1:15PM
Pepperoni, sausage, bacon, hamburger meat, cheese, a little spaghetti sauce
Diet Coke with lemon
8:30PM
2 slices Julian Bakery Smart Carb bread with butter, local farm eggs, cinnamon, heavy cream, Truvia, sugar-free maple praline syrup
Vanilla Carbsmart ice cream, no sugar added peach preserves, whipped cream
Diet Coke with Splenda
NOTE: Tonight I was making my dinner meal after getting home from church choir practice and somehow I ended up stubbing the fourth toe on my left foot. OUCH! I haven't had that much pain in a long time--not even when I fractured the nevicular bone in my wrist six years ago. Dang that hurt like the dickens and I'm sure it's gonna be pretty bruised up by tomorrow. Christine says I need to watch where I'm going...uhhhh, thanks for the encouragement honey!
I sincerely appreciate all the feedback from you guys about my menus and I encourage you to keep looking for the low-carb way of eating that is right for you. Sure, there are strong opinions from those who think you should eat nothing artificial ever, nothing but meat all the time, nothing with a bar code on it, and other such viewpoints. But only YOU can decide what is the best course of action for your individual needs. Those needs aren't just physical either--they also hit on a deeper level psychologically that you can't just ignore. Finding that inner satisfaction with your healthy way of eating is an essential part of your success in attaining your weight and healthy goals.
No matter what anyone tells you, you CAN do this! Find your way and then MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
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23 comments:
Jimmy, all you ate today was pizza toppings, french toast, and ice cream. Do you honestly believe this is a "healthy way of eating"? I'm not talking compared to your old diet, I'm talking about in general. Yesterday you were eating BBQ sauce and chocolate muffins. I guess I just say this as someone that wants you to succeed and is frustrated....
Jimmy, if you feel miserable on a SF diet, why not just do it until you reach your goal? Going SF can be hard but surely losing 17 lbs in six weeks like you did last time would be super motivating. I know if I could lose that much in a month I would go for it.
Wow! Just looking back at yesterday's comments. People are really defensive of the ideas they love. At the end of the day, isn't just what works for each person? Like you said, "FIND YOUR WAY AND MAKE IT HAPPEN!"
Anne, it is quite amusing to see how worked up people can get over something like a man's menus. TOO FUNNY!
THANKS Lynn! I think for the benefit of people who are reading this menus blog only recently, we need to make it very clear that SF stands for "sweet"-free. This is different than "sugar-free" because I haven't had sugar in over 5 1/2 years. But the taste of "sweet" on the tongue from foods and beverages sweetened with artificial and natural sweeteners is what is being referred to in the SF diet.
Okay, with that out of the way, I suppose I could go through that again, but I'm more interested in doing things that I can CONTINUE to live with for the rest of my life. It's always surprised me how people can go on a "diet" plan for a period of time and then attempt to transition back to some other way of eating after the plan is over. Why wouldn't you incorporate the principles of the "diet" into your permanent habits?
If SF is going to work for me, then it will have to be for a lifetime. I'm not willing or ready to do that yet. Nor do I really see the benefit other than MAYBE a nominal move in my weight. But there's more to a healthy lifestyle than the physical changes in the body.
Justine, did you read the ingredients in the foods I ate? I'm not gonna keep having this same discussion every time I write something on my menus. All the foods I ate were sugar-free and low-carb. No, I didn't have any meat or cheese today, but this is what I ate. As for the previous day's menu, again, read the ingredients. I didn't share what was in the BBQ sauce on my entry but it was sugar-free. The "chocolate muffins" were almond flour, chocolate, Splenda, etc. In other words, low-carb. Why can't you incorporate foods like these into your healthy low-carb lifestyle? The answer is YOU CAN. Thanks for your comments!
Jimmy, a number of random thoughts . . .
When are you gonna own the FACT that you are not just "a man"?
You the THE Low Carb Man. Expect to be heavily criticized as long as you do this and remain higher than an optimal weight for you. I'm not saying it's right for ppl to criticize you so much, but it comes with the territory of being a role model for the LC WOL.
What you do, say, and eat has impact. I think that most of all, the criticisms you get are more about the example you set for those inexperienced with LC than about what you eat. It just seems that way b/c so much criticism is thrown at you.
In terms of your weight, there is a continuum when it comes to determining one's optimal size/weight. But no one will say you are not overweight. (It's hard to convey tone here. I don't mean that to sound as mean as it might have come across.) Your waist has crept up a half-inch since a month ago. Water bloat from the products or was 248 a typo? :-) (Just a little joke - had to get that in b/c I was in SHOCK to read you were under 250 this month.)
And btw, your sweet-free experience was not a "marginal" success. It was an overwhelming knock-it-out-the-park home run! I will come right out and admit that I never did sweet-free b/c I didn't want to - no excuses. Just didn't want to.
I totally sympathize with your feeling that sweet-free is not sustainable for you in the long-term - trust me, I do - but I don't think it's a good idea to minimize something that may be important for others to see. When you cut out all products, AS, and diet sodas, your weight steadily sailed downward. Followers to your blog can juxtapose that with your steady gains since February. Be careful (talking f/ experience here), b/c those monthly statistically insignificant gains may end you back up in the 270s or worse.
In all, I honor you for all the hard work you do to maintain your blogs. I also salute you for maintaing most of your loss since 2004. And no one can begrudge you for choosing to remain your current size/weight, but I think it's a disservice to your readers to not acknowledge that your constant product intake is a factor in your weight gain in recent months.
Thanks, Jimmy, for highlighting that low carb versions of favorite foods can certainly be loaded with nutrition, unlike their high carb counterparts. Most of Dana Carpender's recipes for these types of items are chock-full of protein. People too often see "muffin" and think "junk," which it would be if made with white flour and sugar, but they really need to look deeper than simply the names of foods.
I appreciate your kind comments, OnPoint. But at the end of the day, I am just another guy out there who is living his life with a small sphere of influence through my various low-carb outlets. I don't mind being criticized at all and I do fully expect it. But I'll ask it again--what is my "optimal weight?" This is quite a subjective phrase.
Obviously I'd love to be a lower weight than I am, but can we overlook the fact that I'm healthy? A lot of people can and do, but I'll keep gently reminding them that I'm no longer dealing with health complications like I did when I was 410 pounds five years ago. You cannot underestimate the impact of that on my life no matter how overweight or obese someone thinks I still am today.
If someone is reading my menus for an example of how to eat low-carb for Induction and beginning the weight loss phase, then this is not the blog for them. I've been eating this way for five years and the purpose of my menus blog is to show people exactly what I eat on a daily basis. I've never pretended to tell people what they should eat. This blog merely shows what I eat and nothing else. Those "products" that you think are the culprit have been a part of my low-carb lifestyle since day one.
I'll keep working at it for me and I encourage others to do the same for themselves. We all have to take this journey to better health for ourselves and light the path for others to follow. Don't worry about me because I'll be just fine I can assure you of that! :)
Switching subjects, was today the day you got your hands on the raw milk? I'd love to hear your reaction to it, when you do!
Yes, OnPoint, Jimmy is a role model, and from the example he presents, I see that a person can lose a great deal of weight and maintain that loss, give or take a few pounds, while eating well and feeling great. This is what we all strive to do, and a feat that the majority of overweight persons cannot manage to do. The message is, "YOU, TOO, CAN DO THIS!" He doesn't have to attain the perfect physique to convey this message.
I've said this before, but I'm repeating it. Jimmy did lose on the s/f challenge, but there were far too many other factors (which I won't reiterate here) involved for anyone to claim that it was the sweet-free/product-free/AS-free aspect that did the trick. And again, if it's not sustainable, if it's not enjoyable, what's the point? This is how most of us got fat, lose/gain/lose/gain, on a plan, off a plan, trying to adhere to a plan that was not sustainable long-term.
For you, and others, to claim that Jimmy is headed back to 270+ is absurd.
"This is different than "sugar-free" because I haven't had sugar in over 5 1/2 years."
Chocolate cake
Dessert pizza
Full-carb cheesecake
Jimmy, your level of self-deception is starting to become breath-taking. And what about the cheats you haven't told us about?
Jimmy:
"Optimal weight" is subjective indeed. Agreed.
I did not mean to say or imply you are unhealthy. I've seen how much LC can improve health markers, even when LC doesn't prove so effective for weight loss. You are indeed making a good point, and I know for sure your health is much better than it was at 410 in every way.
Please don't think I'm trying to tell you what to eat. I'd never do that. But like most ppl in the LC community, I believe that AS/products can be problematic for some dieters (even for dieters not specifically on LC dieters - see Anti-Jared's perspective on diet sodas). It's your refusal to acknowledge this that's jarring, esp when you all but proved it!
Over the past 2 yrs, sw/f was the one thing that worked, and it worked beautifully.
Lots of people read your blogs and take what you have to say seriously. My point in saying this is, don't just dismiss your sw/f success, b/c that may be very important info for someone else. Your long-time readers keep up with you as you post, but new readers might go back through archived menus for informational purposes.
Since I have been reading your blogs - maybe about 2 yrs - your menus have changed. Not drastically, but like everybody, certain foods have come and gone. Are you sure you ate as many products in 2004 as you do now? Some of the things you consume now may not have even been available then.
Of all the things you've done, I honestly believe your Nov-Dec experiments w/ sw/f have the potential to be defining experiences for you. It could have been your contribution to the LC literature. It was something you could have expounded upon (and still can) by testing to see what about sw/f worked. Or, maybe you could have gone sw/f at certain times, like after a certain time of day to see what kind of results you get.
Well, that's neither here nor there.
Jimmy, I think you are doing great and doing a good thing with this blog. I just found it disappointing that you're now all but disavowing your sw/f success. You should not do anything you don't want to, which includes going sw/f, but give the experience the credit it deserves.
Didirina, I see and acknowledge the positives in Jimmy's example, and no one expects perfection. My point was really more about his perspective than anything about him personally.
Stargazey said the following to you in the January 13 comments:
"But in this case, we have some fairly clear evidence. Jimmy made a whole lot of changes late October and lost a bunch of weight. But then he changed one thing (he added back sweets) and his weight began to creep back up. In December he eliminated sweets again and began to lose weight again. In January he added sweets back with the result that his weight loss initially stalled and is now reversing itself.
"Since none of the sweeteners contained calories, it doesn't seem fair that just the taste of sweet makes the difference between losing and gaining weight for Jimmy. But it does. He has tested the relationship four times and it has held true four times."
Sw/f may not be sustainable at all for Jimmy, or maybe he could use it as a template to test and modify his diet know how to work in sweet while still achieving and maintaining his preferred size, but it's definitely good info to have.
270s being absurd - I hope so. I was only offering a word of caution.
Jimmy, back in the day when you were doing the SF challenge and losing weight, I remember reading how great you felt and that you thought you could live like that forever if you chose to. You did not give the impression that you were miserable at all. So now you are saying that you were miserable the entire time and there is no way you could maintain that WOE for life. No wonder folks get confused. You seemed so pumped up about how well it was working for you at the time. I have been looking at Harry's Woowee Zowee menus and they look great. The biggest difference between his and yours is that his use of sweetners is minimal (some stevia) and his meals are of whole, real foods. Some of your meals are more like "Treats" even if they are made of low-carb ingedients. I am not one of the anti-AS brigade but thought that you were really onto something there. But, as you said, everyone has to find what works for them. The key word being "WORKS." jade
You are funny Jimmy! You post in great detail nearly all of your food, even down to the fact that your eggs are " farm fresh". But then you mention a sugar free BBQ sauce and don't say anything more about it.
Throw a dog a bone here. You finally have something I'm really interested in! What brand was it? How did it taste? Inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks,
-E
Didirina said; "And again, if it's not sustainable, if it's not enjoyable, what's the point?"
Does this statement apply to cigarette smoking? Gambling? Heroin? It's not enjoyable to quit doing any of these. Given how hard it is to quit these if you are addicted to them, an argument can also be made against abstinence from these things being sustainable. But if you can manage to quit these things, if you find quitting is sustainable after all, won't that lead to more joy in the end? (Actually strictly speaking, the feeling you get if you give in to those things is pleasure rather than joy.)
Jimmy, when you were on that sweet-free diet and the weight was coming off, you seemed anything but miserable. The only real misery I see is when someone suggests you oughta go back on that plan. Were you kidding yourself then, or are you kidding yourself now?
December 18, 2008
NOTE: It was Day 18 of my December "sweet"-free challenge and I'm feeling great! Thoughts about eating ANYTHING "sweet" hasn't even crossed my mind in a while and I am starting to believe I can really eat this way as a basic plan for the rest of my life. I must emphasize how INCREDIBLE this is considering my deep desire for consuming foods with a "sweet" taste to them. If you would have told me I could make it without eating sweet a few months ago, I would have thought you were crazy. But it's happenning...and I LOVE IT!
Doesn't sound like you were too miserable to me.
WOW, you guys are enthusiastic and fired up today! That's what I love to see in people--passion, thinking, and action. Keep the conversation going everyone!
Good grief, I'm glad I didn't have an online diary on the day I got married! Such joy, such rapture, such misery a few years later...
donny, the day my consumption of AS keeps me from doing my job and causes me to pawn everything I own to get some is the day I'll quit cold turkey. Or if my mother dies of an overdose of Splenda.
"This is different than "sugar-free" because I haven't had sugar in over 5 1/2 years."
Lest we forget all of those "Lo Carb Monster" drinks, which contain 6 grams of pure sugar per 16oz can!
I'll amend it: I have had very little sugar in 5 1/2 years and fractions less than I was consuming prior to that. Thanks for the clarification.
Didirina--just to clarify, my point wasn't that AS were just as bad as cocaine or heroin. Just that when dealing with addiction, sustainability isn't much of an argument when it comes to whether or not you should try to quit.
That clarification shouldn't have been necessary; you know very well what I was talking about. Also, we don't know the long term effects of most of these artificial sweeteners on human health, as they haven't been around long enough.
But, if they cause weight loss stalls, or even weight gain, feel free to emphasize the if, if it makes you feel better, then the suspicion that they might have adverse consequences on health seems reasonable. Burning fat as fuel is good for you.
Jimmy, you're always writing about finding the low-carb plan that's right for you. An important part of that is finding the plan that's metabolically right for you. It may be that there were other things involved that caused the weight loss during your sweet free challenges. Wouldn't you like to know for sure?
And you've mentioned other causes of weight gain, problems with the pancreas, etc-- but then you'd have to assume that you went into remission from whatever the problem was when you went on the sweet-free thing, quite a coincidence, no?
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