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Entry: Sobering Thoughts Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/sobering_thoughts#26461 Post contents: Dr. Z: Your too jocular about this. Listen to your physician. We in Dixie have suffered from mean New Englanders. This one’s offering tough love. And he’s quite correct. Diabetes is now an pandemic in Gringoland equal to the extent of the Black Death. Ditto circulation problems. I had a similar shock warning May 2007. And the solution was diet and exercise. Ask your physician if what worked for me (the following) might work for you. 1. No Carb Diet, or low carb with only one carb a week. That means no bread, no rice, no pasta, no sweets, no bananas, no beer, and above all no potatoes, no soft drinks (pop or soda to you Yankees) –even the “light” versions –, no fast food, and no sweet tea. Period. And avoid any foods with corn syrup in them 7 years ago the medical establishment called Atkins a fad. Now they endorse the no carb diet. (Probably they had to wait until the lawyers told them it was ok.) You’ve just returned from Italy. One notices immediately at the “port of entry” that Gringos (1)have more children, and (2) are overweight – even more overweight than the beer-drinking Middle Europeans. Ask yourself, What are Gringos eating? Remember the jogging fad of the 1980s? Did it decrease waistlines? No. Why? As St. Don Bosco said, “If there’s a problem in the house, look in the pot.” So just what are Gringos eating? Carbs. “Kill the carbs!”, my dr. says. Otherwise, he says, no exercise program will work. 2. Lower the quantity of meals. Eating even a ton of broccoli will make you fat. Carbs have the addition disadvantage of making you hungry. And Gringos become addicted – exactly the right word – to carbs and large portions. Many diets crash because in the first two weeks of a diet with smaller portions, your body screams for food it doesn’t need. Yet after a while, fortunately the opposite will happen and your body will start rejecting high quantity. Most restaurants serve portions entirely too large, and offer a bread as a side, from start to dessert. (restaurants are better about lunch, with smaller portions). So don’t eat out. After a month of this diet and exercise, allow yourself a “carb of the week” and a “sweet of the week”. I go to a restaurant with small portions for my carb (a pasta); were I to make it myself, I’d be tempted to make too much. I go to Starbucks after Mass and get a slice of cheese cake and a double espresso. 3. Ignore Vegetarians and the Animal rights frenzy. Their agenda is political, not physical. They sing the praises of a Mediterranean diet. Remember that it was the fad 15 years ago. Did it work? No. And lean meat and fish in low quantity is good for you (unless your dr. says otherwise). (I can’t speak to the virtue of the “Caveman Diet” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveman_diet , which looks like Atkins without milk products). Forget about any political food. We in Dixie love our sweet tea. No longer for me! 4. Despite the power of the “internalization of authority” from our parents, forget what they told you when a child about the “Clean Plate Club”. Don’t eat a whole plate of large portions. When you’re full from a plate of small portions, stop eating. Those who have lost a lot of weight have a secret: They just got food out of their life! It becomes for them something the just have to do, such as going to the bathroom. Make your social life revolve around something other than the table. 5. Forget about being polite when eating with a host at his house. I was doing fine until a visited my beloved carb eating cousins: I put on 6 lbs in one week on the road. I dread what will happen when I’m back in Italy – however much it is a shoe-leather culture. I guess I’ll just skip the pasta course. Let your host know that you’re under dr’s orders: NO CARBS! 6. The three meals tradition, my dr. told me, is good. His orders to me: breakfast with slices of lean meat (turkey), berry fruit, low sodium tomato juice. Lunch: a prepared salad of greens and yellows and reds with olive oil based dressings. Go to the grocery store and buy such a salad; if you make it yourself, you’ll be tempted to make too much. Sup with the same plus maybe a meat, the portion of which should be the size of a deck of cards. Drink one glass of wine (NO BEER!) 7. 10 years ago the PE teacher at my high school told me that he had seen within a decade a dramatic decline in adolescent health. He attributed it to no exercise. When I was a child, we went outside and played (romped). Now kids sit in front of a screen. So now to other requirement: exercise. Without exercise, the diet won’t work. Get a machine. And the best piece of advice I had was this: “The machine that works is the machine that you use!” I had tried first the exercise bike and used DVDs to distract me from the pain of exercise. Alas, I found myself becoming absorbed into, say, "Inspector Morse", and I would slow down. So with my dr’s blessing, I got a year ago a treadmill, one that measure pulse, speed, distance, time, incline, calorie burn. Particularly important: Have your doctor tell you how high you pulse can go, upon which you slow down. Mine started me out at just twelve min., and everyday increasing one min. until 45 min. The first time I did this, my pulse shot up at only 2.5 mph. Within a few weeks my pulse was down and my speed was up. After reaching 45 min and 3.5 mph, I started increasing the grade; now a year later, I’m at 2%. Your dr. will set goals for you. Do the treadmill daily. 8. See a trainer. Mine endorsed completely what my Dr. said, and set me on a dumbbell and calisthenics routine three times a week. 9. One friend assured me that I would actually love exercise because of adrenalin highs. After a year, I still hate it. So I need the mental distraction. The treadmill keeps moving, so there’s less temptation to slow down when becoming absorbed in what one is viewing. After 12 years TV-free (I had stopped cable after the O.J. Simpson trial), I went back to cable. I watch only one show a day, and I watch it while exercising 45 min.daily: CNBC’s “Closing Bell”, 3pm (DVDs on the weekend). The screen is full of flashing information, good-looking and articulate babes, and dumpy-looking males. Actually it’s amusing: the info is all numbers, and numbers don’t work for photography, cinema, and TV – though “Closing Bell” proves it’s not for want of trying. If this show isn't to your taste, try "Mad Money". 10. Weigh yourself on good scales once a week only. You’ll be pleased at the difference. In a year, I’ve lost 35 lbs, with 15 still to go. I plan to keep my diet and exercise for the rest of my life. 11. There is a spiritual side to losing weight, or to kicking any addiction (“chemical dependency”), as AA told us long ago, AA taking its 12 steps in part from St. Ignatius Loyola. Pray for the Grace to fight the love of carbs, the love of large portions, the pain of hunger, and the pain of exercise. You can’t do it by yourself. Set up a daily prayer schedule. Parts of the Divine Office is what I use http://www.universalis.com , and adding personal prayers. Sparticus Negative’s rosary idea isn’t bad. WARNING: What works for me might not be what your dr. thinks will work for you. DON’T DO ABOVE UNTIL HE OKS IT. (So the lawyers tell me to tell you.) Sent at: 2008 09 07