2014- Bu Bye and good day!

Goodbye 2014, and good riddance

While there were many great moments, the year did not go the way I wanted.

Lessons learned

1) Be grateful and never take anything for granted

2) Continue to dream

3) Don't let the failures define you

4) Always move forward because standing still is not an option

5) It's not what you have, it's what you do with it

Ok, I learned a lot and I had a lot of things go wrong in 2014 but if you look at them as a learning opportunity, things can and will get better.

Actions for 2015 (Not resolutions, but functional things i can do to move forward)

1) Accept what you cannot change (i.e. the past behaviours) and put that into practical use. (i.e. stop spending so much money, find peace in what you enjoy)

2) Plan in a step by step method what you will do , even if part of that plan is getting out of bed in the morning.

3) Look at yourself and decide what is important, and write it down or open a file on your computer and record it so you can refer back to it when you forget

4) Seriously stop comparing yourself to others

5) Do one thing every day for someone other than yourself

6) Appreciate and be thankful , because no one knows what the future will bring

Ok, so I plan on doing these things and a lot more.

I thank you all for reading, and hope that some will comment either here, on Facebook, twitter, etc.

Be well, and Hello 2015

Talk soon,

Derrick

Food- The Journey (Part 2)

Hello again.

Once again, I thank you for taking time to read my blog.

In this Part 2, of my Journey with food, I will talk about the food message I perceived from the world over the mid period of my life.

During my 20's through 40's I worked hard in my career, but never grasped the need to eat properly, or even exercise.

The world over the past 30 years has progressively increased the food promotion through all media, print (very small), radio (some impact), television (large impact), and now internet and social media (far reaching).

These messages were mainly from fast food companies who were in our ears and eyes telling us how important a burger, fries, shake, children's toy, or many of the other marketing messages they wanted to convey.  In addition, they tried to spin all this by saying it would make our lives better and I bought into this nonsense.

I went out to restaurants, went to the movies, ate the garbage they sold, and then got mad at myself for gaining weight and couldn't figure out why.  Not only did I get mad at myself, it impacted my happiness.

My happiness is my responsibility, yes.  Their responsibility it seemed was to sell their product, and make money and as long as it was allowed by law, they had no true community to concern themselves about.

I am rambling on a bit, so let me clarify.  The food that is sold should have at least a base of health consideration and we as a consumer should be able to understand what we are buying is healthy or not.  The food that is sold is addictive in nature and we were sold a bill of goods and that is why a large part of the population got fatter over the past few decades.

I am responsible for me, but the impact food had on my life should never have happened.  Government is also at fault in their research of agriculture and how industry sold food to us.

Now we are finally getting truth about the harm products with sugar, carbohydrates, and other food additives are causing us as a population and yet industry is spending billions of dollars fighting changes in regulation.

I was personally affected by the food that was sold, and so were a great many others and it needs to stop.  It is told to us that if we just ate less and exercised more that we would be okay.  Then they removed fat from almost every food product and added sugar to make up for the taste that was taken out of food when the fat was removed.

We as a community need to care about the food we buy and speak with our dollars and stop buying the food which is causing illness and obesity.  This is something I will be writing about more in the next part, as well as some of the health care professionals who are talking about a better way to eat.  We need food companies to start selling better quality products which are not full of sugar instead of processed garbage and those of us who consume this garbage need to express our dissatisfaction to these companies.  It can't be all about money, it should be about us as well.

Thanks for reading my rant, now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

Here are a couple of websites talking about good quality diet and food.

See you soon.

Derrick

http://garytaubes.com/
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/

Money- Doesn't buy happiness, or even rent it

Hi everyone.

You know that many people think money will solve our problems.

WRONG

Money is nice to have, makes life easier, it lets you enjoy moments, but it solves nothing.

What does solve problems?

Honest transparent analysis of yourself as a person helps you move in the right direction.

Unless you are faced with obstacles which stop you from making a living, it is the choices you make with the money you have that cause each of us peace or pain depending on what is decided.

If you suddenly got a lot of money, yes, it would temporarily make life better, but it solves nothing unless you determine what behaviour you are doing to cause the pain in the first place.

Do you stress over foolish choices after the fact, or do you plan your decisions to make life better and therefore not let financial matters rule your state of mind.

I'll be honest.  I have over the years made some very bad choices, and some very good ones.

I like my life and myself much better when the choices are good.

Like any bad habit, overspending can be an addiction to make yourself feel better for not making the right choices.

I commit from now forward to make better choices with my finances.  I do this to ensure that I live the best life possible.

If you look back and feel hurt about foolish past choices and then dwell on those choices, you aren't doing yourself any favours.  Learn from the past and improve in the future.

Time gets shorter and more valuable as we get older, do not waste it on buying crap that you think will make you feel better and never does.  Invest in the relationships that matter and end the relationships that are destructive and cause you to not live the best life.

I love that Warren Buffet, one of the richest men on the planet gets a great deal of satisfaction from going to Dairy Queen and having a cheeseburger and a cherry coke.  The simple things in life often give the biggest rewards.

This is my truth.  Please look inside yourself, and if you have money issues, try to understand what you are trying to accomplish and then stop doing the destructive behaviours, start new self affirming behaviours and continue the actions that you know make you the person you wish to be.

Thanks for reading, for those who celebrate Christmas, please have a wonderful Christmas celebration and for all other faiths, please have a fantastic holiday season  

Food- The Journey (Part 1)

Hi again.

It has been an interesting week and I'm excited about what comes next, but this blog is about my past Journey.

We all have a story, and for some of us, food, is a big part.

As far back as I can recall, I thought I was fat.

The only time I thought that perhaps I wasn't going to stay fat was when I was in the army at age 17.  

I think the larger problems started in high school.  An incident when I was young (13) affected me and my confidence and that's when I started to eat..and eat..etc.

I internalized everything that went wrong and ate to feel better.  I believe though my experiences that any attempt to fill an emotional void should be considered an addiction (an illness) and should be treated that way.

I think you can see the direction this is heading, so I will skip many of the details.  

What happens when you are trying to compensate for a perceived inadequacy is loss of confidence and it can send you looking for an escape.

Food was one of my escapes, and I was good at it.

In my early teens, I won a contest where I won 2 visits to McDonalds each week for 52 weeks.  Now, let's be clear, while many people eat there, and have no issues and enjoy the food, they don't eat as often as I did.

In order to feed the addiction, I changed the dates on the meal coupons and ate there every day for at least a couple of months.

Can you imagine the impact that would have on a teenager? I think many teens would love it, and some may not gain weight, but I did, and it got worse from there.

In short, I was unhappy, ate the wrong food frequently and then, I isolated myself because I was unhappy, left high school twice, and it all ended with me leaving home at 17.

Many people have great childhoods, mine was not so great, but believe me, many others have a worse time.

Food is an energy source which should be used properly and not as a long-term crutch to deal with life.  I hope that anyone who sees this will know that they can move forward and have a good life even after a rocky start.  Life is not always easy, but most of the time, mistakes can be corrected.

Part 2 coming soon, Be well, talk soon.

Derrick

Food- Change Direction

Hello again.

What we consume impacts our lives, not just our weight.

I am not a medical professional and I will express my opinions but as always, check with a doctor to determine what is correct for you personally.

I have been challenged for most of my life with weight control (Polite way of putting it), but finally feel that I have the tools to be effective and consistent moving forward and hope that my comments will help others.

While I focused initially on losing weight to feel better physically, soon, my focus became health.

First, I decided that whatever approach I take to lose weight and get healthier, I was not expecting perfection.

This means that I will look towards the following 80 percent of the time.  I will eat quality, energy effective foods to improve the look of my body and the way I feel.

I believe that if food intake is structured efficiently, you can impact hormonal balance to better control weight and I believe that not all calories are the same.  In my opinion, many of the processed and starchy calories you ingest make you crave additional foods and create a cycle (an atmosphere) which makes it very challenging to manage your weight.

I focused on the following foods: Here is a link which gives a good idea of foods which can be eaten and my list is below.

http://eatingatkins.ie/food-list/   

Fish

Fowl

Shellfish

Meat

Very Limited processed meat

Eggs

Limited Quantities of Cheese (no processed cheese)

Non Starchy Vegetables: Limited to one meal per day

Limited Low Glycemic Index 

Very limited Fruits: Berries (Strawberries, Blueberries, Blackberries)

Butter, Full fat Mayonnaise, Olive oil

Whipped Cream, cool whip

Limited use of Artificial Sweeteners

Beverages: Club soda, Cream, heavy or half and half, Decaffeinated or regular coffee and tea

Limited Diet Soda, Flavored seltzer – no calorie, Water

Real Lemon infused water

These are not all the foods I have eaten, but it gives a good understanding of the approach I have taken.

Conceptually, I tried to have foods which did not increase my blood sugar and that allowed my body to efficiently burn fat but also provide nutrients to ensure insulin was as low as possible.

I believe that insulin production leads to fat storage and managing this hormone can put you in a better position to improve your weight and health.

In addition to food, I walked regularly to complement my journey, but my expectation was that while exercise is important for overall health (circulation, muscle maintenance, etc.) it is a small but needed contributor to weight management.

In the next post, I will talk more about my personal journey towards weight management.

Thank you for reading.

Derrick

Food and You

The journey in life includes what you eat and how that food works to help or harm you.

Over the past months, I have been experimenting on what food does to me and how I feel about it.

First, I had some weight to lose and that was my primary motivation.

Second, I was very concerned with the impact on my health.

I am not a medical professional and I always recommend you talk with your doctor before beginning any changes to your diet/exercise.

I will be posting on this topic going forward, but for today, here are some personal observations.

1) Quality of food is very important.

2) Quantity of food should be monitored, but if you eat healthy real food, your body will give you a signal to stop eating.

3) A calorie is not just a calorie.

4) The food you eat contributes 70-80 percent of how you sculpt your body.

5) Exercise compliments the efforts you make in controlling the food you intake.

6) While there are some general important concepts in improving your habits, there are many ways to customize the path that each individual will take to get where they need to be.

7) Patience and commitment to whatever method you choose is important.

8) When you stumble, and you will stumble, get up, and start back on that path you have set for yourself.  Don't beat yourself up for the backstep, just understand you are human and continue to move forward.

9) Your supporters will be there for you as long as you are honest with yourself and with them.

Each week, I will write more and I my hope is that if I impact even one person, then I will feel good about expressing these thoughts.

Be well.