Wagons and Bruising

Hmmm, there was some bruising this weekend. I fell off the wagon. Damn. Drank a whole buncha pop. *creak* That's me climbing back on.

but I've been taking my vitamin d....

Are You Taking Your Sunshine?

It appears that vitamin D decrease your chances of dying by about 7%. While that does not seem like a lot, it is statistically significant. In simple terms, you are likely to live about another 5.7 years.

The cancer rates for breast and bowel cancer diminish. As do the mortality rates from diabetes and cardiovascular disease. These diseases account for 60-70% of deaths in developed countries.

You should be taking 400IU-1000IU daily of vitamin D. This varies because people in northern climates do not get as much sun exposure as those that live in warmer climates.

How's it Going?

So far, I have decreased my pop consumption by a lot. Avoiding it completely is not something I really want to do, but decrease it? That I can and have done. With no real problems. So I shall continue with it for a while until I decide on the next step....

Damaging to your life.

This is more a general post on health rather than an installment on my progress. Progress is pretty much the same as it was last time.Middle of the road.

However, today I read that repeated head trauma may have contributed to the sad events that lead up to the end of Chris Benoit's life. It appears that he had serious brain damage. It is postulated that repeated blows to the head damaged his brain which eventually lead to his becoming mentally unbalanced.

This makes sense, as wrestlers are repeatedly hit in the head with fists, chairs and other objects. Furthermore, most wrestlers continue to wrestle, even while injured. This would result in the injury not healing up the way it should.

It is a wonder that more wrestlers don't become seriously unbalanced.

Morew on the Topic of Soda

Apparently our bodies compensate for the low-cal food. Such as diet soda. It seems for each can of diet soda (as compared to regular soda) the risk of becoming overweight is 11% higher!(41% compared to 30%) In addition, if you are worried about the aspartame in diet soda, you have to drink around 20 cans in a day for it to be an issue.

So, if we drink diet soda, in an effort to keep a lid on our weight, then we may actually be doing the opposite and increasing our weight. In addition, this appears to apply to any low-calorie food. We think we are fooling our body, but in actuality, we are sabotaging our efforts. All unknowingly, but still, there it is.

So the diet industry is actually making the problem worse. We should not be eating special low cal foods. We should be eating normal, healthy food. As in fruits, vegetables and other normal foods. In proper portion sizes.

Hmmmm.

Onwards

Been Awhile

Oops. Already my intention to do daily posts has fallen flat.
So, I am sure everyone is intensely curious to know how it went. I made it to Friday. Not Saturday. Still, that's an improvement. I shall attempt to build on that.

In my last post I was musing on the whole craving/exercise thing. Turns out the problem wasn't craving becasue I hadn't exercised. I was under-feeding myself! In my zeal to be healthy and my pin-point focus on soda, I was not eating enough. So I was hungry. Which I would say is a wee bit different from having a craving.

The lesson? Don't starve yourself! So I will need to pay attention to how much I am eating as well as what. Seems like an obvious thing in retrospect. Duh.

Next week we will be climbing back on the wagon. I think I will simply try to not drink soda on days I am working. It will be an easy way to remember.

We shall see how it goes.

Onwards!

Day 3, goal 1

Still no soda drinking here. Today was professional development day for me. This meant they fed me dinner. Wasn't bad. Wasn't great. Some kind of chiken kiev-like object with a couple of roast potatoes. I had half a glass of wine. That may have been a mistake. Now I am craving something, and the soda is calling me. But I will be strong.

I didn't do any pedaling today. I worked from 9-6 and then went straight to the P.D. thing. Maybe that is why I am craving. So far this week, I haven't had any real cravings. This is day 3, so I may just be hitting the metaphorical wall. Or perhaps, since I didn't exercise, my appetite is not being suppressed by the workout.

That would appear to be a good reason to maintain the workouts. They suppress cravings. I will have to test this theory over the next few days. The question becomes, does the exercise actually suppress the cravings, or does it keep me busy so I don't think about cravings. I know that, generally speaking, exercise suppresses appetite. I can't say I have noticed this in myself in the past. If anything, my appetite seemed to increase because I was burning more calories.

I shall experiment and report back.

Day 2, No Pop

So far, so good. No pop today either. Although the water is boring, I think I am getting used to it. Perhaps I simply had a habit of drinking something with flavour?

I did more salad at lunch today. That is getting boring too. I'm going to have to pick up some different vegetables.

And I pedaled for yet another 30 minutes today. Another yeah! Although I went a bit slower today. 13.5mph instead of 14 something mph.

Otherwise, not too shabby. I perservere.

Or something

Onwards!

Goal 1 Day 1

Day 1 without pop. The very first challenge was how to caffeinate myself. Normally I rely on the diet colas. so I busted out the expresso machine. I am Italian and regular coffee tastes like warm water. 1 cup of expresso this morning seems to have done it. Yay.

I brought 1 litre of water to work today. Drank all of it. Although it was really boring by the end of the day. I guess this is why some people drink tea. I have never been a big fan of tea, but this may change quickly.

I was planning on having a glass of home-made lemonade after work as a treat,but I started thinking about that. The reason soda is bad for us has to do with the "sweet receptor" in our gut. So it doesn't really matter what the sweet is, it will turn on the receptor. which means lemonade is out. Any juice is out. Damn.

I figured out how much sugar my homemade lemonade had in 1 glass. About 6 teaspoons! Yikes. (If you are curious, I make lemonade by mixing 1 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice with 1 cup of sugar and add water up to 2 litres. I usually add a bit less sugar as I like my lemonade tart)

This got me thinking. We have been hearing for years about how North Americans are fatter than Europeans. Generally this is attributed to our walking-averse communities and diet. When I visit the relatives in Italy, I notice that things are not as sweet over there. Even Coca Cola doesn't taste as sweet to me. I wonder if perhaps they use less sugar than we in North America do? If so, that fact tied with the "sweet receptor" in the gut suggests why we are fatter. We are eating things that trigger fat storage. Not just too many calories!

So, today I managed to not drink soda or any other sweet drink. I even got on my stationary bike again for another 30 minute pedal. I added a salad in at lunch for the extra veggies attempt. Although I did have french fries with dinner....

Onwards!

The First Step

I, like many other people on this continent, have a problem. I am on the road to ill health. That means I am overweight, eat crap and don't exercise.

I plan to change that. I am going to try to change a number of things, but concentrate on something specific. First, I will try to change my eating habits. Not all of my eating habits. I am going to pick one thing that I can do better and do that.

What should I choose? This was something that required some thought. When the news about drinking pop or soda every day hit the news, at first I was like, "Those people get diabetes because they are obese, not just plump like me." Then I theorized that it was because they drank regular pop that they were fat. Wrong. Turns out that even diet soda leads to these unhealthy findings. I still didn't want to apply this to me. I like my pop.

Then I saw a study done at Mt. Sinai that suggested that it wasn't the calories in the pop that was the problem. The problem was that the sweetener stimulated the sweets receptor in the gut. Which led to greater absorption of calories. So it didn't matter if the sweetener itself had calories. Aha!

So now I have my contender for my first baby step. Soda. Diet or otherwise. On average, I drink 3-4 sodas a day. Partly because I work in an environment where there isn't always the ability to get away from the counter and go buy something like water. So grabbing a couple of cans of pop from my fridge and bringing them to work is easy. I also like the fizzy drinks and find that tap water tastes funny. Actually, not just funny. Tap water makes me gag. Perhaps that is why I got started on the fizzy drinks in the first place? Then at home in the evenings, I often grab another can or 2. Again, because it's there and I like it.

So this week I pledge to not drink any soda until Saturday. I will not say I won't have any pop on the weekend. After all, it is the weekend.
Besides, the studies all said that daily consumption was bad. That means I can still have some pop, occasionally, without it being all bad.

I also plan on increasing my vegetable intake this week. This is not the pledge. This is going to be a secondary goal.

And just for kicks, today I pedaled for 7.29 miles in 30 minutes on my stationary bike for a whopping calorie burn of 263.