SO LONG

So long, folks.  So sorry, but circumstances demand I suspend this chronicle for the time being and I do not know how long that will be.  So I'll just say "See you later." 

Thanks for looking in.

cheers, BC

NUTRIBLAST

This is the NutriBullet "As Seen on TV" promoted by the raw foods guy David Wolfe.  It makes what he calls "NutriBlasts."  Looks like a blender.  Maybe a super-blender.  It's not a juicer since it does not remove pulp.  It pulverizes the pulp along with everything else.  They call it an "extractor."  Now that it finally arrived, the book says to do nothing until my doctors say it's OK.  Hmm.  Well, OK, I have appointments on the 30th with the Mayo dietitians, then with Dr. M., my new primary, on August 1st for complete physical and lab workup.  I've asked him to help me in my quest.  It remains to be seen how helpful he will be, but I feel that he is morally obligated as a health-care practitioner to do the right thing and practice some Health instead of giving me more pills.

The Mayo baryatric people promise to be the most help thus far.  Dr. Lynch, my go-to guy in Baryatric, is quite thrilled to learn about my new direction and has offered the resources of his department.  So, I won't be doing this alone without supervision or regular monitoring in any case. 

Heard from Victoria again reminding me that she is there with encouragement and support, should need arise, as it may well do.  She's such a sweetheart (see yesterday's posting).

The NutriBullet people say, "Nothing feels so good as feeling good."  Gotta like that.

"Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels."  I like that one even better.  It's on my bulletin board to help keep me honest and focused.

cheers, BC

IF WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE MIDNIGHT SNACKS

 WHY IS THERE A LIGHT IN THE REFRIGERATOR? 

VICTORIA

                                           Victoria Everett, Before and After

I watched a video on YouTube a week or so ago featuring Victoria telling her story.  When she said the voices went away, I was stunned. 

My youngest brother whom I call Dano, has been schizophrenic all his adult life.  He's presently living in a group home for defective people and is practically a zombie from all the meds he is on to control "the voices" and other chronic problems associated with a dissolute existence.  Until Victoria mentioned her own voices leaving, well, the stun I felt was the return of hope for Dano.

Her video on YouTube:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCkpEtpZ5bQ

In the video, she invited correspondence, so I wrote her about how wonderful it was to hear about her return to Health and the renewal of hope for my brother Dano.  I just heard back from her this morning (she'd been camping).  Her letter (email) was warm and personal, wishing the best for Dano and giving more detail on how it worked for her.  I am so grateful to have found this person.  Here's an excerpt from her letter...

"Since I am not a doctor I cannot say what will work for other people with schizophrenia, all I say is that eating a diet made up of only fruits and vegetables is the only thing that works for me. Certain foods will trigger the voices again.

Oils

Overeating fats, such as nuts and seeds. I have to be real careful and eat sparingly.

Gluten

All dairy products

It is so very wonderful to be able to live a happy fulfilling life. Once the voices went away I spent a year studying and learning about emotional stability and balance because I found that my emotions were very childlike. It is pretty much impossible to mature emotionally when there is constant chaos going on in your head."

Also in her video, she mentioned she would soon have a website up and running.  And so she does:   http://crazybananalady.org/

Her story is inspiring.  Not least for the resurgence of hope that Dano can yet be saved and returned to the bright funny guy he was before the schizophrenia attacked and warped his brain.  The presumption is that it's never too late.  That goes for all of us fat sick and tired people who want to get better.

Never Too Late:
I am 67 on August 10th.
Rando is 63.
Dano is 60 on August 4th.

cheers, BC

DANGER

We provide food that customers love, day after day after day. People just want more of it.
~ Ray Kroc

Thanks, Ray, but Isn't this a symbol for why there are so many obese Americans?  Not just Americans, either, but everywhere people eat Western-style these days.  It's how I got "Fat Sick and Nearly Dead."  Tasty mountains of calorie rich and nutrient poor fast and junk food.  That's how we all got fat.  Even the good steaks and ribs, wine and cheese, bacon and eggs, peanut butter and milk, and coconut-fried shrimp too have let me down, leaving me a long journey ahead to regain sanity and Health.  I'm on the way, soon come.

cheers, BC

The most dangerous food is wedding cake.
  ~ James Thurber

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
~ Socrates

GREAT-GREAT GRANDFATHER?

An early 20th century photograph titled "Big Man of MO, 630 lbs."

I saw this picture and thought, hmm, this fellow's face resembles mine.  Could we be related?  I never had any trousers like that, but I've felt 325 pounds-worth of his pain.  And that's gracious plenty, as they say in the South.  Just imagine!  He does look tall, though, besides being so radically rotund.

cheers, BC

Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner.
  ~Sophia Loren



YESTERDAY

Howdy,

The night before last, I slept for 6 hours straight, from 9 pm to 3 am.  I cannot remember when I last slept for more than 3.  "Normally," I have to get up thru' the night to whiz, even with the meds I'm taking for that very thing.  Six hours is a breakthrough.  Last night was normal again, but I'm taking that six as a sign of things to come.

Yesterday I bought a $50 GE Juicer at WalMart.  Made myself a Reboot #1 "Mean Green" (being impulsive and too impatient to wait any longer for the N'Bullet to get here).  It was disappointing, to say the least.  The juicer, I mean, not the juice.  Well, the juice, too, because the GE just didn't do a good job on the greens.  The 3 double handfuls of kale made so little juice that it barely covered the bottom of the cup.  And it spit everywhere coming out.  By the time I had the cukes and celery in, a puddle was forming on the countertop.  Now I feel like throwing this thing in a ditch.  The $55 Hamilton Beach from Amazon I sent to broRando was much better, not messy like this POS GE.  Another lesson learned as I thrash about trying to get this project in shape to make a smooth take-off in August.

Cheers, BC

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.
~ Bob Dylan

SOME DAYS

If this picture was larger, you could see the grin on the old guy's face.  That could be me, if I could ride a bicycle and that young lady took her walks in my neighborhood.  Alas...

This morning did start very nicely though.  A huge smoothie of bananas, strawberries, blueberries, almond milk, coconut water, flax meal and whey protein.  Yum.

Then I drove down the highway to "Native Sun," the closest place one can get a decent variety of organic stuff.  They have a deli if you want lunch, organic or not, which I did, and had a "Portobello 'Steak' Cheese."  Besides the baguette it came on, the only indulgent content was the mozzarella cheese.  Pure fat, and mighty good.  I basically just scouted the place, having been there before only long ago, and picked up a few items.  Nothing extraordinary, just some lemons, berries, and nutritional yeast, which I've seen mentioned in some of my guidebooks.  I have a couple of portobellos in the fridge, and this yeast they say makes a decent cheese substitute.  We shall see.

Until later,

Cheers, BC

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.
Abraham Maslow



COFFEE

G'Morning,

It's less than a month now until my Official August 10th Kickoff Date and my "practicing" has been going pretty well.  Don't yet have the NutriBullet device I've ordered, but am hoping it will come any day, maybe even tomorrow (today is Sunday).  Note the glass of juice in the photo above.  I want some right now instead of this coffee I'm drinking. 

Coffee will not be permitted after August 10th.  However, my one experience with the Mean Green Reboot Juice #1 was very encouraging.  Starting the day with one of those refreshing and energizing delights should be even better than coffee.  I'll try it out as soon as the N'Bullet gets here and let you know.  I sent my juicer to BroRando so he too could begin practicing for kickoff. 

This morning I'm going to make a banana blueberry strawberry pineapple almond-milk smoothie for breakfast.  With flax meal and whey protein.  Powerful, filling, and

mmmgood!

I've had no meat or fish for two weeks now, and only an occasional bit before that, going back to early June.  No bacon!  I had a glass of milk (2%) last night, and olive oil on my salad, along with a chopped up hard-boiled egg.  These too are proscribed after August 10th.  Alcohol no, of course not.  I've quaffed no flagons since before June 1st.  And I've actually lost 25 lbs since I hit my all-time high of 325 in May.  My fat-pants are falling off, so I'm down a size already and my program has not even officially started! 

Cheers, BC

ps:  This "practicing" should minimize detox discomforts come the Kickoff.

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
                                                                                                   ~Mark Twain



JUICE ALERT

SHEESH!

Apparently, I cannot simply import this Chinese Medicine poster in a readable image, so here is what it says:

IN CHINESE MEDICINE THERE ARE

ONLY THREE THINGS WE DO THAT

CAN CAUSE HEALTH PROBLEMS:

1.  DEFICIENCY in the body is caused by something we don't do enough. 

     Supply your body's needs.

2.  EXCESS in the body is caused by doing something too much.

     Remember, moderation in all things.  (even moderation.  ~ Oscar W.)

3.  ACCIDENTS happen every day - mostly because of rushing too much.

     Slow down and be aware.



Oops!

SMALL WORLD

Keeping it simple...

Being overfed and undernourished has brought many of us "older" folk to chronic discomfort, a combination of the first two items above.  An excess in consumption of nutrient-poor processed and other empty "foods," has lead us to deficiency in Health, and as we know, "if you haven't got your health..."

Carry on brightly, my friends.

Cheers, BC                                                        

“I feel a whole lot more like I do now than I did a while ago.”

                                                                                     ~ Jim Reeves

P. RED

A Likely Suspect if I ever saw one.

Cheers, BC

                    "And just to think it all began
                                                               on an uneventful morn."
                                                                                                  ~ Bob Dylan, "Shelter From the Storm"

Pamama Red

Es todo bueno, mis amigos.

Once Upon a Time

Circa 1983...  About 170 lbs.  That's about right.  HS weight.  Not bad, hey?  If I'm a good boy, I could be there again and feeling good.  Looking forward to August 10th kickoff...

Nutri Bullet, Cont'd.

Oops.  Meant to say that I ran across a website featuring David Wolfe, a nutritionist who appeared in Forks Over Knives.  He's selling a "NutriBullet" device and I like the sound of it, especially the easy clean-up part.  Unlike a juicer, it does not remove the fiber.  Unlike a blender, it pulverizes everything.  If you're interested, check out this link:

http://www.nutribullet.com/index.php?r=site/index

Cheers, BC

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left"

NutriBullet

WITHOUT CHEESE

                                    

I should talk about how all this got started (Besides my doctor admonishing me that I might not live out the year at the rate I was going, and changes to my evil ways had to be made “right now.”  He scared me.  You might say he awakened me.  That was the day I stopped drinking.) and how bro Rando got me going by giving me a way-to-proceed in telling me about that film I’ve mentioned before, “Fat Sick & Nearly Dead.”

Rando is just about as fat as I am and has perceived the need for and desirability of recovery.  I’m certainly  happy that he thought of me, too.  Perhaps we’ll be long-distance partners in this adventure.  At least that’s kind of the way things are developing, and part of the reason for this blog.  We’re talking a lot about it on the phone, trading recommendations for films, books and websites that promote Health.  I use the capital “H” because this is about true Health, not the kind of health as in “health-care industry.” 

M.D.’s are trained to practice medicine, not Health.  They thrive by treating the symptoms of mostly diet-related chronic illnesses.  Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Beef & Dairy, Big Business, and the government policies that the Bigs bought, wouldn’t have it any other way.  They keep building hospitals as “temples to the diseases they create.”*  Job security, hey?

Rando and I are, of course, still in the R&D phase, i.e., warming up.  I don’t know if he has set a date yet, but then he has different considerations such as family, and his practice.

Naming Names:  Also fat is my ol’ pal Dave, now in the Bay Area on the other coast.  So I sent him Fuhrman’s book, Eat to Live, and a couple of the videos that are informing Rando and me.  He’s got a serious ice cream habit and the (Rx) medicine he smokes all day doesn’t help his cravings.  His feet hurt and he needs this program, too, before things get really ugly like they did for me after losing confidence in Western medicine to relieve the pain and depression that have dominated my life since my hip surgeries (more on that another time).   He seems to be interested.  He just needs to get desperate enough. 

And there’s my Auntie B.  She been struggling for a long time now.  So I sent her the book, too.  I’d like her feel better and stay with us a good while longer.  Even tho’ she’s in her eighties now, there’s no reason she can’t turn around and become a centarian.  C’Mon Bettye!  You guys, Nancy, Larry, Carol, Simon…  help me out here – she’s your mother.

I wish I’d known more about this stuff five years ago – it might have given my own mother, Bettye’s older sister by 5 years, a shot at that hundred-year mark, too.

Got an email from an old monastery pal saying he’s going to run with the bulls, left yesterday for Spain.  He’s been on a Health program since last I saw him fat and not happy about it.  He said an old girlfriend told him, “Nothing is as tasty as healthy feels...”

Cheers, BC

* from Val Kilmer’s rant in the Bob Dylan film, “Masked and Anonymous”

“There’s no money in healthy people.  Or dead people.  The money’s in the middle.”

~ Bill Mahr, in “Forks Over Knives”

Market in Barcelona

Hi,

With Jenny's suggestion and help, I had my first "juice" this morning in my new juicer (cheapo 55-dollar Hamilton Beach from Amazon).  A half-pound of chopped kale, a cucumber, four celery stalks, two green apples, a half-lemon and a double knuckle of ginger.  All raw, naturally.

Much to my surprise, it was GOOD.  And refreshing.  The first impression was the lemon, with the tang of the ginger, followed by a mellow aftertaste of the green apples.  If the kale, cuke, and celery had distinct flavors, I couldn't tell.  I believe the stuff gave me a buzz.  A kind of low-grade all-over gentle wash of warmth, not heat, mind you, just a pleasing glow.  Pretty damn cool, really.

The juice was the Reboot Juice #1 from the Reboot Your Life website, a apparent spin-off of the Joe Cross documentary, "Fat Sick and Nearly Dead."  Which ,btw, is not about dying, but about healing.  I suspect this is the one they called "Mean Green" in the film.  I'll check on that.

Speaking of kale, which I've never knowingly had before in my disreputable life, I had a big kale salad for lunch, just to see (my favorite lately has been baby spinach).  The chopped raw kale comes in a bag at Publix and I did have a pinch of it before the juice; it was quite firm and chewy, with a kinda pleasant green taste.  Of course, on the salad, I had other stuff, too:  grape tomatoes, a hard-boiled egg, a sprinkle of a nut/seed/dried cranberry mix, a pinch of chowmein noodles... topped off with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a bit of balsamic glaze. 

This kind of salad has a built-in dessert.  At the bottom of the bowl, after you've gotten all the greens, you find a delicious mix of the nuts, seeds, etc., swimming in what's left of the dressing.  I eat that part with a spoon. 

Remember now, I'm just practicing for the official kick-off date of August first.  Maybe I should change that to my birthday.  Hmm.  Yeah, that would be a good thing.  It seems appropriate.  So be it.

Anyway, I'm still having some off-program stuff that will not be permitted once I start the six-week detox phase - now changed to August 10th.  I'll be 67 on that day.  What a rush.  How did I get here?

The program proscribes all animal foods, including dairy and eggs.  No oils, either, not even olive.  No caffeine.  No added sugar or salt.  The coffee might just be the hard part.  Since I haven't been having any wine, I'm drinking a lot more coffee, up to 5 cups in a day. 

Well, we shall see.  Meanwhile, I still have real milk in the fridge, ice cream in the freezer, and some Goya sweet creme wafers Jenny bought.  They're lightweight, but you just know they're not right.  Tasty, though.  So far, limiting myself to just 4 (the recommended serving size) at a time. 

So, things are underway, gearing up for the program.  Wish me luck.  Wish me health.

Cheers, BC

My Adventure

GOALS for BC

For Period: August 1, 2012 through August 1, 2013

1.     Lose Weight, min. 100#

2.    Eliminate all medications

3.    Feel Good

4.    Walk

5.    Run

6.  Jump

7.    Play (Tennis?)

 EXPECTATIONS

·         Reverse diabetes

·         Reverse high blood pressure

·         Return of health

·         Return of energy

·         Tremors gone, Skin clears, Bruising stops

·         No more cramps in hands or legs

·         No more MEDS!

This Just In

BEFORE, by Rolling Greens Photography

 Stay tuned.  This is going to take a while.  AFTER is due in on August 1st, 2013.

 

Must See

PBS documentary "The Botany of Desire," from Michael Pollan's eponymous book, hosted by Pollan, with voiceover by Frances McDormund (sp?)..

By the way...

The time signatures on these posts are 3 hours early (PST), but I'm actually Eastern time.  So the 2am post is actually 5am.  Haven't yet figured out how to fix it.  The time is correct on my PC.  Hmm.

Today

This is David and me today.  July is my month for practicing, trying to ease into a yet-to-be-determined program.  August 1st is the official START date for the One Year Adventure to come.  My pal Kenny has just yesterday taken the official "Before" photos, which I will publish when they come back to me next week sometime.  Meanwhile, David and me.

Bad Days Good Days

G'Morning. 

I created this blogspot some time ago, but have never shared it, considering it just a plaything for my own amusement.  Now is the time.  I hereby solicit your encouragement and support.

After nearly two years, now having given up on the Mayo doctors to make me well, it has fallen to me to regain the health I want and need, being, as the film title suggests, "Fat Sick & Nearly Dead." 

Having been a meat & taters guy, and quaffer of flagons, all my life, recent reading and viewing of pertinent documentaries, including the aforementioned, I now find myself actually contemplating raw broccoli.  Without cheese.

For starters, I've had no alcohol in over a month, have begun eating daily salads, having less dairy and meats, and keeping a log book of everything I do eat.  Even the peanut butter/ice cream bombs and bedtime Twinkies.  Well, actually, I stopped the Twinkies over a week ago. 

Recently viewed documentaries:

• Fat Sick and Nearly Dead
• Foodmatters
• Forks Over Knives
• Ayurveda: The Art of Being
• Healthy Aging  (Andrew Weil, MD)
• Food, Inc.

Favorite books informing my direction: 

• Eat to Live, by Joel Fuhrman, MD
• The NutriBase Nutrition Facts Desk Reference, 2nd Ed.