What are you eating?!
We are coming up on the one year mark since I embarked on some major lifestyle changes. 65 pounds gone and a ways to go yet, I find myself thinking about how far I've really come. It's not about the pounds anymore. It's about how I feel. Do I have the energy to get out of bed? How are my pain levels? Does the thought of leaving the house fill me with dread or excitement? Yep. I've come a long long way this year.
How, you ask? There is no easy answer to that question. I started with small changes. I stopped drinking soda. Then I gave up candy. Then I gave up sugar, period. Then came potatoes, rice, corn, grains, excessively starchy vegetables in general, overly sugary fruits, anything containing corn syrup or other sweeteners...and that brings me to today.
I read labels now. Yep. And it has been an eye-opener! My GOD this country has gone to hell, nutritionally speaking. They put sugar and/or corn syrup in nearly EVERYTHING we eat. If it comes in a box, bottle, jar or can chances are very good they added some of that sweet crap. No wonder grains make up the base of the government approved food pyramid. Who ever is producing the lion's share of the grain, beets or cane that give us these sweeteners must be freaking RICH. We are a nation of addicts. Yes. I said it. You are all addicted to that sickly sweet CRAP that passes as food in the average American diet. I know. I was THERE this time last year. It wasn't pretty.
Don't get me started on GMOs. What is a GMO, you ask? Google it. It's not enough that we keep all our farmers employed. No. We have to tamper with the genetics of our food so it grows faster, bigger, more drought and blight resistant... What's wrong with that? Isn't that a good thing? Well, no. Not when these genetically altered food sources haven't had any long term testing done. We feed this stuff to our children. Hello? Alarming rise in autism rates? Depression? Other forms of altered brain chemistry, cancers, auto-immune disorders, on and on. We can't blame it all on pesticides, pollution and other worldly ills.
OK! So we swear off GMOs, sweet crap and unhealthy starches. Now what? A nice juicy steak, some healthy green veggies like kale, some creamy Greek yogurt with fresh juicy strawberries...wait. That cow has been injected with hormones and antibiotics to make it fatter and more disease resistant. The meat and milk are tainted with it. That kale and those strawberries were sprayed with 13 different kinds of pesticides and no amount of washing will fix it.
Now what? Organic! Grass fed! No hormones or antibiotics! Free range! Yes! Crud. My supermarket carries hardly any of these kinds of products. The few organic things I can find are nearly twice as expensive.
Sure, I've found a few places I can order in bulk, online. CRAZY expensive sources. I could start raising my own cows, pigs, chickens, veggies and fruits... hahahaha! I may have been born in farm country, but I'm no farmer.
So that's it then. I'll just stop eating. It's the only solution. :p
How, you ask? There is no easy answer to that question. I started with small changes. I stopped drinking soda. Then I gave up candy. Then I gave up sugar, period. Then came potatoes, rice, corn, grains, excessively starchy vegetables in general, overly sugary fruits, anything containing corn syrup or other sweeteners...and that brings me to today.
I read labels now. Yep. And it has been an eye-opener! My GOD this country has gone to hell, nutritionally speaking. They put sugar and/or corn syrup in nearly EVERYTHING we eat. If it comes in a box, bottle, jar or can chances are very good they added some of that sweet crap. No wonder grains make up the base of the government approved food pyramid. Who ever is producing the lion's share of the grain, beets or cane that give us these sweeteners must be freaking RICH. We are a nation of addicts. Yes. I said it. You are all addicted to that sickly sweet CRAP that passes as food in the average American diet. I know. I was THERE this time last year. It wasn't pretty.
Don't get me started on GMOs. What is a GMO, you ask? Google it. It's not enough that we keep all our farmers employed. No. We have to tamper with the genetics of our food so it grows faster, bigger, more drought and blight resistant... What's wrong with that? Isn't that a good thing? Well, no. Not when these genetically altered food sources haven't had any long term testing done. We feed this stuff to our children. Hello? Alarming rise in autism rates? Depression? Other forms of altered brain chemistry, cancers, auto-immune disorders, on and on. We can't blame it all on pesticides, pollution and other worldly ills.
OK! So we swear off GMOs, sweet crap and unhealthy starches. Now what? A nice juicy steak, some healthy green veggies like kale, some creamy Greek yogurt with fresh juicy strawberries...wait. That cow has been injected with hormones and antibiotics to make it fatter and more disease resistant. The meat and milk are tainted with it. That kale and those strawberries were sprayed with 13 different kinds of pesticides and no amount of washing will fix it.
Now what? Organic! Grass fed! No hormones or antibiotics! Free range! Yes! Crud. My supermarket carries hardly any of these kinds of products. The few organic things I can find are nearly twice as expensive.
Sure, I've found a few places I can order in bulk, online. CRAZY expensive sources. I could start raising my own cows, pigs, chickens, veggies and fruits... hahahaha! I may have been born in farm country, but I'm no farmer.
So that's it then. I'll just stop eating. It's the only solution. :p
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