We can also do similar tests for specific products like wheat, dairy, etc and see how we respond and process them to determine if our body will process it efficiently and safely.

Posted in Diet, Evolution, Genetics, Health, Science | No Comments »

Diet Link: All Medical Science is Wrong within a 95 % Confidence Interval …

Monday, May 18th, 2009

An interesting diet link titled All Medical Science is Wrong within a 95 % Confidence Interval
or: A Review of Taubes’ “Good Calories, Bad Calories”.

Tags:,
Posted in Diet, Health, Links, Misc | No Comments »

Oprah Winfrey Support for the CRON Diet

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

I created a comic strip called FX Meaderings 1.0 via Pixton which is shown below in Flash. Those of you who know me may really find their content rather surprising. It is quite a bit more cruel and crass than you may think me possible of. Hopefully, approved some of you will find the Geeky content enjoyable.

The Beginning – ‘Antoinette’ (number 1)

The Boss (number 2)

References

For those of you who are less Geeky I have included some references:

Sacked (number 3)

References

For those of you who are less Geeky I have included some references:

References

For those of you who are less techy I have included some references:

Neo (number 4)

References

For those of you who are less Geeky I have included some references:

Sildenafil
Optimal Nutrition”>CRON support from Oprah: Dr. Oz: Extreme Life Extension.

Tags:,
Posted in Diet, Health, Links, Misc | No Comments »

Fewer Calories = Better Brains?

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

There is an article in the MIT‘s Technology Review, which I read often, called “Fewer Calories = Better Brains?” which lends to support as to the wondrous effects of a Calorically Restricted diet with Optimal Nutrition (CRON).

Tags:, ,
Posted in Diet, Life, Links, Misc | No Comments »

Playing with Smoothies and Chicken Soup

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

So, the wife is gone for the week to finish her Yoga Dance Teacher Training in Massachusetts. I dropped her off at the Madison airport early Sunday morning and I will pick her up Friday after work.

J-Smoothie

I have been trying to drink a smoothie based off of a CRON recipe. It is modified taking into account my tastes (or lack of). At nights I will try to drink this as my meal. It does not taste bad, but it is not great either I have formally dubbed it the J-Smoothie. I have added it to Nutrition Data.com so all can see it. The results there are not entirely correct. The ND  recipe has bakers yeast, and I use brewers yeast. I need to change that, by adding the info for brewers yeast. Another part of the recipe is a crap load of vitamin supplements. I throw in a multivitamin, Glucosamine/MSM/Chondroitin, as well as an omega oils. These additions will really pack a nutrition punch to it. At some point I will make these changes to reflect its real value.

This is high in carbs (natural sugars) so if you are on a low carb diet, have blood sugar or joint inflammation  issues you may want to skip this one…

Souperific

The first night I did something wild and crazy…. well at least it is for me. I tried my hand at cooking a a vegetable chicken soup for the first time. Do not worry, I did not end up in the hospital. =) I first bit-o-time searching on the internet to get a feel for how soups of this type are made. Then I started the cooking… not following and specific directions per se, but using what ingredients I have available as well as what knowledge I have from the internet recipes, and then praying to God that it was edible.

  1. Vegatable Base: I started by putting water into a large pan and then threw in bag of mixed vegetables (carrots, peas, and beans I think); I then also threw in some garlic (3 cloves), and green onion (2 stalks),  a about 3 small quartered tomatoes; as well as some spices… perhaps oregano, and some other stuff. I put it on high until it started to boil and then I turned it down to simmer.
  2. Spicy Chicken: Previously started by thawing the chicken breast fillets in warm water while I went somewhere (A few hours). I took the chicken and moved it from its thawing water  to a frying pan with olive oil. On top of it I threw on every single hot-n- spicy spice I could find: cumin, red pepper, curry. Just enough to give it some POW!. I let it fry there while mixing it around to make sure that it was thoroughly cooked as well as getting the chicken thoroughly saturated with spices. I was really wishing that I had a jalapeno to add… I loves it. my precious.
  3. Nori and Kombu: OK, in my reading about calorically restricted diets Nori and Kombu are hailed as a great power food. Now Kombu has a  really strong taste and when you boil it, its scent pervades your cooking area. Not pretty. We have tried to cook with it once or twice, but its taste really dominates what ever you are cooking.I cut up a strip of both and put it in pan of water letting it boil and then when it does reduce the temperature to simmer. I am hoping that I will be brave enough to use this. =O
  4. Maintaining: Next, while occasionally, flipping the chicken, I tasted and spent time tasting the vegetable base. The spices do not quite work – a little too salty and not enough added flavor… hmmm At some point, after thinking about it for a little while, I decided to add some wheat noodles to it in order to reduce the saltiness, so I did. I also spent some time cleaning the overflow from the boiling and bad smelling Kombu/Nori combo.
  5. Finishing Touches: Towards the end of mixing and tasting I wussed out of the Nori/Kombu combo. If anyone knows of a way to cook these and compensate/reduce their taste I would love to hear it. I the noodles were done well and the chicken was tender but firm enough that it was almost falling apart. I diced/separated the chicken strips and then added it to the vegetable base and then tasted it….
  6. Final Verdict: It was not bad. The chicken added some low level heat to it and gave it some kick. The spices need a lot of work and did not add much to it. Tanya usually does a great job at this. I will have to have her help me next time. =) It turned out real well. Yea for me.

I would make a few changes to my thrown together recipe:

  1. First I would have attempted to dice up the 3 garlic cloves that I added.  I am not sure what is the best way to prepare them for a soup but I bet just throwing in the cloves is not one of them.  I would also perhaps add one or two more.
  2. add a 2 more onions to it.
  3. add a 2 more tomatoes
  4. add some wheat germ
  5. I may also consider adding brewers yeast, but this has the same problems as Kombu…. a really strong and not so nice taste to it. =( If anyone knows a good way to prepare this I would very much appreciate it. 

If you have any suggestions let me know, or you can just laugh at my inexperience. =) I am just ecstatic that it turned out as well as it did. Yea!

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Diet, Health, Life | No Comments »

Diet and Hunger with Evolution in Mind

Saturday, November 15th, 2008

OK, approved not that anyone cares so much to hear about this topic, but I am going to write about it anyhow. I have wanted to write this little post for quite some time, but I have not had the time.

I have written a little about my little diet experiment in a previous posts having gone from 164 lbs down to 150 lbs, and now after having returned from Belarus (and off the diet) I am back up to 162 lbs. I have been thinking a lot about how my hunger and my desires to eat manifest, how losing and gaining weight happened, as well as thinking about how evolutionary psychology might apply in this situation. I know you are thinking ‘A strange combination.’ or ‘Isn’t there something more interesting he could be doing?’.

The Shangri-la diet crushed my snacking or munchies almost completely. It was such a freeing and wonderful feeling to look at a chocolate bar, candy, or something else sweet and tasty and think ‘I do not need that’ and just walk away. This got me to thinking about how and why we all have these desires to eat things that we do not need to eat, and that may not even be good for you. I have come up with a little theory here. We have 2 modes for eating: the ‘eating to live’ mode and the ‘eating to eat’ mode. The first one is necessary and the second one may serve a purpose that is not needed and perhaps even detrimental in a first world country like the United States.

Eating to Live

This section is going to be fairly short as it will be pretty much self explanatory. The body lets you know that you need to eat by making you feel feint, giving you that hungry feeling, as well as an anxiousness to find food. Once you find food you eat until you do not need it any more. This ensures that you have enough calories to keep on living and allow you to find more food for survival

This provides for you the instincts and feedback via psychological and biological feed back in order for you to stay alive and take care of your bodies needs right now. I have found that while on the Shangri-la diet that I pretty much always decided to eat healthier and chose to not eat unhealthy foods when the ‘eating to eat’ was crushed. I was in much more control of and much more conscious of my bodies needs and the food I ate.

Eating to Eat

The previous one is not so interesting, well this one I find a little more interesting. Eating to eat. Snacking munchies. This part sucks!

So, you have eaten. You are not really hungry and you just have this desire to eat something. You do not have an urge for anything specific, but you find yourself looking through the cupboards or the refrigerator for something that will sate this desire to just eat. This is an annoying feeling that you just want to get rid of.

Now your body looking around and will have you sating yourself on foods that are most likely fattening. You body has food in it and is not really hungry, but now it is moving into fat storage mode since it has time in order to ensure that you will survive longer. Why on earth would you body do that in this world?

Lets think about it like this. Evolution takes thousands and thousands of years in order to make changes. Our bodies and minds are stuck with the instincts and bodies wrought in an old, old world where humans are hunting mammoths on the plains in small packs or tribes. Gathering what fruits they can find as they go. Nomadic tribes who hunt prehistoric creatures. In that day and age humans may go weeks without food and the human body has developed a mechanism to enhance its survival for those lean times. That survival mechanism is the ‘eating to eat’ process. Searching out foods especially fattening foods such as those with a lot of sugar, fat, partially hydrogenated oils, and high fructose corn syrup. Things that when eaten the body can turn to fat and store it for the potential lean days ahead greatly increasing your survivability.

I do not know about you, but in my little town of Baraboo where we have a super Walmart I have never found myself wanting for food or even close to truly starving. This ‘eating to eat’ is an outdated evolutionary psychological adaptation that is causing us so many problems leading us to obesity and other health issues since it is something that is really hard to control for many people. Controlling those urges and allowing ourselves to eat food that is health is not so easy and is a battle that is not easily won when evolution is against us.

Conclusion

I do not have a really profound conclusion for you, just that eating to eat is bad for us. We need to find a way to crush that deep and instinctual urge so that we can eat healthily and happily; to eat to live and not live to eat. The Shangri-la Diet experience helped me do that and it was quite the liberating experience.

In my previous post about this topic I mentioned that I will start the Shangri-la Diet again. I did not then since I was curious where it would take me, but I want to again now. I just need to find a not-so-nasty oil to partake.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Diet, Evolution, Health, Life | No Comments »

A Little Health Update

Monday, August 25th, 2008

Weight

I talked a little bit about my diet experience while Tanya was away prior to me going to Belarus. I had went from 164 lbs down to 150 lbs at a rate of 2.6 lbs per week using the Shangri-la Diet. I also noted about my experiences during that process.

Currently, my weight has risen up to about 158 lbs and it is only going keep going up. =) I am going to start in the Shangri-la Diet again so I can get my weight under control. I am hoping to talk to the wife so we can discuss the food we eat. I would like to include more of the power foods that are mentioned in a Calorically Restricted Diet so super-charge our home cooking. I know I said this before, but it needs to be done. I am really sick of it.

I will get back on the Shangri-la diet just enough to keep my cravings under control. It was such a wonderful feeling to eat because it was time and not because my body said to eat everything in sight. It was, patient
in a manner of speaking, good to be free from food.

My Back

This is a little more serious. My lower back has always been the tightest muscle on my body. When I was working out in Reedsburg in Villaris or going to karate my back would get really tight. They had an inversion machine which really released a lot of the tension that builds up. I have also noticed that when I play Tennis with my Dad a lot my lower back would get tight, but only annoyingly so.

Well, now that my Dad and I have discovered Racquetball, my back is really, really not happy with my. We started playing about 4 weeks ago at the Tamarac. It is a lot of fun, but my lower back was getting really, really tight. We played this Friday and my back was in a bit of pain, more than I have ever felt before. Tanya had me go through some Yoga stretches and that helped a lot. Today I am going to the Chiropractor and, hopefully, I will get some advice so I do not have this problem, or at least so I can manage or control it.

Posted in Diet, Health, Life | No Comments »

Weight Loss Update

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

As I mentioned in a previous post I started on the Shangri-La Diet pretty much the day after Tanya left for Belarus (April 3), which is exactly 6 weeks ago. In 6 weeks I have gone from 164lbs down to 150 lbs, which is a total of 14 lbs – about 2.3 lbs per week.

I am at a point where I think the Shargri-la diet should no longer be used for weight loss – just weight maintenance. I have some extra fat that I want gone, but I think that the rest will have to dealt with via a healthier (read calorically restricted) diet and exercise. Eventually, I can ween myself off the Shangri-la, once I get a more healthy diet plan in place which includes a lot of the CR healthy foods – some as mentioned above.

My previous diet was healthy – no (Partially) Hydrogenated Oils (PHO), no Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), and no High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFC) and a conscious thought of the foods I ate, but my main problem was that I was eating too much, especially when I went to my parent’s house. I love to eat delicious foods, so I, as many people do, gorge myself, which is not good. The Shangri-la allowed me to control my hunger and cravings. Yea!

I have tried a Caloric Restricted (CR) recipe – the Mega Meal Super Burrito – and I have added Brewers Yeast and Wheat Germ to my diet and, wow, are they really healthy for you. The Wheat Germ has as definite taste, but the Brewers Yeast is not so bad. I add both to my breakfast. I have also added some Tofu in albacore tuna, eggs, and some lite mayonnaise (a little tuna and egg salad). I just wish I could find Tofu in smaller amounts, because as of now I do not use a lot. When Tanya gets back we talk about how we can change things.

With the weight that I have lost my pants are no longer tight and the dunlop and spare tireage not are really an concern. I feel so much better now. Yea for a plan that works.

Posted in Diet, Health, Life | No Comments »

The Shangri-la Diet and Caloric Restriction

Thursday, April 17th, 2008

For those of you who know me, none of you would call me fat. I am not. I am in decent shape. My legs and arms are all muscle and there a-little-bit-extra forming over my midsection and you wouldn’t notice unless I wore a tight-fitting shirt. I am 5’11” tall and 164lbs – an average American male.

My life is pretty sedentary. I spend most of my days sitting behind a computer screen typing a way or staying at home with my beautiful wife. I am not so active now. There was a time when I was working out and going to Karate 3-4 times a week. That was great and I enjoyed it, but now my life has me with things that are more important than taking the time to work out.

So, now I found myself yearning for a way to keep the excess pounds off without killing myself (figuratively or literally) or my budget. I had heard of Calorie Restricted Dieting, but from what I have read about “them” in the news amounted to emaciated starvation cultists. I was not so interested in that. I am an avid D&D player and adding calorie restriction to my life would be one cult to many. (That is said in humor – Don’t take it serious people. Come on!)

The Shangri-la Diet

So I was just surfing around the internet and encountered mention of the book ‘The Shangri-la Diet‘ by Dr. Seth Roberts which details a pretty simple plan to loose weight. OK, I do not mean pretty simple, I mean really simple. The program boils down to taking a few table spoons a day of an oil or sugar water within a prescribed period each day and ‘whammo’ your hunger and food cravings are repressed; and then the fat starts to melt away.

I started on this a few weeks ago it has been an interesting ride. I started out taking Flax Seed Oil which is a nasty tasting yellow oil that on occasion invokes my gag reflex, so I gotta be careful. Of the oils listed in his book this was the healthiest, being that it is high in Omega-3’s (which I sorely lack due to not eating a lot of seafood). I will probably end up switching to Extra Light Olive Oil (ELOO) once I am done with the bottle of Flax Seed Oil.

The first week I basically substituted my lunch with the oil. I noticed that my food cravings basically vanished, which is a big thing. At work there is always some sort of chocolate, pastry, or something else laden with High Fructose Corn-Syrup (HFC), Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), or Partially Hydrogenated Oils (PHO) being brought in from Walmart. Not only that, but my when I am hungry at night I find myself being just a little bit hungry. When I first started I found myself getting hungry towards lunch, but at about 2 weeks into it I eat breakfast and then eat a little for supper and I am done for the day. I can go most of the day without eating and then eat only one meal in there, and I am fine.

This is such a strange feeling to not need to eat more than once a day. I eat because I need to and not because I feel the urge. I am eating to live and not living to eat as some would say it. I have not noticed any side-affects like being tired, or lacking energy, or anything like that. =)

So, if I am eating less then I need to make sure that what I am eating is good for me; that I am getting enough vitamins, minerals, and protein and so on. I will be even more concerned once I start being more active such as when I start playing tennis with my Dad now that spring is here.

Calorie Restricted Diets

One thing that was mentioned, almost in passing, in the Shangri-la Diet book is that even if you are eating less, if you are still eating crap, then you are still eating crap – crap is still bad for you. I wish that he would have given more information on this. This dearth of dietary information in the book had me thinking about these starvation cultists of the Calorie Restricted Diet (CRD).

I have long heard of and known of the the supposed health benefits of a CRD so I thought that this would be the best place to look to for dietary information on the foods with the maximum bang for the buck. Since I am eating less I need to eat better.

So, now I start to research the foods that are really healthy and that I will, hopefully, find palatable enough to eat.

Links

Posted in Diet, Health, Life | No Comments »