FYI…

Have you been able to improve your diabetes with a vegan diet?

If you’ve had success treating your diabetes with a vegan diet, and would like to help others combat their disease, please consider sharing your experience with us. We often hear from journalists looking for success stories and we may want to put them in touch with you. If you have a compelling story you’re willing to share with the press, please contact me at PCRM at 202-686-2210, ext. 309, or simonc [at] pcrm.org.

Simon Chaitowitz
PCRM Senior Communications Specialist
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
5100 Wisconsin Ave., N.W., Ste. 400
Washington, DC 20016
Phone: 202-686-2210
E-mail: info [at] pcrm.org

PCRM = Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

More info on veganism and diabetes here.

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Tagged: pcrm Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine diet vegan veganism diabetes

Writer/director/actor Kevin Smith, aka Silent Bob, decided to drop some weight for the new year. To spur him along, he’s chronicling his journey over at SilentBobSpeaks.com, in a weekly segment he calls “Fat-F*ck Vs. Food.”

Just letting you know that, from here on in, Monday will be the blog day in which I write about what I’ve lost (if I’ve lost), and what I want to eat so badly that I’d be willing to step on all your necks just to get a taste… but won’t, because I’m committed to a cause.

First post here.

Spoiler: obscenities abound, so read with caution.

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Tagged: Kevin Smith Silent Bob weight loss food diary

It’s that time of year again, when we give way to the temptations of holiday meals and desserts. Some of you are looking at your waistlines and thinking about your upcoming New Year’s Resolutions. I have faced the New Year many times and resolved that “This was the year I lose the weight. This year is different.” Invariably, the year wasn’t any different, and I lost not a pound. However, 2006 was different. I lost a lot of weight, and after a year I don’t feel in danger of putting it back on. I’ve changed my eating habits, my exercise habits, and my knowledge of nutrition was expanded.

So, to kickoff 2007, I’m going to give my list of tips for losing weight, and I will expand upon each of these in later posts in early 2007. Here we go:

1) Unless you’re like the 0.5% of the population that actually has some some sort of glandular problem, you’re fat because of you. It’s your fault, it’s your responsibility. While this might sound harsh, the positive side is that it means you can fix it, because you can control it. Don’t feel bad, feel empowered.

2) You have time exercise. The biggest excuse I hear is that people don’t have time to exercise. I’m calling BS on that. You prolly spend at least thirty minutes a day watching TV, smoking, surfing YouTube, etc. You have the time, period.

3) “Low-fat/fat-free” foods are a scam. In a nation where we have a diabetes problem, the last thing fat people should be eating is sugar infested “low-fat/fat-free” food.

4) Eating vegan will lead to a healthier lifestyle. I’m not saying you will to be 110 years old, but it will make you eat healthier.

5) Eating out is the worst thing you can do. Learn to cook, even if you can only cook pasta dishes.

That’s it for now. I will have five posts expanding on each one of these tips. Follow these tips, and 2007 can be different.

Happy New Year!

Regular readers of Hell Food know that Shane & I just came back from twenty-one glorious days of vacation a few weeks ago. Well, I finally have the inevitable vacation pictures available for perusal over at Flickr. Just a tad bit late, yes, but in my defense my little sis managed to infect me with her germies right before I left, so I’ve spent most of the past two weeks in bed or, during my more lucid moments, doing mindless dreg work on the ‘puter. I’ll only post a small selection here, so if you’re one of those sickos who actually enjoys looking at other people’s vacation slideshows (gasp!), check out my Road Trippin’ ‘06 set on Flickr.

First up – THOSE VEGAN DONUTS from Ronald’s Donuts in Las Vegas:

Yes, yes, I know – one of the donuts does have a huge hunk missing. It’s in my belly. Well, technically, I guess they all ended up in my belly, but that half was ingested in the seconds before I snapped the pic. You see, I was so excited by the presence of VEGAN DONUTS that I wolfed half of ‘em down before I even thought to take a picture.

Luckily, we bought a second batch before our departure:

Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? It brings a tear. (Guess you’ve gotta be a veg*n to understand.)

Sadly, the donuts didn’t fare too well on the plane ride back. I still ate ‘em, though. Hey, it’s hard to completely annihilate such sweetness.

Interestingly, Grist ran a story on green/veggie food options in Sin City not long after we returned to Kansas. It wasn’t a huge kick in the arse – having spent an afternoon researching vegan eateries on Happy Cow before the trip, I was well-versed on all the guilt-free options available in Vegas – but it was fun to note which of the featured businesses we had hit up during our weeklong stay. We went grocery shopping at the new Whole Foods mentioned in the article, and ordered lunch from Rainbow’s End Natural Foods & Café. It isn’t nearly the dealio as is Ron’s Donuts (c’mon, what trumps VEGAN DONUTS!?), but it definitely rocks the strip. Certainly, Vegas is unexpectedly welcoming to veg*ns – just don’t go there during the summer months. Trust me.

And DO stop by Ronald’s, at least once. Screw the diet, it’s worth it.

While in Vegas, we also…

Back in Rochester, I:

* Saw my little bro graduate from hs (and bust his first-ever move at Liquid while our designated driver Shane nodded off on a couch in the corner of the club);

* Caught a Red Wings game followed by some post-show fireworks;

* Watched some gawd-awful “comedians” “perform” at Comix Cafe;

* Had a Chinese feast with the relatives a la the Royal Dynasty;

* Suffered through “Family Picture Day”;

* And was embarrassed at the Corn Hill Arts Festival by some strange man I don’t know.

Seriously. Never seen him in my life. And he certainly isn’t my father or anything.

Good times.

Of course, the doggies also had fun. My parents have two of their own, so for three weeks, there were five (!) hyper (and hyper-sexed, even though they’re all fixed…go figure) dogs running to and fro.

That made Shadow so happy, she was literally beaming!

I’ll leave y’all with a picture of my dogs’ pimped out ride – two wire cages, set side-by-side, cushioned by fluffy fluffy bankies, and cooled by crisp rear A/C.

Ralphie especially enjoyed his shiny new car cage. The wires were just perfect for pinning O-Ren up against while he tried oh-so-frantically to hump her.

Still no luck, though. As always, she wound up on top. That’s my girl.

(* Oh, and PS – don’t call me Mrs. Brady. Evah.)

This past Tuesday was my birthday, and Shane went all out for my birthday “cake”: two layers of fudge brownies, wedded together with a coffee-chocolate-whipped cream icing and topped off with whipped cream and chocolate chips.

Here are a few money shots from my Flickr feed:

We joked that the only way it could be any unhealthier is if he tossed a pig’s worth of sausage on it.

Luckily, it’s a frozen dessert, so I have plenty of time to finish the leftovers – no rush there. It’ll probably last my clear through the fall ‘06 elections. Lesson being, some forms of hell food are ok, as long as they’re eaten in moderation.

And that’s the word.

I’ve had a number of people ask me what I have done to lose so much weight. Right now, I’ve lost about 60 pounds in five and a half months, so the change is noticeable enough that people want to know the secret. I usually joke, with a large chunk of truth, that I simply stopped eating chips and fries. While that is a large part of it, I also developed a very healthy habit of exercising at least 5 times, usually 7 times, per week. Tae Bo had been a mainstay of my routine during the colder winter months, when my favorite exercise, walking, wasn’t practical.

Now that spring is upon us, I’m back to walking. First off, let me explain why I like walking so much. About seven summers ago, I decided I wanted to start running. So with a friend of mine, I started running 3.5 miles per day, and slowly worked my way up to 5 miles per day. As expected, I improved greatly throughout the summer, and by the end, I had lost weight and improved stamina. It had come at a price, though. My knees and ankles took a beating. Even making sure I had proper running shoes, had no effect. By the end, my running had become painful to do, and as such, I fell out of the habit quickly.

Walking is a much easier habit to maintain. It’s low impact, it’s easy to prepare for, and best of all, I can supplement my walking with music, radio, or audio books. I have found the best way to keep the walking habit is having something to listen to the whole way. I have three things that I have used. First, I use my fiance Kelly’s mp3 player when I want to listen to music. Every model she’s had, has kept at least 1,000 songs, and that’s plenty of variety. She also doesn’t listen to crap, so I can enjoy whatever she puts on. Secondly, I have a little mp3 player of my own, that’s very light and convenient for putting on audio books. I listen to a lot of audio books, and I should add podcasts to the list as well. Lastly, I have a portable adaptor for my XM Radio that allows me to listen to the XM while I walk. It’s great.

I don’t think you have to get all three to enjoy walking, but I would suggest getting at least one. My small mp3 player goes for less than $75.00 in the store, and can store 512Mb worth of files. That’s a lot of audio books, and also, enough music to listen to while walking. The price, though, is insignificant to the price that one will pay for a lifetime of being overweight. Paying $500.00 for an mp3 player would be worth it if it kept you to the walking routine.

I am positive my lifestyle change will add a mininum of 10 years to my life. I fully expect to reach 80 years of age now. I probably will not have a heart attack. The risk for diabetes is nil now. With my routine of walking, I expect to be able to maintain an active lifestyle for as long as I live. I look and feel better now, a few months before my 31st birthday, than I did before my 21st. Even though I find every now and then, a grey or white hair, I feel so much better, I just don’t care. Walking has taken ten years off my age, and added at least 10 years to my lifespan.

So go get an audio player, a sensible pair of sneakers, and walk your way to an eighty year lifespan.

My fiancee and I have been quite busy lately, but unfortunately you wouldn’t know it from this blog. I’ve been way too lax with this site. When I started this blog, I had just started to lose weight. Since I started, I’ve lost 50 pounds of useless flab and fat. I don’t think I’ve been this light since my sophmore year of high school. I have more work to do, which includes more weight and a lot of toning. This also means maintaining this website.

For tonight, I would like to include just a simple recipe I’ve been using lately:

Pita Pizza (requires a pizza stone)

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2) Take a piece of pita bread, and spread 3 tablespoons of pizza sauce on pita

3) Mix in 2 teaspoons of Franks Original Redhot into the sauce

4) Spread sun dried tomatos onto the pita

5) Spread chopped up black olives onto the pita

6) Bake for 15 minutes on the pizza stone, or until pita has desired crispiness.

Can’t get much better than this!

As I’ve gotten older, it’s been harder to lose weight. I don’t have a chemical imbalance, genetic disposition to gaining weight, or problems differentiating advertising from reality. I just have habits. It’s on me. No one else.

So while struggling to lose weight, I finally found a way of thinking about eating that has allowed me to enjoy eating, not feel starved, and still keep a low caloric intake. I won’t say how long I’ve been doing it, but it did take a few weeks of experimenting and creating certain steps that broke me out of bad habits.

I haven’t accomplished anything great or amazing. My girlfriend Kelly puts me to shame with her amazing discipline. When she wanted to get into better shape, she had an extreme amount of willpower to keep exercising and try different programs until she found something that worked for her.

My only accomplishment is now feel like I have control of when I’m hungry. Since I finished the habit breaking steps I created, I’ve not had an urge to snack on anything junky. When I get hungry, at say 2pm, if I can’t find an apple or banana, I get a nice big glass of ice water. At home, where we have apples all the time, I take a lot of enjoyment in snacking on an apple. Just the apple. No peanut butter, sugar, or syrup added. Sometimes I even eat the seeds.

One thing I have noticed often when doing my grocery shopping, is that so much of what we eat is absolute garbage. It’s not much more than oil, infused with air, with sugar piled on top. Compare the weight of a pack of Twinkies with an apple. Just air infused garbage.

This blog is going to be a continual investigation into how awful certain kinds of foods are for you. Each post will be a different food. I will try to post a new food every few days, complete with the necessary nutrional information. This isn’t meant to be a vanity blog. I want to know more about the food that is out there. As I see it, this blog has two purposes:

1) To educate those who want to know how bad certain foods are

2) To force myself to get educated on how bad some foods really are.

Some of the foods will be obvious, but with not so obvious takes on them. Even if no one ever reads this blog but me, I will still come out ahead.

As a note, I want to say I am a vegan dieter. I will not be trying many of these foods myself. However, being a vegan has its challenges. Vegan style foods are hard to come by, and I have an inkling that I will be surprised what some vegan goods contain. However, I am a full supporter of the vegan and vegetarian food movement. For economic, social, and moral reasons, I no longer thing a meat filled diet can be sustained on this planet. More on that later, for now I will be going food by food.