I know it's hard to stay on any diet while in a family or group setting. I was raising my own 3 kids and running a day care so I was up to my elbows in food 12 hours a day when I was losing my weight. It was tough and I tripped up more then a few times, but I never let it discourage me. You just keep going and doing your best and eventually you get to where you want to be.
Losing and maintaining a weight loss is a job. It's not a temporary job either. It's a life choice and you do it alone for the most part. We are all obligated to make choices for our own best interest if we want to experience good health. If a person lived in a house with smokers, are they obligated to smoke too? They may be more inclined to, but they can choose for themselves if they value their health more then they value being part of the group. Just like that question parents have always asked their kids, "If all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you jump too?". The same applies to dietary choices. It may be hard to say no to junk food if it is all around your environment, but you are never obligated to put anything in your mouth that you know is potentially harmful to your body. Be your own best advocate!
When you watch one of those TV shows that is about the super obese and how they got that way, that person may share a story of past personal trauma, but then you will often see that the entire family unit is super obese as well, including the previous AND the next generation! This is not necessarily due to one single event or to heredity, but more likely learned behaviors and habits, not to mention the house culture. No parent makes a point of teaching their child how to overeat and become obese. It happens day by day through example and often through issues like co-dependency among family members.
Of course, there is the exception and I am one of them. In a family of 4 siblings, I was the youngest and the only one, other then my mother, with a weight problem . We all ate the exact same thing, no exceptions. No snacking or getting food for ourselves...just what my mom put before us. I was chubby from birth. I inherited my mother's health issues too. She and I battled weight, high blood pressure, and heart problems together, while everyone else in the family was perfectly healthy. I was also a tomboy as she had been, always moving and playing sports, never sedentary, unlike my siblings who were, for the most part, a sedentary bunch. It never made sense, but in our case, heredity played a part. She inherited it from her father.
No matter what hand life has dealt us, we all still have choices to make regarding our personal issues and striving for the best health and quality of life we can. Losing weight is hard, even harder when you are doing it alone in an environment of others that eat mindlessly, but never underestimate your ability to manage or change your own life.
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Showing posts with label what makes us fat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label what makes us fat. Show all posts
Friday, April 10, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
The "WHY" Of Weight
I know it is a normal thing for people to try and figure out why they have allowed themselves to become overweight or obese. You could spend a lot of time theorizing and even allow yourself to be influenced by whatever the popular thoughts are on the subject, but I came to realize that you really don't get to the root of it until the weight is in the process of being lost. When you are forced to face the reality of self imposed limitations and you no longer have that crutch to lean on, it is time to deal.
One thing I realized over the coarse of my weight loss was that my obesity had lessened others expectations of me. This had not been the conscious reason behind my weight problem, but it certainly did play a part in the path my life had taken all those years. I'm not sure when my sense of feeling incapable compared to others took root, but being obese sure did give me a good excuse not to excel in anything. I convinced myself that survival was all I could hope for and that I had a perfectly good excuse not to try for more.
I was quite shocked at how that all shifted when I lost the weight. Suddenly people had expectations of me! I was very intimidated by that and it took time for me to adjust, but my sense of achievement and interest in seeing what else I could do eventually got me through it.
Along the same line, as a single mom I was often overwhelmed with the 24/7 never ending demands of my 3 kids, plus running a home based day care 12 hours a day. I realized that the action of eating tended to make people leave me alone for a while. Even a few minutes of no demands kept me sane, so eating was a good shield to tell everyone, "Later, I'm busy eating right now".
These insights gradually became apparent to me over the months of changing. There were others, but these were a couple of the ones that took me by surprise as I discovered them and worked at dealing with the emotions as they were emerging.
If you are in the process of losing weight, take advantage of the insights you will be presented with as you progress. Don't be afraid to accept the fears or to take ownership. None of us get obese because we are hungry. There is ALWAYS an emotional root that needs pulling.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
That Old "Nature vs Nurture" Thing.
In all my years (most of my life) of living as an overweight to obese person, I often tried to solve the mystery of why I was burdened with whatever it was that had made me that way. I know most believe it is just a matter of eating too much and not moving enough, but I know for a fact this is not true.
I grew up in a home where we were not allowed to raid the fridge or dig around in the pantry for something to eat. We were raised to eat what my mother put in front of us, no more, no less. There was no fast food or restaurant meals in our lives. There was very little of what would be considered snack type junk foods. Just home cooking. I was one of 4 siblings, the baby. My 3 older sibs had no weight issues at all. They were thin and for the most part pretty sedentary. I was 100% tomboy. I rarely sat still and even TV watching was a short term activity for me. Besides, in the 60's and 70's there were only a few channels to choose from and cartoons were only on Saturday mornings. If we did not have our chores done in time, we missed the boat. With only one TV in the house, my parents had first priority for evening viewing choices. I learned very early (around 4) to become an avid reader for my entertainment, or to just go outside and play. I loved basketball, handball, riding my bike, working with my dad in the garage, anything that kept me moving. In spite of that, I was a pudgy kid from birth.
One of my earliest memories were of being in my stroller at a school carnival with my mom and brother and sisters. We had stopped at a booth with the most amazing aroma! They were selling little bags of fudge and boy I could hardly wait! My mom was actually buying some! I waited for my share, but I was told, "Not for you...you're too chubby". I had no idea what that meant, but I knew that for some reason, there was something wrong with me. From that point on, that was my number one identity in my mind. I was different. I was "chubby".
Thus began my endless quest to be thin and normal, first through my mother's efforts, then through my own. As I said, although I ate exactly the same as my siblings, I was the only one in my family, other then my mother, who had a weight issue. My mother had also been an extremely active child and teenager. Her sister had been completely sedentary...and thin. It was during the depression and her father had died when she was only 14. Needless to say, she and her sister and mother had struggled to get by so food was not abundant. In spite of my mother's involvement with sports, even playing ball with the boys long before that was acceptable, she was never thin like her girlfriends all were. She eventually became an obese woman that lead to hypertension, then heart failure, then death at only 62. I evidently inherited my mothers health DNA. I inexplicably struggled with the weight, had elevated BP in my teens, became diabetic even though I kept my weight from exploding through very strict control, and had heart failure in my mid 20's. This was not a lifestyle issue. I came in to the world this way.
Over all these years, trying to understand why, in spite of my constant effort to remain healthy...well...except in my 30's when I just stopped fighting it up and ballooned to well over 300 pounds...why could I not figure out how to be "normal" like my friends? So much guilt is attached to obesity and like me, not everyone who struggles with this problem is 100% to blame. Just like the color of your eyes or hair, or personality traits or interests, how our body processes nutrients will differ, sometimes well out of the norm. You can't change that.
My point is not to make excuses or cry "poor poor pitiful me" or blame my mother. This is and has always been my reality. My job has been to do what I can to manage it and not end up dying much too early from a weight related disease as she did. Keeping my weight under control it top priority to accomplish this. For me, Cambridge not only allowed me to lose the weight when no other diet would work for me, but it has also been my maintenance tool that has kept me on track for a long healthy life. I turn 56 next week. When I compare my health status at this age, to what I remember my mother's being, it is drastically different. I still have the same health issues and I always will, but I keep things controlled and I work hard at staying as healthy as I possibly can in spite of them.
I grew up in a home where we were not allowed to raid the fridge or dig around in the pantry for something to eat. We were raised to eat what my mother put in front of us, no more, no less. There was no fast food or restaurant meals in our lives. There was very little of what would be considered snack type junk foods. Just home cooking. I was one of 4 siblings, the baby. My 3 older sibs had no weight issues at all. They were thin and for the most part pretty sedentary. I was 100% tomboy. I rarely sat still and even TV watching was a short term activity for me. Besides, in the 60's and 70's there were only a few channels to choose from and cartoons were only on Saturday mornings. If we did not have our chores done in time, we missed the boat. With only one TV in the house, my parents had first priority for evening viewing choices. I learned very early (around 4) to become an avid reader for my entertainment, or to just go outside and play. I loved basketball, handball, riding my bike, working with my dad in the garage, anything that kept me moving. In spite of that, I was a pudgy kid from birth.
One of my earliest memories were of being in my stroller at a school carnival with my mom and brother and sisters. We had stopped at a booth with the most amazing aroma! They were selling little bags of fudge and boy I could hardly wait! My mom was actually buying some! I waited for my share, but I was told, "Not for you...you're too chubby". I had no idea what that meant, but I knew that for some reason, there was something wrong with me. From that point on, that was my number one identity in my mind. I was different. I was "chubby".
Thus began my endless quest to be thin and normal, first through my mother's efforts, then through my own. As I said, although I ate exactly the same as my siblings, I was the only one in my family, other then my mother, who had a weight issue. My mother had also been an extremely active child and teenager. Her sister had been completely sedentary...and thin. It was during the depression and her father had died when she was only 14. Needless to say, she and her sister and mother had struggled to get by so food was not abundant. In spite of my mother's involvement with sports, even playing ball with the boys long before that was acceptable, she was never thin like her girlfriends all were. She eventually became an obese woman that lead to hypertension, then heart failure, then death at only 62. I evidently inherited my mothers health DNA. I inexplicably struggled with the weight, had elevated BP in my teens, became diabetic even though I kept my weight from exploding through very strict control, and had heart failure in my mid 20's. This was not a lifestyle issue. I came in to the world this way.
Over all these years, trying to understand why, in spite of my constant effort to remain healthy...well...except in my 30's when I just stopped fighting it up and ballooned to well over 300 pounds...why could I not figure out how to be "normal" like my friends? So much guilt is attached to obesity and like me, not everyone who struggles with this problem is 100% to blame. Just like the color of your eyes or hair, or personality traits or interests, how our body processes nutrients will differ, sometimes well out of the norm. You can't change that.
My point is not to make excuses or cry "poor poor pitiful me" or blame my mother. This is and has always been my reality. My job has been to do what I can to manage it and not end up dying much too early from a weight related disease as she did. Keeping my weight under control it top priority to accomplish this. For me, Cambridge not only allowed me to lose the weight when no other diet would work for me, but it has also been my maintenance tool that has kept me on track for a long healthy life. I turn 56 next week. When I compare my health status at this age, to what I remember my mother's being, it is drastically different. I still have the same health issues and I always will, but I keep things controlled and I work hard at staying as healthy as I possibly can in spite of them.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Tips for Those New To Cambridge, part 1 of 2
Some of you are new to Cambridge and may not have heard these suggestions before so they are worth repeating I think
1) Be SURE to have all 3 of you Cambridge servings a day. This is extremely important, even if you are doing the regular program and adding food. You are only guaranteed a safe weight loss experience if you have your 3 a day. Otherwise you are on a "crash" type diet and you could harm your health.
2) In your first week you are going through lots of adjustments. One of them is entering ketosis. You can read about ketosis on my web site on the Q&A page. Until you enter ketosis you may experience hunger. If so, feel free to have additional Cambridge if you need them. Have whatever it takes to get you through the first few days without breaking your diet. You are better off having additional calories of Cambridge then regular food that may get out of control.
3) If you find that you are feeling hungry between your Cambridge meals, you can break up your servings into half servings and spread them out over the day. For some this seems to help, especially in the beginning. You will eventually be able to just have your 3 or 4 whole servings at regular intervals with no feelings of hunger except at meal times.
4) It is encouraged that you try for 2 solid weeks of SS, meaning you substitute ALL your food with Cambridge. This gives you the best start and allows the body to adjust while giving you the benefit of natural appetite suppressant and good energy that comes from being in ketosis. If you are going to add regular food to the diet, try to stick to lean proteins and low carb veggies. This will have less of an effect on your appetite. High sugar foods like fruit might stimulate your appetite, but you can try and see. Some people add fruit to the shakes and do fine, others find it makes them hungry. SS is best so give it a good try!
5) Drink water! Lots of water! More then you likely drink now. Double it! I have a 32 oz bottle that I fill at least 3 times a day. It helps with weight loss and fluid retention.
6) Take a good "before" picture. This will become very important to you as you are losing. I found that I had such body image problems that I could not see the weight loss in the mirror. I had to keep taking Polaroid's (before cell phone cameras!) to compare the difference. It is amazing to see the progress in pictures!
7) Try not to be a slave to the scale. Remember that scales are weighing the entire body, not just the fat. Your body is in a constant state of change and it is unrealistic to think that what you see on the scale is in any way an accurate measure of fat loss. Try to weigh once a week and then have someone hide the scale from you!
8) Exercise is not a requirement to lose on Cambridge, but it certainly does keep things moving along and helps to tone and firm as you lose. The health benefits are tremendous, both physically and mentally! Walking is a good way to start and light weights should come next.
9) If you have a large amount to lose, try not to look at the big picture. Take it in mini goals, 10 pounds, one size, etc. Before you know it you will be at goal!
10) You will probably have lots of well meaning friends and family tell you that what you are doing is bad for you. Try to listen and understand that it's possible and not unusual for people to be talking only to please themselves, not you. Obviously, you have done your research and have determined that Cambridge is a safe effective and nutritious way to lose weight at the fastest rate possible. They should respect that. Thank them for their concern and then suggest they go have this conversation with one of their friends who is considering gastric surgery.
11) You will probably go through some emotional trials as you lose. None of us got this heavy because we were hungry! We got obese because of an inappropriate relationship with food based on an emotional need. You might be confronting these issues as your weight goes down. This is part of the healing that is taking place and should be embraced, not avoided.
12) Remember to come to visit the Support Board at
http://members5.boardhost.com/pam140/
when you need help or encouragement, or just need to brag! We will cheer for you, we will cry with you, we will educate you, we will understand.
13) Finally, try to think of this as a gift to yourself. Others will benefit indirectly... family, loved ones, etc..but this is all about you! This is the time to be selfish in the best way possible. Do not let other's needs override your own. No one will suffer if you don't go to that BBQ or have any of that birthday cake. You will not offend anyone if you refuse to go out with the people at work to celebrate a promotion or a retirement. Send a card or flowers, just don't send yourself!
Check back 10/28 for part 2
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Welcome to 2014!
Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 01/01/14:
Yes, another new year. Time is going so fast it seems. Do you have your goals set for 2014? I haven't put too much thought in to it yet, but I do know that I want to lose a few more pounds and get as lean as I can be. I haven't had a gym membership the past year and a half since we moved here to Florida. I have a beautiful pool, but it's unheated and yes, even here in sunny Florida it gets too cold to swim. You get about 6 months of the year before the water gets too cold. My goal is to need a new swim suit for summer because my old one will be too big!
This year had some challenges. My sister recently died. She was only 2,5 years older then me, (55) but she was diagnosed a couple of years ago (at the age I am now) with cardio pulmonary hypertension. She basically died of congestive heart failure. My mother died of congestive heart failure when she was only 62 and I also had congestive heart failure when I was only 26. So you can see there is definitely a genetic factor here I am determined to beat. Thankfully, I am currently in decent health, active and living as stress free of a life I can create. My Cambridge keeps me healthy and is my main tool for keeping a life time of obesity under control. I am so far away from the person I used to be 12 years ago. I understand that even though there may be genetic tendencies in my family, that doesn't mean I can't counteract them with a focused effort to eat and live healthy.
Yes, another new year. Time is going so fast it seems. Do you have your goals set for 2014? I haven't put too much thought in to it yet, but I do know that I want to lose a few more pounds and get as lean as I can be. I haven't had a gym membership the past year and a half since we moved here to Florida. I have a beautiful pool, but it's unheated and yes, even here in sunny Florida it gets too cold to swim. You get about 6 months of the year before the water gets too cold. My goal is to need a new swim suit for summer because my old one will be too big!
This year had some challenges. My sister recently died. She was only 2,5 years older then me, (55) but she was diagnosed a couple of years ago (at the age I am now) with cardio pulmonary hypertension. She basically died of congestive heart failure. My mother died of congestive heart failure when she was only 62 and I also had congestive heart failure when I was only 26. So you can see there is definitely a genetic factor here I am determined to beat. Thankfully, I am currently in decent health, active and living as stress free of a life I can create. My Cambridge keeps me healthy and is my main tool for keeping a life time of obesity under control. I am so far away from the person I used to be 12 years ago. I understand that even though there may be genetic tendencies in my family, that doesn't mean I can't counteract them with a focused effort to eat and live healthy.
I hope that 2013 was kind to you, and if it wasn't, I hope 2014 will be all you hope for. I am not one for magical thinking, but people seem to be expressing a common sense that 2014 is going to be a great year. If we welcome it with that attitude, then we stand a much greater chance of it being so.
If you have weight to lose, don't wait another day. Go to my website at cambridgediet.org and order your product today. You will have it in your hands in less then 7 working days. You can take the time you spend waiting for it to clean out all the sugar and simple carbs in your diet to prepare your body for an easy transition to the diet. There is nothing else out there that can give you the results that Cambridge can!
If you have weight to lose, don't wait another day. Go to my website at cambridgediet.org and order your product today. You will have it in your hands in less then 7 working days. You can take the time you spend waiting for it to clean out all the sugar and simple carbs in your diet to prepare your body for an easy transition to the diet. There is nothing else out there that can give you the results that Cambridge can!
Taking a moment
Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 09/07/13:
As I sat here the past couple of hours responding to my daily morning emails for Cambridge I was harking back (that's a word I never get to use! lol!) to my previous life before losing my weight. It's been a while now, but because I had spend the majority of my life suffering from weight and food issues the memories are still clear. The one emotion that comes to the front when remembering that life is confusion. I was so completely incapable of managing my eating or understanding how to eat correctly. I had gone through a million different diets over the course of my life beginning in childhood, each one contradicted the last. By the time I reached my early 40's...and 340+ pounds...I was lost. Hopeless is the next emotion I remember. I had never lived a normal life. I had never put a single bite of food in my mouth without feeling guilty. I concluded that I could never be "normal", that obesity was my destiny and that like my mother, it would be what killed me.
When I look at my old before pictures I can see those emotions on my face. It's painful to see, but it reminds me of how grateful I am that I found my way free.
Take a moment today and think about all the pain and suffering your weight has caused you. What price have you paid for it? A house is built one nail at a time. Our weight is built one bite at a time. Never allow the thought to grow that "This one bad choice won't hurt or one more week of my life spent eating whatever I want won't matter". It does hurt and it does matter.
Today, I am remembering how grateful I am that my search is over. No more waiting for the next "miracle" diet or pill or surgery. I found my miracle and along the way I found the life I wanted. It took a lot of work and frustration and self analysis, but here I am, happy and healthy and experiencing the life I denied myself for so many years.
As I sat here the past couple of hours responding to my daily morning emails for Cambridge I was harking back (that's a word I never get to use! lol!) to my previous life before losing my weight. It's been a while now, but because I had spend the majority of my life suffering from weight and food issues the memories are still clear. The one emotion that comes to the front when remembering that life is confusion. I was so completely incapable of managing my eating or understanding how to eat correctly. I had gone through a million different diets over the course of my life beginning in childhood, each one contradicted the last. By the time I reached my early 40's...and 340+ pounds...I was lost. Hopeless is the next emotion I remember. I had never lived a normal life. I had never put a single bite of food in my mouth without feeling guilty. I concluded that I could never be "normal", that obesity was my destiny and that like my mother, it would be what killed me.
When I look at my old before pictures I can see those emotions on my face. It's painful to see, but it reminds me of how grateful I am that I found my way free.
Take a moment today and think about all the pain and suffering your weight has caused you. What price have you paid for it? A house is built one nail at a time. Our weight is built one bite at a time. Never allow the thought to grow that "This one bad choice won't hurt or one more week of my life spent eating whatever I want won't matter". It does hurt and it does matter.
Today, I am remembering how grateful I am that my search is over. No more waiting for the next "miracle" diet or pill or surgery. I found my miracle and along the way I found the life I wanted. It took a lot of work and frustration and self analysis, but here I am, happy and healthy and experiencing the life I denied myself for so many years.
Headlights
Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 08/23/13:
I remember when I was taking my driving lessons (Thank you Mr. MacCarthy from California Driving School!) that my instructor taught me to never stare in to oncoming headlights. It is something people do and don't realize that they are gradually steering towards them. Not a good thing when out at night on a two lane highway! It's normal for the body to follow the mind. If you are focused on something, you tend to gravitate towards it.
This applies to what we are doing here. If you are trying to lose weight, but you allow your mind to remain focused on thoughts of food, you WILL eventually cave in. Social media such as Facebook and Pinterest or recipe sights and the food channel all keep your mind focused on exactly what you don't want it to be focused on. It is button you keep pushing and then wonder why you can't stop feeling anxiety about being on your diet.
We all have to get in our cars and drive by fast food places that pump their frying oil smell out to entice hungry drivers. We have to grocery shop for the family and smell the deli counter with the fried chicken or the bakery with all those tempting smells. It's unavoidable for most of us to smell food throughout the entire day. You can't control that, but you can control what you expose yourself to when you are alone and that is when most of us do our worst damage.
I have a few customers that have "friended" me on Face Book. I am always surprised to see how many recipes they post daily with enticing pictures of sugary fatty foods. What good are they doing themselves or others by sharing that? They are pushing that button over and over and almost inviting failure. I confronted one and he told me that "just because he can't eat it, doesn't mean he doesn't want to look at it". Hmmm....If you had a drug addiction, would you go hang out with dealers?
Clean out your environment. Avoid food signals in your social media. Don't watch The Food Channel. Take a different route to work that doesn't pass your favorite fast food place. Wear a spot of perfume under your nose to the store so you don't smell the fryer or the bakery. Close your eye during food commercials. Hearing about it won't cause a craving, but seeing it will.
Don't steer towards the headlights and expect not to crash.
I remember when I was taking my driving lessons (Thank you Mr. MacCarthy from California Driving School!) that my instructor taught me to never stare in to oncoming headlights. It is something people do and don't realize that they are gradually steering towards them. Not a good thing when out at night on a two lane highway! It's normal for the body to follow the mind. If you are focused on something, you tend to gravitate towards it.
This applies to what we are doing here. If you are trying to lose weight, but you allow your mind to remain focused on thoughts of food, you WILL eventually cave in. Social media such as Facebook and Pinterest or recipe sights and the food channel all keep your mind focused on exactly what you don't want it to be focused on. It is button you keep pushing and then wonder why you can't stop feeling anxiety about being on your diet.
We all have to get in our cars and drive by fast food places that pump their frying oil smell out to entice hungry drivers. We have to grocery shop for the family and smell the deli counter with the fried chicken or the bakery with all those tempting smells. It's unavoidable for most of us to smell food throughout the entire day. You can't control that, but you can control what you expose yourself to when you are alone and that is when most of us do our worst damage.
I have a few customers that have "friended" me on Face Book. I am always surprised to see how many recipes they post daily with enticing pictures of sugary fatty foods. What good are they doing themselves or others by sharing that? They are pushing that button over and over and almost inviting failure. I confronted one and he told me that "just because he can't eat it, doesn't mean he doesn't want to look at it". Hmmm....If you had a drug addiction, would you go hang out with dealers?
Clean out your environment. Avoid food signals in your social media. Don't watch The Food Channel. Take a different route to work that doesn't pass your favorite fast food place. Wear a spot of perfume under your nose to the store so you don't smell the fryer or the bakery. Close your eye during food commercials. Hearing about it won't cause a craving, but seeing it will.
Don't steer towards the headlights and expect not to crash.
What Makes Us Fat
Originally Posted by Pam Turner on 01/06/12:
I wanted to write a bit about how grain based foods and sugars, especially those in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which is found in just about everything, have caused the obesity problem we have here in the USA. Sadly, as other countries adopt our eating habits, their health declines as well. Society's that never had obesity problems with their traditional diets.. now do.
We have been told for many years by our government what we should eat and how much. We had the "Food Guide Pyramid" which our children were taught in school and physicians and nutritionists passed on to patients. We were taught that our diet should be based on grain...11 servings a day with lesser amounts of proteins, veg, fruits and very limited fats. We were told that natural foods like coconut oil, butter and animal fat which had always been a part of our diets were suddenly bad for us and they were replaced with vegetable oils and hydrogenated margarine and shortenings. During those years the health of this country has gone consistently downhill. What were once rare diseases like diabetes, cancers and vascular disease are now common and even expected. If the counsel we have been subjected to was sound, why have we become so sick and fat? How could we still be so wrong?
The body has a very small need for sugar and once a person's intake exceeds that it gets stored as fat. Grain based foods get converted to sugar quickly and cause insulin spikes. Insulin is the body's fat storing hormone. It tells the body to store fat rather then use it for energy. Most of us have way too much insulin circulating due to our high sugar/grain diets. When you consider the fact that for decades the USRDA told everyone to eat low fat while eating 11 servings of grain a day it is no wonder why we are all struggling with our weight. They use grain to fatten livestock for slaughter. In a way, we have been too.
Grain has always been the biggest crop in the USA. So big in fact that we shipped it out to other countries just to get rid of it. Telling the US citizens that they NEED 11 servings went a long way to converting that abundance of grain in to cash.
I get asked all the time about what to eat to maintain once the weight is lost. It's simple really. Don't eat grain and don't eat sugar. You will never be fat again. Focus on healthy sources of fats and protein and vegetable with very limited fruits and grain. We humans were not designed to eat grain. If we were we would have the kind of teeth that could grind it up and we would be able to eat it as nature made it, whole..raw..and unprocessed, but we don't. Good way to lose a tooth! The teeth we do have tell us that we are designed to eat animal, vegetable, fruit, nuts and seeds. If you can chew it raw, it's food for you. Sugar was only meant to be eaten in season. Consider this.. in most parts of the world that have winter weather we see that the fruits ripen in the summer and late fall, natures way to fatten people up for when food is less available. Dietary sugar makes fat. Dietary fat makes energy.
Here is an excerpt from an article about this subject that explains it well. It's talking about the mistakes we make in diet and exercise and how the body responds:
Dr. Doug McGuff is an emergency room physician and an expert on exercise and diet. He explains:
"Your skeletal muscle – if you're lucky – can hold maybe 250 grams of glucose, and your liver holds about 70. If you take 320 grams of glucose as what your storage capacity is, you can kill that with a single trip to Starbucks. Once you go beyond that, your body is going to find some sort of way to deal with those excess carbohydrates.
If your glycogen storage is full, your body has nowhere else to put it. So instead of going all the way through this metabolic pathway, it… produces body fat. That's called the novel glycogenosis. We are in the midst of a very bizarre, evil-scientist type experiment in the Western world, because we are dumping into our bodies an amount of carbohydrate and, in particular, refined sugars, that are way above the capacity of our metabolism to handle normally."
The result of our modern diet, which is loaded with grains and sugars (especially fructose), is a large percentage of obesity, and people that are overweight. This can be turned around, however, using a wise combination-approach of a high-fat, low-carb diet and high-intensity interval training.
"Through an amplification cascade, when you're doing a high-intensity exercise, you very aggressively empty sugar out of your muscle cells. By doing that and combining over the low-carbohydrate diet, you start to heal the metabolism," Dr. McGuff explains. "They are able to access their energy source finally. That's how they can turn things around."
It's crucial to remember that you cannot exercise your way out of a bad diet, and the first step toward improving your diet is to cut out as much sugar/fructose and grain/carbs as possible. Your diet actually accounts for about 80 percent of the health benefits derived from a healthy lifestyle, with the remaining 20 percent coming from exercise. That benefit ratio could lean even higher toward diet, according to Dr. McGuff:
"The standard American diet is highly inflammatory. It produces systemic inflammation of an order that is almost beyond belief. In that state, if you do exercise of any significant stress, you're just adding inflammation on top of the inflammation, and you're actually putting yourself at a bit of a risk. I advise people to get their diet straight and then exercise. "
If you are worried about maintenance, don't be. You can be very happy and satisfied on a no-grain eating plan. If you get back to how nature intended us to eat, which has been the path of evolution for us as well as all the other living things on earth that have not become extinct, then you can live a healthy life free of obesity and dieting. Cambridge is a jump start to get the weight off fast. The rate of weight loss accelerates the metabolism's ability to begin healing because body fat causes many negative effects to your overall health, far more then you can imagine. Body fat affects you hormonally, skeletally, mentally, chemically and prevents full mobility of the body. I think it is safe to say that there isn't a single cell that isn't in some way affected by obesity. Having an overabundance of sugar in the system also encourages systemic yeast overgrowth, a whole other problem many people are now suffering from that has been discussed previously in other articles. We all want to be healthy, vital and active. Getting back to eating the way nature designed is the natural way to maintaining a slim body and a healthy life.
I wanted to write a bit about how grain based foods and sugars, especially those in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which is found in just about everything, have caused the obesity problem we have here in the USA. Sadly, as other countries adopt our eating habits, their health declines as well. Society's that never had obesity problems with their traditional diets.. now do.
We have been told for many years by our government what we should eat and how much. We had the "Food Guide Pyramid" which our children were taught in school and physicians and nutritionists passed on to patients. We were taught that our diet should be based on grain...11 servings a day with lesser amounts of proteins, veg, fruits and very limited fats. We were told that natural foods like coconut oil, butter and animal fat which had always been a part of our diets were suddenly bad for us and they were replaced with vegetable oils and hydrogenated margarine and shortenings. During those years the health of this country has gone consistently downhill. What were once rare diseases like diabetes, cancers and vascular disease are now common and even expected. If the counsel we have been subjected to was sound, why have we become so sick and fat? How could we still be so wrong?
The body has a very small need for sugar and once a person's intake exceeds that it gets stored as fat. Grain based foods get converted to sugar quickly and cause insulin spikes. Insulin is the body's fat storing hormone. It tells the body to store fat rather then use it for energy. Most of us have way too much insulin circulating due to our high sugar/grain diets. When you consider the fact that for decades the USRDA told everyone to eat low fat while eating 11 servings of grain a day it is no wonder why we are all struggling with our weight. They use grain to fatten livestock for slaughter. In a way, we have been too.
Grain has always been the biggest crop in the USA. So big in fact that we shipped it out to other countries just to get rid of it. Telling the US citizens that they NEED 11 servings went a long way to converting that abundance of grain in to cash.
I get asked all the time about what to eat to maintain once the weight is lost. It's simple really. Don't eat grain and don't eat sugar. You will never be fat again. Focus on healthy sources of fats and protein and vegetable with very limited fruits and grain. We humans were not designed to eat grain. If we were we would have the kind of teeth that could grind it up and we would be able to eat it as nature made it, whole..raw..and unprocessed, but we don't. Good way to lose a tooth! The teeth we do have tell us that we are designed to eat animal, vegetable, fruit, nuts and seeds. If you can chew it raw, it's food for you. Sugar was only meant to be eaten in season. Consider this.. in most parts of the world that have winter weather we see that the fruits ripen in the summer and late fall, natures way to fatten people up for when food is less available. Dietary sugar makes fat. Dietary fat makes energy.
Here is an excerpt from an article about this subject that explains it well. It's talking about the mistakes we make in diet and exercise and how the body responds:
Dr. Doug McGuff is an emergency room physician and an expert on exercise and diet. He explains:
"Your skeletal muscle – if you're lucky – can hold maybe 250 grams of glucose, and your liver holds about 70. If you take 320 grams of glucose as what your storage capacity is, you can kill that with a single trip to Starbucks. Once you go beyond that, your body is going to find some sort of way to deal with those excess carbohydrates.
If your glycogen storage is full, your body has nowhere else to put it. So instead of going all the way through this metabolic pathway, it… produces body fat. That's called the novel glycogenosis. We are in the midst of a very bizarre, evil-scientist type experiment in the Western world, because we are dumping into our bodies an amount of carbohydrate and, in particular, refined sugars, that are way above the capacity of our metabolism to handle normally."
The result of our modern diet, which is loaded with grains and sugars (especially fructose), is a large percentage of obesity, and people that are overweight. This can be turned around, however, using a wise combination-approach of a high-fat, low-carb diet and high-intensity interval training.
"Through an amplification cascade, when you're doing a high-intensity exercise, you very aggressively empty sugar out of your muscle cells. By doing that and combining over the low-carbohydrate diet, you start to heal the metabolism," Dr. McGuff explains. "They are able to access their energy source finally. That's how they can turn things around."
It's crucial to remember that you cannot exercise your way out of a bad diet, and the first step toward improving your diet is to cut out as much sugar/fructose and grain/carbs as possible. Your diet actually accounts for about 80 percent of the health benefits derived from a healthy lifestyle, with the remaining 20 percent coming from exercise. That benefit ratio could lean even higher toward diet, according to Dr. McGuff:
"The standard American diet is highly inflammatory. It produces systemic inflammation of an order that is almost beyond belief. In that state, if you do exercise of any significant stress, you're just adding inflammation on top of the inflammation, and you're actually putting yourself at a bit of a risk. I advise people to get their diet straight and then exercise. "
If you are worried about maintenance, don't be. You can be very happy and satisfied on a no-grain eating plan. If you get back to how nature intended us to eat, which has been the path of evolution for us as well as all the other living things on earth that have not become extinct, then you can live a healthy life free of obesity and dieting. Cambridge is a jump start to get the weight off fast. The rate of weight loss accelerates the metabolism's ability to begin healing because body fat causes many negative effects to your overall health, far more then you can imagine. Body fat affects you hormonally, skeletally, mentally, chemically and prevents full mobility of the body. I think it is safe to say that there isn't a single cell that isn't in some way affected by obesity. Having an overabundance of sugar in the system also encourages systemic yeast overgrowth, a whole other problem many people are now suffering from that has been discussed previously in other articles. We all want to be healthy, vital and active. Getting back to eating the way nature designed is the natural way to maintaining a slim body and a healthy life.
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