Our EverGreen Life

FatSecret App Review

Imagine the following scene. Stepping onto a scale, smiling, shouting out in joy, and feeling great. Well, I'm proud to say I've experienced that recently. After failing to cut weight for a couple of years, I have now unlocked a "fat secret" that has allowed me to shed some unwanted pounds again.  In the past month, I've dropped 12 pounds, feel a substantial improvement in my health, and haven't experienced a sensation of starvation but for a few times. I look forward to stepping on the scale once or twice a week now, something I avoided like the plague before. I no longer stress out about what I should or shouldn't eat, as I have routinely done for about twenty years. I now simply observe what I eat and pay attention to the nutritional values of all things that pass my lips and gums to embark on the miraculous journey through my digestive system and nourish my body.  I observe all of the available data of a food's fiber, carbohydrate, sugar, fat, cholesterol, and sodium contents through this app.  And, of course, I consider the total calorie count of each item I consume. 

My Food Dairy, January 23, 2018

The secret I've unlocked is not the app; the knowledge it provides me, however, is.  With good information, I am able to make more mindful food choices that increase the good nutrients I take into my body, limit the bad stuff (cholesterol, unhealthy fats, sodium, etc.) and reduce the total amount of calories I consume. Not only am I enjoying improved health, but I'm also experiencing a feeling of contentment and personal satisfaction as I lose weight.  It's hard to admit this, but I confess that I experienced some amount of low self-esteem in the recent past, and I can't help but to wonder if my body and subconscious mind were attempting to communicate with me the urgency of improving my health beyond what I had previously achieved. Being a loser feels great, and I now experience a greater sense of self-acceptance as unwanted weight comes off. I am very grateful for this health app.

Obviously, there are some things FatSecret cannot do. Of course, it can't provide you or me with the desire to change. We must each find our own sources of motivation. But, I have discovered a couple of tricks that work for me. One is listening to the RRP (The Rich Roll Podcast). The stories of others struggling with similar issues, the tales of athletes achieving feats of endurance previously thought to be unobtainable, and fountains of knowledge about health and nutrition from inspirational interviews all combine to really fire me up. Another source of personal motivation has been pain and suffering. These too have brought me to a mental state where I truly wish to change. Sadly, I cannot guarantee that what works for me will for you. I can only share my personal story of transformation and renewal.  If I'm honest, perhaps the best I can offer is a glimpse of the results one can enjoy if inspired to take a step forward. So what is it exactly that the FatSecret App can do for you?  I, for one, feel confident to say that it can provide much-needed knowledge to make transformational choices for improved health.

A Review of How Not To Die

Death is a very big problem! Although it can't be avoided, we can evade dying prematurely. There are 15 major causes of preventable deaths, which from the greatest risk to the least are as follows:  coronary heart disease (375,000 deaths per year), lung diseases (lung cancer, COPD, and asthma:  296,000/year), iatrogenic causes (medical mistakes and risks associated with hospitalization: 225,000/year), brain diseases (stroke and Alzheimer's:  214,000/year), digestive cancers (colorectal, pancreatic, and esophageal: 106,000/year), infections (respiratory and blood:  95,000/year), diabetes (76,000/year), high blood pressure (65,000/year), liver diseases (cirrhosis and cancer:  60,000/year), blood cancers (leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma:  56,000/year), kidney disease (47,000/year), breast cancer (41,000/year), suicidal depression (41,000/year), prostate cancer (28,000/year), and Parkinson's disease (25,000 deaths per year).

According to Michael Greger (M.D., FACLM, founder of NutritionFacts.org and author of How Not To Die) what does the scientific body of evidence conclude are the undeniable leading causes of these deaths?  Eating too many disease-laden foods while avoiding nourishine ones.  Highly processed and refined food products, meat, and dairy and the primary bad guys.  The other team consists of plants, mostly in their pure and natural forms.  Being the good doctor he is,  Greger copiously supports his conclusions with 131 pages of citations representing broad scientific consensus that buttruss this argument.  Unlike those who deny real science, he uses more than just a handful of studies dubiously funded by corporate interests.

Dr. Greger is no doomsday prophet. He brings us some very good news too.  By eating fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes, combined with drinking a lot of liquid and exercising, we can avoid dying prematurely and unnecessarily from these avoidable diseases.  And if you have indulged too much in eating unhealthy foods, it is, in many cases, possible to reverse the ravages of our self-inflicted suffering with a whole food plant-based diet.  His recommendations are simple. Eat three servings of legumes each day, one serving of berries, three servings of other fruits, one serving of cruciferous vegetables, two servings of greens, two servings of other veggies, one serving of flax seed, a small dose of tumeric, three servings of whole grains, five servings of water, and exercise.  Do this, and we can all avoid premature death and a lot of unnecessary misery.

My personal reaction after reading this comprehensive study of nutrition, health, and wellnes is that I have not a single reason to eat meat, dairy, or processed foods ever again!  I highly recommend this book to anyone having even the smallest desire to learn about how to live a healthy and fullfilled life.  After following his daily dozen recommendations for nearly one year, I can say it works better than advertised.  This read has profoundly transformed my life. 

Turning Suffering Into Medicine

Pain has brought me to my knees once again.  When disease first knocked at my door six years ago, I awakened to the urgent need of embracing a new way of life.  Obesity, high cholesterol, depression, warning signs of diabetes, and dangerously elevated blood pressure:  These were the original catalysts that ignited my desire to embrace a whole food, plant-based lifestyle.  I transformed my diet, then eliminated multiple sources of stress, and eventually began to exercise, but somewhere between four and five years after my awakening I became very stuck.  In spite of many victories—lower cholesterol and blood pressure, improved core strength an flexibility, the loss of more than one hundred pounds of weight, the completion of a 154-mile bike race around the Tetons, and a personal best of cycling more than 5000 miles in one year—I still couldn't shed the unsightly fat that embarrassingly clings to my abdomen or move my blood pressure and cholesterol from good to great.  How could I eat so healthily, dedicate substantial quantities of daily time to exercise, and still not lose those last thirty plus pounds of weight?  The answer is simple.  I overate!  It turns out that I’d been eating too much of some higher calorie, plant-based, good stuff.

About six weeks ago, a crippling pain radiated from my left hip down the outside of the same leg to my calf.  At times the sensation was so strong my entire leg locked up.  I followed the RICE method, visited a chiropractor twice, searched for answers on the Internet, and finally, desperate to bring an end to my suffering, ended-up seeing an orthopedic surgeon.  I came home with a diagnosis of a herniated disc and a pinched nerve in the S1 or L4-L5 area of my lower vertebrae and prescriptions of heavy doses of NSAIDs and Methylprednisolone.  Instantaneously I was both relieved and sickened.  Truly happy to know the exact nature of my pain but absolutely horrified at the prescribed remedy, I was confused.  Under the burden of pain, I initially went along with the suggested solution to my problem.  But, I almost immediately regretted wasting money on this "standard" protocol for my condition because something inside me felt very wrong.  At first, I was ignorant about the side effects of these two prescriptions; on the other hand, I was also in tune enough with my body to feel they were very wrong.  To resolve my inner conflict, I researched the negative aspects of this course of treatment and determined not to follow it.  In a matter of days, I learned how to deal with my lower back problem naturally.

“Turning all suffering into medicine” is one of many bits of wisdom found in Zen Buddhism.  I believe my debilitating back pain, though short-lived, was a blessing in disguise.  Now I've come to see this trauma as a new inspiration for another much needed lifestyle shift.  In my research, I found legitimate information on natural treatments for inflammation of the joints.  Most importantly, I discovered the benefits of low-inflammation diets.  While studying these, I stumbled on what I have good reason to believe is the answer I’ve been searching for to get off the plateau I’ve been stuck on with my extra weight.  So, I'll say it again.  The simple solution to my weight problem is to eat less. Oh, what controversy swirls around this common sense notion to weight loss!  Like so many others, I’ve fallen under the mistaken impression that I can eat all the good healthy foods I want.  This is absolutely false.  The recognition of my error occurred when I read a “Happy Herbivore” blog post where the author mentioned that too many plant-based foodies like myself are trapped by this falsehood as she once was.  In addition, the author insisted that when she finally embraced the hard, cold truth that she ate too much, she was quickly able to reach the health, fitness, and weight loss goals that had eluded her.  This idea jolted me.  It felt and continues to impress me to be just as true as the revelation I had six years ago to adopt a whole food, plant-based lifestyle.

So far, I’ve found two tools that many others have successfully used to achieve what I hope to accomplish.  My first discovery was an online calorie calculator that tells you—based on your age, height, weight, and level of physical activity—how many calories you should consume in a day (see http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html).  I’ve also discovered a fantastic app called fatsecret, a user friendly calorie and nutrition tracker for your smartphone.  My first realization:  I’ve been eating too many nuts, seeds, and beans, as they’re packed in calories.  For the moment, I’m totally opting out of some of these food items, selecting lower calorie choices of others, and only consuming larger quantities of these very healthy but high calorie foods on the days when I need a lot fuel. The results, in the past four weeks I’ve dropped ten pounds.  What's more, I'm not starving!  By observing the nutritional contents of the foods I eat, I'm making better choices.  The foods I select now are fiber and nutrient dense but calorie light.  When it comes to an equivalent count of calories, you have the choice to eat an entire yam or just few processed sweet potato chips dipped in a delicious cheese like, fat-adding vegan spread.  For me, the former is more filling than the latter, and nothing, I MEAN NOTHING, tastes as good as healthy feels.

More Thoughts On The Addition Strategy and Crowding Out The Bad Stuff For A Healthy Diet

Unhealthy plant-based, whole foods?

I've recently let go of more unhealthy, processed foods.  Most notably absent are tortilla chips.  Once upon a time, dipping them into fresh salsa and homemade hummus seemed so reasonable.  But deep down inside, I knew all the unhealthy oils, salts, and preservatives that came with my favorite snack had to go.  At first I searched for a healthy chip, but even the best of these came with concerns; not to mention, this habit certainly didn't address my tendency to eat more than necessary by snacking too much.  No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't let go.

My next attempt was to replace tortilla chips with veggie sticks. Dipping red peppers and carrots into hummus worked sporadically, but after a while I would crack, break down, and give in to a chip fix.  My solution came as a surprise.  I follow the Happy Pear on Instagram.  Their daily healthy food and lifestyle photos inspire me, and recently the twins posts on sandwiches have caught my eye.  Since starting my 12-step challenge, this food item has been out (too many unhealthy old habits associated with this former staple of my diet.)  But could adding a healthier version of my old favorite resolve my chip addiction?

This fall, as usual, we had way too many tomatoes to deal with.  (I can only handle one meal of  pasta and another of chili each week.  And salsa?  It  requires chips.)  One day after skimming through  some Happy Pear feeds, I decided t0 lunch on a piece of toast smothered in hummus and topped with sliced tomato.  It was love at first bite, so I added these healthy one-sided sandwiches back in my diet.

A New Addition

What's more, winter has set in, our gardens are put to bed, and we've turned our attentions to growing microgreens.  Adding a healthy hummus sandwich on multi-whole grain bread with veggies and  baby greens is now a go to item for both me and the wife.  These sandwiches are so delicious and filling.  Switch the tomatoes with avocados, and these healthy delights take on an entirely different form.  To really mix things up, try swapping the hummus for a delicious smokey, cheddar spread made with almonds, pimentos, and garbanzos.  Oh, my!

Lately, I haven't missed my chips.  Except for once at a restaurant, they've been absent from my diet for several months.  Adding a healthy whole-food alternative and essentially crowding out the bad stuff, has been the ticket.  Will I completely eliminate tortilla chips?  Maybe on the the rare occasion when I eat out I'll still indulge.  But, I really don't miss them anymore.  My cravings for yet another oily, salty, processed food has vanished, and the thought of eating them again is slowly becoming foreign if not out right repulsive because of the unhealthy contrast I experience compared to eating  whole, plant-based foods.  What sweet success!

Post Script:  I forgot to post this blog back in early December, so it's out of sequence and outdated.