Category Archives: Diet and Exercise

by Nelia

Health

I am trying something different…… something a little scary, mostly because it costs so blasted much that there is pressure for it to succeed.

My chiropractor offers metabolic testing for $300 or $350 or so. They test your blood and urine for markers that tell them what you are lacking. Then they sell you the supplements that will fix it. The supplements cost way more than I expected and I am still reeling from price shock, but I did it.

They told me several things. For one, I am not eating enough and have depressed my metabolism.

Unfortunately, even if I were eating enough to get my metabolism out of starvation mode, my body couldn’t use it. I cannot metabolize fats. Any fats I eat are stored as fat. I do not properly metabolize protein. It is sent to the wrong place for processing and not used as energy. I do not even process carbohydrates all that well. I am missing nutrients needed to do these things and I cannot get them from my food because I cannot process what I eat. It’s a vicious circle. This makes my low metabolism problem even worse because there is nothing I can do to boost my metabolism. Eating more and better isn’t going to do it and neither is exercise.

The good news is that they can give me (sell me) mass quantities of supplements which will, in the next few months, correct this problem by supplying my body with the nutrients I need to digest my food and get my body functioning like it should.

(I just thought, if my body cannot metabolize the nutrients in my food, how is it going to metabolize the supplements? I will have to ask.)

In a way it makes me feel better, knowing that there really isn’t much I could have been doing to lose weight. It takes away some guilt. It also makes me frustrated with myself that in the past I apparently ate so poorly that this situation developed. Of course, it wasn’t just eating…. stress enters in…

So, I find myself wanting to talk about it…… wanting to write about it. They tell me I will begin to have more energy in about 2 weeks. In a month I will have less joint pain. They tell me I will begin to get up in the morning and want to do something. It has been a long time since I have gotten up in the morning and really felt like doing something. It takes me a long time to wake up usually, and usually I go back to bed a couple of times before I make it to fully awake. If I push through the sleepiness, which I can do if there is something interesting going on, I can only do it for 2 or 3 days, and then I crash. It will be so nice not to have that. I love to sleep; I really do. But I hate never getting anything done.

Anyway, I am supposed to do this supplement regime for 3 months and then be retested and have them readjusted. Hopefully, at that time I won’t need most of them. They tell me most people don’t need to continue them, that I’ll need omega 3 and Vitamin D and I think there was a third one, but that’s all.

Three months. That’s Thanksgiving. I guess we’ll see.

by Nelia

Stepping on the scale

When I talked to Ramona a few days ago she asked me if I had lost any more. I told her it had been a while since I had stepped on the scale because I was a little afraid of what I would see. I am still doing the vegetarian thing, but the longer I do it the more I figure out how. At first my refrigerator was not as well stocked and I was not as sure of myself when it came to picking out good things to eat so I ate less. Now days I am eating more.

But I have been thinking I should weigh in since that conversation. This morning I did. I am relieved to say that I am still losing, though, of course, not as fast. My weight loss, to date, is 40 pounds. 🙂

by Nelia

Pondering this whole vegan/diet thing

I am sitting here tonight thinking, how far do I take this thing? I am eating a vegan diet. I like it. It is good for my body. I don’t mind not eating meat. I have pretty much decided that milk and milk products may be off my list permanently. But… where do I draw the line?

What got me to thinking about it was this: A few days ago, I bought some chia seeds. Chia seeds are fun. They are a super food, full of all sorts of good things which is why i bought them. The reason they are fun is that they gel liquid. I put them in water and played with them, seeing how much they gelled. Then I got this bright idea that I would gel juice. I bought a bottle of apple juice (real apple juice, not from concentrate) and added some chia seeds and blueberries. It was very good. I did it again. For some reason the chia did not gel as well (perhaps I did not use as much, but it seemed like as much and i did measure). I decided to add a little knox gelatin. Yes, I know, it is not vegan, but I did it. It jelled up nicely, loose, but nice. Apple juice and blueberries are wonderful with almonds. With the super food, chia, in the mix, it is good for me too, enough to balance the sugar from time to time.

So yesterday and today I have been looking for a vegan gelatin. I found options. I could probably find unflavored vegan jel by Natural Desserts and agar agar at whole foods, and if i find them in small quantities, I will try them. But i am not grossed out by what gelatin is and where it comes from. Why not just use regular gelatin?

I don’t know the answer to that.

I have been having fun being a vegan. It is an adventure trying vegan recipes and finding so many new ways to put food together. It’s fun using cauliflower and tofu in place of cheese and having it actually work. (I am going to share my vegan lasagna recipe one day soon.) I have found new spices and flavors. I am actually enjoying cooking again.

Now, since I wrote last, i have been bad. I have had 3 or 4 chocolate bars, all vegan, all semi-sweet, but, lets face it, still fat and sugar. I have had 2 pint containers (almost – I still have some) of dairy free ice cream. They are surprisingly good. But they are still fat and sugar. We went to the store today and I had no urge (well only a small urge) to buy more. I have had my fling and am ready to get back to serious dieting.

But today I was thinking, why not pay half the price and get a semi-sweet chocolate bar that has a little milk in it? If it doesn’t upset my system and I am not offended by the animal product, why not? It is not like I am going to be eating a lot of chocolate bars. Now the ice cream is a different matter. There is way more than a trace of milk in ice cream.

The thing is, I wonder if accepting the use of Knox gelatin, which I already have, and which is readily available in grocery stores, and indulging in an occasional semi-sweet chocolate without making sure there is no trace of milk, would be the beginning of the end of my diet. Would I cave when i visit Bill and Eliane and eat something I know I shouldn’t? Would I decide to go ahead and put an egg in my cornbread? Would i decide that a little sausage to flavor my lentils is not such a big deal? Would I eventually be right back where I was a month ago? I do intend to eat meat again, probably, maybe, someday, just not to make it the mainstay of my diet. But I want to decide to do that, not slip into it without intending to.

Am i being silly to think using gelatin to gel my juice for an occasional treat is a big deal? (I don’t think allowing it this time is a big deal because it was done once with the intention of getting the vegan version for later use if it worked out. Occasional one-time small deviations are allowed.)

I like the challenge of keeping it vegan. That is largely what makes it fun. I doubt if a little gelatin occasionally is going to do me any harm, but if I allow that, will I allow another thing and another till the fun is gone because I am no longer living within the rules of the game and it is no longer a challenge? I just don’t know where to draw the line….

by Nelia

Weight Update

Got on the scale this morning. I have now lost a total of 35 pounds.

I still like what I am doing. I still feel good. I am beginning to miss things, though. I miss Chick Fil A. Last night I had a bowl of vegi chili and I missed cheese. The other day, I missed chocolate (I can have chocolate, just not the things that are usually in it – I may see if i can find a vegan chocolate or a recipe that has minimal fat and sugar).

I was reading the other day that if i keep this up I’ll probably become lactose intolerant, but that’s acceptable.

All in all, I am still happy with what I am doing. I like that I can eat all I want. I have found some interesting new recipes. I am surprised by the variety of ways of putting plant food together. Since my meal planning focus used to be mostly on meat and I like my vegies plain, I put my creative efforts toward meat and added a vegie. Now, if I am to have variety in my food, I have to be creative with vegies. I am also eating more organic. Organic is pricey, but I figure if i am eating only plants it is important to have as many of them as possible without toxins.

An interesting aside: I made horseradish dill humus the other day and used the last of the dill i raised. It was very good. I made more, but had to use dill I bought. It was not as good. I was surprised by how different it tasted. Bought dill has a bitterness that my fresh dill didn’t have, not even the fresh dill I dried. I am going to have to get myself another dill plant.

I had planned to share the more interesting recipes I have found. I’d thought I would share by email, but I just remembered that there is a recipe category here… Hmmm

by Nelia

Questions and updates

I started to post a little while ago and could not find the link to sign in. I noticed the link, bottom right, for Mom’s Dieting Effort (Which I may change to Mom’s Vegie Diet or something along that line). It has been so long I had forgotten about it. I have thought I should take it down, but I always change my mind. I clicked on the link. I still like the way it looks. Of course the wordpress version is very old. Maybe I should not use it… I don’t know. Seems like the worst that could happen is that i might get hacked.

Anyway, I posted my thought there. Go read the last entry and see what I am talking about.

After I posted in my old blog, I thought about going to “leave a comment” here and looking for the sign in link there. I found it, but then could not figure out how to make a new post. Finally I noticed the links at the top of the page. I guess the sign-in link is there too.

Now I have questions. I want to know what you all think, even if you don’t have an opinion one way or the other.

If I started posting my diet news in my old blog, would you be likely to read it? One reason I set it up was that i did not want to monopolize this blog and if i post often I would. I could be posting every few days! However, it is family stuff… and I want you guys to read what I write and i want you to read it fairly often.

Also, Chris, Is there a good reason I should not leave my pretty blog in it’s outdated form?

PS to my post over there…. I am now eating these yeast flakes by the spoonful. It’s like candy in that i am having a hard time not taking just one more. It leaves gummy stuff all over my teeth which should be disgusting, but it just means the flavor lasts longer while the gummy mess dissolves. I am going to have to stop. I wonder if bad digestive things happen to people who overeat brewers yeast.

Oh! I just read the back of the package to see if they said anything about overeating problems. I discovered that the reason these things are so good, the reason they don’t have that bitter aftertaste is that they are not brewers yeast. Brewers yeast is made through the brewing process while these things are grown in or on molasses. Interesting.

by Nelia

A vegetarian diet

OK I am going to document this in the family site. I wanted to see if I thought it would last first.

I was not sure, when I sat down to write, how long I have been doing this so I checked the television schedule to see when the program that started it all aired. It was on on the 19th in the evening so I started on June 20th. That was almost 3 weeks ago. I ordered the book and got it in late last week. As I read it and understand more, I am changing the plan. I’d call what I am doing a low fat vegan diet.

If someone had suggested I do something this drastic I doubt if I would have, but the speaker approached it as a way of beating diabetes, which I probably have by now. The last glucose tolerance test I had was a couple of years ago and I was so near the mark that makes it official that I agreed to start taking medication. The dr prescribed metformin which slows the rate that the liver releases sugar into the blood stream. It is hard on the liver, but my doctor said that high blood sugar was hard on everything and that taking the medication now might keep me from developing full blown diabetes.

It bothers me that I am taking medication that is hard on my liver. It bothers me that I need it. When this speaker offered me a way to beat diabetes by diet, and to possibly do so very quickly, when he talked about the way animal proteins and other things affect body, I was hooked.

At first I cut meat (except fish), dairy, and refined carbs. Later I learned that cutting animal protein means cutting fish and eggs too. I also learned that fat in all forms is to be avoided so I stopped cooking in oil, even that little bit of olive oil to brown onions, salad dressing, and, to an extent, nuts. I still eat nuts, but not near as many. I also eased up on the carbs. Sugary, highly refined, and airy carbs are to be avoided, but whole grains and dense carbs, like pasta, are ok.

You would think it would be hard to do. It surprises me how easy it has been. I know that most of what makes it easy is that I had that moment of decision that makes change easy, at least for a while. I am hoping that it continues to be easy.

The first things I noticed happened in about 3 days. I noticed that my digestive system was happier. I have long had a problem with, I assume, Candida. That was and is still gone. For the past few months I have been having pain in my legs that is different than any pain I have had before and seems to have no cause. I wondered if it was the beginning of neuropathy. It was becoming more frequent, almost daily, and lasting longer. After the first 3 days, I had 2 brief (maybe 5 minute) mild episodes. After the first 10 days, I have had none at all. Also, my joints don’t hurt. Even my knees, which sometimes hurt very badly, don’t hurt. I still have trouble walking and when I get up after sitting with them bent for too long, but they feel weak and compacted rather than painful, and they never throb and ache in the evening.

When I went to the doctor a week ago, I discovered that, since my last appointment a month before, I had lost 20 pounds. That may not all have been due to eating differently, but at least 10 pounds I have to credit to diet. I got on the scale this morning and was pleased to see I have dropped another 4 pounds. It doesn’t show. I weigh so much that 24 pounds is probably like a normal sized person losing 4 pounds. I can tell, though. I am wearing a cotton muumuu that was too tight a month ago. It is enough looser to notice.

So…. being a vegetarian agrees with me. Maybe I am all the way to vegan now. Not only does it agree with my joints, stomach, and weight, it agrees with my appetite. The change is hard to describe. I get hungry, but the quality of hunger is different. I even get munchy i the evenings, but the quality is different. I don’t think about food in the back of my mind all the time. I am hungry when I get up in the morning and I eat. But I used to have a hard time stopping eating, especially if there was a chocolate cake around. I used to crave chocolate so obsessively that I would go buy almond m&ms. I suppose I would still like chocolate, but I don’t crave it. I seldom even think about it. I forget about food. I mean, I really forget about it. I don’t remember the last time I forgot about food (unless I was very busy). I don’t mean forgetting about the time… I always forget about the time and have supper time slip up on me. But now I forget about food entirely, even when I am doing nothing at all. I will just become aware of hunger. And even then, even though sometimes I am really hungry, I may forget about it again… even when I am not that engrossed in anything. It is odd. Even when I was on the weight watcher diet, successfully, I seldom completely forgot about food. My body likes being a vegetarian.

by Nelia

Is Inequality Making Us Sick?

I just watched an interesting show on PBS, Unnatural Causes, Is Inequality Making Us Sick? I watched Episode 3, Bad Sugar. I wish i had watched Episodes 1 and 2, but i know they will rerun the series; they always rerun.

We all know that inequality makes us sick. Poor people cannot afford to eat as well, they are more likely to live where there is pollution, and stress is always a factor. But it is interesting to watch a show that goes into the problem in a thoughtful way, in more detail.

In Bad Sugar they talked mostly about diabetes, as one would expect. The parts that got me all excited was the part about, broadly, stress. People who live, specifically, without hope, are more prone to diabetes. I find that interesting both in a general sense and personally. People who feel hopeless are more prone to diabetes, heart attacks, and strokes, not only because they do not eat as well or exercise as much, but because hopelessness affects hormones and other things going on in the body.

🙂 And here i was, afraid i was going to write a very loooong entry on the subject.

Maybe i will write more later. I am still pondering.

Some shows are available to watch online. I wish this one was.

by Ramona

New Diet/Exercise concept

Heard about this on NPR – http://www.stickk.com/

Basic idea – you have a goal; you write up a contract with these folks saying you’ll meet that goal. Generally weight loss/exercise, but they have ‘learn to play the piano’ listed – so it could be anything. It’s the social contract idea.

Twist – you can get money involved. If you’re really serious about meeting that goal, you can put some money at stake. You give them the whole amount up front; if you meet the goal, you get it back; if you don’t, the money goes to whoever else you’ve designated.

Second twist – You can designated a charitable organization to be your beneficiary. The twist comes in when you designate a charity you vehemently disagree with. The Kill the Whales foundation or something. So it’s lose the weight …. or else.

Chattered with Mum about it … didn’t remember the website then, I’d just heard the show and hadn’t looked anything up. She asked me to send it to her .. thought I’d post it instead; thought you guys might think the concept was interesting, too. And we have to find a group that Mom would hate enough to be a motivating factor .. I haven’t thought of any yet.

Ideas?

by Nelia

Signed Up

Well, I misunderstood the rules and the deal is not as wonderful as i thought, but i signed up anyway. I guess i was ready to. I guess that the main draw is that i will be working with someone who will give me a hard time is i slip. (I have to say, when i think about it, it did sound too good to be true.)

The misunderstanding involves the money back at the end and a nutrition bar (also available as a drink). I am supposed to eat said bar twice a day. I thought the bar was included; It is not; It costs $30 a week. To add insult to misunderstanding, if you do not use the bar (which you do not have to use) you are not eligible for the money back at the end of the program. Hmmmm Let me think… If i spend an additional $30 a week for the next couple of years, they will refund me $200? I don’t think so.

On the other hand, there is a bit of good news. Because i want to lose mass quantities, they dropped the fee from the sale price of $5 a week (regular price is $7) to $3 a week. Also good is that if, at any time, and for any reason, i wish to drop the program, i can get refunded the $3 a week for the weeks i did not use. They keep some fees (the program costs more then a flat $3 a week) but it is nice to know that i can get back some of what i have paid them if i reach a point that this is not working for me. I may put in for my $3 back when it comes time for the year of maintenance. $3 x 52weeks = $156. How much is maintenance monitoring worth to me? I will decide when the time comes.

Anyway, I gave them my money and signed my name on the dotted line. I am to go in next week for my diet and my sample box of nutrition-rich, protein-rich, soy-rich bars, the ones that cost $30 for 14 bars. (I am not sold on soy. Some tell us that soy is the best source of protein ever, and some tell us that soy, when processed one way (fermented) is very good for us, but when processed other ways, is not good for us at all.)

This means that i will be on a strict diet (the first 2 weeks are referred to as “quick start” so i assume they are restrictive) that does not include Pumpkin Pie when Thanksgiving comes. This is probably not the best week to start a diet. I am not sure what i am going to do for Thanksgiving. Maybe i will talk to Luke about going to Lubys (I think they are open) and i will either eat salad and dry turkey while he feasts or I will take one meal off and have dressing with gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. Probably the latter.

by Nelia

The diet effort

Well, I have decided on a new course… haven’t started down it yet, but will soon.

I went to my doctor last week. We talked about possibilities. I had been thinking about trying a weight loss program that would provide more one-on-one support… a counselor who would pester me in a way that loved ones can’t, successfully. I feel like one-on-one attention when i was slipping was the weakness of Weight Watchers. I liked being part of a group in weight watchers and i like their diet, but when i started slipping, i wish there had been someone who would call me every day and make me weight in more and just plain pester me.

L A Weight Loss has been advertising a special and i have heard good things about the program. My doctor said that she had heard good things as well and said that she thought it would be good to try it.

I went in and talked to them Friday. I liked most of what they said. So why the delay? Well, we have flex dollars for medical expenses. It is the end of the year and if we don’t use them we will loose them, and if i have a doctor’s prescription for the program, i can submit the cost and get some flex dollars back. The delay has been getting the prescription, but it is finally arranged and i will be signing up Thursday or Friday.

The main attraction of L A Weight Loss is that one-on-one attention, of course, but they have a couple of other features that i find interesting. One is that i sign up for how much weight i want to loose and they estimate how much time it will take to loose it (2 pounds a week). Then they tack on a year of maintenance and i pay the whole thing up front. (thus i am financially committed). At the end of their estimated time, if i have not lost my weight, they refund part of my money (so they have a financial stake in seeing to it that i succeed). And after the loss there is a year of maintenance. During that time i still go in periodically and weigh and discuss problems. If i keep my weight off for 6 months they refund 25% of my total fee and if I maintain for a year they refund another 25%. This gives me strong incentive to keeping the weight off for a year. The idea is, of course, that if i can maintain for a year, i can maintain forever.

So I am going to try it. It was this or lap band. I told myself that i had till the end of the year to get back on track or i was going to look into lap band. I do not want to go the surgery route, but if that is what it takes i will. The frustrating thing about resorting to surgery is that all the surgery does is make your stomach little and if i would just eat less for long enough it would shrink without the surgery. Of course, it would never get as little as the surgery makes it and with surgery it shrinks all at once and you do not have the option of binging or overeating. You physically can’t do it. (Of course, i understand that a dedicated eater can, over time, stretch the pouch they make in your stomach and eat badly and constantly so they overcome even lap band.)