Healthy Living 101

[jarhead]

Thanks,
Yep I still sneak a nap in every once in a while. I had to do one prior to the gym yesterday. I needed 30 minutes after work due to an annoying day and it helped me focus on the workout as well.
Joe

[SSLance]

Healthy living has been at the forefront for us lately as I recently had my once every 4 years annual physical. Seems that even though I seem very healthy in just about every way, my total cholesterol # made my Dr want to put me on a statin.

I'm 54 years old, 6' 0" 175# practice a moderate exercise program averaging 10,000+ steps a day, and eat what I consider to be a pretty healthy diet.

Total 258
Trigl 312
HDL 31
LDL 165

Doc thinks I'm a walking heart attack but my survey from College of Cardiology results show a 9.2% chance of cardiovascular disease in next 10 years and that lowers to a 6.2% chance if I start taking statins. **rollseyes**

We instituted a portion control diet of even healthier sorts adding in nutrition and taking out fats for last week or so. I'm down about 5# but I'm freaking HUNGRY all the time and my gut is not settled.

I should say, I'm a HUGE eater... My portions are typically larger than most of my friends that are 200#+. I've always had a HUGE appetite. Lowering my portion intake could possibly be a solution to help my liver function and get it to stop over creating cholesterol, but frankly, it sucks being hungry all the time.

Anyway, rant off...I'll try to post updates along the way.

[Tinker]

Lance,
Every four years is better than I am doing. Lol
Stick with the diet, and hopefully your body adjusts.
I did a similar thing 5 years ago and lost 30 lbs. I feel much better nowadays and am not on any meds other than some acid reducers at 52 years young. I am trying to keep it that way as long as possible.
Take care of yourself because Barney has a lot of laps left in It (and probably a few burnouts too!)

[BMR Sales]

Got my 1st Vaccine Shot yesterday ( at a FEMA site)! I never saw so many Happy people in my life!

It was staffed with members of the Air Force and was incredibly organized. I was in & out in 1/2 hour

[Vegas69]

Diet is one of the most over complicated things on this planet. All the fad diets over the last 50 years has brain washed the American public to a large degree.

The Atkins diet.
The NO/Low Fat diet.
Vegetarians
Vegans
And the list goes on to infinity.

There are only three ingredients to the human diet. Carbs, Fats, and Protein. Our bodies need all three in reasonable balance. Scientists have managed to modify and preserve foods where they will last for years on the shelf! If you look at the label and you can't pronounce the ingredients or the list is a mile long, it's probably not something you want to eat on a regular basis. Whole, fresh, and organic foods are the purest. God made it really simple before man and profits got involved. Remember, you are literally what you eat. Fats are crucial so I'm not a fan of the low fat diet. I had six pack abs with plenty of fats in my diet at age 41! It's the type of fats that matter. I'm not one who thinks saturated fats are off limits. I just try to limit them and utilize the poly and monosaturated fats more often that you find in things like beans, avocados, peanut butter, and olive oil. Instead of butter on your potato, try olive oil. Instead of breakfast sausage, try peanut butter and an apple. Etc.. It doesn't need to be every time, but when you start to make those type of changes consistently, it will effect your health over the long run.
I can tell you from experience that when you have your carbs, fats, and protein in the proper balance, your body will react very positively. The American diet is typically overloaded with carbs, unhealthy fats, and way too much protein.

There is no doubt as we age that our tendency for our cholesterol to go up increases naturally. But, sometimes our poor habits compound too. I don't know about you, but I'm constantly taking stock on different areas of my life. I have the tendency to become complacent and start to get off track. Success leaves clues. When you were the healthiest, what worked for you? What adjustments should you consider to move you back in that direction? What new knowledge would you benefit from?

Lastly for today. A majority of Americans have a very ACIDIC diet. A majority of foods are acidic. Meat, wheat, dairy, soda, coffee, and even most sparkling waters! Even tap water is close to neutral. The only way to really offset an acidic diet is with vegetables/fruit and lots of water. Why does it matter? Your body depletes nutrients in your bones and organs to to neutralize your blood. You're making your body work overtime with a crappy/acidic diet. As you can imagine, that can lead down a very ugly road over time. Perhaps you have a fruit for desert once in a while or chase the coffee down with a glass of water. Have a few more salads for lunch. I've found fasting or running lean to really heighten my senses and enhance my energy levels when it's not done to an extreme.

[SSLance]

Update...

So I've been on a portion control diet for about a month with a concentration on greens and a limitation on red meats with total stop of sweets (even no sugar in coffee). It took some getting used to which included a week or so of lightheadedness and weakness before I added back in enough nuts and other proteins to fulfil the cravings and stop the dizziness. I'm down from 178ish to 165 pounds and hit a low of 163.5# at the height of my colonoscopy prep Monday morning.

Speaking of scopes, I'm clean, no polyps and released for another 10 years with no risk.

I would have LOVED to have blood work done exactly when totally cleaned out like that. Everything I've read says your blood is affected almost immediately by changes in environment or what is introduced or ingested into your body and at that point, there was practically zero outside anything introduced into my body.

Anyway, I seem to be holding steady around 165 and am feeling pretty good. I'm comfortable with the change in food intake and am anxious to get tested again to see how the changes have worked on lowering my cholesterol.

[SSLance]

So I'm 3 months into my new eating lifestyle so I thought I'd update you all. What I've learned is grains are bad...and also one of the hardest things to avoid. It was much harder giving up bread, tortillas, pizza dough, and oatmeal than cookies and sugar in my coffee every morning...but I can tell it's working fantastically.

I'm averaging right around 160# on the scale every morning, have hit a low of 158 and high around 163. It's interesting, couple weekends ago I had 4 Mich Ultra beers Saturday night, gained 4 pounds next morning and it took 5 days to get back down to my normal range. The following weekend I drank a bottle of wine myself and didn't gain a pound.

I've settled on two main meals a day and one filler light meal, we mix it up when the light meal happens and doesn't really seem to matter. Some times it's smoothie for breakfast, other times its just a salad for lunch or dinner. We eat a ton of seafood, some white meat, hardly any red meat, and lots of vegetables be it from salads to sweet potatoes to carrots and cucumber slices for snacks.

I could NOT do meatless...my body rejected that idea wholeheartedly. After weeks of light headedness and dizziness every time I stood up we added meat and eggs back in and the symptoms went away. We now eat a portion of eggs just about every day and some sort of meat protein once a day minimum. We are getting creative how to mix things up and in reality, I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. Portions are back up from the low but still way down from where I was before.

The 15-20 pounds I've lost have all come from my belly. Everything is is virtually the same...arms, legs, face...all still appear close to as before. This is supposedly the hardest weight\fat to loose and what I've determined is by not flooding my body with bad food it is given it the time and energy to burn off the bad fat instead of overworking processing the junk. And by junk, I mean mostly grains... Physical activity really hasn't changed other than I'm more diligent about getting two 1.5 mile walks in twice a day and averaging 10,000 steps every day.

I'll go get my blood tested again soon, very curious how my triglycerides and cholesterol have changed with the diet modifications.

The wife has hooked up with a holistic Doctor and is starting the process of blood work and testing on her to see where she's at and which direction the Dr wants her to go. Depending on how that goes, I may switch over to her as well. We've learned a ton about the natural way for one's body to heal itself and want to continue down that path vs just pumping pills into one's system to mask issues. So far the Doc seems pretty positive about the lifestyle choices we've made and wishes more of her patients started at a point like that vs well past the unhealthy stage most of them are in.

Anyway, happy summer everyone. Our car stuff has pretty much stopped for the summer, Barney has been driven once in the last month so not much to report on there. We are concentrating now on fixing our new truck up for off roading and will spend the summer messing around in it instead of the car. Hope you all are doing well...

[ADY]

Congrats! Recommend reading Grain Brain. Going totally grain free is definitely not for everyone, but for some it can really help. My wife tried a no gluten/dairy/sugar detox for a month to see if it would help with her migraines. Although she didn't see much relief from migraines, she definitely saw some weight loss.