Quitting smoking was a similar situation. We’re both successfully quit for almost 6 months now using those electronic water vapor cigarette  — otherwise known as an e-cig. We both wanted this with the same passion and desperation. How much better we both feel since we stopped smoking!

But when it comes to food, dude can pack it away and when I bring out the barks and seaweeds, he can’t deal. He’s skinny, andl except for his little potbelly, which, for him is a non-issue that goes away if he runs around the block every day for a month. lol.

So today after an especially painful cuisine experience, I’ve decided that our kitchen is going to be transformed into a health center. He has no say in this. He can eat his food out if he wants to have anything that is not in the kitchen, and I’m chucking a whole truckload of food out, that doesn’t need to be here. But really, I don’t have much on hand that is necessarily “bad,” but for example, peanut butter… it’s just too damn easy to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, you dig???!  This kitchen needs to be a restricted area, with barks and seaweeds, lentils and hempseed.

And that is what is going on tonight. The transformation of the kitchen from a feeding trough to a health center.

I haven’t told my husband yet.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I’m not a huge fan of the proliferation of bariatric surgeries these days. I’m also not a huge fan of the pharmaceutical industry. But side by side, I’d much rather see people get this surgery than swallow “diet pills,” prescription or not. Both of these things remind me of the huge increase in prescriptions written for people with “depression” in the 1990s. Of course, depression, like morbid obesity, are very real illnesses that require medical intervention. However, depression medication for people that aren’t mentally ill and bariatric surgery for people 30lbs overweight (and yes there are doctors out there that will do both of these things) is in my layman’s opinion, unnecessary, stupid and possibly dangerous.

But as you will see when you read the Bariatric Girl blog, she spent 3 decades morbidly obese and thanks to life saving surgery, she is no longer ill and obese.  A human life has been saved. Thank the god of your choice for that! Seriously. There should not be a stigma about obese people having life saving surgery. If I had to have this surgery and someone had a stupid comment about it, I would just ask them, “hey, would you like me to drop dead?” Because let’s face it, people that are morbidly obese are on death’s doorstep. That’s what the MORBID part means.

If you are depressed, and have a clinical brain chemistry issue, if you are an obese yo-yo-tried-everything-dieter-for-decades, diabetic, severely ill, severely obese, yeah, you need medical intervention; and that is between you and your doctor.  And I can honestly say here, that if I needed life saving bariatric surgery, I would get the surgery instead of staying ill and obese.

Weight loss is a very personal journey; but one constant always remains the same for everyone : You must take in less calories than you expend. Period, end of story. Bariatric surgery alters your digestive system for life. Like any other surgery there are risks, and like taking pills, there are risks. The question you have to answer is, will the risks outweigh the benefits? I think in the case of some fussy primadonna with too much time, money and 40 lbs to lose, this surgery is way more riskier than the so-called benefits. This is what I call “taking the easy way out” .. you aren’t clinically ill, you’ve found a doctor that will perform this surgery (and hey, look at how many plastic surgeons have worked on Michael Jackson, when he certainly did not need it, lol) and so instead of learning to control yourself, you go out and get this surgery. I think it’s dumb. But your mileage may vary.

I was 120 lbs overweight when I started my new life as a slender person. 2 doctors told me I did not need this surgery. I do not have diabetes, I do not have high blood pressure, I don’t have any of the major illnesses associated with obesity. Arthritis and GERD (which has since gone away since I changed my lifestyle) are my challenges. These don’t necessitate bariatric surgery. I explained in another post why all of the fat people my age, in my family, have diabetes and high blood pressure, FAST FOOD, DINTY MOORE and SPAM. lol. I’m an artisan-bread-dipped-in-olive-oil girl, always have been, my problem is I intake way too many calories and did not exercise. That’s how I gained 120lbs. That’s also why, at 120 lbs overweight, I did not and do not have diabetes, cholesterol problems or high blood pressure. I’ve got the genetics for all three baby! I’ve never done the things to make those genes express… fast food is a killer, people. I know of several young adults that have had to have their gall bladders removed because of gall bladder disease due to obesity and fast food diets.

So, let’s take a look at what kind of diet these people that have had bariatric surgery eat. Now, this is absolutely fascinating, because it is the exact opposite of what Weight Watchers and and a lot of these other diet programs suggest. The only diet program I know of that comes close to mimicking the diet that a person who has had bariatric surgery easts is that doctor’s Medfast diet. Here’s the link from Duke Medical Center that give complete instructions to the bariatric patient after surgery. And here is the meal planning guide for bariatric surgery.

I guarantee you that if you eat the same diet the bariatric people eat, you are going to lose weight. Protein powder and clear liquid starting out the first 3 weeks. Oh yeah, you are going to lose weight.

The question is, can you overcome the horror that lurks in your own brain? The cravings, the cheating, so on… people that have had this surgery cannot cheat without getting very sick or busting their “pouches.”  Bariatric surgery is a straight jacket for your digestive system.  You either do what you are supposed to, or suffer the consequences.

I started losing weight when I adopted a modified version of what the bariatric person would eat. I graze and drink small amounts throughout the day. I do not eat large meals, or drink huge glasses of water. I do not stuff my stomach with raw vegetables. I keep my intake down to half cups of anything. Considering that I could put away a half gallon of ice cream before I started living like this, half cups of food/drink spaced two hours apart has reset my appetite in ways I never imagined. It’s so easy now not to cheat! That’s why I call it “bariatric surgery of the brain.” heh.

Here’s the simple rule of getting through that rough period when you are just starting out: Be kind to yourself. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Slowly reduce your calorie intake over the period of a week if that will help you.  I have failed more times than not setting myself up with a militant diet plan and then feeling sick all day, just to end up cheating bigtime. This time though, I let myself have a little wiggle room that first week. Now, a little wiggle room does not mean that you can down a half gallon of ice cream if you feel like it, what it means is that if your plan has sent you over the edge wanting to cheat, try something a few steps up.

For example. My first week was a planned shake diet. One thing I’ve done this time around is that I switch-a-roo my diet plans, I don’t stick to the same one all the time, although I do stick to the calorie limit as closely as possible. My first day on this diet was a living hell. 800 calories of living hell. So what did I do? Instead of ordering a pizza, I went into the fridge, took out a small piece of whole grain bread, slapped some fat-free pizza sauce on it and some grated parmesan cheese. For about 150 calories, I chased the pizza monster away. So instead of my first diet day being 800 calories, it ended up being 950. Whoopdedoo. You are NOT a fail whale if you do this! You have succeeded much more than if you broke down and ordered that pizza!

I went the entire day without cheating and by bedtime I was ready to order 10 pizzas. lol.  That one little snack for 150 calories filled my belly and I fell blissfully asleep. And guess what? The next day I woke up feeling much less bloated, not as hungry, and not as tired as the first day on my diet.

Remember to be kind to yourself.

1. Doctors shocked when testing my blood sugar (normal)

2. Doctors shocked when taking my blood pressure (have the blood pressure of a person that exercises at my highest weight and most sedentry)

3. I do not eat fast food and haven’t for years. I am fat eating too large of portions of the good stuff and not burning off enough calories.

All of the things people assume about fat people, I defy. But I have not escaped entirely, and I do not believe if a fatty is being honest with themselves they can say they escape everything. I’ve only escaped the things that the doctors get the most excited about.

Before I started down this path I had chronic fatigue, more severe arthritis pain and a digestive system completely screwed up with GERD and intestinal pain and bloating. But see, the fat acceptance people and the doctors never get excited about this stuff. The doctors don’t get excited about it because they don’t consider it any sort of emergency like diabetes and high blood pressure. And the FA people blissfully act as is nothing is wrong.

But I am here to tell you, that GERD and the possibility of colon cancer in the future (western diets contribute a lot to colon cancer) are most certainly real and severe illnesses. Chronic pain and fatigue are also severe and real. If you are obese there is no way in hell that you are escaping digestive problems. There’s no possible way that the weight on your body is not impacting your joints; the FA movement cannot defy gravity folks!

The sad fact is that many doctors operate their practice by the book, or what the pharm industry tells them. So if you don’t fit into those neat little boxes of diabetes and high blood pressure, which require the drugs the pharm companies make, then there is nothing “really” wrong with you, other than being “fat and lazy.” And so the myths continue to be perpetuated then with the help of the FA movement: “You’re fat, but you are healthy and don’t have diabetes and high blood pressure!” Bah.

I challenge any FA fatty coming here to take a good long look at themselves, and HONEST look at themselves and their health and still claim “there’s nothing wrong.” If you are obese, something is wrong.

First, let’s take a look at what the “fat acceptance” movement says. You can find that over on their website.  Some quotes:

Size Discrimination Consequences are Real!

• Creates medical and psychological effects
• Results in wage disparity
• Affects hiring and promotion
• Affects academic options and advancement

I would agree 100% with all of this. There is absolutely an issue with fat people getting decent medical care, being treated like human beings on the job, etc. I compare this to what people with mental illness used to suffer a lot more in the past (at one point being burned at the stake for “demon possession”) and the stigma they still suffer somewhat today. Doctors and nurses often do not even make an attempt to hide their disgust with the obese and the mentally ill.  A fat person or a mentally ill person may have enormous intelligence and brain power, but that is overlooked in the workplace in many cases when someone finds out you are on psychiatric drugs or are obese.

Obesity is an illness. Just like mental illness is an illness. Just like cancer is an illness. And my primary issue with the “fat acceptance” movement is not any disagreement with what they say about the way fat people are treated by doctors or on the job, but the fact that they will not acknowledge that obesity is an illness which needs medical/health intervention.

If you are fat, you’ve taken some kind of abuse at one time or another. Insipid narcissistic idiots that can’t see beyond their own nose might tell you what they told me: “You belong in a concentration camp!” (totally real. i’ve been told that about my weight before)  None of this abuse is ever helpful with losing weight. In fact, the more abuse someone endures for being obese, the more obese they get; which is why some doctors will give you SSRI anti-depressants (I happen to take Prozac myself) because the lower the serotonin in your brain, the more carb and sugar cravings you have. The more abuse you take, the more your brain chemistry goes out of whack and so forth. Prozac helps me laugh at the assholes while staying on the path to get this weight off. Your mileage may vary, but it helps me.

I’ll say it again: obesity is an illness. Obesity is not “laziness” or a “character flaw.” But it is an illness, and the people that have a fat person in their lives that they care about should be treating it like an illness and trying to help the fat person get healthy again. You wouldn’t abandon your spouse if they had cancer, would you? Once we begin to clearly see obesity for what it is, a chronic, debilitating illness, then we can actually get on the path to treating this monster. If you have an obese loved one, you must, YOU MUST, behave as if they have a grave illness, because they do.

Before I went through a million diets and scams to try to lose weight, I had the same opinion that a lot of people out there have about obesity, that it is a “character flaw.” And if my character is flawed and I’m just a piece of blubber, why even bother? It wasn’t until I fully accepted the fact that I have an illness that requires medical/health intervention that I began to lose weight, and keep it off.

The fat acceptance crowd is right about some things, and totally wrong about “fat people can be fat and healthy.”

Hi, I’m Renee Melton, director of nutrition services for Sensei.  I’ve been a dietitian for over 20 years and my career has taken me everywhere from hospitals to private practice, to research and teaching at a university and developing web based courses.

I’ve always been interested in using technology to educate people about health.  As it is, most people rely on the internet when they want to research something.  Sensei is the marriage of all things I love:  nutrition, preventive health, teaching and technology.

Hi Renee!

Tell us from a Dietitian’s perspective, what is the most important thing someone can do to lose weight and stick to their eating plan?

Planning is really the key to success.  Without a plan, your best intentions to eat healthier and lose weight go out the window as soon as someone says ‘Let’s go out to eat’ or brings donuts into the office.

Find a plan that works well with your life (rather than make you change your life to fit it) and lifestyle.  If you don’t like to cook or eat fast food at lunch, your plan should let you do that, but at the same time, it should teach you how to make better choices wherever you are.

I noticed that the Mediterranean diet plan that I selected uses yogurt frequently; can you tell us about the value of probiotics in maintaining good health?

Probiotics are healthy bacteria that help maintain balance in the intestines by helping to keep harmful bacteria under control.  They also appear to boost our immune systems.  Yogurt contains Lactobacillus acidophilus, which is one of the most prominent bacteria in the intestines.

Probiotics have been credited with reducing inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease and helping to control diarrhea due to antibiotics or infection. A recent study in new moms suggests probiotics might be helpful in reducing belly fat after pregnancy.  There’s ongoing research looking at the benefits of probiotics in treating some infections, allergies and even certain types of cancer.  But more research is needed before we can truly determine their effect in all these areas.

Bottom line, we know probiotics are good for our digestive systems and a good thing to have.  Check the label on your yogurt and make sure it contains live cultures.

We know water is important, but from a Dietitian’s perspective, for those that have difficulty drinking a lot of water, what is the minimum amount of water you need to drink; and what things can you do to help yourself get into the habit of drinking more water?

Water is one of the most important nutrients we can get…we can’t live without it.  How much you need varies greatly.  It depends on things like your gender, body size & composition, climate and activity.  Healthy conditions can also affect your need.

On average we lose 10-11 cups of water from the body each day through urine and breathing.  The Institute of Medicine says the average healthy women need about 9 cups and men about 13 cups of water per day.

You should drink enough so that you don’t feel thirsty throughout the day and your urine should be colorless or slightly yellow.  If the color is dark yellow (concentrated), chances are your aren’t drinking enough.

The good news is that not all your fluids need to come from water.  You get some water from all the foods you eat (about 20% of your needs), plus anything you drink.  But be careful of the calories in the drinks you choose.  They can add up fast and lead to weight gain.

If you don’t like water, try some of these:
low calorie sports drinks
water with lemon slices or lemon juice added
diluted juice (dilute with water as much as you can to your taste)
herbal teas (hot or cold)
green tea (hot or cold)

I thought that the pop up “behavioral ques” on Sensei were fantastic. Is it helpful to print things out like this from the site and tape them in your kitchen?

I’m so glad you’re finding the messages helpful.

How you use them is really a personal choice.  You’ll probably find that a couple of the messages really resonate with you, enough that you might want to take it on almost like a mantra.  When you find these, I think it’s a great idea to print these up and post them wherever you will see them frequently.

Anything that helps keep you motivated and on track is a good thing!

Why do you think, as a Dietitian, that a plan like Sensei is better than the pre-packaged plans that come with food? More variety? Cost effectiveness?  Fresher foods?

One of the biggest downsides of prepackaged plans is the cost.  Not only do you need to pay for the delivered food, which can be very expensive, but then you have to go to the store and buy all the fresh things too.  Sensei’s grocery lists are significantly less expensive that popular pre-packaged plans.  Plus the Budget Friendly plans can save you up to $100 per month on your grocery bill.

With Sensei you’ll have more flexibility and variety.  You can choose menus that have store bought frozen meals, or you can find really quick and easy recipes, or you can go out to eat.  The choice is yours and you can change it at any time.

You see, these foods are for other people. People of normal weight, people that are skinny, and people that are fat and unhealthy and aren’t ready to do anythng about it yet. But you say, “Ms. Fatty, having just ONE of something will fit into my calorie plan.” Ok. I can jive with that. But the question isn’t “just one won’t hurt?” The question is, can you eat just ONE and stop there? Can you eat just one rib, one tablespoon of mayo potato salad or one half of a cookie and STOP? If you aren’t at the point in your life where you can do this (and a deep, honest and very personal inventory of yourself is necessary) I wouldn’t take the risk of blowing your calorie limit for the day. It’s not worth it! No holiday is worth it! Once I stopped that “oh I’ll just enjoy myself today” crapola, was the day I finally started losing weight. Let me put it this way: It’s soooooo much easier to stick to your calorie plan 24/7 than it is to try and get back on the wagon once you fall off.

So how are YOU, the fat person trying to lose weight, going to celebrate this holiday? I’ve got some great ideas for a slender 4th of July that are fast, easy and yummy. This is how I’m going to be doing my 4th!

Here is my list of tasty options that won’t make you fall off the wagon:

Grilled Fish

Fish is something you can fill up on and boy is it yummy right off the grill! My favorite grilled fishes are mahi mahi, salmon and trout. Another great low-cal griller are wild caught scallop on kebobs with vegetables marinated in an no-fat or low-fat Asian sauce.

Grilled Tofu

You’d be surprised how many tofu haters I have converted using grilled tofu. I am convinced that this is the way tofu tastes the best, hands down. It can pair up with any sauce you want, American BBQ, Asian, Mexican, Tandoori. I don’t suggest tofu with Italian spices, although I realize this may be just a matter of taste, in my opinion, the two don’t pair very well.  Marinate the tofu in sauces overnight and then brush your grill lightly with oil to prevent sticking. Grill like you would any meat.

Angel Food Cake

The food of the gods. Angel food cake is my personal diet savior. A big 3 inch slice is going to cost you about 160 calories, and no fake sugar or weird “diet flavors” just good old-fashioned cake flavor! Pair it up with fresh fruit, lots of fresh fruit. My favorite is what I like to call my Liberty Cake -  fresh blueberries, raspberries, strawberries paired up with angel food cake make a beautiful and patriotic cake for the 4th that everyone, including you, is going to enjoy.

Grilled Corn

This is another favorite and I dress them up with spices to match whatever main dish is being served. Spray a light coating of olive oil on the ears and then roll them in a mixture of spices of your choice and grill! You won’t believe how well corn can be paired with any cuisine.

Sun Tea

This is a summer party must have. This is so easy to make and a lot cheaper than soda. It’s also a lot better for you. It couldn’t be easier to make. Get a glass jar and select whatever tea you like the best and steep it in the jar with water. Park it out in direct sunlight for a few hours and then refrigerate. That’s it! To sweeten, don’t add sugar, add sprigs of fresh spearmint or mellissa.

Lemonade / Cherry Limeade

I have a product I’ve reviewed here before in mind for some refreshing, sweet and low-cal Lemonade and Cherry Limeades. See my post about True Lemon. They make two products that are outstanding for these drink recipes. Now, both of these drinks call for sparkling water, flavored or unflavored. Actually, flavored is best, lemon flavored for the lemonade recipe and lime flavored for the cherry limeade recipe. For the lemonade: Use the True Lemon “Naturally Sweet” Lemonade mix and mix into proportion to lemon sparkling water. Float some fresh lemons in the drink. For the cherry limeade: 2 packets of True Lime for every 12 oz of  lime flavored sparkling water, 2 tablespoons of cherry juice (or use a tablespoon of marischino cherry juice) and top with some fresh cherries or a couple of marischino cherries. Marischino are a kind of candied cherry for drinks; and the juice can be measured out of the jar to suit your taste. I find that a tablespoon works well in this recipe, giving it just enough sweetness when paired with a marischino, while remaining low-cal (about 30-40 calories).

Liquor.

You gotta have it, right? Well you’ve got plenty of low-cal choices, just be sure to count all of those calories and adjust your food intake. Vodka, Gin, and many beers make a good choice.

Fruit Snack Bowls

Instead of a bowl of chips on your 4th of July table, try a bowl of cherries! They are in season right now and the ones we’ve been getting around here are as sweet as candy.  If you can’t get away with a fruit bowl, try some baked crisps instead of fried.

But I’m such a priss about it. I like FRESH sliced lemons in my water.  The little packages of preserved lemon juices skeeve me out. It all tastes like plastic to me. Although the packaging is supposed to be “food safe” plastics, side by side, I can taste the difference between lemon juice from the lemon and the lemon juice that has been sitting around in plastic for a while. How can that plastic not be leeching into the lemon juice, especially since it is so acidic? I say, if you can taste plastic, you are ingesting plastic.

Check this lemon juice out:

I tried True Lemon this week and was really surprised how fresh it tasted! This is a crystallized lemon juice concentrate, not a liquid packaged in plastic. Wow and was it delicious in water! It’s good with cut fresh lemons as well, it really boosts the flavor. By itself, it make an excellent addition to water, I really could not tell the difference between the cut lemons and the True Lemon. Fantastic.

Haha. Now that I’ve sold you on how great this is, you want a free sample too, don’t you?  True Lemon is giving away free samples galore of their entire line of crystallized citrus juices, lemon, lime and orange. Their also giving away free samples of their lemonade product, Naturally Sweet.

Naturally Sweet is some heavy duty competition for Crystal Light!!! I’ve never liked Crystal Light. I hate fake sugar. I’d rather have a tart drink than one with fake sugar. I don’t include fake sugar in my diet plan at all. I was mildly surprised at the Naturally Sweet being as good as it is. It’s 5 calories for a packet mixed with 12 oz of water. They use a combo of cane juice and a natural stevia sweetener to sweeten this lemonade. The “mouth feel” is definitely superior to Crystal Light, and so is the flavor. There is still a bit of that stevia “aftertaste,” so I would not say that this low calorie lemonade is perfectly aftertaste free, nothing that uses sugar substitutes is. But, they far outdo their competition in this area, and it’s definitely one low calorie drink mix that doesn’t make me grit my teeth.

]]> http://www.msfatty.com/true-lemon-to-rock-your-world-people/feed/ 2 http://www.msfatty.com/you-know-what-you-are-supposed-to-do-you-just-dont-do-it/ http://www.msfatty.com/you-know-what-you-are-supposed-to-do-you-just-dont-do-it/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:26:56 +0000 Ms. Fatty Cake http://www.msfatty.com/?p=198 I am a dieting expert. I know every diet out there backwards and forwards and can talk about them in my sleep. I’ve tried almost everything, I think. Some good, some bad. If there is one thing about us fatties, we are experts in the field of diet, nutrition, and fitness, a vast majority of us are..

Wait… what???? Then how come we’re all a bunch of fatties if we know all this stuff??!?!  Simple – we have memorized the facts but can’t apply them to ourselves or fail every time we try to apply them to ourselves. The main culprits here of course being that awful appetite monster we all battle, and the lazy bum in a chair monster we battle.  I think the appetite monster takes first place for most of us, HENCE the reason “bariatric surgery works so well to cure diabetes,” according to medical experts. Well, hell yes it cures diabetes if you take someones appetite and ability to hold more than a couple of tablespoons of food at a time.

Here is how it was explained to me by a doctor once: As an obese person your digestive system is so accustomed to processing such huge quantities of food all the time, that when you take away that volume of food, for a while it is going to trip off the hunger signals to your brain like mad. If you can make it through 30-60 days of not cheating on a diet and eating a very calorie restricted and volume restricted diet, you will reset your hunger signals. You will. Absolutely guaranteed. He used a rather shocking illustration with me so that I could understand this more : In places of the world where there is mass starvation, and aid workers go in with food, it’s not like they can serve a huge plate of rice and beans to everyone. In a starvation situation the digestive system will not be able to handle meals, hence why they will start malnourished people on some tablespoons of liquid nutrient gruel, because when you stop eating for so long, you can’t hold down food very well. Essentially, the same thing takes place with bariatric surgery, the stomach contents are restricted to reset the appetite and ability to consume food.

But this same doctor also told me that no one needs bariatric surgery if they can reset their own digestive system on their own. And as I’m always talking about here, never cheating on your diet is the quickest way to get your body to start responding to food differently within a month or two of starting the diet.

Ok ok ok you say. So what?  Well, you understand the point well if you are saying so what at this point. Knowing what to do and doing it are different activities. It wasn’t until I started doing what I knew to be the right thing that I began to lose weight. It wasn’t until I started DOING that I lost my huge appetite. Doing means NEVER CHEATING. If you cheat, you just extend your pain. Seriously. Every time you want to cheat you have to tell yourself, if I break down and do this, it’s just going to extend the inevitable, which is, I either have to lose this weight now and suffer some of these horrible hunger pangs and headaches or I’m going to pay later. Now or later?

Say to yourself.. just today, just for today I will not cheat, I will not extend my suffering by cheating.