Book Review, Dieting, and Reality Shows

January 26, 2010
Today’s topic – Reality Shows and Health and Dieting- part two

I just spent a week with my in-laws in the Florida Keys. They like to go out to eat because they don’t like to prepare food after a long day at work. The restaurants have many tempting things that torture a person trying to diet. Some choices are okay, but it was really hard because ordering salads that are 90% white iceberg lettuce can burn you out on salads – blah! Most places have grilled fish but the fried conch fritters or fried calamari are tempting tidbits and the family likes to order appetizers. The side dish choices are baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, white or yellow rice or fries usually. One place had fresh green beans. The family also loves to order a desert for everyone to have a bite or two – mostly because one person in particular like sweets and wants everyone to eat some so he won’t be the only sugar eater. But I just can’t do that. My husband complimented me on turning down the deserts. It helped that I really don’t like Key Lime pie. But on the last night they also ordered a cocoanut custard filled cake. That one was torture because cocoanut custard is one of my biggest former loves. And sometimes you order something that seems harmless enough and then it obviously has sugar in it. When you are a sugar-a-holic, one bite does you in. And you don’t want to waste the money paid for the food by not eating it.

Then there is the general stress of being in a family situation. There is eating the mother-in-law’s favorite appetizer she always fixes. There is eating when you are bored or wanting to avoid talking. There is wanting to try something new like conch fritters or catch of the day with almandine sauce, asking for a small baked potato and getting a large one, ordering crab and it turns out to be fake, sugar sweetened and artificial colored crabmeat. Field greens are listed as the ingredient of the salad and it is white lettuce and one little piece of romaine when they bring it out. The tomatoes are green and awful and HMO grown. Cheese on a salad is cheap processed fake cheddar. No restaurant has a salad dressing that isn’t commercial. Organic dairy is findable and it is a good thing you won’t be there long because it is too expensive to use it regularly. But you want to have a good visit with the family’s once a year get together and you don’t want to complain and bitch about the food choices. And you come home feeling like crap, tired, and having to go through withdrawal once again feeling like your clothes are tight because as hard as you tried, you still ended up eating food, or too much food, you didn’t want to eat.

When Doug came home for two weeks for Christmas and New Years, he read the book but I found it harder to stay with the metabolism program. For one thing, he doesn’t need to lose weight. He needs to lower his BP and gain muscle mass back. He is a 6’1” man and needs more calories. He wants to eat in the evening especially after 9 p.m. – a habit he needs to break but he is working in FL living with his dad. So all the challenges I spoke of above being with family, he has all the time, every day. I have added some organic cheese and Greek yogurt but he can’t eat any dairy. Many of the recipes at the end of the book contain dairy.

I can do most of this because right now it is winter and our work is the work Doug is doing with his family in Florida. I have time now, but the truth is that I don’t like to cook all the time. When we are working, I don’t feel like cooking. I get burned out on cooking very easily. I would rather sit here and write about food rather than go to the kitchen and fix something. Last night I found myself eating something after 9 p.m. – not because I was hungry but because there was something in the frig. After I heated it up and started eating, I asked myself, “why am I eating this?” The routine is off after the week with family. I thought I could return to the routine the next day – but that hasn’t happened yet.

Eating the right foods is essential to living a healthy long life. When my mother started having health problems in her sixties, she asked me for some alternative ideas – but I knew she wouldn’t do anything I suggested. She had always refused to change her diet in any way making all the excuses in the world or just down right arguing with me about the sugar and white flour and all the cake and fake ice cream she always had in the house. If you asked Daddy if he like spinach and vegetables, he would say he did like them but Mother would argue that he wouldn’t eat them. I don’t know if he wouldn’t eat them or if it was her that didn’t like them unwilling to change her rigid habits. I answered her that she wouldn’t like the answers we would give her about her health when she wanted a quick fix. If she wasn’t willing to make some changes, then she needed to take the pills and advice of the Medical doctors. Their treatment plans were for someone with a Standard American Diet and lifestyle – not necessarily healthy but what mainstream society was doing. I hated it. She died of cancer at 72 and Daddy died one week after his 79th birthday of congestive heart failure. She had slight diabetes until the cancer treatment and steroids shot her insulin up into life threatening ranges. Now my in-laws are in their eighties and their comments and thinking are slipping. Just a conversation with either of them is a challenge. As many excuses I can list for not eating right, there really is not other choice. It means that I have to find other things to do for fun, to soothe myself when I need comfort or am lonely, and find foods that taste good. It means I have to prepare my own food and not eat out – that is a disaster waiting to happen on healthy eating. And I have to watch my thinking – take control of my thoughts and not let random thoughts draw to me things I don’t want in my life.

If you are ready to take charge of your life and your health and make PERMANENT changes, then I recommend Master Your Metabolism by Jillian Michaels as a starting point. Then contact me with questions and get some personal support with your decision. For many people, the ideas are so foreign that they may turn back to the old habits really quick. For us, it isn’t such a stretch because we know so much already and most of the book supports a natural lifestyle we already believe in – even if we haven’t always been doing the program. That is why I feel I can help others no matter where they are on the path to good health. Reading the book I have finally decided I do like Jillian Michaels and hope someday to get to talk with her. Meanwhile, it is time to make some healthy lunch and I have a full refrigerator to choose from.