How to sabotage your new healthy lifestyle

So you're looking to screw up your healthy new lifestyle that has been making you feel better, lose weight, and has given you more energy.

Well, let me tell you how you can do it in just a few easy steps.

1. First, spend time thinking about how unfair it is that others can eat the foods you want to eat.
   The most important part about this step is to surround yourself with two kinds of people. You want to make sure you have people around you that have never had a real weight problem and that tend to eat whatever they want. You'll also want to be sure to spend time around people that have a weight problem or better yet type 2 diabetes, but have decided to just eat whatever they want regardless of whatever it does to their health.
   
   Once you've surrounded yourself with these people, you'll want to make sure that you savor every bite of food they eat. With each bite of candy bar, french fry, or slice of pizza, you'll want to visualize how absolutely irresistibly delicious it must be.
   
   Don't forget that it would be totally worth it, regardless of how crummy you feel after eating it or how much the numbers on the scale move up. That piece of cake, doughnut, or chocolate bar is guaranteed to be the best you've ever had.
   
   
2. Second, you'll want to make sure you give in to a craving
   As your friends/coworkers/family described in the previous step are eating their until their hearts content, make sure you take them up on their suggestion that "one bite won't hurt", "everything's okay in moderation", or "you're being too hard on yourself". Once you've realized that one bite really can't hurt, that everything really is okay in moderation, or that you really are being too hard on yourself, it's your chance to go ahead and give in! Dig in and enjoy!
   There are really two different approaches here, you can either just have a bite and tell yourself that you'll be okay now, or you can go all out and tell yourself it's just this one time.
   
   
3. Third, repeat step 2 as often as necessary to completely destroy your health and more importantly your commitment to a healthy lifestyle.
   I know that part of step 2 was to tell yourself that it was "just this one time". Remember that even if you know you're going to do this again tomorrow or next week, it's really important to keep saying "just this once".
   
   
4. The fourth and final step is to think about how impossible it is for anyone to continue low-carb for the rest of their life.
   This is the final nail in the coffin for your healthy lifestyle. Make sure you convince yourself that you couldn't possibly have lived that way for the rest of your life anyway. I mean regardless of how much better you felt, it would be impossible for someone to stick to eating just whole natural foods for the rest of their life anyway.
   

That's my definitive guide for how to blow your healthy low-carb lifestyle.

Each person may require their own blend of unique steps to ruining their commitment to their healthy lifestyle, so make sure you fine tune the program to your needs.

One thing to remember is that once you've gotten yourself started on ruining your commitment to a healthy lifestyle, it should be pretty easy to keep the ball rolling. After even a short time you'll find that your body and mind will get more committed to ruining your good health and you'll be back to your old self in no time!

If you've got any advice that has helped you or others close to you destroy a healthy lifestyle, feel free to throw your two cents into comments.

Best of luck,
Alex

How to talk to your doc

Before you make any major lifestyle changes like changing your diet or starting an exercise routine it's important to talk to your doctor. I know you probably think that's probably the same load of baloney that you here all the time, but I'll tell you how I've talked to my docs about my lifestyle changes and what I saw for improvements in my health and I'll tell you why you ought to go to the doc before you start mixing things up.

Why you should go to the doctor before changing your lifestyle?

1. You may have pre-existing conditions that you ought to be aware of before you start changing things up.
   Healthy low-carb living is all about figuring out what makes you feel the best and what improves your health the most. From day one, you'll be listening to your body and it's needs to decide what you need to do and eat. Only if you're truly informed can you make the best decisions.
   
2. If you take medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc. these conditions may begin to improve within days of starting your new lifestyle.
   It's important to let your doc know about your changes, so they can adjust your medication accordingly.
3. Everybody loves 'before and after' pictures.
   Going to the doctor before you start changing your lifestyle is a great way to get a 'before' picture of your health and your follow up visits will be a great picture of your health 'during' your lifestyle changes. It's also a great chance for your doc to see a good example of what a healthy low-carb lifestyle can do for you!
   
4. The low-carb lifestyle needs more advocates who know the truth about how low-carb can positively affect your health and an open dialogue with your doc is the best way to educate medical professionals and ensure your success.
   This may no be an easy conversation with your doctor because of their misconceptions about the low-carbohydrate lifestyle and their expectations about what will happen to your body when you adopt this lifestyle. To prepare for some of your doctor's misconceptions about your new lifestyle, check out my "Low Carb Myths" posts.

Now for my experience with my doctors:

After I reached a high of about 285 pounds and my wife reached a high of "too much for her" (I will respect her by not putting any numbers here), I decided to go talk to my doctor about what I could do. I had a general checkup done where they checked blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar. I don't know what my blood pressure was, but I know that I saw another doctor one time shortly before I adopted the low-carb lifestyle and within a couple minutes, he said he wanted to talk about blood pressure medication the next time I cam back. My cholesterol was generally low, but my HDL was really low, my triglycerides were through the roof, and when I went to see an endocrinologist, he told me my blood sugar was "a little high". The endocrinologist warned me that if my weight didn't come down, I was probably heading for type 2 diabetes. His suggestion was that I try to reduce my carbohydrate consumption a little because most people eat 300-400 grams of carbohydrate a day and I ought to reduce that to about 200 grams. I asked if a low-carbohydrate diet would be an effective choice and he said it would work, but he didn't think I could stick with it.
I took his initial advice and listened to a friend of mine who suggested a diet of reduced carbohydrates. I quickly started feeling better and dropped 10 pounds in a week or two, but that was it. After a few weeks, I decided to get on the low-carb bandwagon whole hog. The next time I went back to my doctor, she noted that my triglycerides had come down substantially from somewhere above 200 to around 80. She also noted that I lost some weight and complimented me on whatever I was doing.

So now, my triglycerides are about 30 (spectacular), my HDL is around 60 (up about 100% from before low-carb), and my LDL is the same. My blood pressure is consistently around 120-130/70-80, pretty good overall, although sometimes it's as low as 110/70. I lost over 60 pounds from before I started low-carb and I maintain that pretty effortlessly.

I've recently been talking to my doc about some other issues I'm having which have persisted since I was a teen and I talked to her about what I've been eating, and she didn't really care as all my tests come out great.

How to prepare before you go to talk to your doc:

• Do your low-carb research before you go to the doctor. Read one of the the great books on low-carb living such as Protein Power Lifeplan, Living the Low Carb Life,or Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution are great places to start. Also check out some of the other blogs I link to. If you want to be successful at improving your health while living a low-carbohydrate lifestyle, then reading at least one of these books is a must.
  
• Know why you think low-carb will work for you.
• What problems do you have that you hope will be remedied by living low-carb?
• Don't forget to check out low-carb myths so you know what your doc will be concerned about. Remember, many of them have had very little education on the subject of nutrition and they hear all the same propaganda as you do about the "evils" of fat.
• When your doc has objections, indicate your understanding of their concerns and ask what tests they could perform (within your budget) to confirm that you're living a healthy low-carb lifestyle. Your willingness to acknowledge their concerns will go a long way to ensuring your good health and your doctor's buy in to your lifestyle changes.

Have you been to the doctor? What was your experience like?
Know any New England doctors who are knowledgeable about the benefits of low-carb?
Any advice I missed here that you think is vital?

Your thoughts?

Cheers,
Alex

PS. Don't fear the fat!

At the grocery store...

If you've already read my post about Foods to Avoid, then hopefully you caught the part about not focusing too much on what you can't eat and trying to focus on all that you can eat (an upcoming post). That being said, a good strategy at the grocery store can help you stay on track, avoid unnecessary temptation, and make the most out of your time spent shopping.

Rule number one:
Most of your time spent in the grocery store should be on the perimeter or the outside edge of the store. That's where all the really healthy stuff is: vegetables, fruits, nuts, cheeses, meat, and eggs. All those extra aisles in the store house all the empty calories you should avoid in the form of cereals, chips, crackers, sweets, pasta, etc. You don't need any of that.

Rule number two:
Some of the inside aisles do have some healthy stuff, but you have to know where to look. Canned vegetable aisles are good if you need some canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste or some other canned low-carb veggie (pass on the corn and peas). The condiment aisle is a good one to hit too. There you'll find mayonnaise, mustard, salad dressings, marinades, and sauces. I buy regular "real" mayonnaise, it has sugar, but very little. When buying mustards, dressings, etc. watch out for added sugars. Pass on mustard that has more than 1 gram of sugar per serving, dressings with more than 2 grams of sugar per serving, and sauces that have more than 5 grams of sugar per serving. These are rules of thumb, you'll develop your own judgment as time goes on, but for now, use mine.

Rule number three:
You're going to buy lots of fresh healthy foods. You can save a lot by shopping smart. Watch your local grocer's specials on meats. Every few weeks they'll have boneless skinless chicken breast on sale, then the next week they'll have some kind of steak on sale, then they'll have burger on sale. If you only buy when the stuff is on sale, then you'll save a bundle. I wait for these sales, buy a couple extra packs of whatever and pop them in the freezer for later. Fruits and veggies go on sale in the same way. You may not be able to freeze and thaw them in the same way, but you can certainly buy the stuff that's in season or on sale to save yourself some dough. I've found that going to a pick your own farm or a farmer's market is a great way to get the super freshest affordable fruits and veggies. Check out PickYourOwn.org for where to find your local PYO.

I'd love to give you a dozen more rules, but I can't. It's really that simple. Just stay on the outside edge of the store, pop into only the aisles you need for some dressings and sauces, and grab the stuff you buy the most of, meats and veggies, when it's on sale. Buy local whenever you can to save some green and be green.

If you have some ideas or tips to save some green or be more green, drop me a comment or send me an email at lowcarbnewengland@gmail.com.

Cheers,
Alex

PS. Don't fear the fat!