Day 7 - Weigh In

Well, everything I read and heard was absolutely true. Without any over-the-counter weight loss pills, without any real stress or strain, I lost over 7 pounds my first 7 full days on my "modified" juicing fast. Now, I know that there has been a lot of media lately regarding a book that says you can lose 21 pounds in 21 days, in fact that might be the title. But on that plan, you do nothing but juice, as I understand it. I have no doubt at all that it will work for just about anyone willing to do it. I wasn't. I want to eat something once in awhile. So I dug the juicer out of the back corner of the cupboard, dusted it off and set out to make the best tasting fruit and vegetable juices I could concoct, topped off each evening with a well balanced meal. That's the "modified" part of my plan. Oh, and I must also now admit that each morning I still have my one large cup of coffee. I consider that a moderate intake of caffeine, and my evening meal has a moderate amount of fat. What makes it possible for me to make it through the whole work day with nothing but juice is the fact that I am usually pretty busy all day. I find it harder to stick to the juice only during the weekend, but, except for the buffalo wings (boneless, skinless though), I even managed that. I've added in some time on the treadmill and at least four resistance workouts using my Bowflex.

One week might not prove anything to you, but it has convinced me that a little self-discipline and a good juicer will get me to my goal. At present I'm just making plans to continue one more week. I will reevaluate then whether to go for the third consecutive week, or stop there and do this again in a few months. The real proof, as with any weight loss plan, is whether I will keep the weight off with continued exercise and healthy eating habits. I don't expect that to be a problem, but I'll keep you posted.

Weight Loss Project - update

Tomorrow evening will mark 7 full days on my modified juicing fast, so I'll weigh in and let you know how the first week went. I actually started my project on a Friday, but didn't add the juice fast to it until last Wednesday morning.

Now I must 'fess up. I broke my own rules this last weekend while watching the NFL playoffs, and devoured an order of boneless, skinless wings. Still, I think they were fairly low-fat, and besides, the weight loss has continued fairly well, so I don't feel too guilty. No, that's not accurate. I don't feel even a little bit guilty. I want to be consistent with everything I've said in the past about dieting. DON'T go on a diet. Just don't waste your time. Instead, change your eating habits. If one certain day you just have an urge, and you keep it in moderation, so what? It is the day to day habitual pattern that will make all the difference in your life. If you are in the habit of eating a big bowl of ice cream each evening, that is likely to be a big problem for you eventually. However, if your daily routine is to eat a healthy, balanced meal each evening and you usually refrain from eating dessert, one bowl of ice cream should be yours to enjoy with no guilt. Just not every night.

Make it your goal to eat a well balanced, varied diet, with lots of brightly colored fresh fruits and vegetables in it. Try to avoid too many meals that fit the traditional pattern of meat, veggie, and a carbohydrate. The typical "white, brown, and green" meal of a baked potato, steak, and string beans. Not good. You would be better off to eat the potatoe and skip the meat, or eat the meat and skip the potato. Also, forget about three square meals a day, and shoot for five smaller meals a day. If you eat every three hours or so, smaller meals each time, you will more completely digest each meal and maintain a healthier glucose level in your system. Just make sure your last meal is at leat three to four hours before bedtime. Don't drink cold drinks with your meal either. A quick fast food burger with greasy fries and a soft drink will not do your long term health much good. Better to skip all drinks during and right after a meal.

Tommorow night - the weigh in!

Weight Loss Project - Day 7

I am pleased to report that I have lost 4.9 pounds in 7 days. I did not start my modified juice fast until the first week was well along, so I'm very happy with the results. My wife has joined me on the juice fast too. She started yesterday, and I appreciate her help cutting fruits and vegetables. We made a full 2.5 quart pitcher of vegetable juice yesterday in about 15 minutes, including cleanup. So I don't think anyone should blame lack of time for their failure to do this.

Now, about that 4.9 pounds. It is legitimate weight loss, but there is no way to say how significant it may be. Generally, health care professionals agree that 1.5 to 2 pounds per week is a good target for healthy weight loss, but that is with diet and exercise, and it is over a very long period. Not a weight loss project, but a change of lifestyle. What we are doing is more concentrated or focused, and from some points of view, a bit more extreme, though we are still eating one "normal" meal each evening. I expect the pounds to fall off at a faster rate early in the program, and taper off after the first 10 days to two weeks. We may decide to continue beyond that, up to three full weeks. That is a bit of a challenge, I admit it. Several times each of the last two days I wanted a double cheeseburger with everything right in the middle of the day. Instead I drank my vegetable juice and went back to work. About an hour later I felt a bit hungry, so I drank a large glass of water. The hunger went away. I can tell you that I look forward to my evening meal though!

It is worth mentioning here that losing weight is only one of my goals. As my doctor says, nothing much good happens over 200 pounds. With that in mind, one of my goals is to reduce my blood pressure, and another is to have more energy. I did feel more energetic throughout the day today, and I must say that I slept unusually well last night. But what about after the weight comes off? That's where the real test comes in. In order to maintain my new weight, it will be necessary to continue to eat healthy, balanced meals and to exercise regularly. For me, that should not be too hard, since I have been doing that most of my life. The weight I have put on crept up very slowly for the last 25 years, and especially over the last 10 after I quit playing racquetball two or three times a week. A torn ACL and long recovery from knee surgery was good for about 15 pounds all by itself. But I am staying fairly active even without racquetball. The real problem has been that my appetite didn't seem to understand that my activity level had changed, so I was consuming calories I couldn't burn. Doing a juice fast is an opportunity to recalibrate your metabolism and start fresh. Even if you only do it for a week, you will benefit in many ways. My plan is to do it for two weeks, and perhaps repeat it again in the summer. Now that my wife has decided to join me though, we might just stick with it the whole three weeks. Misery loves company.

Vegetable juice

My recipe is very flexible, but it always seems to include at least these items. Quantities of each vary a bit. If you want specific juice recipes for specific purposes e-mail me @ thenew50@gmail.com and I will try to help with that. Many conditions respond well to juicing. But for general health and specifically right now for weight loss with juice fasting, here's what I throw in the juicer.

1 bunch of broccoli stems and all - just cut off the dried ends
8 large carrots - cut off about an inch of the top, juice the rest
6 or 8 stalks of celery - the whole thing
1 or two stalks of fennel - the whole thing
leaf spinach - about three handfuls, squeezed together, pushed thru with some carrot

Here is where the juicing purists and I will differ. I don't feel like growing and juicing my own barley grass or wheat grass. Actually I like barley grass juice better because it is not as bitter as wheat grass. But what my wife and I decided to do is purchase some commercially prepared green juice that includes wheat grass, barley grass, kiwi, spirulina, blue/green algae, etc, and just pour that into our vegetable juice pitcher along with the rest. To juice the grasses properly requires a different type of juicer (press type) and I don't want to buy one. Besides, although I can buy bags of wheat grass at the farmers market, half of it will rot before I can use it. They don't seem to ever have barley grass. There are some excellent sites online that can help you set up your own growing flats if you really want to grow your own.

After the morning glass of water followed about 45 minutes later by fresh fruit juice, I drink an 8 oz serving of vegetable juice every two hours. I drink one more glass of fruit juice in the afternoon in place of the veggie juice. Then we have a fairly healthy, fairly low-fat evening meal. This is a variation of the juicing fast that makes it more tolerable for my wife and I both. The results are not as rapid or dramatic, but that is fine with us. I suspect that many people shy away from more extreme measures and so do nothing at all. If you decide to try this for up to 21 days, be sure you take a good multi-vitamin every day just to be sure you are getting all the basic nutrients, including folic acid, B6 and B12. These can help keep you homocysteine at a safe level. You may want to read my article on homocysteine posted @ http://wellnessafter50.blogspot.com/.

You will probably really look forward to your evening meals if you follow this plan. I know I do!
If at any time during the day you feel a little hungry, do not drink additional juice. You don't want or need the added calories. Just get a drink of cold filtered water.

Let us know how this works for you. Your comments might inspire others to do something healthy for themselves.

Fruit juice recipe

For my morning fruit juice I use the following:
4 to 6 apples
1 pear
grapes - a bunch about the size of my fist
1/3 of a pineapple
1/2 cup blueberries

I juice these items, finishing with the apple because it is most firm and helps push through the softer fruits. I find this blend to be delicious and sweet, but as I mentioned in an earlier article, it is rich in calories, so I dilute it with 1/3 water. This gives me enough for about three days, drinking an 8 ounce glass in the morning and one in the afternoon. tomorrow we'll talk about the vegetable juice recipe.

Weight Loss Project - The Juice

I want to tell you a bit about today's trip to the farmers market for fresh fruits and vegetables to juice. But first let me say that I understand that for some of you, buying and using a juicer is not practical or possible. A good juicer is not inexpensive, and it does take some time to clean and cut and juice the fruits and vegetables, and there is a good bit of cleanup as well. So if it is a matter of cost, we'll talk about some alternatives to buying your own juicer. Ask friends and relatives if they have a juicer you can borrow. You might be surprised how many people own juicers they never use. But if it is a matter of the time it takes to do this, remember that drinking your meals means you don't have to spend time preparing those meals or washing dishes. So don't talk your self out of this because you think you don't have time. You do. You have time for everything you believe is important, whatever it is. Shouldn't your health be pretty high on your list of priorities?

If buying a juicer is not in your budget, can you go to a health food store or natural foods grocery, or maybe a large farmers market? At the very least, can you take some extra time on your next trip to the grocery store to look in the produce area for bottled juices? There are now several companies that grow their own produce and market their own labels of juices, and I'm not talking about orange juice from concentrates. In our local chain grocery store there are many juices with no added sugar or preservatives that contain what juice, barley juice, spirulina, kiwi, celery, you name it. In the farmers market we found fresh wheat grass juice in addition to a number of other interesting choices. The only drawbacks to some of the bottled juices have to do with the inability to add or leave out certain things according to your individual needs or personal taste, and the fact that some are calorically very dense. To reduce the number calories in a single 8 ounce glass of juice, you can dilute it with filtered water. Lets say that you determine that one serving is 280 calories. Why not mix a half glass of water with a half glass of juice and only take in 140 calories? Easy enough. My point is that you can find ways to do this if you really want to. You might not be one of those folks whose results are not typical, losing 30 pounds in 30 days. But would you be happy to lose 30 pounds in the next 90 days?

Ok, back to the farmers market. Where we live there is a huge international market, and I love going there because you can find fruits and vegetables you've never seen before. I like to try new things, so when I see someone selecting some strange looking fruit or vegetable, I politely ask them how they prepare it and what it tastes like. they are always happy to comply. For my weight loss project though, I'm going to stick to what I know for the next few weeks. My goal is not to follow some published book or online system, but to create my own based on all I've read. The principle of of weight loss or weight gain is simple: to lose, consume fewer calories than you burn; to gain, put in more than you burn. Works pretty much like your bank account.

As you decide what juices to prepare, remember this simple guideline. Fruit juices to cleanse, vegetables juices to repair or build. But be sure to drink a good combination of both. If you are trying to lose weight, you will want to drink more vegetable juices than fruit juices. And remember that fruit juices usually have more calories per ounce than vegetable.

My shopping list today looked like this:
BROCCOLI
CARROTS
CELERY
CUCUMBER
FENNEL
SPINACH
WHEAT GRASS/BARLEY GRASS

APPLES
BLUEBERRY
GRAPES
PEAR
PINEAPPLE
GRAPEFRUIT
ORANGE
STRAWBERRY

My total bill today was about $38. I will make two pitchers of juice this evening. Including cleanup time it might take me 2 hours. I will have enough juice for the next four days, or maybe five. Each of those days I will begin with a 10 ounce glass of cold, filtered water. 45 minutes or so after that I will have a glass off fruit juice consisting of apple, carrot, parsley, blueberry, and strawberry most of the time. For variety, I will make grapefruit juice by peeling a thin layer of skin off, leaving as much white pulp as possible, and maybe throwing in half an apple. Same thing with orange juice. It taste nothing like the orange juice you've been drinking! It is thicker and creamier and a lot healthier. Every two hours I will have an 8 oz. to 10 oz. glass of juice. The water first, then fruit juice, then every two hours another glass of juice. Here's the important part, as far as I'm concerned. Each time I drink a glass of fruit juice, the next TWO times I drink vegetable juice. Perhaps because I lack discipline, or maybe because I'm not in a rush to reach my goal, I will eat a relatively "normal" meal each evening. Tonight it is a nice filet of wild caught salmon in an orange juice reduction with some steamed broccoli. Oh, and I will admit to a couple of cookies. See! You can do this! More tomorrow. If you have questions, let me know. Comments are welcome.

Weight Loss - Day 5

After a few little fits and starts, I'm beginning to settle in to a new routine. I avoided the scale until this morning because I don't see any reason to check yourself constantly. I don't want or need that kind of pressure in my life. Weigh yourself once or twice a week if you must. What is far more important is that you weigh yourself at about the same time of day and that you are in very much the same condition each time. So if you set your benchmark when you begin by weighing in at 7 am after your shower, before your coffee, wearing only your unmentionables, then try to do precisely that each time you weigh in.

Before I tell you what my results were after five days, let me just say thank you to all those who seem to be following along. The number of visitors daily is growing, and that is gratifying to see, though it appears that most of you are too busy or too shy to post a comment. If shyness is the issue, then I would still encourage you to say hello by e-mail and let me know how I'm doing. Your feedback is very important. I would also like to hear how YOU are doing.

Now, day 5. My daily routine is basic and it is not iron clad, but the results in just 5 days are encouraging. I've lost, according to my digital scale, 3.8 pounds. I fully expect that I will not be able to sustain that rate without making some iron clad rules though, so I do not plan to lose 25 pounds in 25 days. Frankly, I haven't exercised as much these first five days as planned to. Maybe I was dreaming. But I did get in several good walks and started doing some upper body work. I even threw in several sets of pushups while I was watching football playoff games.
My job in a manufacturing lab sometimes is sedentary, and on those days I really have to push myself to do more in the evening. I would prefer to get more exercise earlier in the day, but since I start work at 6 am, that's just not a practical plan. One thing I would encourage you to do as you plan your own weight loss project is build some flexibility into your plan. That way if something unexpected comes up, you don't feel like you've lost your way or that your project has been derailed. Remember this, a guided misssile is ALWAYS off course up to the instant it makes the final course correction and hits the target. So you will get off course too, maybe more often than you would like, but don't let that even slow you down or dampen your enthusiasm. If you set out to do something good, something you thought was important, remember that. And always be willing to refocus your mental image as needed. You can do anything that is important to you. Anything!

Weight loss - DAY 1

First thing this morning I drank a 16 ounce glass of cold water. No food, no coffee, just water. I then waited at least 45 minutes before my next intake. That was a delicious drink called Green Goodness that is produced by Bolthouse Farms. I am not promoting any particular products on this blog, but I will tell you what I like and why. Green juices may be an excellent source of nutrition including phytonutrients and this particular one provides 2 grams of protein in 8 ounces, containing things like wheat grass, spirulina, spinach and blue-green algae in an apple juice base along with kiwi, mango, banana and dragon fruit, that just tastes good. From this one glass of juice I get more than 100% of my daily requirement of vitamins A and C, 30% of folic acid, 15% of vitamin B6, 30% of B12, and well over 100% of Manganese and Zinc. I should also mention that I continue to take my normal daily supplements.

Over the next few weeks I will increase my juice intake and decrease my intake of solid foods. Most of the juice will be made fresh using my own juicer, but for convenience I will also use some juices purchased at the local grocery. For this first day, lunch will be a single boiled egg for protein, and another glass of juice. This time it will be C-Boost also from Bolthouse Farms. As the name implies, it is loaded with vitamin C from all natural sources. Though I really like the taste of this juice, as time permits I prefer to drink freshly made juices. That requires a well-planned trip to the farmers market, so I will have to fit that into my weekend schedule if possible.

Before the evening meal I will walk 30 to 45 minutes, either outdoors or on a treadmill. Every two hours, all day, I will drink either juice or water. This will help detoxify my body and push me toward losing weight. Keep in mind though, that healthy weight loss, and maintaining a healthy body requires exercise. There is no magic way around it, so find something you can enjoy and get busy! I sometimes walk on the treadmill while playing a game on my Playstation2, or watching something interesting on television. Outdoors, there is so much to look at while walking that the time goes by fairly quickly. Add to the walking at least three sessions each week of using some weights or working with equipment to keep the muscles toned. We lose 3% to 5% of our muscle mass every decade we live past 25 unless we actively do something to combat that loss. If you want to be healthy and vigorous well into your 70's and 80's and beyond, exercise is a key component. I'm more concerned with staying physically active than I am with my weight, and I just don't believe the Body Mass Index (BMI) is the sole arbiter of what a healthy weight is either. Good to know, but only part of the total picture. In a few days I'll post an update on how this project is going. I hope you will post your comments and join in!

Weight loss - with Juice!

I have been asked several times now about safe but lasting weight loss. This seems to be a very common thread that runs through many of the e-mails I receive. The problem for so many of us is that we have become an "instant" society. We want results, and we want them NOW!!! But weight loss generally can only be accomplished in much the same way that weight gain happens - gradually, over time. If you want to risk your long-term health using risky and often totally unproven over the counter weight loss miracle pills, this blog will not be of interest to you. I am interested in staying healthy, and helping others to do the same, not putting our health at risk. But if you are interested in really losing weight at a steady rate, and keeping it off, I will devote articles over the next three to four weeks on proven methods of doing just that. Since I have recently added a few pounds myself, I have decided to make some serious changes including losing a minimum of 25 pounds. I will keep you posted on what I am doing to accomplish this and provide updates at least once each week on how I'm doing. I hope it will inspire others to do the same. Here's a hint on just how I intend to start: juice. Lots of fresh fruit and vegetable juices. So if you have a juicer, get it out from under all the pots and pans and clean it up and let's get started. My first weight loss article will be published on 1/4/08 and I hope you will join us.
If you are willing to provide just a first name and your weight loss goal in pounds in the comment area, we'll try to all keep each other motivated and on target to reach our goals. So, until tomorrow...

Weight Loss With Water?

It really might be just that easy!

For many years now doctors in Japan have been prescribing this water routine for their patients for all sorts of health conditions. But people who need to lose weight are often told that water retention is part of their problem, so INCREASING their water intake seems counter-intuitive. Let me explain. The body tends to automatically store things it needs when it senses that it might not be getting a resupply on a regular basis. This applies to fat and water too! For this article, lets just stick to water. We'll talk about fat retention another time.

In many cases people who have a water retention problem are those who do not drink enough water. Many of us are dehydrated and don't even know it. If you are fatigued all the time, if you have high blood pressure, poor circulation, frequent headaches, if you tend to overeat, if you can't seem to lose weight --- you may be dehydrated. Think about this. If you are not getting enough water, you may be compelled to overeat because your body is trying to get more fluids by any means. And since you are not giving it the fluids it needs to function properly, it hoards what little water you give it. Sure, you give it a bit of water when you drink coffee or soft drinks, but not enough. And those things may contain caffeine, chemical sweeteners, preservatives, and flavorings that are not of much benefit.

In addition to hoarding water, dehydration makes it difficult for the kidneys to function properly, so you are not able to properly metabolize fats. The result? Your liver can't support the kidneys and soon your body is storing not only water but fat as well. So what have we been told to do? Low fat diets, right? With what you've read so far, can you figure out the inevitable result of a low fat diet? Since fat is essential for proper body function, if you are not getting enough dietary fat, your body will begin to store fat as a protection. So now we have dehydrated people with storage locations of extra interstitial fat. One common location for this fat storage is around the liver. Not good. Again, we'll talk about fat later. Back to the water.

Next weekend, why not begin to give your body the water it needs to stay healthy? Wait for the weekend because for the first few days you will be making frequent trips to the restroom. But within a few days of this increased water intake, your body will begin to regulate it and those trips will become less frequent. Oh, you might also want to taper off the water drinking toward evening so you don't have to get up in the middle of the night. With that said, here is what is now recommended by a growing number of healthcare professionals. First thing in the morning drink a large (10 oz) glass of cold water. Do not drink or eat anything after that for 45 minutes or so. This will "kick-start" your metabolism and rehydrate your body after a night of rest. Water allows your body to flush out waste and toxins, and is essential for proper function down to the cell level. The next step is to increase the total daily intake of water to about two quarts (2-3 liters) every day. This is best done by spreading it out over the entire day. And please do not use bottled water! The bottles are a terrible burden on our ecology and the recent reports indicate that they are leaching harmful substances into the water we drink from them as well.
I use a stainless coffee travel mug, a large one. I will admit that I do sometimes substitute plain water with green tea. But no other fluid counts. Not juice, soft drinks, or coffee.

Once your body becomes accustomed to getting all the water it needs, it will stop hoarding it. Your skin tone will improve. Many people report that they get a "lift" from their morning glass of water. It wakes up the whole system. Given enough water to work with, the kidneys begin to function more efficiently, and the liver can do its job of secreting bile to assist in metabolizing the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E & K and helps the body assimilate calcium. With enough water, the liver can also more efficiently work as the body's detoxifier, and it can produce the GTF necessary (along with insulin from the pancreas) to properly regulate blood sugar levels. Water is essential for the circulation of blood. If you are dehydrated, your blood becomes thicker leading to reduced circulation and a whole cascade of related problems, including high blood pressure.

The body is a very complex organism, wonderfully made with the ability to keep itself healthy if we give it the basics, like water. You don't have to like drinking water, but you must admit it is a lot less distasteful than a lot of medicines, and a lot less expensive!! So, drink up!

A SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE EXERCISE

Want to tighten up your stomach without doing crunches? Good! Crunches aren't the best way. In fact, they can cause other problems. Everything I've read consistently says that spot reduction is not possible, and all the fitness gurus seem to agree that unless you remove the layer of fat covering your abdomen, even if you have a six-pack you won't be able to see it. So let's talk about a long term approach that will get results. If you are interested in being a baby boomer body builder (too many B's for me!), then this will not interest you. But if you are willing to do incremental things on a regular basis that will give long-term, lasting results, follow me.Whether male or female, this exercise can be beneficial. It is not a replacement for any other regular exercise you may get, but the nice thing is that you can do this WHILE you are doing something else that is part of your daily routine. Like applying makeup or shaving, or brushing your teeth. It's called the Stomach Vaccuum. Here's how it goes.

First, stand erect, straight back, in a comfortable stance. Now inhale deeply, as you slowly begin to exhale, pull your stomach in tight, as though trying to touch your belly button to your backbone. Now completely exhale, slowly. When your lungs are empty, continue to hold the vaccuum for another few seconds, then relax. In time, you should work up to at least ten repetitions of this exercise, and hold your final vaccuum position for at least ten seconds before releasing each time. You may find that doing this makes you a little light headed at first, and you should probably only do a few reps to begin with. But in time, you can do several sets each day. Remain erect as you squeeze the abdominal muscles. Don't curve your back or hunch your shoulders. Oh, and keep in mind that it is probably a good idea to do this before a meal, not after.

Do this every day for at least six weeks before you decide if this is worthwhile. It is not strenuous, but you will soon see that exercise doesn't always need to be a sweaty struggle.