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