Diet.... Shmiet....

Well I been updating my status about this stuff I've been eating for the past couple o days and people are asking what weirdo diet I'm on now.

What diet is it? I have no idea. It's just eating the good stuff in different ways and in moderation.

I'm 36 years old and I'm morbidly obese. OMG. I said it outloud - better yet, my actual weight is 347.8lbs as of today. BMI is like 51.2. It's horrible. But might as well be honest about what is and just have it out there. It ain't like you can really hide that much weight in clothing anyways. So my tip is - weigh, don't be shy, and just come to terms with the fact that you're fat. You're unhealthy. And it sucks. The good news? I'm not (and you're not) dead - yet! So there's still hope :)

I've been eating all the wrong stuff for a long time. I've drank too much, smoked too much, sat down too much, etc etc. If you can't admit all these bad things about yourself then you gotta get there first. Otherwise, don't worry about buying all this healthy food because it won't do you know good if you're still in denial.

I figure for me, my body, I'm just as good an expert as any dietician/Doctor/etc. I've done just about every diet in the book. Fad diets don't work - especially those that have an infomercial that starts out by saying "fad diets don't work!". We need to eat, eat good, eat often, but not doublecheeseburgers with fries and a coke. We know what's good for us - we just don't eat it cuz we've conditioned our taste buds so much with the fast food that we enjoy the bad stuff more than the good stuff. So we just gotta suck it up, eat the good bad-tasting stuff until we reprogram the taste buds.

Do I have any rules? I guess - I dunno. Some things I've learned from other diets that actually are true and make sense and work:

• Too many carbs are bad since they just make you feel all blah and you crash and burn. So anything with all that corn syrup or more sugar than nutrients doesn't work for most people.
  
• Stay away from fast food. Unless you're getting salads from there, it's unlikely that any of it has much nutritional value and will just make you blah. Even in sit-down restaurants getting the good stuff and it being a good value doesn't happen very often. Go to the grocery, cook, chop, blend, and stay home.
  
• When you go to the grocery store, stay away from the middle aisles. Stay on the perimeter of the stores where the fresh meat & fresh produce are located. I do sneak in the middle to get that Quinoa stuff that is a whole protein but otherwise - RUN away from the middle aisles! lol
  
• You need as much un-processed food as possible. All this fat-free, low fat, omg-this-is-good-for-u-just-cuz-we-put-it-on-the-label food is unnecessary and not even good for you. Real food has some fat in it. We need it. Some have cholesterol, carbs, sugars, and other stuff that we've been told is omg so bad - well we need some of that stuff to function - that's why it's in the food naturally! What we don't need is unnatural addition of this stuff to food and trust me if they are taking some of it out - like fat free - then they've added something else like sodium or sugar to make it taste better and entice us to eat more of it. So while it may be fat free it still sucks - just in another way. So don't buy that - just buy the real thing in the produce aisle.
  
• Usually the darker color of the fruit or veggie, the better it is for you. Dark green leafy stuff is good for you. Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries - all deep in color are great for you. Bland white potatoes? Not so much. In moderation - sure.
  
• As Momma Laura has said Everything in Moderation is okay. If you could actually do cocaine in moderation it probably wouldn't be bad for you. It's when you eat so much of something that it kills you. Even if you went wild and ate a gazillion stalks of kale, it'd be harmful somehow at some point. So just don't go crazy over one thing.

So what I am doing:

- Morning shake: Bananas, spinach, soy milk, protein powder and other stuff - but those three things are basically the building block for the morning shake.

- Lunch shake: Kale, berries, yogurt, protein powder, and other stuff - this one is kinda making me sleepy so I gotta figure that out.

- Dinner: Salad on crack! Half chicken breast, kale, spinach, romaine, ranch, cheese, bacon pieces, croutons, eggs, celery, carrots, red onion, broccoli, garlic cloves.... who knows what else. Lotta green stuff. Some meat. Some "evil" stuff but just a lil (ranch, croutons).

- Snack Shake: Pineapple, protein powder, water, ice, strawberry. This is kinda like dessert. Smaller shake.

But we're gonna switch up ingredients but still stay on those same guidelines. Also, if we can find ways to still have lower calorie ways of eating these types of food instead of a shake, we'll mix that in too - like we had scrambled eggs this morning but it was full of kale, spinach, garlic, and all good stuff.

So there you have it. There is no recipe book. I just am doing what feels right. And no I'm not talking about the way that a snickers bar feels right. You know what I'm talking about.

OHhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah.... We ARE counting calories, and Ed is counting cholesterol too. My current goal caloric intake is 2250 - but see our bodies burn certain amount of calories just sitting on your butt. Breathing, peeing, showering, etc. all takes some energy. And if you're big like me - I'm burning about 2500 calories a day already. NOW does that mean you should sit on your butt? Well no. My goal is 30 mins a day, 3 times a week. If you fail, just start again. It ain't easy.

OH and we're using the MyFitnessPal app if you wanna add us on there - djjazzyj - I don't remember Ed's but he's one of my friends on there.

I wonder how many calories I burned typing this? Feels like 9million. Jeez. Bye people :)