Change

Many years ago I had an uncle who was fond of saying, "I love change, as long as it's the other person who is changing."  All these years later I tend to use that phrase often and infused with the humor and underlying truth of its original user.

As many of us do, I have come to a point in my life where I must change.  I must change the way I cook, the way I commune with my food and shed the addiction I have to "fast food".  Those of you who are also addicted will understand what I mean.  It's not just fast food, but what comes with it that I tend to add to my home cooked dishes.  I add far too much salt and fat. It's my guess that some of us are just more prone to such things, such addictions.  Who knows for sure?  What I do know is that either I beat it or it will beat me, right into the ground.

I would be hard pressed to tell you the last time I served a vegetable dish as even a side dish.  Here at our house our main meals consist of a meat and the other half of the plate will be taken up by a starch, most often white rice.  My spouse is Filipino and white rice has been a must at 98 percent of our meals and I do mean breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So here is the new adventure and the change I've been strongly hinting to.  I will begin to post about what I will call "Life Food".  By Life Food I mean food that is not overly processed and filled with chemicals and other things we simply don't need and in the end do us harm.  I like anyone else want to ease into the second half of my life with my mind and body intact and I'm sure that the things we put into our bodies plays an enormous role in how we age and how healthy we are during that journey.  There'll be no fad diets here, no fake Mayo Clinic diets or any other such craziness.  What I will tell you about is something that all those who sell diet plans, books and other methods don't want you to know -- It's all about paying attention, it's about being mindful of what goes into our mouths and what we are doing while that food goes into our mouths.  In its simplest terms I'm talking about portion control and better healthy choices.  That's all it is people.  The idea is simple -- however as I well know putting it into practice is not.  Our food addictions and over-eating are hard to break.

So for this first post there will be no recipe or lovely photo of what I just cooked up.  Only this missive of what is to come.  I hope you join me in what will be a difficult journey for me -- stay tuned.

It's a Love-Hate Kinda Thing

Like many, I have put on extra pounds over the holidays. From the first touch of frost on the vine, my taste buds start to excite themselves. That frost signals the beginning of my utmost favorite time of the year. All my best dishes will find their way out of the cook books and pantries.

I also know that this will be a time of war - a time of fighting the elevated urges to over eat. It's not like you can step away or stay away from food. We need it to live, unlike a something like a cigarette for example. If you need to stop smoking, you simply stay away from it while you battle the addiction - can't do that with food. Another issue for many of us; we love to cook and we have to find the balance of that love with the addiction of overeating. Rather like being in love with a shark and trying to give it a hug three times a day.

To compound it all, I did not exercise at all over the holiday break. This translated to three weeks of not really any exercise. I'll be honest here and tell you that before the holiday break, I was 246 pounds (I'm 5'8" by the way) and today I'm 255.5 pounds. I know that once I go over the 250 mark my body starts to speak up. My hands feel puffy and I don't walk, I almost waddle in a near swaying motion. All sorts of general feelings of "un-well" begin to tell me that enough is enough and it "must" change!

Today I have one of my regular workouts with a trainer here at my office gym. I will be honest with Paul about the past three weeks. One - he'll know if I lie and two - I'll know if I lie. As painful as this workout might be today (as it will feel like I'm starting from scratch) I will do it and be thinking the entire time how much easier this would have been if I had kept up even the smallest bit of training while on vacation. All this because I know that my eating issues are with me forever. It will not be overcome and tossed away, it will be wrestled down and kept down by my own vigilance. I'm not sure how it all started, but I can affect how it all ends - and I'm determined it will not end with a heart attack, stroke or complications of my type 2 diabetes.

Ya, my doctor kept telling me that it was around the corner if I did not lose weight. I thought I could wait a bit longer before tackling this eating thing head on, but I was wrong and now there it is. I take about 20 pills a day - these pills combat my hereditary high cholesterol, slightly elevated blood pressure, and diabetes. Let's not forget that stint they popped in some 8 months ago - so of course there are pills to keep the pipes clear too!

When I started this blog, I knew that I would be talking about this issue and others that come with the love of cooking. Not everyone who reads this will have an eating issue, but since it is a part of me it will come out in my writing.

Okay - Let's end this bit here. I'm going to meet with Paul and get through our workout. The only thing I'm sure of is that I will feel better afterward, I always do. The workout de-stresses me as well and it makes me feel good mentally and physically. Makes you wonder why we don't do it all the time then, but that's another article as they say.