Texas, you're doing it wrong

There's something very wrong in Texas. Namely, there's hardly any produce of merit. 

Which is odd because people farm there. All over there, and all kinds of crops, too.

Still, walk into any store in Aubrey or Denton and/or a neighboring town and you will be hard pressed to find a decent and diverse produce section at the market, much less a truly healthy restaurant at which to dine. (I realize that Denton is a college town and therefore there are some vegetarian options -- I heartily endorse this. It is not, however, the norm for the area.)

I was good enough to remember to pack healthy food the day of the trip. Hummus with vegetables on a whole wheat wrap, water, fruit. But that lasted only a day. Once in Texas and after eating the mobile stores, well, I got hungry again. And went out to eat with the family. 


Honestly, and I'm not trying to be elitist --- I was downright shocked. The first restaurant we went to was much like them all, for the most part, with everything fried beyond recognition, battered, buttered, butchered. Inevitably I began getting sick the second day I was there and was in fact sick for the duration of my entire stay. From family meals replete with fried catfish and hushpuppies, to sauce-soaked barbecue and sides of chips and cookies, the parade of bad food never stopped. Water was eschewed for an abundance of sweet tea and soda; what salad there was, was served from a bag and was hard, old and covered in ranch.


When did we forget how to eat? When did we start thinking that chips were better than salads, cookies preferable to whole grains? When did we stop caring about health, stamina, energy, vitality, nutrition and weight? It all seems so unconscious to me, so much eating because it's what we've been eating forever, as opposed to mindful consumption of the foods most likely to improve our health, happiness and life. Apparently the practice of eating well and eating often is a lost philosophy. We need to resurrect it.


People don't want to eat healthfully because by this point they don't like the way real food tastes. They think beans are bland, herbs are weird and fruits are boring. Chips, cookies, battered and fried foods, sugars, fats and processed foods --- these are what people want to eat because it's what they grew up on. That doesn't make it okay and nobody has an excuse anymore. The information is out there. If you're living your life eating this way you are harming yourself. If you do not do whatever it takes to reacquaint yourself with whole, healthy and real foods, you are not only being a bad example, you are shortening your life and quite possibly your family's as well. 


There simply shouldn't be more obese young people walking down the street (hi Amarillo) than fit and healthy ones. Steak should not be the norm but the occasional center of a meal, if that. Vegetables should be at the fore, as well as fruits, seeds, nuts and beans. Period. 


Any other diet is just plain wrong. That's blunt but it's true. If you're eating the way Texas is eating, or most of America is eating, you're not eating right. And you've got to do better.


It's never too late to start. Need to know how to begin?

Meet Dr. Furhman.

Quick Weight Loss With Raw

Day 12 on Raw: Lose Weight Fast

Day 10 Eating Raw Ya'all

Day 8 Raw

The last three days have been quite hard. Life gets in the way sometimes and mucks up all your great plans. That's okay though. We've got to allow for those things, and then we've got to be able to pick ourselves up and keep moving. I really do think if we can manage that, we're doing all right.

Day 5 Raw

Blueberry Chocolate Smoothie

I made a delicious smoothie today. The base was organic, unfiltered blueberry juice, to which I added frozen pineapple and blueberries and a banana. Yum. A smoothie would be perfect just like that, but no...I then added a heaping teaspoon of organic cacao powder (sooooo good for you) and a teaspoon of raw honey (ditto). The end result was a chocolate-blueberry smoothie, delightfully tasting and truly healthy.

What a great way to start the morning! Next time I make it, I'll take a picture and note the amounts so I can include it here as a recipe. Though it's really about eyeballing it and adjusting to your personal tastes.

I also think I'll substitute the blueberry juice base with something like almond milk, which should make the smoothie more creamy, like a shake.

Day 4 Raw Ya'all

Had some really cool conversations today with people who are on their own nutritional journey. I've thought a lot about why eating raw actually feels like a spiritual thing -- and I think I begin to touch upon this reason toward the end of the following video. Loving our body and treating it well has everything to do with love in general, love as a discipline. I do think we need to love ourselves actively; in doing so we are able to love others more fully.

And what the world needs now? Is love, sweet love!

Day 3 Raw Ya'all

Day 2 Raw Ya'all

I have a surprising amount of energy, for real. Usually by the time I get home I am whacked out and ready for a good hour of zoning in front of the tube. Not these last couple of days. I'm not necessarily attributing it ALL to raw, but it's definitely different. Maybe it's because I'm happy with what I'm doing for myself? Could be. I also think, though, that when we eat living things we actually transfer the energy of that life into our own bodies. That's why fresh picked fruit/veggies are so superior to the veggies that are yes, fresh, but nonetheless have been sitting around on store shelves for awhile. The closer eaten to the time of life? The more of that life energy --- the raw nutrients and goodness --- is transferred to you.

I'm hungry, man. I cannot even DESCRIBE to you the huge salad I had three hours ago (I try to though in the vid below). I'm going to go eat. And eat. And eat. I can eat whatever I want as long as it's raw! That goes for dried fruits and seeds and nuts ... something "regular" dieters might be able to have, but only in limited amounts. Not me. A lot of this food I used to view as special --- treats. Grapes, watermelon, bananas, dried fruit, pecans, etc. Before I'd have a little of them here and there, supplementing my "regular" diet --- but now I can (and do) eat immense amounts of them, and I feel great! And my body is working, I can tell. That's why I'm hungry so soon after I've eaten. My body is burning up the food as fuel, giving me energy, and when it needs more, I give it more.

It's really cool, just observing the changes. I feel pretty good about it. Not deprived at all.

Day 1 Raw Ya'all

Why Go Raw

Kimmer is just part of the problem

As some of you know, I have a great interest in diet and nutrition. This of course is ironic as, like most of you also know, I struggle mightily with my own weaknesses in this area. I'm not alone in this, however. If anything, I'm in the majority. I'm probably a lot like you.

Many of us are specifically looking for a way out of the endless diet loop; a way to "lose weight fast" and "keep it off". We want to lose thirty pounds in a month in order to fit into a wedding dress. We want that beach body by summer. These rationalizations miss the mark and drive far too many to do truly unhealthy things to themselves.

A few years back I was a "low carber". I ate very few carbohydrates (even the complex kind, which are necessary to good health) as well as no refined sugars. I started the LC program because my brother had been diagnosed with extremely high (read: absurd) cholesterol and "prescribed" a low carb way of life (specifically, Atkins). At the time it seemed ridiculous to me; eating all that meat and fat in order to lower numbers. Still, he did it for years and actually brought his cholesterol down*. He also said he felt good and had more energy.

Since I'm predisposed to the same conditions as Jesse, particularly high blood pressure, I decided to give his seemingly successful Way Of Eating (WOE) a go and joined him in eating that way for nearly a year.

(I am not going to go into an exhausting treatment of the low carb lifestyle. It's a controversial subject and believe me, I've seen (and been a part of) every debate. Suffice it to say I no longer personally eat that way and am exceedingly the happier for it. I find too many low carb programs** to be unhealthy and just plain bad for the body.)

During that year of low carbing I became involved in various online forums. The most popular was Low Carb Friends. I enjoyed the people there, got tips and recipes and even developed a friendship or two. All in, it was a cool community. Which brings me to my point.

If any of you were on the LCF board over the past 1 - 3 years, you may remember hearing a lot about someone named "Kimmer". (Who am I kidding? I'm sure you did.) When I was there, Kimmer (and her followers) were touting a supremely austere permutation of the low carb lifestyle, which really wasn't a permutation at all: it was straight-up starvation wrapped in a low-carb bunless burger. Minus the burger.

Kimmer claimed to have lost 198 pounds in eleven months on her "plan". Eleven months! She was also willing to share all those low carb diet secrets --- for the right price, of course. She created a website to sell those secrets, charging $60 a membership. Low carb devotees flocked. As just an example of Kimmer's plan -- quaintly called Kimkins -- people were actually told to achieve what's called SNATT, which stands for "semi-nauseous all the time". Lovely, right? And if you weren't in the state of SNATT then by God you were doing Kimkins incorrectly.

The "diet" itself called for 300 - 500 calories a day, which, hello, is starvation. Seems anybody who knows even the smallest amount about healthy eating would be able to see that, but no. Kimkins blew up with all kinds of people, especially the pro-ana communities. Within a year's time Kimmer (real name Heidi Diaz) pulled in something like 1.2 million in online sales.

Yes, 1. 2 million.

But then something else happened. People following Kimkins -- the ones who'd bought the memberships and into the program -- began losing things like .... hair. Skin luminoscity. Energy. They were becoming sick. Some would even make inquiries about these symptoms only to be told they were eating too much food.

The kicker? Former "Kimkins" devotees, smelling something foul at last, hired a private investigator to find and follow Heidi Diaz. Know what she looks like?

Wait for it...

This.

Yes, that's right. Not only is Kimmer handing out dangerous and potentially fatal "diet" advice, she is also morbidly obese (weighing in at 300+ pounds) and follows none of that advice herself. Click here for actual video surveillance of Heidi Diaz. It's precious.

It's also enough to sicken me. Don't worry about Kimmer though --- she's being sued and her name is being bandied about on myriad television programs. Any profit she made will no doubt be pissed away (if there is a God) as lawyer bills pour in. It's called karma and it couldn't have happened to a greater gal.

Stories like this make my blood boil. I can't tell you how many supplements I've tried through my life, or WsOE, all in some vain hope to achieve "optimum health". What I didn't know then, however, and which I do know now, is that health is not for sale. Health is also singular to the individual, meaning nobody is ever going to teach you the right way to be healthy (or even thin) except you. What works for you might not work for the next guy because you have unique needs. There's only one you.

And so the answer? Listen to your body.

Yes, it really is as simple as that. Listen to your body as it tells you exactly what you need to know, to do, to eat. This is roughly what intuitive eating is; it involves acknowledging your hunger and then examining it to figure out what your body is truly asking for. For example, maybe your first inclination is to eat ice cream, but the more you examine the inclination or hunger, the more you realize that what you really want is oranges. Or water. Or spinach. Or even, yeah --- ice cream. It's about ultimately eating what the body truly wants; as much as you like without pigging out. Doesn't sound so bad, right?

My point is that you don't need someone else to "teach" you how to listen to your own self. Sure, a lot of us have supremely lost our way, and that's why good and reputable books like If You're Going To Eat At The Refrigerator, Pull Up A Chair (Geneen Roth) help us to listen and re-learn. That's fine. Information never hurt anybody.

But your body will always do the work for you, if you let it. The body always seeks its way back to wellness and balance and will achieve it if you get out of your own way. Don't let scam artists like Heidi Diaz and other so called "experts" make you think you can't do this by yourself. You not only can, you should. You're the only expert that matters.

You're the only one who can heal yourself.

*as far as I know, Jesse now has a modified low-carb WOE and couples it with (what I consider to be) a bananas amount of hardcore exercise. He's certainly trim, but I worry about his health. His cholesterol goes up and down, but it is frequently high.

**not all low carb programs are created alike. One or two actually make sense, such as The Goddess Diet, which I will review in an upcoming post.