How Atkins Will Kill You and Plants Will Unkill You

I just read a great testimonial  on Plant-Fueled Trucker's FB page and thought I'd share it. It was posted by one of his page followers named Timmo Post.  It's a bit long so I figured I'd write a bit and put the rest in a blog entry.

This guy did  Atkins , Weight Watchers and other internet based info. None of it really worked and some of it almost killed him. Simply switching to plant based food is all he really needed to do all along. It's amazing how difficult we can make something that is so simple. The latest "diet" that I've seen going around is "the blood type" diet. You eat according to your blood type!  Haha! Does anyone really think that humans at the time of the dawn of man were expected to know their blood types and eat accordingly?!? How in the world can anyone think that this DIET has any lasting effect. I capitalize DIET because it is just that >a diet plan<.

 A "diet plan" suggests a beginning and an end. What then do you do when the "diet plan" is over? With something like the Atkins plan you will undoubtedly die if you try to stay on it for life. All animal fat and little to no fiber has a way of killing people. If clogged arteries, massive constipation,  liver and heart failure sound worth losing a few pounds then Atkins is definitely the plan. My only guess as to why people do Atkins is because it allows them to continue their poor eating habits and lose pounds. My other guess would be that great sticking point.. protein. People really are convinced that we are all protein deficient somehow. It's what the television tells everyone and I guess everyone just buys in.

With Weight Watchers you are expected to add points and balance a diet budget for life. Processed foods are a big part of the WW plan. Foods that are calorie dense and nutrient poor will not leave a person feeling true wellness. If it's just about the number on the scale then this plan will give you a lower number but definitely not optimum wellness.

Wouldn't just eating plant foods whenever you're hungry and as much as you want be easier?
I eat whenever I want. I never look at calories or carbs or fat or protein.. I simply eat whole organic plant foods and trust my body to utilize them as needed. If I have a specific craving, it's because after years of eating a plant based diet my body is in tune and is asking for a specific nutrient. I don't crave meat, dairy, junk or processed foods because I never eat them.  They have become as foreign to me as they should be.  I eat organic whole plant foods only. If it comes from a plant, it's food.  If it's made in a plant, it's not.
That's it. No rules. No plan. Just eat.
Simply eating close to earth is all it takes. Nature is set up for US to thrive if we will just use it.

Here is this gentleman's testimony. It's a good one...

My diet and health testimonial.
I am living proof of what a plant based diet can do for your health. There's no arguing fact. I was on a diet of primarily meat and animal products and it literally almost killed me. I was turning yellow and didn't know why. Liver failure due to unused proteins. Also my overall health didn't improve. Instead I lost weight but I also lost muscle mass and developed other health problems. Also there is the invisible causes of death that were present such as heart disease and cancer development that were an issue. The one best single thing I've ever done for my health is to change my diet to whole foods plant based. I don't understand why people seem to want to fight against good health. Such negative strong reactions to a positive and harmless message. Maybe it's caused from their addictions to meat and animal products and processed foods. Or guilt in having to face up to the fact that they are making informed decisions to pursue their poor choices and not being able to hide behind ignorance. If we would only shut up they wouldn't have to feel uncomfortable.
In the beginning I was a dyed in the wool meat eater who thought that vegans were a bunch of liberal wackos. It's not about being a vegan. It's about being healthy. I had some health issues but did not relate them to my diet. I decided I was getting too fat and wanted to lose some weight. My son had been on Atkins before and lost weight so after trying Weight Watchers with my wife and having no success I thought I would try Atkins. I lost some weight on Atkins and thought I was doing okay. Their plan tied into my meat eating habits rather nicely. (I always had the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that eating all that animal fat and bacon was going to clog my arteries because I already had a stent in one of my arteries and was diagnosed with heart disease.) Then one day I noticed myself turning a yellowish color in my skin. I also had a hard time after working out, in my recovery, and my muscle ache was constant. It just seemed like it would not go away. I still did not relate this to my diet. I, like so many others, decided to consult Dr. Internet with my symptoms to try and see what was wrong. With just googling my symptoms I started getting all kinds of information popping up on low carbohydrate high protein diets and how they can cause all the symptoms that I was experiencing. Basically it said I was stressing my liver to the point of failing. Thus the yellow skin tone muscle ache and fatigue. My wife has been training with a plant based trainer named Kris Calmese for quite some time and had mentioned that he was a plant-based eater and preached it religiously. At the time I figured he was just a nut. It wasn't that I was stubborn it was just that I was uneducated. She was also in contact with a plant-based nutritionists through the newspaper named Cyd Notter. She suggested we make an appointment and just go to hear what she had to say. I am not afraid of learning new things so I was okay with it. After talking with her, a lot of what she said made sense. She sent us home letting us borrow the video" forks over knives". Watching that video pissed me off. It opened my eyes to the hog washing that I had been subjected to all through my life just for someone else's profit. I immediately bought copies of that movie and the adjoining literature and cookbooks and sent a package to each of my kids. I felt it was my duty as their father to let them know what I had learned. Unfortunately they like so many others refused to respond because they are too comfortable in their standard American diet. :(  ever since that time my wife and I have been 100% whole foods plant-based in our eating. We can't be happier. Prior to my diet I suffered from high blood pressure, reactive hypoglycemia, acid reflux, plantars fasciitis, heart disease, arthritis, incessant back issues digestive problems high cholesterol, being overweight, and a general feeling of poor health. As per my doctors orders I took eight medications to try to fix it. Nothing worked. Now I am cured of all of the above. I take no medications. I am the same weight and waist size as I was as a senior in high school. My energy levels have increased. My pain is way way lessened. my back issues have almost entirely ceased. My arthritis has stopped. And my general sense of well-being and feeling of health are off the charts. Did I say BAM?............BAM! Funny what an open mind and a little bit of research can do for a guy. I guess that's why I try to spread the info as much as I do. Hopefully it catches on with someone else.

"Let yourself fall ill"

I came across this quote (where else) on the internet. Seems many of us (myself included) are enamored with philosophical quotes, thoughts and ideas about this life we are living together and the internet is full of fodder. When I first read this quote it didn't really strike me as meaning much so I sat there and considered what it meant and how it might apply to the fitness and nutrition goals of myself and others. 

Obesity has recently become classified as a disease. It being widely accepted as such is a completely different problem. It's common for people to make fat jokes and not just about others but a lot of times self deprecating jokes about their own weight. Obesity isn't something that people look at like they would someone who is overcome with a "recognized" disease. We wouldn't look at a person with (random example) multiple sclerosis with disgust or laughter. We wouldn't judge them and say "why don't they just try harder to not look like that".  It's this same unfair approach that's generally taken towards all sickness brought on by addiction. The majority of obesity is brought on by food addiction. There are definitely cases that are thyroid and metabolism problems but for the most part it's brought on by people losing their way and going down a path of making poor food choices. After years of these food choices it's easy to lose sight of what it is to simply eat proper healthy foods that enrich our existence instead of slowly kill us. The food becomes a thing of momentary comfort which perpetuates the problem and the cycle just continues... on and on and on. AKA addiction.

"If you desire healing, let yourself fall ill. Let yourself fall ill".....Food has played an addictive role in my own life. It never quite made it to the forefront of my addiction issues because before I was able to "let myself fall ill" alcohol was always my substance of blatant addictive behavior. It was easy to move forward and not let myself admit that any of these things were problems so long as I maintained what I felt was a convincing facade to the outside world. If I made sure to hit the gym daily in order to pack on muscle, the world would assume that I am a man of means and perfectly balanced.  If I can bench 400 lbs then surely I am fit for all that life can put in front of me. Sounds logical, right? Not at all. I know this now but it wasn't anything that I would have ever become available to learn had I not "let myself fall ill".  It was only when I admitted that I was completely clueless about how and what and why I was doing all of the things in my life that one area began to connect to the other as they repaired themselves. I learned that when I ate garbage the result was that I felt like garbage. And when I felt like garbage my default fix was to use alcohol as an analgesic to give a synthetic temporary feeling of calm and wellness. I needed to re-learn how to feed myself properly, exercise my ENTIRE body (just because you can't see your insides doesn't mean they're not there) and finally recognize ALL of the addictions that had somehow snuck in the backdoor over the years and completely hijacked my right to living a great life. 

In short... I needed to willfully surrender and cross over into an unknown territory. I had no evidence that any of this would work and I stood a good chance of disappointing myself and loved ones around me. Wouldn't it be so much easier to just skip it, go out for a cheeseburger, fries and about 10 beers?  Yes had been the answer for years. It was time to try answering that urge with a "no". I could write an entire book about the days that followed (and I may) but the idea is that when I decided to "let myself fall ill" in front of my immediate world I began to heal.

Eating plants, running, yoga, meditation, resistance training, etcetera are all such simple actions in theory. They just are. But what they have meant to me is a complete reversal of life. I felt like an inert substance before. I was living what I felt was a life of mediocrity at best. I had become spiritually and intellectually unavailable. I had become completely polluted and lost all lust for life.

Flash forward to today... To anyone who might have a look at a day in my life it would seem like nothing extraordinary... boring actually. To me it's far from that and that's what matters. How in the world could I come from a place where nothing seemed to please me to getting excited about eating a new kind of banana an old friend sent me in the mail all the way from California or a new way to bake a can of chickpeas to make a new kind of taco that I never thought could taste so great or to go for a run and look just like any other jogger on any other day but somehow in my mind feel like what I'm doing has profound meaning to me personally or just sit and look at my wife and realize that I'm so goddamn lucky that I met her and she actually married me and we will spend the rest of our lives together and even if that means 50 years or just one more day, it's fantastic. 

"Letting myself fall ill" has been life changing. It all started with letting it happen in front of myself and the world.  I hope that the personal contentment that I wrote about here is currently how you all are feeling in your own lives and if not I hope that you will allow it happen soon. Each one of us has a right to feel it.  As I wrote earlier.. obesity is a disease. Some of you may be at that point while others may not. That just shows an example of one's addiction  being more chronic than another's. It may just be that you only have 10, 20 pounds that you feel you need to shed. The most important takeaway here should simply be considering what you are putting in your body day in day out... no matter where you are aesthetically. Eliminating processed foods or refined sugars or alcohol or all three for starters is a great way to begin to feel just how good your body intends for you to feel. With a sane body comes a sane mind and with a sane mind comes a sane spirit. I truly believe that each one of us has addictions of one sort or another. As I said earlier, some people's addictions are just more chronic than others. Getting honest with yourself about what it is that you know you are doing that's holding you back from being the best version of yourself is a personal journey and one that I highly recommend. Until we do this it's really not possible to truly heal. We may have "a good run" of weight loss or proper diet but it is a half measure and not nearly what we are capable of. Give yourself that opportunity if you haven't and if you have... well then that's just awesome!