Weight Loss Journey: The Food

I am writing this to encourage others with their weight loss aspirations. I have had several friends and strangers who wanted to know how I have lost the weight so far and this is my big reveal. The amazing thing, it is nothing really special.

I started this journey last year around 328lbs after finishing the Meineke Car Care Bowl. My goal was to start losing weight because I heard about a group of men (I will not reveal them) that met one day and joked about who would come back bigger than are now once they finish football. I was one of the ones that they assumed would get fatter once football ended, so I was determined to prove them wrong.

I cut out fast food and if I had fast food it was a grilled chicken sandwich with a baked potato or fruit salad. These establishments also have salads which are healthy until you dump the entire packet of salad dressing all over it. Some salad dressings can cause a salad to reach the upper hundreds in their calories; you might as well eat a Big Mac at that point. To avoid the dressing trap, pour three to four table spoons (lighter oil based) or two to three tablespoons (heavier ranch and thousand island) of dressing over the salad and shake it in the container to get a nice light coating of dressing across the entire salad.

I also started cooking my meals and if I had to use oil, I used olive oil. For some, olive oil may have a weird taste at first, but it is loaded with good fat . . . yes, people there are such thing as good fats. Stay away from Crisco type Vegetable Oil, aka disguised Trans fat.

I also limited my intake of pork and beef. You can eat these things, but eat them in moderation because they are loaded with fat and our bodies are excellent at processing fat. Simply put, our bodies melt the fat down and reassemble it once it gets absorbed by the small intestine. There are videos on the internet that show the how the blood becomes a fat slurry after eating a fatty meal. YIKES!!!! My main meat was chicken and no not fried chicken!!!! I know this next statement is going to sound like blasphemy to some, but take the skin off. Yes, I said it and it was hard for me in the beginning as well, but take the skin off . . . that takes away a lot of fat and calories. Growing up on fried chicken, I decided to use Oven Fried or Shake N' Bake (It's Shake N' Bake and I helped, lol) mix to help fulfill the craving of fried chicken. I also baked the chicken with olive oil or placed a whole chicken in a Crockpot . . . if you need suggestions on how to cook a "healthy" chicken just send me a message.

With your meals always keep it balanced. Include a complex carbohydrate (like mixed vegetables or fruit, not just mashed potatoes). Also, drop the white rice . . . it is devoid of all nutrition . . . use brown rice. "But I do not like the taste of brown rice," Uncle Ben's makes some really good brown rice and you can barely tell the difference between that and white rice. I also included pasta as a side dish; they have the high fiber pasta now which tastes so much better than the wheat pasta. I am actually giving you a free pass on the wheat pasta, that stuff is just grainy and gross. The main point of this paragraph is to encourage the increased intake fiber. You body struggles to breakdown fiber and that's a good thing. The more energy it takes for your body to work through meal, the more calories you burn = weight loss.

Use common sense with gravies and other food lubricants . . . use sparingly or not at all. These things increase your caloric intake and increases the amount of work you have to put in to balance the calorie equation (calories in - calories out = weight loss, maintain, or weight gain).

Drinks - eradicate soda from your life. If you have to have a soda drink a diet soda. Regular soda is filled with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which is not natrual. HFCS is a genetically modified substance that the human body has not encountered until the 21st century. Manufacturers take a natural sugar like fructose and basically line a bunch of them up in a chain . . . this helps them reduce the cost of production and it makes us fatter! Dr. Hyman (author of Ultra Metabolism) explains that HFCS tricks our body. Once it gets absorbed into our blood stream it triggers the release of insulin like any other sugar; however, it does not need insulin to get absorbed into cells. So with all of this insulin floating around in your blood it tells your brain that you really need to eat. So then you eat a lot of food to satiate your craving. Why do you think restaurants offer soda at the beginning of the meal? You drink the soda, HFCS enters blood stream, tricks the pancrease to release insulin, insulin levels rise and you are left with the raw end of the deal eating more than you would have if you just had water with lemon and a higher bill because you downed entire the white chocolate molten cake at Chilis (personal experience).

You can drink juice as long as they are 100% juice and not from concentrate. Concentrate is hidden language for HFCS. Limit juice to 2 cups a day at the most, learn how to savor the taste and just not gulp it down.

Once medical school started I had lost over 50 pounds and weighed 275lbs.

You are probably at the end of this essay thinking there is no way I can cut out all that stuff, but just take baby steps. I started with just the soda and limiting my juice intake in the beginning. Dropping soda alone can help some people drop several pounds in a month. Also, I am not saying never give into your craving for a double cheeseburger, but allow that to be a treat . . . not a every other day or everyday meal. Work the double cheeseburger into each week as a cheat meal where you can have whatever you want. As Americans sometimes we get caught up with taste, but we need to learn that satiating our hunger is the key, not necessarily what is loaded with fat and taste the best.

There will be more to this weight loss journey . . . working out, frustration with not losing any weight, and yo-yoing. If you have any other questions on the food front, just let me know.