DoyCave.com

…where Doy occasionally writes.

Category: Life Stuff

  • Why I drink only water

    Giving up soda was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. More difficult than losing over 100 lbs. More difficult than adopting a new way of eating and nutrition. Hands down more difficult.

    I was honestly a diet soda JUNKIE! I could plow through a two-liter of soda in less than 24 hours and go looking for more. I was easily drinking two 20-ounce bottles of soda per day — and that was when I was trying to LIMIT myself!

    At first, I really waffled about quitting. I figured that diet soda wasn’t causing me any harm, really, and I was eating so well otherwise…surely it would all even out. Then I read the findings of this study. Then I read about what diet soda does to your body. Then I read that Dr. Esselstyn suggests staying away from it.

    So, then I cut back to only one a day…and wrote this.

    I finally had to come to a decision about my body as a whole. If my nutrition is going to heal my arteries, help me lose weight and help my body restore the harm I’ve done to it for 40 years, wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t put ANYTHING harmful into it? I read more about the ingredients in diet soda, which made the decision easier.

    The process wasn’t fun at all. I tried weaning myself, allowing myself only one diet soda per day. That inevitably led to two. I noticed, too, that when I was drinking them, I would crave more sweet things. I really struggled with wanting sweets with every meal. I knew this road would lead to undoing everything I’d worked for thus far, so I decided to go cold turkey. I splurged on soda that night (making myself a little sick in the process), and went with water the next day.

    I started looking for some kind of alternative…something to fill the void, but everything seemed to be either way too processed, have way too much sugar, have way too much sodium…or all of the above. I will occasionally drink 100% Orange Juice not from concentrate, but not often. It’s natural sugar, but there’s still a LOT of it.

    So, water it is, and it was definitely the right decision. I feel better, don’t crave the sweets the way I did, and I feel satiated much more quickly when I’m drinking enough of it with meals.

    Are you struggling with what to drink? Lindsay over at The Happy Herbivore shared a list of the 11 Worst Drinks for Your Body. Sign up for her newsletter while you’re at it! You’ll be glad you did!

  • Buying clean foods

    Happy Halloween, you four faithful readers!

    I hope the lovely Fall weather and scenery is inspiring you to get some veggie colors into your menu! We are experimenting with some new Fall-inspired foods from The Happy Herbivore, including a Pumpkin Chili that should be interesting!

    I came across the following article this morning, and thought it would be helpful to you as you attempt to get clean foods into your diet. These are not only a list of 8 foods to avoid, but also what to replace them with.

    Hope it helps you in your journey to health! As for me, I’m down to 235 lbs. this month, 123 lbs. lost since I began this journey so long ago. I hope you’ll be encouraged to stay on the path!

    Read the full article here »

  • Where I moan about corporations…

    original

    I will not hide the fact that I’m disappointed and alarmed at the power of the modern corporation. The deregulation movement has created mammoth, monolithic corporations that have more than a lot of influence in global economies, politics and policies.

    I’m still enraged by the Monsanto Protection Act, but it’s really just the tip of the iceberg where all of this is concerned.

    Today, my four faithful readers, I’m sharing with you a little infographic that explains how all those different brands you’re seeing in the grocery store aisles are actually just nine or ten brands, really…huge corporations that run the food industry.

    Just one of those, “you need to be aware of this” kind of things.

  • Just so you know…

    I really hate to pop up every month or so and show you something gross. I’m not doing that here, by the way.

    I am, however, linking you to an important article about how the poultry industry is changing and how it will affect you.

    Earlier this month, while you were busy sneaking out of your empty office, hoping nobody would notice your starting the holiday weekend early, the USDA was also doing something it was hoping nobody would notice. It was green-lighting the sale of Chinese processed American chicken.  As Politico explained, “U.S. officials have given the thumbs-up to four Chinese poultry plants, paving the way for the country to send processed chicken to American markets.” But while, “at first, China will only be able to process chicken that has been slaughtered in the U.S. or other certified countries,” that should not be a comfort to fans of the McNugget, Campbell’s chicken soup, or any other processed chicken product.

    Read the entire article here at Salon.com »

  • My Magic Beans

    Business Man pushing boulder uphillWhen people find out I’ve lost over 100 pounds, the first question is, “What are you DOING? I need to do THAT!”

    I always chuckle to myself because I know that’s not what they really mean.

    What they really mean is, “What magic spell allowed you to snap your fingers and become this thin person?! I need that magic spell!”

    They may not mean that literally, but it’s kind of the sentiment. The reason I know this, my four faithful readers, is that I, too, was one of them. Only recently one of them!

    Anytime someone lost a great deal of weight, I would quiz them about what they were doing, and it didn’t matter whether it was low-carb via Michael Thurmond (bought, paid for and followed…for a month or two), Atkins (lost the weight and gained it back with a vengeance) or South Beach (got 10 pages in and decided it was too complicated) or anything else, I just wanted it to work QUICKLY. I wanted their MAGIC BEANS!

    I would watch “Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition,” recounting the stories of heroic, persistent people who would lose almost 200 lbs. I would see them and think, “Look how relatively easy that was!” That’s because I was seeing a montage of workouts, condensed into five minute segments…made for TV.

    When I would begin an exercise journey, it was the waking up in the morning that got me. It was finding the clothes. It was thinking about the exertion and becoming physically sick at the thought. It was all those little hurdles you have to jump through just to make it in front of the TV and push play on the exercise DVD.

    As I write today, I’ve lost only three or four pounds in the last month or more. I will tell you that I’m still eating right. I’m not exercising consistently due to chest pains, bothering me on and off for the past few weeks, but I’m not letting that deter me from keeping up my motivation.

    I will also tell you that THIS is the most difficult part of weight loss…or the most difficult part of anything worth doing, really.

    It’s the day in. The day out. Lose a pound. Gain two pounds. Staying the course even though you aren’t getting the quick results anymore.

    It can truly wear on you, but this is where it’s so important to have made up your mind for good. I’ve had to count the cost of even a small cheat. What will a small cheat mean? A bigger cheat. A week of cheating. Derailment. I refuse to let that happen.

    And so what do I tell people who ask me what I’m doing to have lost 100 lbs?

    I’m on a strict eating plan, making meal-by-meal decisions about what I should eat in order to improve my health. Every. Single. Day. Without fail. That’s what I’m doing.

    Because that’s what it takes.

  • Don’t ever “fuggedaboutit!”

    James GandolfiniJames Gandolfini died last week of a heart attack. He was only 51.

    I didn’t know the guy, but his death rattled me. As did the sudden death of comedian Patrice Neal, who died of a stroke at only 41; the death of Rick Byargeon, 56, a pastor and former professor at New Orleans Seminary who died of melanoma; and the death of David Bartram, a professor and colleague at East Georgia College, who was 63 and had just recently been given a clean bill of health after a stress test. He went home for Christmas and died the day after, quite suddenly, of a heart attack.

    I don’t know all the factors, lifestyle choices and circumstances surrounding each of these deaths and I’m certainly not intending to speculate or cast aspersions on them at all. However, all of these deaths, and all deaths like them, constantly remind me why I live the way I do and how much further I have to go. And I hope they will serve as an Ebenezer to one of you four faithful readers, reminding you that your days aren’t promised on this earth. Why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to prolong them?

    In my last post, I talked about obesity and I shared a list of foods banned in other countries but allowed here in the United States.

    When I think about these chemicals, most of which are PROVEN to cause neurological disease and cancer (among other harmful effects), it infuriates me. It infuriates me even more when I realize that most of these foods (especially foods with harmful colors and dyes) are marketed to our CHILDREN!

    It infuriates me to think about how there is increasingly less FOOD in our food and there is little or nothing being done about it, save for this awesome guy in England.

    Our butchered cows are fed horrible diets, sometimes causing acidosis, which farmers fight with drugs, which end up in our already fat-ridden meat. Chickens are given huge amounts of hormones to make their breasts larger (which means more profit per chicken) and injected with an array of antibiotics and other meds to battle their frighteningly unsanitary living conditions. Milk cows are given growth hormones to make them produce more milk and they’re pumped beyond their limits, requiring their udders to be treated with antibiotics and ointments, all of which ends up in our milk.

    Frozen and processed foods are treated with preservatives and chemicals, many of which come from petroleum-based compounds (that’s from CRUDE OIL, people) that were never meant to be ingested. Sodium contents are higher, fat contents are MUCH higher and the foods, while not any more physically dense and filling, are more calorically dense than ever. That means we can eat less of this tripe and it’s doing MORE damage to us than ever before!

    I realize this sounds like the rant of an angry man. The rants of a hypocrite, even, as I was one addicted to the foods I attempt to vilify. I’m certainly not perfect, and I’m certainly not immune to the inherent joy one feels when eating something decadent.

    I guess I’m just tired of the deaths and the disease. I know they aren’t ALL coming from our foods, but so many of them are, and many of them are still being examined to find their source. I hate that Autism has jumped exponentially. I hate that heart disease will kill more Americans than ever before. Diabetes is absolutely ravaging men, women and now our children, too. I hate it all.

    Gandolfini played a mob boss on the show, “The Sopranos.” They were fond of using the term, “fuggedaboutit.” It’s meaning varies. It can mean anything from the literal, “forget about it,” to the more obscure, “it’s not worth mentioning because its greatness is so apparent.”

    I’m not telling you how to eat, my four faithful readers.

    I’m just asking that you tenaciously do your own research, persistently read the labels, and never…EVER…”fuggedaboutit.”

  • Obesity: Disease or Deficiency?

    Overweight Mother and Daughter

    The American Medical Association (AMA) has officially labeled obesity a disease, inadvertently causing a furious debate over one question, “Is obesity the result of purely external factors or is it simply a failure of self-governance?”

    The Facebook pundits have already weighed in on the story. Friends and others in my network have quipped, “Can we immunized for obesity now?!” “I think this is just an excuse for an unhealthy lifestyle!” “This is bull. Choice is not a disease.” “So…everyone 35 lbs. over their ideal weight will get government assistance to lose weight.” And my favorite, “Does that make a cheeseburger a ‘controlled substance?’”

    But I guess that’s Facebook for you. It’s a rush to be pithy without all the facts. Come to think of it, they probably learned that by watching 24-hour news networks. BOOM! That’s my journalism zinger for the day. Thank you, thank you….

    I’m sure it’s going to get noisy out there, but when all the armchair scientists, pundits and talking heads have exhausted their bombast, what is all of this going to mean?

    In the end, I think it’ll be good and bad. Let me explain…bad news first, I guess.

    My fear, and the fear that many doctors have shared online, is that the medical community will focus on drugs and surgery to TREAT this disease instead of focusing on PREVENTION by teaching patients sound nutritional principles based on the most current research.

    Let me say from the outset, however, that I don’t believe that the obesity epidemic is simply collective lack of willpower from the people of the world. I think there’s much more to it than that.

    Many people would assume that obesity just affects more affluent nations like ours, and among those nations, affects the middle to higher income families, due to their financial ability to access food. However, the trend is almost the opposite. Even poor countries are suffering higher obesity rates than ever before, and in the U.S., the highest rate of obesity falls upon the poor. Mississippi suffers from the highest obesity rate in the U.S. and also happens to be the state with the highest concentration of people living below the poverty line. (See an infographic here.)

    I won’t get into all the different theories about why this exists (and there are SEVERAL), but I will tell you what I believe. Weren’t you JUST DYING to know?

    I think obesity is rampant among the poor because of the QUALITY of the food they are able to access. Poorer families (I’ve learned from personal experience) rely on low-cost, quick-fix and often fast food to get them through each month. What they might NOT know is that this processed food is the WORST food for them, and even smaller amounts of it can cause larger problems down the line. Or as Jonathan CK Wells, professor of child nutrition as University College London says, “all calories are not created equal.”

    In his article for Aeon Magazine entitled, “The Obesity Era,” David Berreby, citing Professor Wells, reports, “The problem with diets that are heavy in meat, fat or sugar is not solely that they pack a lot of calories into food; it is that they alter the biochemistry of fat storage and fat expenditure, tilting the body’s system in favour of fat storage.”

    So, not only are lower income families eating food that’s bad for them now, but they’re also eating food that could possibly alter their body chemistry towards obesity in the long term. It’s honestly scary when you think about it. (See this list of foods we eat in the U.S. which are banned in other countries)

    In light of this, what are the obese to do? What are we to do? Wells suggests a global shift in our economy to allow the poorer families of the world access to BETTER food. I can’t imagine the clout necessary to bring this seemingly impossible change to fruition, but I would love to see this happen all over the world. However, learning the benefits of plant-based, whole foods nutrition, learning to garden and the like could make some small strides along the way.

    Or maybe I’m a hopeless idealist who will know nothing but crushing disappointment. Leave me alone. I can still believe in Santa Claus if I want.

    There is, however, some good news to be had here, I think.

    Now that obesity is a DISEASE, I honestly think the medical research community will put it more squarely in their crosshairs. I think obesity’s epidemic-level status has started that ball rolling, but elevating it to a disease will push it over the hill.

    I hope this research FINALLY indicts our modern food industry, the harmful chemicals it increasingly relies upon and the absolutely insane standard American diet being pushed out to people. I mean, have you SEEN MyPyramid? Does it make ANY sense to you?

    In the end, I honestly have no idea what this will mean for us, but I do know that obesity is the “gateway drug” leading to heart disease, stroke, gastrointestinal issues and cancer…just to name a few. If we EVER want to get insurance and healthcare costs under control, we must tackle this problem. It’s crushing our country in so many ways, and I hope this designation will give it the attention it deserves.

    If you’d like to read more about this, here are a few articles that offer more information:

     

  • 100 Pounds: Always Remember

    Me. 358 lbs. And feeling every painful pound of it.
    Me. 358 lbs. And feeling every painful pound of it.

    The photo at right was taken on June 6, 2010. I was 358 lbs. This morning, I weighed in at 258 lbs.

    An even HUNDRED! Will miracles never cease?

    Looking back, I don’t remember the details of those days as much as I remember how it felt.

    I remember distinctly how it felt to carry that gut around. It was a constant strain on my back and my knees. I remember how it felt to lean forward and tie my shoes, and the sharp pain I would experience as I did. How I would have to adjust my leg and lean more to the side just to reach my laces. It wasn’t long before I began wearing slip ons to avoid this pain.

    I remember the depression, brought on both because of my self-image and as the result of the horrible foods I was putting into my body. I remember the evenings — I hated them! — because they brought on the most uneasy feelings of dread, pains in my chest, labored breathing and blood pumping like sludge in my veins. I could feel it all.

    I remember the acid reflux and heartburn. Night after night it caused me stinging pain in my throat and chest. I would take antacids every night before bed, sometimes in the middle of the night and in the morning — all while sucking down countless liters of diet soda to wash everything down.

    My skin was red and pockmarked. My elbows rough, cracked and sometimes bleeding. My feet were swollen.

    It hurt to stand up, and I would find a place to sit as quickly as I could when visiting friends or going to church. I was winded after simple walks in the yard or down the street. My clothes always felt like they were tight and sticking to me in the most unflattering of ways.

    Me today. 258 lbs. Still have a ways to go before I hit my goal of 215.
    Me today. Still have a ways to go before I hit my goal of 215.

    I don’t remember a lot from then, but I’ll always remember how it felt. And because I remember how it felt, I will never return there.

    I still hate that it took SIX stents and an unfixable branch blockage to put me on the right path. Were I able to do it over again, I would certainly do things differently.

    But I guess that’s the value of reflection: ruminating on the past in such a way as to let it course-correct your future.

    I don’t know what you four faithful readers are going through in your fight against obesity and the pain that goes with it, but let me encourage you and leave you with a few things I’ve learned:

    • I am not more special or talented or motivated than you. You CAN lose the same amount of weight or more than I have. This is a fundamental belief, and you must understand this first. To quote Kung Fu Panda, “There is no secret ingredient.”
    • The way I eat is no longer about weight loss. It’s about healing my body from the awful effects of processed food. This is a huge shift in my thinking, and I think it will be the same for you.
    • Everyone has a breaking point: that point at which they finally concede to the problem and make a huge life change. I pray yours will come before emergency care is necessary, as it did for me.
    • Slow and steady wins the race. This is an annoying saying, but is also just as true as the color of the sky. You don’t need to lose more than a couple of pounds a week. This will not only help you lose weight in a more healthy way, but the slow pace will help you adjust your life over time to your new lifestyle.
    • Fad diets might work, but they aren’t good for you. Many of them shock your body into rapid weight loss and/or depend on processed foods and processed powders, laden with chemicals, carcinogens and neurotoxins, in order to lose the weight. A low carb diet can send you into ketoacidosis and kill you. Diet-branded frozen meals are loaded with sodium, MSG, and literally dozens of other ingredients you don’t want in your body.
    • Numerous studies are showing that a whole foods, plant-based diet is the best way to heal your body and exponentially improve your health, protecting you from cancer, heart disease and diabetes, which needlessly claim more and more American lives every year.

    Please don’t hear all of this as a statement of superiority. I’m no better than anybody. In fact, it took literally DOZENS of hospital visits and SIX stents to get me to really change my ways.

    My prayer — my reason for writing — is that it won’t take you nearly as long.

  • Losing in the Little Things

    “God is in the details,” the old saying goes, and I’m unfortunately learning that one the hard way.

    When you’re adhering to a strict diet, or ANY diet for that matter, it’s the details –the little things! — that can really trip you up and make you want to quit. Sometimes it’s those details that seem like the difference between complete success and utter failure.

    In my case, success is a delicate thread. I still have a branch of my left anterior descending artery (LAD) that is 97% blocked and unreachable with a stent. I’m not eating this way just to lose weight, I’m counting on it both to arrest and reverse my coronary artery disease. This means adhering strictly to this way of life. “No cheating,” as Dr. Esselstyn says…often…and to my chagrin…haunting my dreams.

    This week, I found that one of my favorite dishes, Black Bean Tacos (flavored with packaged taco seasoning), had oil in it. I don’t know what prompted me to finally read the seasoning packet, but there it was…in black and white…soybean oil. It wasn’t much — just one of those little things — but to me it felt like utter failure.

    “How many times have I eaten this,” I thought. “How much damage have I done? How far have I set myself back on this journey?”

    It was a frustrating and somewhat devastating moment for me.

    I started thinking of all the small ways I’d been “cheating” or not following closely enough. I started obsessing over taco sauce and the tofu we ate and how much sodium might have been in this or that.

    I eventually stopped.

    I went back to my loseit.com account, where I’m tracking my weight loss and occasionally tracking my meals. I looked at where I started and how far I’ve come. I thought about what it felt like to carry that weight around on my body and how awful I felt. I thought about how many times I’ve been to the hospital, thinking it was my last day of being alive. I thought about that photo where I look like a bloated mountain man and the awful foods I was eating when it was taken. I thought about how much I hated to be up and around back then, and how much easier it is now to simply take a walk or put away the food after dinner.

    I’ve been losing in some of the little things, sure. But I’m still winning the war, and I won’t let anything change that.

    If you’re on the road to health and find yourself experiencing a blowout, take heart. This is a journey. It’s a way of life, and your job is to keep putting one foot in front of the other until you reach your destination.

    What “little things” are tripping you up in your journey towards good health?

  • The Spoils of Perseverance

    I’m going to tell you with some amount of pride that a “mess o’ ribs” just doesn’t DO it for me anymore.

    Not long ago — only a few months, truthfully — I was a connoisseur of all things meat.

    I low carb’d it, often living on bacon-wrapped chicken and salad (with cheese and lots of dressing) as the staple of my healthy diet. I wasn’t worried about the fat. I just knew I was losing weight, and losing it fairly quickly.

    Inevitably, however, the carb cravings would catch up with me…I would engorge myself with cake or candy bars, and within a week, I was up 10 pounds and feeling awful.

    I initially struggled with my current lifestyle, too, mind you. I haven’t cheated, but getting “creative” with dinners hasn’t always been something I’ve had the time to do. And, to be truthful, this is a diet that requires PREPARATION. I can’t stress that enough to the four of you. Now, slap each other and say, “I love Justin Bieber and play with Barney toys!”

    What were we talking about again?

    Preparation, that’s right. Like preparing a blog entry that stays on topic. Yeah, like that.

    So early on with Esselstyn, I would forget to pack a lunch and, not really knowing what to do, I would just pick up salad stuff and dress it with straight Balsamic Vinegar. It wasn’t the most appetizing thing I’ve done, but I put my head down and took my lumps. It taught me to be more prepared, which I’ve mentioned before…right?!

    These were the most perilous days for me. It would’ve been easy to say, “Geez, I’ll just go to Zaxby’s and get a chicken salad. At least it’s ‘healthy.’” I would’ve been wrong, and I knew the damage it would do both to my body and my progress.

    I say all this to say that, after four months of living this way, I have indeed lost the taste and craving for FAT, and this is a triumph for me!

    I recoil at cheeseburgers with their dripping grease. I’m appalled by a slab of ribs and the pool of thick barbecue sauce and fat-congealing. I know that I would have a violent reaction to those foods if I ate them, and my body reacts accordingly. The smells don’t waft through my nose with the same allure. The sight of their pallid and muted hues hardly compares to the vibrant colors of the food I eat. They don’t hold pleasure for me. At all.

    Why am I telling you all this…as if I’ve figured it all out?

    I’m telling you this to encourage you in this one fact: IT. GETS. EASIER.

    It gets easier to stay away from the “comfort foods” that provide no real comfort at all. It gets easier to avoid the frozen pizza bites because there’s no time and nothing else on the menu tonight. It gets easier to avoid the candy aisle, grabbing something from the produce section instead. It gets easier to avoid the convenience of a drive-thru when you don’t know what else to do. It all gets easier.

    The longer you go, the easier it gets. The more you do it, the more preparation you learn.

    These days, I’m thinking ahead constantly. If I’m invited to lunch, I might direct us to a more vegan-friendly establishment where I might get the food I need. If I’m meeting up with family after work, I might have dinner for myself, so that I’m not hungry and won’t dig into the goodies. If I know we’ve run out of leftovers or the pantry’s getting low, I’ll make sure to call home, check in, and stop at the store to stock up on something I can make quickly (usually rice and beans).

    Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a fear-based motivation. I’m not constantly afraid I’ll screw up if I don’t prepare. It’s RESOLVE. I eat a certain way for very good reason. Therefore, I will prepare my food in every situation.

    I’m telling you all this because there is a point at which it will get easier and easier for you to travel the narrow road to health. One of the reasons so many doctors don’t recommend this lifestyle to their patients is because they believe it’s TOO STRICT. It certainly takes preparation, but people can learn to live in any situation. Just ask the Inuit up in Canada. Jeez.

    I’m also telling you all this because I’m a nobody. I’m a nobody who is doing this everyday.

    And if a flaky, procrastinating nobody like me can do it, you most assuredly can.

    What obstacles do you think are keeping you from healthy living?

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