responsible healthy choices

as i sit here, eating pancakes, reading mother earth news i am contemplating a low carb diet. sound crazy? more irony to come...
so mother earth news has an article on diets high in carbs but low in calories that are tailored as "heart healthy". it starts off with the publication of the Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health in the late 1980's that created an entire industry of palatable non- fat substitutes for fat, while the food industry spent billions to market the "less-fat-is-good" message. Even the USDA's booklet on dietary guidelines and it's Food Pyramid recommended that fats and oils be eaten sparingly while we were now to eat 6 to 11 servings per day of pasta, potatoes, rice and bread once considered uniquely fattening.

The high ups, if you will, decided that fats found in beef and such caused heart disease. A Harvard nutritionist, Jean Mayer, was quoted i think in 1965 in the New York Times as saying; it would be the equivalent of "mass murder" to prescribe low carbohydrate diets to treat obesity. Mayor's reasoning's were these diets were high in fat and would cause heart disease.

Keep in mind I am paraphrasing all this from the mother earth news, you can check out the facts for yourself. But it is because of this quote that doctors stopped prescribing low carb high fat diets, and it was wrong.

Because also in this article it says the fats you get from meat, in studies done in 2001 failed to support the hypothesis that these fats indeed caused heart disease, they actually raised the good LDL's and lowered bad. there is a suggestion at the end of this article to just try to remove the carbs from your diet and eat fresh fruits and meats and see what happens.

the part i thought was interesting was this part of the article;

"What's even more remarkable-and completely ignored in all discussions of obesity and weight since 1970s- is that we must eat carbohydrates to accumulate excess fat in our fat tissue. It's only by eating carbs that we can obtain alpha glycerol phosphate, an enzyme that is an absolute requirement for storing fat. This enzyme fixes the fat in the fat tissue in a way that it can't slip back out through the fat cell membranes and escape into the bloodstream. This is why the more carbohydrates we consume, the more fat we will store. The less carbohydrates, the less fat.
After a meal is digested, insulin levels should decline. When this happens, fat is released from the fat tissue in the form of fatty acids and these are then burned in cells for fuel. For this reason, another necessary requirement for remaining lean is to have lengthy periods during which insulin levels are low and we burn our fat for fuel. When insulin levels remain elevated, fat can't escape from the fat tissue. it goes in, but it doesn't come out, and we can't use it for energy. A meal without carbohydrates is a meal that doesn't stimulate any significant insulin secretion. You store very few, if any, calories as fat, and you get plenty of opportunity to burn the fat you had stored."-pg 63 current edition of mother earth news.

So for the past 2 months i was going daily to the gym and giving myself about 45 minutes to an hour of a workout. no weight loss.why, even though i choose whole wheat flour it is still a carbohydrate. So healthy carbs just don't really exist. For children they need the carbs to grow better, this i understand but for us adults, who have significantly stopped our metabolism, due to no more growing, we need to cut them out of our diets.

knowing this, i am sitting here eating homemade pancakes, made with "healthy" flour. i eat after my children to not waste food. When we grocery shop, i buy food for dinner. evening meals and i buy things for the kids to make their lunches. to help curb our spending chose not to buy myself healthy meals for the day. here is my logic, even if and this is a fact, even if I were to buy the fresh veggies, which i do, and meats for my meals, i still find myself eating after them. so buying the extra was doing nothing to help my eating habits anyway, it was just spending money.

So I have a solution i am going to try out for a month. I am going to put myself on a diet, a meal replacement shake in the morning and afternoon, snacks of veggies and fruit, water, and a healthy meal in the evening. I already make very healthy meals in the evening so I will adjust it to this, no second servings. I will finish what i put on my plate and not go back for more. i did this last night and I was pretty proud of myself. Last night we had a spinach salad with avocado, mushrooms and snow peas, we also had a slaw made of carrots and craisens, no dressing, and pork chops with ginger. i could have easily justified having more salad but i left the table and did not let myself feel stuffed before i left. i did have some granola and yogurt for a late night snack, but i can replace the granola and yogurt with cottage cheese and tomatoes or fruit..

i made the granola and the yogurt was organic with no high fructose corn syrup, but it was still carbs. well the oatmeal was. it also had coconut, almonds, walnuts and craisens. I think if i stick to this diet 5 days a week then allow myself the breakfast of eggs and whole wheat toast on the weekend or even tortillas and work out at the gym daily, i think i will see a significant weight loss. Even if i lost a pound a week, i would be happy. but right now, i over eat, and i eat after my children and i really don't manage my food intake at all. i justify the fact that i am healthy and not diabetic as an excuse to continue to indulge in a child's appetite. So i will try this, with Wes, it was his idea, and on the weekends i can still have my bowl of granola and just stick with my strict diet in the week. So stay tuned for posts about food withdrawals, because i know they are coming. but this is such a wonderful and positive community i know i will have a lot of support. so my gratitude list;
1. today i am grateful that boogers wash off walls.
2. today i am grateful for anti bacterial soap.
3. today i am grateful i bought and used the 20 dollar a gallon paint on my walls, very kids friendly.
4. today i am grateful my children are healthy and strong, despite a large consumption of boogers.
5. today i am grateful bubbles work, for any type of necessary distraction. like keeping them busy in the doctors office, don't leave home without your bubbles.

I have been quarantined for two weeks actually 3 since haley got diagnosed with mrsa, we will go today to see if we can get back to the gym and i will be having an extra long day since both "A" and Wes have school tonight, means i have to pick up and drop off my kid at school twice today. so i will take that time to go investigate my meal replacements. for todays thought; It is Breast Cancer Awareness month!! Think before you Pink!!; "Think Before You Pink, a project of Breast Cancer Action, launched in 2002 in response to the growing concern about the overwhelming number of pink ribbon products and promotions on the market. The campaign calls for more transparency and accountability by companies that take part in breast cancer fundraising, and encourages consumers to ask critical questions about pink ribbon promotions."