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“If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” Thomas Jefferson

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Thoughts on losing weight and diets

Oh I have have been reading so many people talking about that age old new year's resolution to go on a diet and lose weight. Commercials on television are overflowing with all sorts of gimmicks. So I thought I would post my thoughts on weight issues. First, some of us are genetically prone to be chubby. I am not talking about obese, I am simply talking about on the high side, or slightly over what the medical community likes to call normal. In a world that shows superthin underfed folks as beautiful this can be tough on others who don't fall into that category. So every year thousands upon thousands of women go on "diets" and vow to lose weight. Many of them are successful at least for a little while. My view is that one should vow to live a healthier lifestyle instead of looking for a quick fix. Diets are unhealthy, I don't care which new low-carb, low-fat, low whatever you proscribe to. They simply are unhealthy because they are taking away something that your body might need to function. I will give you an example. My sister was on a certain diet that was low carb for a long time. She started experiencing bad daily headaches many turning into migraines and she stopped losing weight. She went to doctor after doctor that simply gave her a new pill to try to get rid of the headaches. I told her to get off that diet and start eating a balanced diet with fruits and vegetables, which had been eliminated because of this low-carb stuff. Her body was out of balance and it was trying to tell her something. She finally listened to me after all the guinea pig pill remedies were exhausted and the doctors had no answers. She ate a banana and the next day she didn't have a headache. As she added back all the foods that she had eliminated she began to feel better and have more energy, the headaches all but disappeared. She was killing herself trying to lose weight and wasn't even accomplishing that very well. She and I both are prone to be on the chubby side. My daddy was chubby, my grandaddy was chubby, and so forth and so on back through the generations. I gained a lot more weight with my last pregnancy simply because I was confined to bed rest due to hypertension issues. The older I get the harder it is to get the weight off. One thing I remember though is that my grandfather was healthy. He worked hard physically, he ate what he wanted to eat, and he lived to be 90 years old. If he hadn't developed Alzheimer's and started having mini strokes (common with Alzheimer's) then he probably would have lived longer, but it was his time and the Lord called him home. One thing he always said was that everything was a balance, don't eat just one thing and don't eliminate things necessary. In other words live healthy by getting some physical exercise and eat a balanced diet. You need fat, you need carbohydrates and you definitely need all the vitamins and minerals contained in those foods. A couple of years ago I started really watching what my family consumed. I started eliminating processed foods and store bought junk foods. I lost a little weight that first year but not much. This past year, I got a whole lot more exercise with the large garden and the added livestock care. I eliminated more things from our diet, especially artificial sweeteners. I went back to whole foods. We use all natural ingredients now. Things like raw sugar, honey, whole wheat. We added more nutrient dense foods to our diet like carrots, beets, and other roots vegetables. Guess what, I haven't watched anything that I have eaten I have simply eaten good whole food and eliminated as much processed, pre-sweetened, "plastic" foods from our diet. We drink whole raw milk from our goat and eat full fat butter on our potatoes and toast. This year I lost 35 pounds and simply did not try. I still have some weight to lose and I am sure that it will come off this year until my body reaches a balance which is healthy for me. I don't try to fit into a mold, I want to be healthy for me. I have found that when you eat more nutrient dense foods in a well balanced regimine then you don't have those cravings for something and you don't overeat because the food that you have eaten keeps you full. When your body has what it needs then you don't feel the need to eat more. Now everything I have talked about doesn't even address the mental issues of people who over eat. These are simply physical issues being observed. So my thoughts are that if you want to lose weight take a good hard look at what you eat. Are you eating more processed food or whole food? Is your diet well balanced and nutrient rich? Do you get any exercise? You cannot lose weight in a healthy manner without burning more calories. I have a few more posts on this issue that deal with different aspects. So keep an eye out for those. God bless and take care.

*Disclaimer- I am not a doctor nor am I a nutritionist, these are simply my thoughts on the weight loss issue and not to be taken as medical advice. Talk to your physician or a nutritionist about your particular situation. Thanks.

4 comments:

Kelle at The Never Done Farm said...

I whole,food, heartedly agree*wink*. Our whole family has had the same results as yours. My Dd is addicted to sugar though*sigh* and it is an addiction for her, she gets cranky and moody if she doesn't get something sweet. We have cut even our raw cane sugar consumption to nill, replacing it with honey, stevia and molasses( which in the leftover of cane sugar processing) We have cut back the amounts called for in all of our recipes, this took some figuring to add in ingredience to take the place of the lost sweetener.You probably already know, that honey substituted for sugar you always use half the amount of honey to replace the sugar, but sometimes you'll need to tweek the recipe so it doesn't get to heavy or dense because of the added moisture from the honey or molasses.

Raw foods and hard work combined lets your body absorb the nutrients it needs and then it passes off the rest. With processed foods you body doesn't need to work at breaking it down at all, it simply absorbs it quickly. IMHO,( I'm also not a Dr or nutritionist) this is why there is so much heart disease and cholesterol issues.
We eat raw butter, drink raw milk, eat fried( in lard, we render)potatoes, rice and beans, we also eat cheese, yogurt and sourcream( all of which are made from raw milk, for our cow) My Dh just had his yearly physical, he's lost 42lbs over three years and his cholesterol was 198( 200 is normal and anything above that they force feed you statins*sigh*) When the Dr. asked what he'd been doing to loose the weight, he simply replied; hard work on the homestead and I eat raw whole foods, of course we try not to overeat, but sometimes it's so.... good!*wink* The Dr. couldn't believe he drank raw milk and eats it's byproducts and his cholesterol was so good! Maybe he's thinking about that, we can only hope!

Blessings,
Kelle

Kat said...

I agree Kelle. We don't eliminate sweets in our house, in fact we all love them. However, I make the sweets from good wholesome ingredients and we enjoy in moderation. I think that having a piece of pie or cake after supper is just fine after a hard days work. Grandaddy had a serious sweet tooth and my grandmother was more than willing to keep him happy. After supper was coffee, dessert and cigarette time (ok that part is not really healthy, but that is what he did). That was everyday of the week. Tell your hubby congrats on the good health report. And let's all look to a happy, healthy and good food year! God bless.

Kelly Cook said...

Both of you ladies might be interested in a book called Eat Fat, Lose Fat. It sounds like a fad diet book, but it's not. It debunks all the misleading health info out there and promotes whole, raw foods. It goes thru the studies and research and shows how/why they're tweaked to show the desired outcome. It also says our bodies hold on to excess fat because we don't get enough nutrients in our food, so it holds the fat as a "just in case" type thing. By eating nutrient dense foods and whole fats, we get what we need and our body lets go of the stored fat. Your experiences prove that. It's why we started on the path to homesteading-buying raw milk, dairy products, free range eggs and pasture fed meat would be WAY to expensive for us! I have a brief post about this at http://some-thingscookin.blogspot.com/2010/01/journey-to-homesteading.html

Janice said...

This is one of the main reasons why we purchased our homestead, too. We're currently buying all our free-range eggs, raw milk, grassfed beef, and chicken from private farms and it is expensive! Between the purchase price and the gas to go get it (the farm we go to is nearly two hours away!) we figure there's got to be a cost savings just to do it ourselves. But, even if there's not a cost savings, it's still important to us that our children understand where their food comes from and to differentiate real, God-given food from artificial man-made junk.