"Healthy" Cereal?

Well, it's nice to see that people are still reading even when I go away for a few days. Good for you!

And thanks to any newcomers that might be milling about, lurking in the shadows. Yes, I know you're watching. :-)

One of the things that my wife is really thrilled about with the advent of my low-carb diet is that I've stopped eating breakfast cereal.

Did you know that 60% of Americans eat breakfast cereal every. single. day.?

It's supposed to be healthy.

For a long time I thought it was.

One of my earlier weight loss journeys happened during the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college. I had ballooned up to about 260 pounds and I needed to get some of that weight off.

Starting in Mid-May and going through the end of August, my diet consisted of cereal for breakfast, a Slimfast shake for lunch and then whatever I wanted for dinner.

I didn't even worry if it was a "sensible" dinner. I might have had pizza or gone to Mama Mia's for all-you-can-eat pasta night.

I lost about 30 pounds.

I was also 20 years old.

But that experience formed the basis for my belief that cereal is good for you. The reality of it is that it just plain isn't.

My wife has been telling me this for years now.

Anyway, my friends at Huffington Post are at it again.

They've showcased what is apparently going to be a whole video series and it looks like it's going to be pretty decent, too.

The first one is about breakfast cereal.

Go ahead and have a look. 

In all fairness I've always wondered why the calorie count in Frosted Flakes was so close to regular corn flakes... ditto on the frosted mini-wheats. The sugar count is close too.

And we wonder why so many people are sugar-addicted.

Unreal.

I wish I still believed in Hell.

If I did, I would be convinced that there's an entire wing there waiting for food company executives.

But I don't and there isn't.

It doesn't justify their nefarious actions.

I don't think I could comment better on this subject so just watch the video and we'll pick this up tomorrow.

HuffPost Gets it Right AGAIN.

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE Huffington Post?

One of the things that Julie Kibe teaches in her Hypnosis sessions (yes, she lectures while she does her voodoo so you don't know you're being programmed) is to stop eating "fake food." 

This isn't as much an article as a slideshow but if you read the blurb for each slide you will learn some very interesting things about so-called diet foods that will likely surprise you.

For once I'm bashing something besides sugar.

Here's the thing, though... anything that we attempt to do to trick our bodies into behaving a certain way will ultimately fail. 

Our bodies know what real food is and they know what fake food is. 

The reason low-carb dieting works so well is because it breaks things down into the simplest of categories: meat and vegetables. 

These things are real foods that our bodies have known how to use since the dawn of time. 

Our bodies don't know how to use Aspartame.

Our bodies don't know how to use Stevia.

Our bodies prepare for certain nutrients based on taste. 

It's not just sugar - it's fat, salt, protein, you name it. 

So go ahead and have a look at the slide show and quit buying processed low-fat everything. It's not helping you.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to go fry some asparagus in butter and crack a couple eggs to go with it.   

It's the Little Victories

I'm about to prove to you how effective a low-carb diet can be even if you're not All In.

I posted this story on another blog this morning but I know the rest of the world needs to have the opportunity to read it.


I remember the day my wife came home from the doctor in 2002 sobbing because they'd found sugar in her urine.

34 years old and she had Diabetes. It was inevitable. All her female relatives had it.

But getting it at 34 is just ridiculous.

I have always been a bit concerned with how she manages it and there have been a couple blood sugar scares along the way.

It's 11 years later now and things are starting to catch up to both of us now that we're in our 40s.

Once I started on the Program, I simply stopped putting things on the table I couldn't eat. I still make mac 'n cheese for my son. He's Autistic and only eats certain foods.

He gets a pass.

I've been serving nothing but meat and vegetables at dinner for the past two months now (I do 90% of the cooking at home). My wife continues to hit the drive-thru and continues drinking diet soda.

She says she's slowed down but I see the empty bags in her car.

I know how she defines "slowing down."

Here's an idea of just how well this program works.

She's eating like I eat for one meal a day.

She HAS actually been slowing down more than I expected on the fast food. I'll give her props for that. It's still a thing, but it's a smaller thing.

Following the diet one meal a day, she went to our doctor today and I got this text from her afterward:

"In just over 3 months, my blood sugar A1C has gone from a 10 to 7.5. Goal is below 7."

She's been following my lead at dinner and that's what has happened. I can only imagine what's going to happen when she's All In.

That'll happen when she goes for hypnotherapy, which I hope will be soon. 

Word is Getting Around...

Yet another article on why diet soda is a sham. It looks like it could be a re-write of the last one but it's still worth the time to read it since it comes from Huffington Post. 

Here are a few highlights:

"The researchers found that just like with regular soda, the consumption of artificially sweetened beverages like diet soda is also associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. Drinking just one can of diet soda per day is "enough to significantly increase the risk for health problems," according to the media release."

"Artificial sweeteners are hundreds to thousands of times sweeter than regular sugar, activating our genetically-programmed preference for sweet taste more than any other substance."

"They trick your metabolism into thinking sugar is on its way. This causes your body to pump out insulin, the fat storage hormone, which lays down more belly fat."

(Gee... where have I heard THAT before??)

Anyway, you can read the whole article here. 

This subject really boils my blood. 

Soda in any form is bad for you. Diet soda is exponentially worse and more and more people are learning this. 

The only healthy soda is seltzer water with no sodium. Add a squirt of lime. It'll be bubbly and it will taste good... 

...and it won't make you diabetic. 

Or you could just drink some regular water. Millions of years of evolution have proved that still works.

Oh, BTW, here's another "Before and During Pic" for you. I can't believe I EVER allowed myself to get that huge. Less than three months on a low-carb diet and this is what's happening.  

You might be interested to know what I had for breakfast today. I eat a late breakfast, around 11:00 AM most days so I have two main meals with a couple small ones in between. This was today's brunch:

2 eggs + 1 egg white, scrambled and fried in butter (because cooking spray is also terrible for you)

5 natural casing sausage links

6 pencil-thin asparagus spears and 2 large whitecap mushrooms, sautéed in olive oil 

about a tablespoon of ketchup (I don't actually measure)

Not exactly going hungry, am I?

About 60 Pounds Or So in Seven Weeks

Earlier this week I took the picture below.

I've mentioned that on this program I can't get on a scale so I don't *know* how much I weigh right now.

I do know that this is one of the last milestones that I will be able to accurately guesstimate. The only one after is about 265.

How am I doing it? Simple. I'm trying on old clothes.

So here's the scenario:

My grandmother died in 2010. At that time I didn't have suitable clothes for her funeral so I went to Men's Wearhouse and bought a suit, a shirt, suspenders and a tie.

The shirt is my gauge.

When I bought the shirt I was creeping up in weight after a successful period of weight loss. I was at 315 then, up from about 265 six months earlier.

It had been a stressful year already and Nana dying didn't help. Over the next six months I gained another 50 pounds. It was bad. In a year and a half I went from 265 to 365 and most of that was due to stress eating.

So, anyway, at 315 pounds I got fitted for  a shirt which I still own.

The last time I wore it it was stretching at the buttons. That was at about 330 pounds.

I tried it on earlier in the week and it was at least one size too big, more like two.

So here's how I know I've lost at least 60 pounds (and probably more like 70)...

I started the low carb diet at 365 pounds seven weeks previous.

I tried on the shirt I bought at 315 and it was too big by 1-2 sizes.

That leads me to believe that my weight right now is between 295 and 305 for a net loss of 60-70 pounds.

In less than eight weeks.

Eating animal protein and vegetables in balanced amounts.

Not eating ANYTHING sweet, especially nothing with artificial sweeteners.

Not eating nuts or any kind of vegetable protein.

Eating all the meat I want with an equal or lesser amount of vegetables.

That's it. I still don't go to the gym regularly. My ankle won't let me exercise on traditional equipment yet.

I keep the diet and I never EVER cheat.

And I'm losing over a pound of fat a day.

Here's proof:

Enjoy your Sunday! Talk to you soon....

See? SEE? SEEEE????

Stop what you're doing and read this.

I'll get you off that gol-dern diet soda if it's the last thing I do.

Here's a teaser:

"Are diet sodas worse for you than regular sodas? I think that's the wrong question," said Swithers, who is also a member of Purdue's Ingestive Behavior Research Center. "It's, 'What good are sodas for you in the first place?' "

I think I'm going to need to start blogging about all the wonderful things aspartame does to you. 

And Splenda. 

And Stevia. 

And everything else that flies in the face of our natural body chemistry,

It's not nice to fool Mother Nature. In fact, it could be deadly. 

Goodbye, Saccharin!

"I'm Hungry" Vs. "I Want to Eat"

When I started the hypnotherapy, one of the things that Julie told us was that there's no snacking on this diet.

(which leaves me perplexed as to why there are snack recipes on her website...)

She repeated over and over, "Eat when you're hungry, not when you're not."

So I started not shoving food in my face first thing in the morning if I didn't wake up hungry. I really never do wake up immediately hungry.

I started doing what Julie said - I ate when I was hungry, whenever that happened to be.

For the first few days I was going long stretches without being hungry but after a while I found I was getting hungrier more often.

I generally eat 3-4 times a day: a decent breakfast, a small lunch, a small lunch again about 2 hours later, then dinner around 8:00.

By 9:30 or 10:00 I always feel like I'm ready to eat again.

But I discovered something very important about that...

There is a qualitative difference between being hungry and just wanting to eat.

I want to eat because that was all I ever did.

It was my hobby.

It was my replacement for a lot of things that I felt were missing in my life.

Food was my friend. It was my lover. It understood me and comforted me.

I had to break up with it if I wanted to get well.

Of course, at night, when things are quieter and things slow to certain pace, you have a lot of time to think.

So I think a lot about food.

And I get "hungry."

Here's the thing: I've discovered that in those moments I'm not really hungry. I just want to eat.

Big difference.

I don't want more chicken and peas. I want popcorn. I want PB&J and I want it loaded on thick. On toasted rye.

Hey, it's MY food fantasy - get your own.

I want a Tastykake Chocolate Junior and a Coconut Junior smacked together and a big glass of milk to wash it down.

I'm not hungry. I just want to eat.

So early on I would indulge that feeling to the extent that I WOULD just eat some more chicken and peas at 10:30 at night.

20 minutes later I felt hungry again.

It took a couple weeks but I wised up to what was happening.

See, this is how you're supposed to feel when your body is processing food properly.

That little buzz in your stomach - that's not hunger. That's your metabolism expending energy.

And when you expend energy your brain will ALWAYS ask for fuel.

That doesn't mean it needs any right that instant.

So I started just focusing my attention elsewhere.

I stopped giving in to the urge to eat when I knew I'd eaten enough.

I'm starting to teach my body when enough is enough. It's a foreign concept to it because I've been indulging it for four decades now.

But it's learning... and so am I. And so will you.

"Eat when you're hungry, not when you're not."

And learn the difference between being hungry and wanting to eat. It's one of the best lessons you can learn from this low-carb diet experience.

It's All RIght, It's All right, It's All Right... Cane!

Cane sugar is one atom away from cocaine.

Don't believe me?

Here's the chemical formula for cane sugar (AKA Sucrose):  C12H22O11

Here's the chemical formula for Cocaine: C17H21NO4

Granted there are molecular differences but the makeup of chemical elements is identical except for Nitrogen.

Is it any wonder why this stuff is so addictive?

Now, Im not going to sit here and plagiarize an entire article. I'll just let you read it. 

What you learn there should shock you.

If it doesn't, you're not ready to do what you need to do to become well.

You saw what has happened to me over just seven weeks.

No I don't know how many pounds I've lost - that's part of the hypnosis. I can't get on a scale unless it's medically necessary.

I do know this, though: the notion of needing sugar for energy is a complete crock.

I do know that I can now stand from a sitting position without using something to push myself up.

I do know that I can get off my couch now just lifting with my legs.

I do know that I can mow my entire lawn, front and back yards, without a break in 95 degree heat.

I do know that I can walk further and I no longer have back pain when I walk more than 500 feet.

I do know that I'm getting stronger.

I do know that I'm more alert.

And I do know that it's because I'm eating drastically less food that converts to either sugar or carbohydrate.

Sugar IS addictive.

Sugar IS a drug. I don't care what any clinician has to say or what the law says or what your cousin Marty says...

It's a drug.

That's why fast food is so popular.

There is no such thing as a low carb meal at a fast food restaurant, not even if you only eat salads with grilled chicken. The chicken has sugar in it. So does the salad dressing.So does the preservative in the salad.

Even a salad at McDonald's has sugar in it That blows my mind.

Did you know that there are only three items on the entire McDonald's menu that don't have sugar? Those items are coffee, unsweetened iced tea and sausage patties. It's four if you count bottled water.

And let's be real, you're gonna slather that sausage patty in syrup before you eat it.

Yeah, you are...

Either that or you're going to eat it with an egg that has sugar added to it on a muffin, bagel or biscuit that has sugar added to it (and will convert to sugar anyway when you digest it).

Seriously, what's it going to take for you to decide that you've had enough?

Fast food keeps you addicted by using sugar and artificially produced smells.

That hot off the grill smell your Quarter Pounder has didn't come from a cow. It didn't come from a marinade.

It came from a lab in New Jersey.

There is no lower quality of beef than what you get at McDonald's. It has no flavor on its own and it smells like cinderblock when it's cooked.

It still has precious little flavor after cooking but the SMELL of it tricks you into thinking it tastes good. What actually tastes good is the sugar in the bun - that nice yeasty smell coupled with sweet.

That yeasty smell also comes from Jersey, not the bread.

And that's not just alarmist bullshit. That's documented, verifiable fact. 

I'll leave you to chew on that for a while... pun definitely intended.

After 7 Weeks of No Carbs and No Sugar

This is how far I got after just 7 weeks on a low-carb, low sugar diet. 

It's a start...

I can't wait until the picture on the right is the new "before" pic. Next year when we go back to Knoebels I'm going to don this same shirt and take a picture in front of the same sign. If that doesn't make the point crystal clear, nothing will.