Sugar, Sugar!

"There is no love sincerer than the love of food."
- George Bernard Shaw

Since the first of January, I've managed to evade the ensnaring clutches of two birthday cakes, brownies and ice cream, what seemed like legions of girl scouts waving green boxes of thin mints, and even Krispy Kreme donuts one of our vendors brought to the office this week. With Valentine's Day, there was candy and chocolate dipped goodies on display everywhere I went.

This is probably the longest I've ever gone without eating something sweet!

Sadly, the foods we love to eat the most are often the ones that do us the least good. No matter how much it helps me, I don't drive home from work after a long day thinking about how I can't wait to dive into my MetaCleanse colon cleanse.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the average American consumes about three pounds of sugar a week.

Oprah Winfrey and I have both been known to blame weight gain on "sluggish metabolism," but the truth is I wouldn't have any problem polishing off one of those boxes of Girl Scout cookies in one sitting and I'm sure Oprah would be happy to help me.

Oprah Winfrey and I actually have a lot in common. We're both women in our fifties. We both study Course in Miracles. We were both born under the sun sign of Aquarius. We both have big butts. We both occasionally make an unfortunate wardrobe choice. And we both like to eat.

One thing Oprah proves is that it doesn't matter what expensive exercise equipment you can afford, how many personal trainers you can hire or which five star chef you have to cook every meal for you, at the end of the day it's about not picking up that cookie or fork of birthday cake.

The Today show has an online gallery of folks who have lost 100 pounds or more. Almost all of them say they became overweight eating from stress, boredom, habit and as a comfort.

I can't kid anyone. This is really hard. I don't think there is such a thing as easy weight loss. There's no driving through the Kentucky Fried Chicken to grab dinner on the way home. Every day there is a decision about staying committed.

I've always cooked a lot for myself, but now it's practically every meal, plus making a lunch for work every day. I don't mind the cooking, it's the cleaning up! I can keep the kitchen neat for about three or four days in a row, but then it all falls apart. I have a sink full of dishes waiting for me right now.

And food can be such a comfort. I live alone. I love to curl up in my Lazy Boy with something sweet and watch a movie. What can be more comforting than hot toast dripping with butter and honey? Of course, if I can lose the extra weight, maybe I won't be alone!

As far as staying with the program, writing this blog is a big help. I've made a commitment. I may not lose weight every week or I may even gain, but at least so far it won't be because I didn't try!

I've lost another half pound. Besides staying away from sweets and carbs, I also managed to get out after dinner and walk quite a few times this week. And I got out the tape measure and it looks like I've lost at least an inch off of both my hips and waist.

Today's weight is 254.4 pounds and my Body Mass Index is 43.7!

Grass Fed Cows Taste Good

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Last week was excellent. I celebrated my 51st birthday with my friends and family and lost weight, too!

Since I'm eating lots of protein (in other words meat!) on my weight loss plan, I do have some concerns about where and how the meat is produced. I don't take hormones for menopause and I sure don't want to take hormones from eating meat.

I'm lucky to have some perspective on where food comes from because my mom grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and we used to visit the farm on summer vacations.

One of my most vivid childhood memories of the farm is of my grandmother hacking the heads off of chickens and then watching them flapping around outside the chicken coup without any heads. Of course, this is where the expression "running around like a chicken with it's head cut off" comes from. Obviously, it made quite an impression on me.

My grandfather refused to eat chicken of any type. He said they were dirty animals. However, I spent plenty of time in the barn watching the cows get milked and I'm not sure you could get any filthier than a cow in from the field. Perhaps my grandfather's aversion was some kind of childhood farm trauma involving chickens. That wouldn't be hard to understand. The things we eat can be quite disconcerting when they are looking back at us instead of being safely encased in plastic wrap.

At any rate, we are fortunate here in Austin, Texas to have a number of options when it comes to buying "natural" and locally raised meat and eggs. For example Bastrop Cattle Company provides chemical, antibiotic and hormone free beef both to markets and restaurants in the Central Texas area. Beef from Bastrop Cattle Company is grass feed instead of grain fed.

According to a recent story on CNN.com, nearly 75 percent of the beef sold in the United States is grain fed, usually corn. Corn is not a natural food source for cows, so cows being fattened for the slaughterhouse on corn tend to feel sick and stressed (as if they didn't already have enough to worry about).

As a result of being sick, grain fed cows are routinely treated with antibiotics. They also receive growth hormones to increase their size and as a consequence their value, since beef is sold by weight.

On the other hand, grass fed and pasture raised cows develop healthy muscles, and as a consequence lean meat, because their digestive systems are made to eat grass and hay. Beef from grass fed cows is lower in saturated fat, cholesterol, and calories than grain fed cows.

I bought beef from Bastrop Cattle Company last week from the Bastrop Producers Market (my office is right by the Travis County - Bastrop County line). It had a great flavor and at $6 a pound for ground beef wasn't really any more than I would have paid for natural beef at the grocery store. The only difference is that meat sold at "farmer's markets" can only be sold as frozen (at least in Texas).

Natural grass fed ground beef produced without hormones or antibiotics is also available fresh in my local grocery store, as well as natural grass fed bison. Bison is a little chewier than beef, but I think it would make a really good chili and I enjoyed it as chopped steak.

Bastrop Producers Market also carries locally produced pork, lamb, chicken and fresh chicken and duck yard eggs as well as vegetables and gift items. I especially like the duck eggs. They are larger with big yolks and the whites are sturdier than chicken eggs. I like to fry my eggs in olive or coconut oil and the duck eggs are easy to turn over without breaking the yolks.

If you can find yard eggs in your area, I think they are well worth the effort to buy. Because uncaged chickens eat bugs and other natural food sources, yard eggs usually have a higher nutrient content than store-bought eggs and generally are free of pesticides and hormone residues. The yolks are yellower, the whites are sturdier and they just seem to taste better.

While I try not to eat eggs every day, I am eating a protein breakfast every morning along with a serving of MetaCleanse colon cleanse. The great thing about frying eggs is that they are quick and easy. Sometimes I fry the eggs in a little oil, put them on the plate and then throw some leftover brown rice in to warm in the same pan to go along with them.

Austin has a number of farmer's markets selling natural meats, eggs and produce, including the Austin Farmer's Market downtown, Sunset Valley Farmer's Market in south Austin and Boggy Creek Farm in East Austin.

If you are in an area besides Austin and want to find farmer's markets in your region, try checking out the Edible Communities publications website. Edible Communities produces free magazines focusing on local foods in different regions throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Eating all this natural protein and vegetables seems to be paying off. I lost a pound and a half this week, making my total weight loss in four weeks 7 pounds, which seems about right as far a safe and steady rate.

Today's weight is 255 pounds and my Body Mass Index is 43.8!

The More I Learn The Less I Know

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."
- Marcel Proust

"Patience is the companion of wisdom."
- Saint Augustine

Despite feeling good and eating according to plan, I don't seem to have lost any more weight this week. I haven't eaten any sugar or white carbs for almost a month. No bananas or carrots, my favorites. I even gave up coffee for a couple of weeks because some weight loss guides think drinking coffee spikes insulin levels. And still, the scale isn't moving after my dramatic first week weight loss of five pounds.

This is why last January I gave up after six weeks of counting calories and proceeded to gain another ten pounds over last year!

A close gentleman friend of mine (who happens to love large ladies, bless his heart) suggested that some women are going to be heavy no matter what they do. But as I told him, if I accept that and continue to gain ten or more pounds every year, I'll weigh 400 pounds by the time I die, if I'm lucky to live that long.

Some people I know want to stay young. I accept that I'm growing old. I just want to feel good while I'm doing it and enjoy the experience. My mother died at 59 and I will be 51 next week. My dad managed to make it to 68, but both of my parents died of cancer. I know what it's like to lose your parents at a relatively young age. My kids really missed out by not having my parents in their lives, especially my mom who adored them. Assuming my sons have their own kids, I don't want to miss out on being a grandmother.

And to make trying to lose weight even more confusing, the more reading I do, the less certain I am of what course to take.

Is it environmental? Should I get rid of my microwave? Filter my water? Sprout my grains?

What about supplements? Probiotics? Hoodia? Acia Berry? Carnitine? (Which I have actually been taking.) More Carnitine?

And if you take all these supplements, how do they react together? Not to mention how much they cost!

One thing that is working is the MetaCleanse colon cleanse. You can't go wrong taking ground flax. Every current diet and health book suggests taking ground flax. And ground flax is a food, not a supplement. I am wondering about my liver, so the bentonite should be helping there to remove toxins and improve liver function. With the combination of flax and psyllium, my bowel movements are regular as clockwork.

One easy thing I can do is try better in the coming week to drink more water. And exercise more. I have been walking some, but it's been cold at night the past couple of weeks and it's been once around the course and back home instead of the three or four times that make it a mile or more.

I read some quotes this week about homeostasis at PhilosophersNotes from George Leonard's book "Mastery." Homeostasis is defined as "the tendency of the body to seek and maintain a condition of balance or equilibrium within its internal environment, even when faced with external changes." An example of homeostasis would be maintaining a body temperature of 98.6 no matter the outside temperature.

I've been overweight for a long time and haven't lost any significant weight since my mom died fifteen years ago. My maternal great grandmother was overweight. My dad's sister was overweight. My oldest son is heavy. Maybe I just have "bad" genes. But I am not going to accept that and have obesity be a cause of an early demise. I've seen first hand what cancer does to a person. If you had cancer and a doctor told you that you could cure yourself by what you did and didn't eat, don't you think anyone would take that as an alternative to chemotherapy?

George Leonard probably isn't speaking specifically about weight loss when he writes about homeostatis, but I think some of his suggestions about how to change your life certainly apply.

Leonard says that when we try to change, we will always feel a natural pull back to the way things have always been. He suggests "don't panic or give up at the first sign of trouble" and to be willing "to take one step back for every two forward, sometimes vice versa." He also advises to develop a support system, follow a regular practice and to dedicate yourself to lifelong learning.

I'm still going through the stack of books on my desk and have requested more from the library. I'm managing to resist sugar and white carbs. I'm eating protein with breakfast every day. I'm creating a support system with my weekly blog. And I'm not going to give up! It's not about being thin for the sake of being thin for me. It's about creating a balance in my life. If I'm gaining weight all the time, then I can't possibly be in balance.

And on the positive side, I have lost five pounds. As one of my friends pointed out, that's the equivalent of five one pound boxes of butter.

One thing I am going back to though is my morning coffee. Some experts say coffee is fine, some say no. I work for an organic coffee company. The beans come from Maya Indian coops in Chiapas, Mexico. All the coffee I drink is fresh roasted. I think I'll take my chances when it comes to coffee.

Today's weight is 256.5 pounds and my Body Mass Index is 44!