The way it is for me.

What is the right diet and weight management plan?

The true answer is what ever works for me. 

What is the right weight that I should be?

The correct answer is the weight I can manage to hold, and be healthy. It does not have to be by some chart or calculator, it just needs to be a weight that my body is happy with. It will be the weight that my lab work is the best it can be, I will have the best blood pressure I can have, and it will be due to the fact I am eating as healthy as possible and still be happy with what I am eating. 

I am finding and finally understanding that our bodies have their happy weight or set point weight range that it will stay within as long as you eat as healthy as you can. That does not mean to me I have to give up on all sweets, and fast foods, or all processed foods. It means keeping them under control by keeping them with in a limit. Now I am going to add that I am healthy and am not diabetic or any other disease. I do have issues with my blood pressure at times, and I now know it is due to stress and too much salt. I have it under control at this time by controlling how much salt I take in, and managing my stress levels. So if you have a disease that causes you to have to eat a certain way I say that if you want to be healthy then you will have to learn to eat to control or defeat the disease. 

I do believe in eating real food most of the time, that means to me at least 80% of the time all of the time, and whenever possible at least 90% of the time. That may sound confusing so here it is if I am traveling and on the road I eat 80% real healthy food. If I am home I make sure I eat real and healthy 90% of the time. And to be honest if I am out on the road for more than a week eating at 80% then I will return home and for a week I will eat at 100% real healthy foods. I also find that if I am traveling I can go longer between meals due to being busy driving, or doing other things so that works in with my fasting times and helps offset the bad eating. At home with my wife it is harder for me to fast the way I would like to due to her requirements for eating due to her very small stomach, but I still say no to a lot of eating she asks me to do with her. 

So here is my beliefs and you can take it or leave it. Weight management is not about the scale, it is about being healthy with good medical lab results. Which really means the best they can be for me? I am also finding that I can make my health worse, and my lab work worse by forcing my body to be and stay below the weight it wants to be at. It is also true for my blood pressure I was forcing my weight below what my body wanted and my blood pressure was higher than now. A lot of that is due to the stress I was placing on myself due to trying to stay within a calorie range. I still log what I eat but I do not count calories. I am going from habit now and it is working for me. I still do portion control and size limits for what I eat. I do not eat seconds, and I am eating only 2 meals a day with a snack of nuts. My wife believes in a wide verity of food, and I am someone that could eat the same things over and over most of the time. My wife is a believer in pasta and breads I am not so much into pasta and breads. I do love a good salad and can and do a whole meal out of a green leafy salad. My bread of choice is something I know is not that healthy but I do love homemade cornbread and I have it once a month at most.

To survive the weight management game I have to have a healthy mix of eating healthy real foods and my health allows me to have a less healthy mix of the foods I love but know I cannot eat all to time, but I have to allow myself to have it every now and then.  The main thing that destroys a good eating plan is boredom and eating foods I cannot stand. I repeat the main thing that destroys a good eating plan is boredom and eating food I cannot stand. The next thing is being overly hungry day after day. We can only force our bodies to do things it does not like for so long and it will force us to do what it wants by the use of our hormones. I have seen it happen to me over and over again. 

Live goes on

My wife made it home early Sunday morning, We are trying to get back on schedule. She and I have different needs when it comes to eating. She has a very small stomach due to illness, and surgery. So she does eat more meals and snack at times. I am trying to stay on my fasting schedule and it is hard. My weight is 198.4 which is up about 4 tenths of a pound, more than likely it is just salt. I will do my best to work around her needs for she has no weight she can afford to lose. 

Yesterday was fun we got out and rode our scooters around the area, and had lunch at the Shack again. We rode both inside and outside the Village and clocked about 40 miles. We did it for fun, practice, and for taking care of business. 

Lunch at the Shack

Yesterday was a very long day.

I was up at 6 am and did not go to bed until almost 02:00 this morning. My wife flew in from her trip to Erie Pa, the flight did not get in until 11:30 pm and by the time she found her bags it was almost midnight. It is an hour+ drive to and from the airport. And oh yes just as I was getting ready to leave for the airport I find out that my jeep does not have any low beam headlights so I am sure I made a few people mad as I had to drive with high beams only. 

My weight is morning is down a very little, I am now 198.2 which I find great seeing I had a very bad day with food yesterday. I did not stick with my eat only from about noon until about 4:00 pm, I was stressed waiting for my wife so I did eat more than I normally do. I would estimate calorie wise I did not go over what loseit would allow me to eat, but that is still more that I should eat. I will also have to get back to my fasting again by slowly adjusting my time so I do my fast again. And it will not be as easy with my wife at home. While she was away I would eat my last meal at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon. With my wife at home it will be closer to 6 in the afternoon. My wife also believes in breakfast as I believe in breakfast food whenever I feel like eating she believes in eating as soon as possible after getting up. I will still be ok as long as I stick with my normal of eating only 2 meals a day worth of food. I just will not drop my belly fat as fast as I did this past week. 

I have always followed others leads while finding my own way.

So what am I saying? I start out by following others to see what they are doing, I analyze what they are doing and make adjustments to work for myself. Sometimes that only means minimal changes, and other times it means totally scraping that ideal and finding something else to try. I have read most of the popular books on diets and over the last 40 years tried the ones that made sense to me. But I am saying in the end all of them do not work for me for the long run. So I am going my on way now. Yes, I am doing fasting, on my terms. I am eating what I enjoy and know I can stick with while fasting about 14 - 20 hours a day. I love carbs, and meat, and fats and all of the rest. I do not have issues with them as long as I do not over do any of them. So, fasting and portion control is what it is taking for me. Yes, I need to be active and I need to do resistance workouts. But again, I do it my way and it is working. 

I believe to blindly follow others lead is foolish and even dangerous. And am I saying that calories in and calories out does not work? No, not really, it is about eating less than what you are burning. But I am saying that counting calories is a good way to start and learn about food, but it is stressful, at least it has been for me. Stress means my hormones goes nuts, and I end up eating something I should not, and just in general the more I stress the more fat I get around the old belly. So how do I know I am not eating more than I am burning. Well, lets see, I am not gaining weight, and my weight is even going down a little. That is a no brainer. The scale is important in doing this my way. But there is something else that I have had to do, and that is to give up on the charts and the concept that I am not healthy unless I weigh less than a BMI of 24.9. That is just some number that someone or group came up with a very long time ago. Our bodies know what its ideal weight is and it is going to fight tooth and nail to stay in that weight range. I know this because over the last 40 years of my life I have fought my body over this issue over and over. If I lose too much weight my body manages to work me back to where it wants to be. If I gain my body manages to work me back to where it wants to be. I know now that my body’s happy weight range is some where between 195 and about 205, without cloths. It does not matter what I do if I eat the correct foods that are real food most of the time. And if I do not go overboard on eating sweets and drinking alcohol my weight is going to bounce within the 195 to 205 at the limits, and most of the time it will be closer to 197 to 200. 

So how have I screwed up this balance in the past and gain the weight that I did? In a nutshell I was drinking way to many diet cokes, I was eating way too much snacks and desserts. But worse than that I was eating processed factory created foods all the time, and the more I ate the crap the more I was wanting to eat it. Processed foods are created to make us want to eat more of it.  It has been created to screw with our hormones that make us want to eat and it turns off our hormones that tell us we are full. 

And while I am at it why do you thing we are being told to eat small meals 6 times a day? It is not because it is good for us it is because it makes the food industry more money, and the more overweight we become it makes our doctors, the drug companies, the diet industry, and the fitness industry more money. Our being over weight as a human race makes everyone rich but us. 

I know you more than likely do not believe this because you want to believe that your doctor would not stir you wrong and your government would not do so either. Keep believing it as you keep losing and gain your weight over and over. I have done so way to many times and I am calling it quits as of now. 

Yesterday was a better day

It tried to rain all day but never did here. This morning my weight is down to 198.4 pounds. I made it past a 16 hour fast. My goal today is 20 hours. I ate what I wanted within a 4 hour window yesterday and it really felt great. I was never hungry and did not want anything sweet either. It really does feel good to be free from counting calories. I cannot explain the feelings I have about not worrying about how many calories I eat. I am finally understanding again that calories do not define me. Sure I am still writing down what I eat, and it amazes me what I can eat now that I would have either not eaten before or I would have stressed over eating it. Due to the fasting I do not believe I am eating anymore that I was before I just eat the same amount  in a shorter time frame. I am still very much doing my best to only eat real and healthy foods. I still do not eat very much or very often processed or fast foods. I do not drink sugary drinks except for 6 oz of juice with my first meal of the day. I do not eat low fat or low carb. I have whole milk with whey protein, I have cereal or toast or bread in a limited amount. I have my fruit, veggies and nuts. The nuts are my main stay when it comes to a quick snack.  It is very important to stay busy and entertained while fasting so you do not think about food, it is also very important to stay out of the kitchen and pantry. My exercises are very important, and resistance workouts are the most important part of my exercises. 

Am I saying this is for you? No, I am not but if you are healthy and wish to try it I would recommend it. I was very resistive to fasting for a long time, I believed that with my low blood sugar I could not do it. I believe I am seeing that my eating way too often was causing me more issues than helping me. Life is an experiment and we should not be afraid to try new things. I will go back to a saying that is stuck in my head:

“Only a fool keeps doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Ok back to diet and weight management.

First I am going to say that my weight is up to 199.2, which is down from 201. So what happened I have been on the road traveling and eating out so salt has been an issue. I have noticed that if I get too much salt I crave sugar, this I do not understand. For me the two together is an issue. Now for some good news my waist is down another inch, my chest measurement is up an inch, my thighs are down an inch each, and my shoulders are up an inch, as are my upper arms. The resistance bands seem to work better for me than the dumbbells, and curl bar. And what is nice about the bands are they travel well and can be used almost anywhere. I am also as of this week back to walking the hiking trails here in the Village. I am getting two benefits at once, the exercise from walking and a sauna treatment due to the heat and humidity. 

Now for a little rant, I am noticing now that I am not counting calories that no one wants to even give me the time of day on Loseit. It is like as long as you are doing it their way you are great and if you are not then you are the enemy. All I am trying to do it figure out what works for me. And I am finding out that fasting 16-18 hours of the day and eating when I feel like it and what I feel like the other hours of the day, and not all of them either that I am managing to do what I have been wanting to do. Yes, my weight is up a little, so what I am still within my body’s happy weight range which I am coming to understand as about 196 - 204. This by the way is what I weighed while I was in the Navy for my service time. It is also where my weight always tries to return to after me forcing it down, and it will even return to this range if a gain above it. I just have to come to understand how to eat to keep it in this range and still enjoy eating, and socializing with my friends and family. I am coming to understand something else. If you listen to your body, pay attention to its rhythm, and pay attention to what it is telling you it wants and needs you can find that happy weight range. I am also finding that my body has a time frame that it wants to be fed in. And it is not morning or evening it is in the middle of the day just around noon and or a little after. I am also finding that the hungry pains that I get are much less as long as I keep the sugar under control. This does not mean I eat nothing with sugar it means just enough to help my body. I am by the way someone that is close to being low blood sugar. I seem to need the sugar at times. It does not take but a bite of a snickers bar to get be back on track, I am talking a bite one time a day is all I need. 

I am happy with my results and I am happier not counting calories. I am still writing down what I eat so I can see what is happening. I am finding that while I can eat most anything. I just cannot eat certain foods in the same day or at the same meal. I am also finding that I have to keep my salt down but not completely out, I have to have some salt due to the heat and my walking and other activities. 

I believe if more people would learn to listen to their bodies, and work with their body’s needs, and rhythms they would be better off. I am also finding that doctors do not understand this concept either. My doctor just looks at my like this is some strange concept. But I have to say that my dietitian does take notes and even ask me questions about how I am doing and what I am finding to work and not work.

More questions than answers

I have more questions than answers: How can a people say they are a Christian and support abortions? 

How can a people say they support any type of illegal activity say they are Christian? 

Both of this go against to word of God.

I also this question, what is illegal and what is not?

It says in the Bible to obey the government, but do we obey the government if it goes against the true word of God?

I was raised to believe in God, and at the same time to obey the laws of this country.

What do you do when to do so you are disobeying one or the other? And how do you know which truly is the correct way of life? 

I do believe that in God, that is the higher being and the Creator of the world. I also know this our Bible has been interpreted by man, so how can to be sure it is still God’s true words?

Does this mean I know long trust the Bible? No, it does not. I just ask God in my prayers to show me his way. And He has been doing so. 

I still have to say with my believes that abortion is wrong and against God’s word. How can we destroy God’s creation? While I believe that immigration is good, I believe that doing it illegally is wrong, we still have to obey the laws of this country as we fight to get them changed. 

I also believe that we need to protect the children of this world. But we also have to put the blame where it belongs it is the parents decisions that are hurting the little ones that being dropped on our borders. And what about the ones, so many of them are coming here without parents at all. I call this child trafficking at its worse. Why are we not going after the ones that are doing this instead of welcoming them with open arms? 

And my last question is this who’s God is the true God the Christian God or the Islamic God. 

Well in my sole I knot there is only one true God the God that created me. While I am more closely a believer in Christianity, I still feel that organized religion is the creation of man and not of God. To do God’s will is to love everyone, yes I do my best to do so. 

While I have my beliefs I still do my best to let others have their own beliefs. For you see I myself do not really know anymore if God may be giving them different instructions than he is giving me. God is the only one that knows what his big pictures is. 

My last question is this am I right or wrong? I believe that if I pray daily and follow my heart I am doing what God has for me to do. That is all I can. And I must be doing it mostly right for I have no trouble sleeping at night, how about you?