Healthy Eating

  That's our dog Ringo. I don't really have a story about him I just wanted to put a picture of him on my blog.
   What I really wanted to talk about today is how I changed my diet last year and how I have been feeling a 100% better ever since. In 2013 I weighted 174 pounds. That is the most I have ever weighed. I'm 5'8 and while that's not obese, I did have a big gut that made me feel miserable and bloated. I had low energy and just didn't feel good. I ate like a stray dog. Five or six sodas a day. A lot of ground beef and sweet cakes. I ate tons of cheese and bacon and just what ever got in my way.
  I had a physical around that time and my cholesterol was high. My blood pressure was borderline high. I even had the first signs of developing a fatty liver. It shook me. I knew I needed to change my diet but I didn't really know how.
  I started by giving up sodas. That was the first thing I did and it turns out that it was the hardest thing. I struggle with it to this day. I went cold turkey only drinking water and black coffee. Next I avoided snack cakes and candy bars. I replaced junk food with fruit. I ate so much fruit that another blood test showed that I had high glucose levels. I backed down on the fruit and ate nuts instead of bananas and oranges.
  I made a lot of changes over the following month's. I also started losing weight. I lost about 10 pounds the first month. I tried to stop eating meat all together but I got very weak. I went back to eating lean meats like turkey and baked chicken.
  An unexpected side benefit of my diet change was that my bones stopped aching. I'm 51 years old and have had shoulder problems for a few years now. My knees ached some as well. That all went away. I felt good, better than I had in my thirties! I know that sounds crazy but it's really true.
  Over the year I researched healthy foods on the Internet. I made it a game to replace unhealthy stuff with healthy foods.
  I read a lot of information on the net. I put together a healthy cereal for breakfast and a meal to eat for lunch everyday. Yes, I eat the same thing everyday. Here's everything I eat up until 3 pm.
  As soon as I wake up I drink half a bottle of water. Then I take a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (with the Mother). Once I stop gagging, I mix a bowl of cereal containing, shredded wheat, berry flakes, grape-nuts, flax seeds and flax seed mill, raw oats, almonds, walnuts, blueberries, and almond milk. I drink a small glass of unsweetened grapefruit juice as well.  That sounds like a lot but I only use a small amount of each ingredient. It fills me up all morning until my break at 9. At 9 I eat a bowl of raw oats, local honey, sprinkle of cinnamon, and walnuts mixed with water and microwaved for 30 seconds. You shouldn't heat honey too hot it can make it toxic.
  For lunch I have a small bowl of pinto beans, raw spinach and kale, a small sweet potato and water.
  Like I said before, this works for me. I figure if I eat two healthy meals during the day I can have whatever I want for supper. That's not to say that I go nuts and overeat.I now weigh 158.
  So that's pretty much how I got my energy back. It took me over a year to get to the point where I feel as good as I do now because of trial and error. I guess I'm one of those folks that has to have some meat. I don't eat a lot, maybe three servings a week. I do have the occasional cookie and I have drank a soda here and there but I maintain my diet everyday. 
  The difference from a year ago to now is I have tons of energy. I don't ache in my joints anymore. Because I drink lot's of water all day I stay hydrated and my skin looks healthier and taunt. I work out in the sun all day and I have a very physical job. I get over injuries faster than I used to. I walk a lot on my job. Once I had one of those odometer things and it said I walked 8 miles a day. So exercise is a part of this thing too.
  I take my breaks with a bunch of other guys. They all make fun of my diet. I don't say much to them but I watch what they eat on a daily basis. Most of them eat some form of a biscuit for breakfast, be it ham, sausage and cheese, or jelly. They drink sodas and eat cakes as well. Then they all eat meat dishes for lunch. They have sodas then as well. One guy named Brad goes to the gym everyday and he does have big muscles. He eats a lot of junk though and has bad skin and says he feels bad all the time. He made the comment once, referring to my health nut like diet, that he "Hopes he lives longer than me so he can stand on my grave and laugh at how I tried to eat good and he outlived me". I said that he may outlive me but that's not the only thing it's about, it's about quality of life. I would rather feel good all the time than just feel good when I'm eating a plate of BBQ ribs.