British SUMMER Time

And we have a very cold morning but magic blue skies and the sun is shining nicely.  Makes a change from the Siberian winter :-)

It's amazing how it can lift your spirits and today is cheat day too and so I'm just about to embark on a trail of forbidden foods :-).  My Protein Power book arrived yesterday - nicely altered for the UK market which is a good touch as the examples are nicely Europeanised for us.  The amazing thing about this book is the range of food is slightly more than the 4HB or the Insulin Factor but very similar to Dr. Atkins revised book.  It has the chapters neatly summarised in a few pages too so you can go the end of a chapter when or if your eyes glaze over - not that this is an overly technical book it is written for the lay man but it does have some sections in there that are designed for GPs.

So far, the books I've read are all counter-intuitive to what is "accepted" science and yet all of these books rest on accepted science and repeatable experiments.  They've drawn a different conclusion to those by GPs and indeed some Government agencies and some of the stuff you read makes you sit up and think.  A good thing too in my opinion.

When I started on this journey sparked by suddenly getting ill after many years of (seemingly) good health I decided that I'd need to change my lifestyle which in many ways I did.  This included diet and some horrendous mistakes in that diet.  I remember going for a high fruit and vegetable diet, concentrated juices and other similar actions and of course in some ways - maybe as a reaction to being so seriously ill I tended to go fully at a solution and gradual was just a word in a dictionary :-)  I spiked my insulin levels way too high and got a ticking off from the Doctor.

Neither he nor my Specialist had any real tangible advice for me how to keep myself healthy as the last thing I wanted to do was end up back where I started if there was something that I could do to prevent it - it's common sense really but no one really tells you anything they deal with the Symptoms and they very rarely deal with the cause other than, in my case, telling you that it was highly probable that smoking earlier in my life would have brought it on.  

So back to these diet books and what they say.  It's a little bit worrying as they all point to Insulin as being a massive problem.  Of course Diabetes but weight and other problems all point to an imbalance caused mainly through the production of Insulin and that is caused through Carbohydrates (Sugars and Starches .  The problem appears to be that our food (mainly processed) is just loaded with the stuff and where in the good old days we used to have a high protein diet with occasional carbs we now have the opposite and guess what?  Our bodies just aren't designed to take it.  Obesity, weight problems, high blood pressure and heart problems, Diabetes and many other common problems appear to be related and stemming from this one area.

So I read through the book yesterday and it all begins to gel into something that's not great for reading if, like me, you've been told you should have a "balanced" diet.  These books look at that and show another way to lose fat (not weight) and retain muscle whilst doing so making you leaner.  The propose a higher protein approach to eating that is low in carbs and anything else (lactose for example) that would spike your insulin levels.  Why you may ask is that important?  Well there are a number of things that Insulin does extremely well it's a major hormone in the body and responsible for lots of things but when you put sugar into your blood stream it goes to work to take it out of your blood and preserve your body by storing it in cells around the body.  The more carbs you eat the more you store.  The trouble is that you never release the stores all the time insulin is present and storing stuff which if you are stuffing carbs into your body is all the time, it never gets the opportunity to be burnt off.  

It is a big subject but I'm pretty much sold on the basics as I've lost quite a bit of weight and interestingly yesterday on the Easter Egg Hunt I had to do some sprinting around the gardens and lifting stuff around - I didn't feel out of breath at all and also noticed how "fit" I was especially when I consider that 3 or 4 months ago I was out of breath tying my shoelaces!  That shocked me into going on the diet - well that and not fitting any of my clothes.  I'm still losing weight but more slowly at the moment a pound or so a week which is plenty to lose.  I'm in two notched on my belt and my trousers need taking in by a few inches so I'm on the right track.  I don't feel hungry except occasionally and that's often because I don't eat enough sometimes or look for a smaller portion but regret it later.  I'm still learning what is right and after about 10 weeks or so I'm doing rather well I think - I haven't got scurvy or beri beri, I feel great and I feel thinner, I'm beginning to lose the weight around my neck and areas like hips are also improved.  My skin feels good.  

I need to check out my Blood Pressure as that should have fallen down and eventually it should fall to "normal" as well.  I sure hope that this brings all of those areas down too.  It should also have a positive effect on Cholesterol as well.  

I'm sure I'll have more to say about this as I read and compare books further.  The one thing is that they all agree on is that the Insulin coursing around isn't doing humans much good and obesity and a host of other things are caused through stuffing our face with carbs many hidden in the ingredients in processed food.  Want to make yourself shocked - take a look at the amount of sugar in a canned drink or breakfast cereal.   Frightening stuff and some kids can ingest 8 - 10 oz of sugar a day - imagine what that does to your Insulin levels and the work the body has to do to keep that out of your blood stream.......

Enjoy your Easter Eggs :-)