The Dump Method

I feel a little bit loony to write anything about cooking. Cooking? I know I just lost the three male friends who thought this was about roughing it when hunting and fishing in the great outdoors. Sorry if I mislead you…those of you still reading, allow me to share part of my indoor adventure into meal preparation.

First, let me admit that I have an amazing teacher. My cooking coach is my wife of 40+ years. Delores was fortunate to grow up with an incredible mother who, among other wonders, was a remarkable cook. She directed a public school cafeteria with nutritional, tasty cuisine that the kids actually ate. During courtship and the first two years of marriage, I enjoyed making the two-hour trip from Arkansas to Missouri many weekends to enjoy my mother-in-law’s table. Fortunately her daughter learned well. Unfortunately I enjoyed my wife’s cooking “weigh” too much in those first years of marital bliss gaining about 25 pounds. This wasn’t too bad since I had been a 165-pound bean pole standing over six feet tall when we got hitched. Over the next 30+ years I ballooned to 250+ pounds and into an unhealthy routine of taking daily medications for high blood pressure and diabetes. About the only time I went into the kitchen was for to snack, sample, or occasionally clean-up. In those days I would’ve had difficulty boiling water. I’ve come a long way, baby.

Nearly two years ago we began living a healthy lifestyle of eating organic, natural foods almost exclusively to detoxify our bodies. The food tasted delicious! I may have tasted it for the first time. As we made the shift from the SAD (Standard American Diet) USDA Food Pyramid to the Healing Foods Diet (nuts and seeds, organic vegetables, fruits, meats, and beans), I lost weight, got off all medications, and began to spend more time in the kitchen interested in how to prepare, not just clean up after, those delicacies. My ulterior motive was to eat some of my favorite foods whenever I wished without waiting for Delores to fix them. At the top of my list was creamed eggs. I only know a few earthlings who like this.

Understand one thing…I am a Type A, highly organized, near perfectionist; so when I learn something new, the ducks should line up. I write it down, so I can repeat it with similar results. I have a quote on my office wall, “If it isn’t in writing, it doesn’t exist.” I teach that to my college students. Imagine my chagrin when I’d ask my wife how much of a certain spice or condiment to add, and her reply was something like, “I’m not sure; I just use the dump method.” I quickly came to discover that the dump method really does work…most of the time. I also learned that you dump slowly at first and taste your dumpage results as you go. It is sooooo much easier to add seasoning than it is to remove it. Some of my recent endeavors as chef include fried chicken (in coconut oil, rolled in flax seed meal, egg, herbs, and brown rice flour); almond eggs (creamed eggs with almond milk and brown rice flour); bison, vegetable, bean soup; meatloaf made with lamb; and banana coconut chocolate drop cookies. Yes, I still am pretty good about cleaning up after myself; and no, I don’t always dump the same amounts. The mystery is part of the adventure.

My Hallolution

It was a scary Halloween Sunday morning. There I was, minding my own business, stepping on the scale for the first time in a few days, when ALL OF A SUDDEN, out of nowhere came…

I could’ve begun this blog with “Once upon a time…” but that would be too corny and trite given that it actually is a true story. So to continue my creative meanderings…

Out of nowhere came…a number I hadn’t seen in months: 208! Chills ran up and down and back up and back down and all around and inside and outside and through and through my spine as I stared back at the horribly ghastly digits. I stepped off the scale, waited three seconds, then back on again. That had worked before but not this time. The number flicked on and it now read…the same? Eeekkk! What a monstrosity! Where did my healthy lifestyle go? I had patiently decreased from about 250 to an old-age low of 195.5. More recently I had leveled between 200 and 206. Then Halloween came and the dreaded 208. The trend is catastrophic! Those superfluous pounds must’ve come from the Great Pumpkin. Charlie Brown, where are you when I need you?

Needless to say, I felt discouraged with no one to blame but myself. I had quit doing what got me here. I’d been laurel resting for some weeks now. Resting on your laurels means sitting too much with my rear imbedded in my recliner and zoning out allowing the late night cravings from nuts, dark chocolate, and Lara Bars to consume my zombie-like brain. Normally those are healthy snacks for me but not after 9 p.m.

Sitting in worship a couple hours later after a healthy breakfast of eggs, grapefruit, and banana (breakfast is seldom my challenge – that would be supper and bednight snacks), it hit me (no, Delores didn’t elbow me to keep me awake) like a mushy pumpkin on the end of a witch’s broom…the scale got it right. If I keep on doing what I’ve frequently and recently done, I’ll keep on getting numbers like 208 or 215 or 222 or 247 or 269! This nightmare can’t be happening to me. Get a grip, college professor! But I digress…again…

Then it hit me…get back to the basics, the Baby Steps, what got me here...There and then I made a Halloween resolution. Delores called it something like a Hallolution. Whatever works…

I’m going on a 6-Day Diet beginning today. I can do anything for six days. I will try to continue it through Friday (then breaking if necessary for two days at Harding’s Homecoming in AR. Take that, Scale!

So here’s my plan for the next six daze: No nuts; no spoons full of peanut butter; no Lara Bars; no grains at all (that means no creamed eggs – my favorite breakfast, because I make them with brown rice flour and almond milk); and NOTHING AT ALL TO EAT AFTER 7 P.M. except water. I will eat raw organic fruits and vegetables, healthy meats/eggs/fish and drink lots of pure spring water.

Additionally, I will do my traction and head weights with 10 minutes of light upper body weights ever day. I will add 20 minutes of burst training or some long-distance cardio or an hour of racquetball at least three of those six days (hopefully). I will revisit the scale on Friday morning (after five days since I won’t be home Saturday to weigh) and see if this plan has reaped any positive results.

So Hallolution, here I come! Boy, that burger, fries, and cole slaw for lunch today surely were delicious. The grass fed burger with organic mustard and the organic sweet potato fries and the homemade cole slaw made fresh this day, of course. I didn’t even top it off with the usual square of dark chocolate…like someone else I know and love did.

Pray for my healthy Hallolution this week. At least the Healing Foods Diet from Dr. Axe has some scrumptiously-tasting foods. If I can just stay out of all of it late at night...Perhaps I should post a scary face on the pantry and refrigerator. No, I’ve got it! I’ll post an image of that really terrifying number…208! Happy Hallolution to you all.

Baby Steps to a Healthy Lifestyle

The journey to a healthy lifestyle can be long and filled with many hurdles that need surmounting in small, toddler-type steps with consistency and persistence. Of course, healthy living or any other concerted effort at improvement must be preceded by a desire to succeed. The want to must be present along with the support of significant others such as a wonderful spouse/best friend, other family and friends, and even the doctor(s) and other personnel at the clinic. These latter professionals should be positively upbeat, enthusiastically happy, energetically passionate about health, know your name quickly, and care about your health challenges. Delores and I found all this together at Exodus Health Clinic in Brentwood, Tennessee. If we can do it at our age, so can you. Unless my memory fails me, here are the steps we took on the road to a healthier lifestyle:

1. Saw a wellness physician chiropractor who advocates and practices holistic health – nutrition and diet; vitamins and supplements; restoring the Arc of Life in the neck and straightening the spine by anti-inflammatory adjustments (three times a week for the first three months); adjustments that fix the spine and don’t just relieve symptomatic pain (although they do that, too); changing the body from acidic to alkaline (mainly by what we do and don’t put into it); detoxifying the body of unnatural and unnecessary chemicals and substances; and developing a positive attitude with a life vision and action goals.

2. Began shopping for and eating on Dr. Axe’s Healing Diet (natural/organic/raw fruits and veggies; grass fed, range free, hormone free beef, bison, chicken; cage free eggs; wild caught Alaskan tuna and salmon; basically replacing our man diet with God food and learning that fast food doesn’t have to be junk food). Within one month we had lost weight, gotten off all medications (diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol); and were feeling great with maximum levels of energy and vitality. Cooking healthily together became a favorite couple’s activity with a lot of experimenting in the kitchen.

3. Eschew many of the toxic substances never to put in your body mainly because they are toxic. These included, but are not necessarily limited to pork, shrimp, artificial sweeteners, pasteurized dairy, and processed sugar.

4. Started taking the “right” healthy vitamins, nutrients, and supplements (natural, raw, and/or organic) as recommended by our wellness physician. This meant chunking the Wal-Mart multi-vitamin and selecting a natural, whole foods (a type, not a store) vitamin. We discovered that vitacost.com is a Website that has all sorts of natural, organic, raw, and healthy foods, vitamins, nutrients, supplements, and even hygiene products, most at much lower cost than Whole Foods (the store) or other stores (if you can even find any of this at other stores – Kroger in our Middle Tennessee area does have some).

5. Rid our kitchen of the microwave. Lots of research is available on the unhealthy nature of that appliance – not only the radiation danger but also what that level of cooking heat does to anything healthy in most foods even just “warmed” in the wave machine (tsunami when it comes to healthy living). Yes, warming foods in the toaster oven or on the stove top does take a little longer; but it is so much healthier and better tasting that way.

6. Without a microwave we no longer use for all the plastic containers we had used for years for warming stuff to eating temperature. We still use some of the “safer” plastics (odd numbers, it seems) to store food in the refrigerator and take in our lunches.

7. Tossed the Teflon-coated cookware in favor of much healthier stainless steel and glass cookware.

8. Changed our drinking habits to healthy water (Delores does tea as well – often hot, especially in this cold winter of 2010). We got an Aquasana filter for our kitchen sink for most of our drinking and cooking water as well as one for the master bath shower so our bodies aren’t soaked in chlorine, lead, and other toxic chemicals every time we bathe. We rely on bottled spring water mostly when away from home as well.

9. Evolved into using natural personal and household hygiene products (still making this gradual transition). We probably should have chunked the junk immediately, but we didn’t. We eased into it as we ran out of something. We have mostly replaced things such as the laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, bath bar soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, breath mints, etc. I am ordering natural sunscreen and bug repellent for my mission trip to Honduras this June.

10. Treated the initial cold symptoms naturally. This meant at the first feeling of getting a head cold, I put a few drops of hydrogen peroxide in each ear (alternating for three minutes each, then draining and doing the other ear). I felt the fizz as when I put that on a cut. The literature indicates that germs enter the ears as much as the mouth and other facial openings. I also started popping 3-4 thousand mg of Vitamin C per day in 1K doses. My cold symptoms were totally gone in three days and never progressed past the mild stage – no cough or sore throat at all. This was the first time in years that a cold didn’t last at least a week usually turning into a sinus infection and often to bronchitis with a hacking cough that would linger sometimes weeks after the other symptoms had faded. That was over three months ago and no hint of a cold has returned this winter. So much for even the passing thought of getting a flu shot.

11. Purchased and began using pH strips to keep track of our journey from a body that is acidic to alkaline at the “ideal” level of 7.3.

12. Added houseplants to the main rooms. This will help clean and filter the indoor air that is often more polluted than that outdoors. Will add a few more as spring arrives.

13. Exercised more regularly (still not bursting as much as we should) using the traction and head weight apparatuses that Dr. Josh sent home with us (just like the ones we use each time we go to the clinic for adjustments). We also bought some 2, 3, 5, and 8 pound dumbbells to help with the weights that he says we should mix with the burst training. We liberated Jiggling George from the closet and began using that again (vibrating ankle machine that helps with circulation and relaxation in the lower legs.

14. Began reading a lot of healthy living books such as:
· Maximum Energy by Dr. Ted Broer
· The Maker’s Diet by Dr. Jordan Rubin
· Eat To Live by Dr. Joel Furman
· The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth by Dr. Jonny Bowden
· The Anti-Inflammatory Diet by Dr. Andrew Weil

15. Started a Life Plan notebook including numerous articles printed from both the draxe.com and mercola.com Websites. These contain lots of articles on a wide variety of health topics. I copy them, paste them into a blank Microsoft Word document, “clean” them up so they take less paper, and print them. We then read these aloud to each other at various times when at home or traveling.

16. Created a vision board illustrating dreams and goals for both short and long-term. These “visions” for the future included physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual “action items” for the rest of our lives together.

17. Began reading a couples devotional book together. We started with Night Light by James and Shirley Dobson.