The Road to Getting Healthy

When I reach fifty (a couple of years ago), I realized I needed to focus on being healthy for the remainder of my life, which hopefully is at least another thirty years.  With that in mind, I had my first complete physical exam in several years (typical male), and was shocked into reality.  I left the doctor's office with prescriptions for cholesterol medication, a blood thinner, blood pressure medication, and a couple of others. 

Through the "wonders of modern medicine," my numbers were quickly brought into the normal range by the medications, and I figured everything was just fine and dandy; a year later, though, I got to start the routine of "well, now it's time to check your liver function to make sure there are no serious effects from the cholesterol medication."  Clearly, the medications weren't going to be a long term solution that I was comfortable with.

I'm happy to say that since January of 2011, I've managed to drop 90 pounds and eliminate all five of the medications from my regimen, all based upon quite simple changes in eating and lifestyle.  On the insurance charts, I've gone from "morbidly obese" to "normal." Since I regularly get questions about how I managed to bring my weight into line (and maintain that loss), I'm going to start sharing some of the things that I've done, particularly recipes that are now a part of my regular repertoire. 

This is not going to morph into a healthy lifestyle blog, but if this information is helpful, feel free to borrow whatever works for you.

In this first post, I'll share that the key to losing the first 30 pounds for me was removing artificial sweeteners from my life.  If you pay attention at the convenience stores and restaurants, it is almost always the overweight person who is buying the diet soda or sugar free snacks.   It was difficult for the first couple of weeks, but after that it became much easier.  Consider that some of the zero calorie sweeteners are 600 times sweeter than sugar, and it makes perfect sense that these products INCREASE the craving for sugar rather than decreasing it. 

Let me emphasize that I did not remove sugar or natural sweeteners from my life.   I did stop drinking sweetened beverages (soda, sweet tea, etc.), but  I continue to use honey, raw sugar, etc., in my diet, just not artificial sweeteners.  Because I have been able to remove that craving for sweet, I have become steadily more sensitive to just how sweet some things are, and I am able to choose accordingly.

I'm not a dietician or a physician, but this was a huge breakthrough in weight loss for me, and one I would encourage you to consider.