The REAL Food Challenge

I love a three day weekend.  Memorial weekend is the big kick off to summer and we had a cook out at the Beckett house.

My whole weekend was based on burgers and chips and ice cream.  And guess what?  I woke up the next day feeling achy, bloated, and gross.  My skin had broken out and I had a headache.  I can tell you why.  It was the poison I fed myself all weekend.  I had a junk food hangover!

For the most part, I eat real food.  By "real food" I mean food that I have to cook myself.  Nothing boxed, packaged, frozen, or processed.  Think a-hundred-years-ago food.  I usually eat meat that I season and cook myself.  I eat eggs and veggies and fruits and nuts.  I soak and boil beans for soups and salsa.  I do eat cheese...someone else makes that!  But for the most part I prepare my own food.  So when I eat the packaged stuff, I feel terrible.

Worst part is... the packaged stuff is EVERYWHERE!

Chips and hamburger buns, cereal and crackers, ice cream and cookies, pizza and tortillas, frozen meals and canned goods...the list is long.

These foods, fast foods and convenience foods; they aren't really food at all.  They are so filled with preservatives, added colors, flavor enhancers and other chemicals our bodies hardly recognize them as food. That is why I woke up feeling so crumby.  I'm full of junk.

Why do I eat this stuff?  The same reason everyone else does.

They taste good!  They are convenient.  They are cheap.  But I am paying the price!

I did not feel great.  I wanted to feel great.  So the next day I was back on the real food challenge.  No more junk.

I put my time in the kitchen woke up feeling good.  I know it is expensive and time consuming.  But how much would you pay (in time and money) to be fit, thin, healthy, and feel great?  Most would be willing to pay a hefty sum.  You just have to pay in advance!!!

The fit, thin, healthy, great feeling gets delivered at a later date :)

And... have you heard about Total Family Healthcare's Detox+ vitamin?

If you've been indulging in unhealthy foods and are ready to begin a new, healthy way of eating, then try Detox+ for healthy liver health, function, and detoxification. It will help with fat digestion, bile production and balance blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

Detox+ is 100% doctor recommended and pharmaceutical grade.
Log on to http://www.totalfamilyhealthcare.com/ to order your vitamins today!

B12, The Energy Vitamin

Why B12?  This is a question we get often from our weight loss patients.

B12 is critical to avoiding fatigue.  Who isn't fatigued these days?   Every vitamin in your diet, including B12, plays a role in keeping you healthy.  

Vitamin deficiencies make it harder for your body to do the basics.  This is what leads to fatigue.  We want you body to work optimally.  Ideally, we should be able to get all of our essential nutrients from the foods we eat.  But that doesn't often happen.  We need an insurance policy...supplementation.

B12, along with folic acid, is a key factor in how effectively the body absorbs food and therefore replenishes its energy supplies.

For a person trying to lose weight, every little bit of help HELPS!!  We want to keep enery levels high while restricting our calories.  Nothing sends people to the cookie isle faster than a mid afternoon slump.  Being tired makes us seek out a sugar fix!

Try our Total Family Healthcare blend of B12 to keep a bounce in your step!

You can order them from TotalFamilyHealthcare.com or purchase them from the Clermont or MetroWest clinic.

I Gained a Few "Grapefruits" After my Marathon..?

I did it! I ran the Cap City Half Marathon yesterday.
It took me 2 hours and 47 minutes to do it but I finished! It is a bucket list item for me that I can now cross off!
Will I do it again? Maybe.

Twenty-four hours ago I was running the first mile of 13.1 miles so it's a bit too soon to tell. I do want to tell you what I learned from this experience though.

I did not lose weight. In fact, I gained weight while training for 4 1/2 months. Seven or eight pounds. And NO, it was not muscle. I can assure you, it was fat. One pound of body fat is about the size of a big grapefruit. And I was carrying EIGHT grapefruits! Two in my belly, two in each cheek (you know the ones), and two in each thigh. How can that be? Yes, I was running an average of twenty miles per week. You would think there is no way I could gain. Wrong. You still can't eat whatever you want even when you exercise. I was eating like a teenage boy. I burned an extra 800 calories per day running for an hour but I was eating an extra 1500. In the end, it is all about calories in vs calories out. And I was definitely taking in more calories than I was expending.

Why couldn't I cut back on my intake?
It sounds so simple doesn't it?
Why can't all of us just cut back our intake?
I've confirmed through 4 1/2 months of self experimentation that we have a few mental roadblocks on the journey of "just cut back.".
The first one is called self discipline. We have a small bank on this stuff to use everyday. When it gets taken up on other things, like running, there is none left for stopping at one serving! This bank of discipline gets drained by work, kids, school, you name it. We only have so much discipline to go around.
The second roadblock is a close cousin to discipline, it is called entitlement. "I ran 6 miles today." I am going to eat what I want. But it could just as easily be, "The kids are driving me crazy" or "It was a rough day at work". There are times when we think we deserve it. But we deserve the grapefruit size glob of fat that goes with it!

I know for sure that I like being fit. And I know everyone out there can be fit, too. Health and fitness are not reserved for the special. It is within every one's power to become fit (or more fit.)

If I can do it, you can too. It does require a bit of your daily discipline bank and maybe forgoing an entitlement or two :)
But in the end it's worth it. Grapefruit and all.