The Search for Truth and Justice in the American Diet.

Is it fair to assert that we the people use food as a tool for merriment in an otherwise bleak, cold season of hibernation and solitude? It's no time to get lost in the woods. But the season also speaks to a higher incidence of calorically challenged foods, usually involving sugar, fats and an abundance of such food frivolity.

Is it the best idea that we constantly assert that we eat these foods and consider the food connects us to some level of joy and peace? All it really does is make us feel we are further away from our goal instead of closer.

Do we continue to celebrate such debauchery with fattened glee? How do we celebrate if our minds work like mine in the sense that everyday is another chance to be lean? Is it really a distortion of my mind and those who think this way? Or is it a distortion to have holidays that celebrate lack of control and restraint? Ask yourself these questions and reflect on which one has caused more of the problem. Maybe the opposing ideas have worked in concert to create the state of affairs our society could possibly be in.

It seems that the most successful food participants learn to cook and find a way to consume healthful paths of purpose that do not blow health goals out of commission.

We can do this. We can learn to adapt and overcome. Carry on, holidays.

Just random thoughts I should consider trying to answer.

Does anybody ever REALLY admit how imperfect their diet really is?

Can bodybuilders afford to screw up their diet, or is that the ultimate test of discipline and diligence?

Can a fitness maverick or maven truly still get their results if they are indulging too much? Is there really this extra room for error, even in their diets?

Am I a health coach and specialist who will ever claim to know it all? (The answer is no.)

Is any one diet really going to deliver the benefits that are promised and supposedly proven in trials?

Will I ever get this right? Will any of us?

Why do people think that their leadership is or should be perfect, in order to help them? Doesn't it matter what the goal is?

Should we choose our trainers, fitness experts, health coaches and training partners based on the diet and the body we want to have?

Do already fit people need to lose more weight?

Does Hollywood exacerbate our quest for perfection?

Do we do too much in an effort to be, look or attain "perfect?"

From Chinese Wood to Ayurvedic heat...

Here I go again....

Summer comes and goes and my carbs were virtually nonexistent. So the autumn time was a moment of reassessment for my diet and with an Ayurvedic doctor, was beginning to think she'd be the answer. I hated the fact that she was telling me to slowly revert back to grains. I didn't want to! But my palate fought me, and before long I was exercising my right to a slice of sprouted grain bread, even to the point where I'm concerned that I can't get enough due to taking this supplement called GX Assist, with six different essential oils and caprylic acid, all designed to heal the intestines and digestion. So basically I've been working on my digestion since the fall. Doc put me on this long pepper, ginger and fennel blend, and we happily discussed herbs, oils and possibly the over potency of the oils at a time when she thought I should treat the system gently. Here I am thinking that my system needs a more aggressive cleansing, due to the previous low carb abuse I must have somehow done to it. I simply think that I let my induction go on too long, and suffered the low carb flu and mood/energy swings, finally finding "normal" again.

But did I? Doc suggested that low carbing is just an extreme thing to do, and for years I would agree. But I think that the diet industry now takes on what the bodybuilding community has done for years: carb cycling. However, food pundits such as Dave Asprey, Dave from PaleoHacks and PaleoPeople in general still feel pretty well attuned to a no grain, no dairy lifestyle. Some say it is the only way. I say give me enough fat to smile and everyone will be okay.

But I wasn't agreeing with the influx of grains. While it didn't change my weight drastically, I do remember a noticeable amount of brain fog leaving. How do you know you aren't functioning at optimal levels when you simply aren't that? It's like telling a person who isn't smart, to see that he or she isn't. Can they really see that? So once I felt clarity, it was an education, an awakening that I wanted again.

Even though there were these great therapeutic advantages with the different Ayurvedic massages she offered and the herb therapy she wanted me to sign onto, I'm still interested but have since tried a few other supplements to my benefit. I was thinking that since I work for doTERRA I should try their digestive aids, as they are fully formulated by doctors, chemists and botanists as a team working together, using the best technology and highest data measurement methods. The only problem is that I'm doing something I fully disagree with, right alongside the digestive protocol, and that is the consumption of deli processed meats. Somewhere in my head I thought they were easy and cheap, and that is exactly why I'm eating them. I have these momentary lapses in sanity....

Let's just try one...more...thing...

...before I do something crazy, like take something special, for fat loss. It's the taboo subject in a clean eater's mind, that gets frustrated after a long stretch of attempts that leads to the chaotic desperation within...it slowly creeps up and takes over your brain, then you start to wonder what your goals are and why...

What's so wrong with wanting to be leaner, fitter and lower in body weight? Why am I a bit concerned at what people think of me? Why has my yoga button, though pushed, not seem to be working properly? I'm really wanting maximum advantage in this game, and trying just one more method, one more food, one more exercise, one more supplement, more restriction...until the balance is lost, and now time will be spent crawling back to the cherry spot where fat loss was the norm.

Now I'm questioning my thyroid because of not even incremental weight loss, fatigue and exhaustion, although I could have caused my endocrine system a lot of stress by heavy dieting. People just say to go to bed at night. 

Overeating while supplementing for fat loss

You start this awesome new way of organizing your food, and you begin making fabulous progress on your fat loss goals. You're exercising hard, you're looking great, and even though you began with some great strides, you feel a touch fatigued because you're in a caloric deficit.

You start to satisfy the extra fat burn with calories after some time. It's easy to do, especially if you aren't being neurotic about food intake. So very slowly you begin sneaking in way more calories than you expect, because your food volume seems exactly the same.

That's where most of us get lost in an eating plan. We start to see the advances and then we want more. We supplement until we can no longer tell which supplement is doing what. This vexes our chances to be the epitome of all we wish to become, which is fitter.

We must at this point, become comfortable with discomfort...with what a mild deficit feels like, and understand that there is no change without struggle. Ask any fitness competitor or bodybuilder, how they feel on a regular day of restrictions, and how great they feel on their typical "cheat meal." It's the difference between staying on diet and completely blowing it. Here is a nice moment to consider that success lies somewhere between the extremes, though it still might be uncomfortable. I know. I've experienced it.

The Annoying part of dieting.

Ugh!! So many annoying points to make about dieting!! Yes I'm plenty done with the dang thing. But really, when it comes down to it, I'm more annoyed with my thought process when it comes to the extra fats I want when I take my carbs low. Truth is, maybe my carbs were too low for too long. I have been warned against it in studies and continuing research on low carb and primal eating plans.

But the extra fat is customary to a diet with carbohydrate restrictions. Something has to give, and the truth is that everything so far, seems to still boil down to calorie totals, to a large degree. Calories are still the measurement upon which we determine our food wonderland of choices. 

We can choose low to no starch, green and watery vegetables, but we have to make strong choices with them. For example, if we choose to mash parsnips, which come in at 24 carbs per cup and have a naturally sweet taste that stifles sugar cravings, then we have to monitor our butter and cream usage and let me tell you how much cream and butter I want to use! Parsnips satisfy like a potato, but with less calories and starch.

So I'm annoyed because I love fats and I want to intensely indulge in them if I can't eat too many carbs. Anyway I gave up and made the most satisfying mashed sweet potatoes. It tastes like pie, it's so amazing! Now I have to make sure I eat lighter meats like chicken and fish, something I've naturally migrated to, as I increase my healthy carb sources.

Maybe I'll divulge my fat grams and carb totals in this next post.

My bio hacking, is bio lacking.

On this fine day, I make the realization that my summer of very low, watery green vegetables acting as my carbohydrate intake, has ended. As the season changes, it clearly dictates my return to a simpler time: carbohydrate intake. No this does not refer to the standard American fare. Not even a little bit… It relates to much of the opposite. While the summer has turned me into a gratefully carbohydrate clean body, there is still the trouble of living in the world, and being constantly inundated by peoples carbohydrate dreams.

Upon starting school this season, I realized how many moments I dealt with a ridiculous food regimen that didn't go too well last year. Once breakfast in the classroom started, I was daily faced with carbohydrate-laden meals that asked me if I wanted to have coffee cake more days than I care to remember. Then they started serving these energy bars with sesame and sunflower seeds, cranberries, wheat flour and made with honey. It was so sweet that it was barely edible, and yet, I was first in line some days, to eat this thing. 

Anyway, those days are long gone, and I am happy to have seen those days disappear...meanwhile I've made the jump to meals with high amounts of seasoned vegetables...and it is the best thing I think I've ever done.

Meanwhile I can't fool myself into believing that a cauliflower is a potato. Having said that, if you want a potato, have a potato. In fact, you may find you need it just then. But most people do not know how to monitor their consumption, or control their portions, on food that simply tastes good to them. 

The bio "lack" comes in when I know that my body is feeling unwelcomingly tired, and I need more nutrient intake. This is where I need to know where my next food cue is coming from...because the answer may be in my needing to up those carbs, in vegetable form of course, but from starchy vegetables. That still doesn't mean that the flour tortilla you had around your sausage egg and cheese burrito was acceptable for your cheap meal.