Keep It Simple Stupid

First, I am wearing a pair of pants I haven’t worn since the summer of 2008. Okay, they’re not from the summer of 1988, but they are still smaller than the ones I have been wearing and that is a positive! I have also lost 1.5 inches from around my neck, no it’s not because of the tank tops, it’s 1.5 inches of whatever has been hanging around it for a long time. Now I just have a double chin instead of a triple! I also have lost 2.5 inches from my waist and while I have more to go, things are moving in the right direction.
On the weight training, I have added pounds, and that’s a good thing! My cardio health is improving as well; I jogged a mile in 13:54. I am keeping up in Zumba class and I am up to six cardio sessions a week. Last week I burned over 6,000 calories and this week I reset my goal to 7,000 calories. And I must tell you that I climbed six flights of stairs at the hospital without stopping. Yes, I was out of breath, but not until I hit the 5th floor and I had enough to get to the 6th! Progress measured slowly and surely.
Some other things I have learned and become very aware of are that diet foods are not necessarily good foods. I have been doing a ton of reading about food and where it comes from and how it is that we eat so many processed foods. I have also been checking the labels on my food more thoroughly, not just for calories and fat grams and cholesterol and protein and sugars; but for the trade off of less fat for more sugar and sodium. It started because I need to add more protein to my diet and I would like to do so without supplements. I should be able to get everything I need from food right? Apparently, not always.
So as I was seeking lower fat sources of protein like cottage cheese, yogurts, and even milk, I discovered that they put an amazing amount of sugar and sodium to give back flavor. Same with peanut butter, I was trading 4 grams of fat for 195mg of sodium and 2grams of sugar. The calories were the same, 190 per serving and the saturated fat was only reduced by a half of a gram! OUTRAGEOUS!
Now I know that this may not be news to you, and quite honestly I was not surprised either, what shocked me was HOW MUCH sodium and sugars are added. Individual portions aside, in many cases the sugar is doubled and the sodium multiplied 4 times or more. So I reduce the fat only to get high blood pressure??? Okay, maybe not today…but over time this stuff adds up.
I went to buy a cookbook that had 200 recipes for fewer than 200 calories and it was highly recommended by the ladies in my food group. But then I opened the book and discovered that in every recipe there was some form of sugar substitute, reduced or fat free ingredient. In a lot of the recipes there were multiple ingredients like this, so I brought it back to the store.
I have decided that I want to eat FOOD, not edible foodstuff. I want real nutrition and not a chemical balance of synthetic stuff that the processors have whipped up to fool me into thinking that the fat free cheddar cheese is actually cheese. I have eaten the real stuff, it’s not.
In the course of my research, which I am still knee deep into, I have come to the conclusion that it is not food I am addicted to, it’s the processed ingredients that I have become addicted to - the fructose, glucose, dextrose, maltodextrose, and all the stuff the chemists have created out of corn. The added salt in the foods and the other forms of fat they have created to keep me buying the crap.
So my new challenge in this venture of losing weight, getting into shape and living a healthy life is to find a way to eat real food in moderation to maintain optimal health. The last few weeks I have stuck primarily to the perimeter of the grocery store and it is amazing the stuff I have not bought and do not miss. Oh sure, I had to go down a couple of aisles for the whole wheat bread and the canned vegetables and I still have work to do to get this junk out of my body and my life. Sort of like going through detox and yes, I have had the headaches, the lethargy, the moodiness but I think it’s going better than expected. One day at a time. Should be easy right?