SomaCow

This is a blog, working to keep me answering the question, Do You Want To Die? I am Geoff. Pleased to make your acquaintance.

Today I was inputting my food intake to Lose It, software I use to track calories and exercise, and I happened across a message from a friend saying “Sensa. It works when you are ready.”

Rather than ask facebook to bear my load, as it were, with a 500-plus word reply, I figured now would be a good opportunity to explain my thinking regarding diets, supplements, juicy juices, foot-toxin absorbers, banana pepper suppositories, add-ons, belly shakers, and other weight loss paraphernalia.

I am against them.

Easy! Whoa! Before you fire up the world-wide internet and copy-paste thirty seven new studies and your friend’s pants that tell EXACTLY why what I just said isn’t true. Stop throwing stuff, and listen.

I got fat eating too much food, certainly, but I also ate bad food. Me getting healthy is about taking steps.

I was talking earlier about putting together a cost comparison of my life now to my life a year ago. I am still working on that, but what I have learned in the meantime is that I used to eat a lot, sure, but I used to eat a lot of very bad food.

I would once console myself, when I was crazyfat, that at least I was getting a good balance of meats, veg, bread, and very little salt and sugar.

I was lying to myself. My weekly diet would often consist of 10 or more trips to restaurants and fast food establishments. I would eat tons of food, but, worse, tons of chemicals. Preservatives, emulsifiers, food dyes, refortified nutrient content, fat blockers, additional sweeteners, modified gums and -itols, acids, artifical flavors, partially hydrogenated buttsechs cream, and on and on and on.

The list of food additives that I do not encounter now is frightening and long.

All of that shit does not all come out in your shit, I believe. It stays with you, like an unwanted holiday houseguest, still laying about come Flag Day, monopolizing your resources and working against your objectives.

There is evidence that suggests weight loss is, at best, stalled when foods that are not food are consumed.

I am hereby calling artificials, supplementals, and all the other crap being sold to us as UnFood. Like the UnDead, it is difficult to disperse UnFood, it may kill you if you are not careful, and people generally do not believe the truth about it until it is too late.

Did you ever notice that just about every fat person you know that does not want to be fat drinks diet soft drinks? AND YET THEY ARE STILL FAT.

Did you ever notice that just about every person who sprinkles fat inhibitors on their food eventually finds that lost weight again?

Did you ever notice that all of the diets, drugs, supplements, and such are always sold on late night TV, or on failing radio stations, or in the back of crappy, desperate publications?

Think about Apple, as a product. I do not care how you feel about Apples. That is irrelevant. Just think about the Apple product. Computers that work so well, they were able to open a whole store consisting of just display models of their computers. Think about Goodyear tires. Think about any product that is reliable enough to stand on its own merit, and be sold as such.

If a weight loss product existed that worked, it would be in its own store, not on aisle 72, behind the steroid socks at your local general poison center.

Myoplex, the shake, apparently has high levels of arsenic.  Olestra makes your anoos ache. Atkins can trigger health disorders.

Sensa makes your body fail to digest and utilize fat. It does nothing to the cholesterol, high sugar, high salt, etc. that you are consuming. Why not just swallow a trash bag, and then eat your food, and when you are done, pull the bag back out?

I am trying to get to a place where everything I put in my body heals me, makes me whole again, provides a nutrient, and enriches my cellular makeup.

I am trying to stop evaluating foods SO much by taste. I tasted lots of yummy bad stuff for a long time. It is time to put away those things, and eat to live, not the other way around.

I believe people should do what works for them. Right now, I have lost half the weight to my goal by eating good food, not eating shitty food, and walking when I remember to do so(getting a BIT better at that).

Who is to say when I get down to that last 80, 50, 20 pounds, and cannot lose the weight, week after week, month after month with no change, that I too will not seek out some shady solution in a bottle?

I can’t say never.

But for now, fuck no! Do you have any idea what the longterm effects of that Sensa shit will be? Me neither.

Want to know my REALLY effective weight loss technique?

Eat seven servings of vegetables a day. Go ahead and try. It’s quite a bit of chewing.

For an added challenge, no salt, minimal olive oil, no butter. Pepper is fine. Steamed or raw is ideal.

By the time I plowed through all seven today, I didn’t even want to TALK, I was so mouthsore.

Thanks, as always, for advice, tips, and suggestions! I consider everything, and I try to research the hell out of it when you folks suggest it. I hope you see that I am not adhering to a “get skinny quick” scheme or plan.

I am building a body to care for my daughter’s father.

My name is Geoff, an host of SomaCow, and I am trying to teach myself how to not be a psychotic eatbeast.

I’m still pony.

That’s a little horse.

The cold that I had has metamorphed to this wheedling thing, and I will be happy when it leaves here with its mucus and its itchy throat and its hazy, almost-but-not-quite sneezing.

In the meantime I am putting in some longer days at work, which requires that I leave the house at 5:30 am and get home at 7:30 pm.

I’ve had way worse schedules, and I am sure many of you do, but it’s sort of a bitch with the diabetes, and I am learning how to get through the day, camping style.

Today, my sweet Helper Monkeys packed superfoods aplenty. When I left my house I had - black coffee – 40 carrot slices – 2 hard boiled eggs – a half cup of beans – six olives - a cup of raw pecans  - a turkey sandwich with tomato on whole wheat and pumpernickel swirl bread – 4 additional slices of turkey

I was, in short, loaded for bear.

Diabetes Bear.

THE DEADLIEST OF BEARS, FOR HE CANNOT ENJOY HONEY! RARRR!!!!!!

At 6:15 I was on the road and feeling good. At 6:50 I was pulling in to get more coffee. I had already eaten three olives.

at 7:20 I popped an egg in my mouth and chewed it up.

at 7:21 I figured I might as well chase that with the olives. Plenty of good fats

at 8:00 I was nearing my job site. I munched a few pecans.

by 9:00 I was nomming more pecans.

the coffee was gone.

by 10:00, the beans made their way down my gullet, briefly alone, until the second egg came looking for them.

by 11:00 (almost lunch time!) I was worried that the turkey sandwich was getting too warm, and so I grabbed it and chomped it down. It was sooooo good.

I also munched the turkey slices. Without ice, how could I ensure their food safety status?

So, by 11:15, everything was gone but the carrot slices. I had no food for lunch, but who needs lunch when you have eaten everything in sight in one morning?

At 3:00 in the afternoon, I munched my carrots. I made them last, enjoying each bite, lightly rolling them in my mouth, savoring their sweet, a bit overhigh in the glycemic index but carotoid heavy goodness.

Or are they?

It seems that the initial rating of carrots as being too high in the glycemic index may have been a misprint, or poor science. It also seems that the carb load isn’t what we are led to believe, depending on which website you utilize. The American Diabetes Association includes recipes with carrots on its website, other sites threaten that too many can spike your blood like WHOA. Some sites cite the sight benefits of beta-carotene, some ignore it completely.

Fun, when simple queries like “should I eat carrots?” are answered with yes, no, sometimes, rarely, never, and often.

I guess it doesn’t matter, since all the carrots were gone by 3:02.

No wonder people keep dying of this shit.

You know what IS good for me? Peppers, onions, mushrooms, and smelt! Had that for dinner, and it was excellent. Super Helper Monkey Rowan helped me brush on some olive oil and pepper.

MAN were they yummy!

Tomorrow, I will try to space out my eating a bit better.

 

 SomaCow 300: Episode 300 [1:26:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

SomaCow Media is proud to present SomaCow brought to you by some overweight girls within celebratory headdresses.

In this, their finest hour, the guys talked about it being episode 300! It was a time to party, a time to reminisce, and a time to look forward.

Geoff asked me to pick up a couple of balloons for the gang, something festive. Wow, am I going to love throwing Rowan birthday parties! I ended up getting balloons, glowing bracelets, sunglasses, party hats, poppers, noisemakers, and a cake! If you are following Ross or myself on Twitter, you will know what a green cake does to you :P. But it was cool! Many thanks to Publix for making a green cow print cake!

It was also a time to reflect and ask you, dear Heard, what you have liked and not liked. Do you like the episodic bits (i.e. Newsbomb, Life Coaching, Weekly Constitutional)? What’s your favorite SomaCow moment? What didn’t you like?

We’re not saying we’re going to change the whole show, oh no, we’re just looking at what we can do to make the next 300 even better. The way we can make it the best is you guys. Geoff has been working on his “Leader Board” and we have already received countless questions about how you all can get more points and that’s awesome! All I can answer is to listen live tonight (or listen back if it’s after Friday) for more details. Thank you all for all you have done. Keep commenting on the blogs (hint hint) and join us in the live chat every Friday night. You guys are the best!

Happy 300 SomaCow!