Reboot Tools for a New Year

It's a new year. A time to make and break resolutions--or to succeed. I've been stalled on my weight loss for several months now. Why? It's a tangled mesh of external factors that challenge me and my own bad choices. Time to start anew. Why do I want to lose weight? Well, I'm past the age of wanting to rock a bikini, so here's what I want to achieve and why: 

• Lose weight to lower my blood sugar and cholesterol and get off metformin forever. 
• Strengthen my core so that my lower back is more stable and pain free (I have degenerative disc disease in my lower back as many of us middle-aged folk do). 
• Increase my cardio endurance to keep my heart healthy and so I can get back to some activities I used to enjoy when I was younger. 
• Advance in yoga so I remain flexible.
• Take up weight-bearing exercises to strengthen my bones. 
• Stay healthy physically so that I can maintain mental clarity.

I want to live a long life, but I want a healthy long life. I want to age "gracefully" and maintain my independence as long as I can. I'd like to enjoy my grand children some day and pursue a useful and meaningful life for as long as I can. 

I'm rebooting. I've assembled some "tools" to help me. Here they are--take a look. Some of them you may find useful. 

Nutrition Tools 

• Dr. Fuhrman's Eat-to-Live books. For those who wish to transition to a vegan, plant-based diet or who just wish to incorporate more plant foods in their eating, these books explain the health benefits of this type of diet. Dr. Fuhrman's "nutritarian" diet as he calls it, incorporates beans, legumes, fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts. In his food pyramid, there is flexibility for those who still wish to eat meat and diary. He recently published a cookbook. For more information, go to http://www.drfuhrman.com/
• Dr. Michael Gregor, NutritionFacts.org. Dr. Gregor provides free videos several times a week with updates on nutrition and research findings on the impact nutrition has on our health. His quirky sense of humor and the ease with which he explains science will get you hooked. You can find him at http://nutritionfacts.org/. He also has a channel on YouTube.
• MyFitnessPal.com. I use this free online tool to track my eating choices, nutrition, and exercise. It's very educational to see what my eating choices are really worth.
• Vegetarian Society of Hawaii. Even if you don't plan to give up meat and just want to start eating more plants in your diet, this group uploads its once-a-month lectures on Youtube. Search for vhsvideo and subscribe to their channel. Overall, this channel has provided me with solid information from doctors and nutritionists such as Colin Campbell, Joel Furhman, Neal Barnard, and John McDougall. Website: http://www.vsh.org/

Exercise Tools

• Bands and tubes. A few months ago I entered physical therapy to help me strengthen my lower back and manage pain. My physical therapist has taught me how to use bands and tubes to exercise at home. The exercises she gives me both stretch and strengthen my muscles. 
• Yoga. I have been using Alan Finger's yoga DVDs at home. He explains each poise carefully and thoroughly. He has two instructors, one on each side of him, showing the beginning level and the advanced level for each poise.  I also follow Ekhart Yoga on YouTube to find supplemental poises for specific problems I am having. Yoga has given me flexibility and strength; it has also helped me clear up asthma. 
• Horses. When I have access to a horse, riding is such great spirit therapy and exercise.
• The Great Outdoors. Walking outside is great for cardio, your back, and your spirit.

Motivational Tools

• Facebook Groups. I joined some Eat-to-Live and vegan support groups. We truly cheer each other on and celebrate each other's success. If someone falls off the wagon for a day, a week, or month, there is no condemnation or judgement. Tomorrow is another day and a brand new start. I really need this support. I recently joined a Facebook group led by Judi Finneran for Eat-to-Live fans who have  specific weight goals. Judi is very perky and encouraging and posts useful information every day. 
• Friends with Similar Goals. Having a friend you have daily contact with to report to helps immensely. I find this particularly helpful if my family or spouse doesn't want to participate in health goals. 
• Eat-to-Live Yahoo Group. I get a daily email of postings from this group.We share recipes, questions and answers, nutritional information, reviews of cookbooks, advice on cooking appliances and tools, and so forth. I have a learned much from this group.

Cooking Tools 

• Dr. Fuhrman's Eat-to Live Cookbook. 
• Susan Voisin's blog, "FatFree Vegan Kitchen" at http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/. Susan blogs daily with wonderful, tasty vegan dishes. I hope she does a cookbook someday. 
• Robyn Openshaw, Green Smoothie Girl at http://greensmoothiegirl.com/. This website is packed with nutritional information on green smoothies, with recipes, and with directions on how to implement green smoothies in your diet. 
• Kitchen appliances such as blenders, food processors, and pressure cookers. Our cheap little Ninja blender has helped me use green smoothies to lose weight. Recently, I was given a food processor for Christmas--it makes creating salads and dressings for lunch so much easier. I am now coveting a pressure cooker for my birthday . . . 

Tools for the Spirit

What ever your beliefs are about making yourself a better person and shining light in your corner of the world, draw upon the power of those beliefs to keep you motivated on your journey to better health. It doesn't matter if you are Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, or atheist! 

This is a lot of information--I've assembled my "toolkit" over the past two years. I'm 30 lbs. down and have several more to go. I hope you'll find some of these tools useful for your health goals. Good luck to all of us! 

Climbing Off the Plateau--Stepping up Exercise and Retooling Nutrition

Ah no! I reached 32 pounds of weight loss and am now on that dreaded plateau! I've been sitting here for about two or three weeks. I lose some, go back up some. I've sloughed off a bit with the walking and yoga--I'm sure that has contributed to this plateau. I keep reminding myself that my cholesterol has dropped 22 points--it is one point away from being the "normal range"; I am now taking half of my metaformin dose I have been taking for pre-diabetes; in addition, I have gone down one dress size and no longer have to shop in "women's plus-sizes".

So what am I going to do about this plateau? I really don't want to stay here! The health goals I want to reach are just to important to my quality of life in the long-term.

So here's what I know I need to do:

* Step up the cardio. Walking every other day isn't enough anymore. It is helpful, but I need to go farther. Treadmill, here I come. When the weather warms up, I'll be walking/jogging outside. I don't know how far I can  go into jogging because of my knees. I won't know until I try!

*  Start strength training. Lifting weights--which I've done in the past and enjoyed immensely. Building up muscle tissue will help me burn calories more efficiently. I've got a DVD from the South Beach Diet Recharged that has a weight-lifting routine for those who haven't been physically active for a while. I hope that starting off on yoga first--stretching and loosening my muscles--will prove beneficial as a precursor to weight-lifting.

* Re-examine some of my eating habits. Yup, soda. I don't drink the enormous amounts I used to, but I still have too much of it. I feel better drinking water, teas, and vegetable juices.

* Retool my nutrition. I've been listening to lectures and reading up on nutrition the past two months. Increasingly,  I have come to believe that for me and my particular health issues that eating a primarily plant-based diet with a high portion of raw foods would be best. (I am not saying that everyone should eat this way; this is a highly personal decision.) My best friend told me about a book, Eat to Live, by Dr. Fuhrman. This book makes sense to me and tied up many loose ends in my research.

Dr. Furhman advocates a basically vegan diet--free of  not just meat, but dairy as well. His food pyramid has  meat and sweets at the top, to eaten "rarely." At the base are vegetables, half of which should  be raw. The next layer up is fruits and beans and legumes. Above that are fat sources--seeds, nuts, and avocados, and starches such as potatoes and whole-grains. The top two layers are dairy, meet, poultry, fish, and sweets. Dr. Furhman recommends getting your protein primarily from legumes, beans, nuts, and seeds.

When I follow this nutritional pyramid, I feel better, have more energy, and lose weight. My daily menu will look like this:

Breakfast:  Oatmeal cooked in almond or soy milk, topped with fruit, some nuts, ground flaxseed, a dash of maple syrup and cinnamon. Or, it might be a green smoothie or a bowl of fresh fruit and nuts with a dollop of plain yogurt.

Lunch: A big salad with a homemade vegan dressing made from nuts or a plate of vegetables with homemade dip made with beans.

Dinner: Vegetarian or regular dinner with some meat.

 In his book, Dr. Fuhrman claims that patients who follow his eating plan not only lose weight, but are able to come off medications for diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure, and heart disease. I hope to see how I will do following this eating plan. I'd really like to get off my expensive medications and reach a point at which food and exercise is the only medicine I need to keep me safe from diseases. I also found extremely helpful books and YouTube lectures by Dr. John McDougall and Neil D. Barnard. The Vegetarian Society of Hawaii has an excellent YouTube channel of its monthly lectures that I found extremely helpful.

There is a spiritual and environmental benefit to eating primarily plant-based diets as well--but that is a subject for another blog post of by those much better educated in these matters than I am.