A Little Health Update

Weight

I talked a little bit about my diet experience while Tanya was away prior to me going to Belarus. I had went from 164 lbs down to 150 lbs at a rate of 2.6 lbs per week using the Shangri-la Diet. I also noted about my experiences during that process.

Currently, my weight has risen up to about 158 lbs and it is only going keep going up. =) I am going to start in the Shangri-la Diet again so I can get my weight under control. I am hoping to talk to the wife so we can discuss the food we eat. I would like to include more of the power foods that are mentioned in a Calorically Restricted Diet so super-charge our home cooking. I know I said this before, but it needs to be done. I am really sick of it.

I will get back on the Shangri-la diet just enough to keep my cravings under control. It was such a wonderful feeling to eat because it was time and not because my body said to eat everything in sight. It was, in a manner of speaking, good to be free from food.

My Back

This is a little more serious. My lower back has always been the tightest muscle on my body. When I was working out in Reedsburg in Villaris or going to karate my back would get really tight. They had an inversion machine which really released a lot of the tension that builds up. I have also noticed that when I play Tennis with my Dad a lot my lower back would get tight, but only annoyingly so.

Well, now that my Dad and I have discovered Racquetball, my back is really, really not happy with my. We started playing about 4 weeks ago at the Tamarac. It is a lot of fun, but my lower back was getting really, really tight. We played this Friday and my back was in a bit of pain, more than I have ever felt before. Tanya had me go through some Yoga stretches and that helped a lot. Today I am going to the Chiropractor and, hopefully, I will get some advice so I do not have this problem, or at least so I can manage or control it.

Weight Loss Update

As I mentioned in a previous post I started on the Shangri-La Diet pretty much the day after Tanya left for Belarus (April 3), which is exactly 6 weeks ago. In 6 weeks I have gone from 164lbs down to 150 lbs, which is a total of 14 lbs - about 2.3 lbs per week.

I am at a point where I think the Shargri-la diet should no longer be used for weight loss - just weight maintenance. I have some extra fat that I want gone, but I think that the rest will have to dealt with via a healthier (read calorically restricted) diet and exercise. Eventually, I can ween myself off the Shangri-la, once I get a more healthy diet plan in place which includes a lot of the CR healthy foods - some as mentioned above.

My previous diet was healthy - no (Partially) Hydrogenated Oils (PHO), no Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), and no High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFC) and a conscious thought of the foods I ate, but my main problem was that I was eating too much, especially when I went to my parent's house. I love to eat delicious foods, so I, as many people do, gorge myself, which is not good. The Shangri-la allowed me to control my hunger and cravings. Yea!

I have tried a Caloric Restricted (CR) recipe - the Mega Meal Super Burrito - and I have added Brewers Yeast and Wheat Germ to my diet and, wow, are they really healthy for you. The Wheat Germ has as definite taste, but the Brewers Yeast is not so bad. I add both to my breakfast. I have also added some Tofu in albacore tuna, eggs, and some lite mayonnaise (a little tuna and egg salad). I just wish I could find Tofu in smaller amounts, because as of now I do not use a lot. When Tanya gets back we talk about how we can change things.

With the weight that I have lost my pants are no longer tight and the dunlop and spare tireage not are really an concern. I feel so much better now. Yea for a plan that works.

The Shangri-la Diet and Caloric Restriction

For those of you who know me, none of you would call me fat. I am not. I am in decent shape. My legs and arms are all muscle and there a-little-bit-extra forming over my midsection and you wouldn't notice unless I wore a tight-fitting shirt. I am 5'11" tall and 164lbs - an average American male.

My life is pretty sedentary. I spend most of my days sitting behind a computer screen typing a way or staying at home with my beautiful wife. I am not so active now. There was a time when I was working out and going to Karate 3-4 times a week. That was great and I enjoyed it, but now my life has me with things that are more important than taking the time to work out.

So, now I found myself yearning for a way to keep the excess pounds off without killing myself (figuratively or literally) or my budget. I had heard of Calorie Restricted Dieting, but from what I have read about "them" in the news amounted to emaciated starvation cultists. I was not so interested in that. I am an avid D&D player and adding calorie restriction to my life would be one cult to many. (That is said in humor - Don't take it serious people. Come on!)

The Shangri-la Diet

So I was just surfing around the internet and encountered mention of the book 'The Shangri-la Diet' by Dr. Seth Roberts which details a pretty simple plan to loose weight. OK, I do not mean pretty simple, I mean really simple. The program boils down to taking a few table spoons a day of an oil or sugar water within a prescribed period each day and 'whammo' your hunger and food cravings are repressed; and then the fat starts to melt away.

I started on this a few weeks ago it has been an interesting ride. I started out taking Flax Seed Oil which is a nasty tasting yellow oil that on occasion invokes my gag reflex, so I gotta be careful. Of the oils listed in his book this was the healthiest, being that it is high in Omega-3's (which I sorely lack due to not eating a lot of seafood). I will probably end up switching to Extra Light Olive Oil (ELOO) once I am done with the bottle of Flax Seed Oil.

The first week I basically substituted my lunch with the oil. I noticed that my food cravings basically vanished, which is a big thing. At work there is always some sort of chocolate, pastry, or something else laden with High Fructose Corn-Syrup (HFC), Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), or Partially Hydrogenated Oils (PHO) being brought in from Walmart. Not only that, but my when I am hungry at night I find myself being just a little bit hungry. When I first started I found myself getting hungry towards lunch, but at about 2 weeks into it I eat breakfast and then eat a little for supper and I am done for the day. I can go most of the day without eating and then eat only one meal in there, and I am fine.

This is such a strange feeling to not need to eat more than once a day. I eat because I need to and not because I feel the urge. I am eating to live and not living to eat as some would say it. I have not noticed any side-affects like being tired, or lacking energy, or anything like that. =)

So, if I am eating less then I need to make sure that what I am eating is good for me; that I am getting enough vitamins, minerals, and protein and so on. I will be even more concerned once I start being more active such as when I start playing tennis with my Dad now that spring is here.

Calorie Restricted Diets

One thing that was mentioned, almost in passing, in the Shangri-la Diet book is that even if you are eating less, if you are still eating crap, then you are still eating crap - crap is still bad for you. I wish that he would have given more information on this. This dearth of dietary information in the book had me thinking about these starvation cultists of the Calorie Restricted Diet (CRD).

I have long heard of and known of the the supposed health benefits of a CRD so I thought that this would be the best place to look to for dietary information on the foods with the maximum bang for the buck. Since I am eating less I need to eat better.

So, now I start to research the foods that are really healthy and that I will, hopefully, find palatable enough to eat.

Links

• The Shangri-la Diet
• Wikipedia: Shangri-la Diet
• Calorie Restricted
• Wikipedia: Calorie Restricted