Ben's Excellent Journey Towards Good Health

[SactoBob]

Hi Ben.
Here is a proposed start to a journal which you may want to follow.
Here is the history you have given:

I am starting the 30 day unprocessed food challenge today, and I thought I'd start my own journal here as well. My aim is to write at least something in this journal every day. Below is what I have posted on another thread this morning......................

Here is a bit of an intro. I am 37 years old and live in Australia. This morning I weighed myself and I am the heaviest I have ever been in my life (323.4 lbs). I am 6 feet tall.

I have been overweight my whole life since childhood. There were a few years where I was not though - when I was eating low fat food (inspired by Susan Powter) and exercising regularly. The first year or so I ate a lot of unprocessed food but as time went by I started eating more and more processed food.

I have had an atrocious diet for over 10 years now. It is a miracle that I am not fatter than I am, or very sick. Particularly in the last two years I have eaten at least twice a day from places such as McDonalds or KFC. As well as that I have eaten at least a pound of chocolate a day (and that is honestly probably underestimating it). In addition to that, all my other food choices each day have been very unhealthy. I have been eating A LOT of food each day and 99.9% of what has gone into my mouth has been trash.

I have not felt good about what I have been doing. I know better. I have been reading this board, and the old Vegsource one, at least once a day throughout this whole time. I have read every book written by Dr McDougall and others, and I own most of the dvds. I agree with everthing Dr McDougall (and people like Nettie, f1jim and Sactobob) say. I am deeply in the Pleasure Trap. I consider myself a vegetarian at heart (despite eating crap for many years it's only been in the last couple that I have reintroduced meat) but have been eating meat several times a day.

I do believe in jumping right in to the program, but first some questions:

1. Who does the cooking in your home, and what is your marital and family situation. The challenges are different for a person living alone, and different if you have, like me, a wife who likes to cook. If you have a family, hopefully everybody will be on board.

2. Are you faced with any financial challenges? Can you invest in some cooking tools, books, dvds etc? Are you well off? The best way to go wold be to attend a 10 day program, although I and many others have succeeded without that. If you are broke, you will face additional challenges.

3. What whole grain starch or starches appeal to you? Many people build their meals around one or two starches, and it helps if you like them. If you have no preference, I may recommend brown rice for a couple of reasons. It is very unlikely to aggravate digestive problems, and there are wonderful rice cookers that can do everything for you and keep the rice warm for many days.

4. What do you, or whoever cooks, have in the way of cookware. Do you have a typical kitchen with a range, oven, etc.?

5. What type of job, if any, do you have. Is travel required? Do you work at home or distant? Can you eat somewhere where you work, or are you forced to go out?

Answering these question could get us off on a good start.

[Ben]

Hi Bob

I am more than happy to answer your questions, and thanks for offering me the challenge. I am on board. I am sick of being so big and having no energy, and I think it is only a matter of time until this way of eating causes serious health problems.

I will answer your questions below...

1. Who does the cooking in your home, and what is your marital and family situation. The challenges are different for a person living alone, and different if you have, like me, a wife who likes to cook. If you have a family, hopefully everybody will be on board.

I am single and I live alone

2. Are you faced with any financial challenges? Can you invest in some cooking tools, books, dvds etc? Are you well off? The best way to go wold be to attend a 10 day program, although I and many others have succeeded without that. If you are broke, you will face additional challenges.

I am a teacher, so I have an income coming in each fortnight. However I spent 5 years at University (ie. very broke) and since beginning work 20 months ago have spent $22,000 on school related things (books, classroom resources, professional development etc). Therefore I do not have an abundance of money....but I can get what is needed.

3. What whole grain starch or starches appeal to you? Many people build their meals around one or two starches, and it helps if you like them. If you have no preference, I may recommend brown rice for a couple of reasons. It is very unlikely to aggravate digestive problems, and there are wonderful rice cookers that can do everything for you and keep the rice warm for many days.

I do genuinely like brown rice a lot. I also like oatmeal. I used to love barley, but I have only ever had pearl barley and I think that is not considered a whole grain? I have to say I am not a huge fan of potatoes. The only way I have found I like them is cold, but I am not in love with them. My favourite would be brown rice.

4. What do you, or whoever cooks, have in the way of cookware. Do you have a typical kitchen with a range, oven, etc.?

Yes, it's a typical kitchen. Although having said that I no longer have a working refrigerator! Mine broke down a few weeks ago. Apart from not having a refrigerator or a rice cooker I would say that I had an adequate range of cookware in terms of pots and pans. My two priorities here as far as I can see is to get a good rice cooker and a refrigerator. I have had a few rice cookers in the past but they were cheap ones and were not very good at all. I saw a much better quality one in a shop here last weekend for $180. I would like to get that. If I had to choose which one to buy first out of a good rice cooker and a refrigerator I actually think it would be better to get a rice cooker, because I think that I might be best to have brown rice as the centre of my diet, and I could buy vegetables daily.

5. What type of job, if any, do you have. Is travel required? Do you work at home or distant? Can you eat somewhere where you work, or are you forced to go out?

I'm a junior primary teacher. So the vast majority of the time I could either eat lunch in my classroom or the staffroom. If I was on an excursion with the class I would bring my own lunch anyway.

Thanks Bob for taking the time to ask those questions. I hope I have answered them clearly....Ben


I am editing this to include weekly weight stats here in this post. I will keep them here so that I (or anyone else if they are interested) can refer back to them, without having them in my signature for example and clogging up too much space after each post.

10/10/10 323.4 (starting weight - my highest weight ever)
10/15/10 321.9 (-1.5)
10/22/10 326.5 (+4.6 a NEW highest weight ever)

[SactoBob]

Thanks for the info. You have a lot of good things going for you and nothing that should present any real obstacles. And your educated and intelligent, and that helps to.

Your first assignment (sorry, couldn't resist) would be to watch this video on line: http://video.vsh.org/Shintani2.html For extra credit, Dr. McDougall's address to the Lifestyle Medicine Board is great. It too is free, and can be downloaded at the bottom of this page. http://drmcdougall.com/store_electures.html Lastly, I want you to soon view Dr. Lisle's lecture on the Pleasure Trap. http://video.vsh.org/lisle.html This will give you more insight into the problem, and explain why your food won't taste very good for awhile (usually a few weeks only), and why it will soon be tasting great. Your education will help you a lot on this one.

You will find that there are a number of great doctors who are all preaching basically the same thing. Dr. Shintani, Dr. McDougall, Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Ornish, Jeff Novick, etc. Dr. Shintani's presentation is excellent and will get you grounded in seeing the problem as well as the solution.

I want you to eventually buy some dvds, but IMO the first priority is a good rice cooker. You want one with a timer, and it must be capable of keeping the rice warm for 24 hours. Living alone, a 4 cup cooker should be plenty. The Zojirushi fuzzy logic cookers are good. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00007 ... Y5962JDH3D

I bought the induction heating model, which costs more but is worth it IMO. We also have a Sanyo rice cooker that we use mostly for steaming, but it too is excellent. There are a number of excellent cookers out there. Just be sure that they have programmable timers - oh yeah, and that they have a cycle for brown rice. The Zojirushi also has a cycle for gaba rice, which is also a plus.

I would like you to get one book. Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Caldwell Esselstyn. It is a great book, but it includes a cookbook which my wife and I have found to be the simplest and best of all.

For right now, do your best to avoid meat, dairy, and oil. Eventually we will be talking about salt, whole foods, food labels, etc. But first, try to reduce the intake of the junk while you get some information, some tools, and some recipes. I'm really enthused to be getting started on this project, Ben, and I am confident that you are going to really enjoy your new lifestyle.

Oh, one more question, Ben. Do you have a microwave oven?

[Ben]

Hi Bob

Well today I went out and bought a rice cooker and a refrigerator! The refrigerator gets delivered tomorrow, but I have the rice cooker now. It's a Toshiba and it is able to be programmed to turn itself on and heat rice for up to 30 hours after it is cooked. It is literally the only one I have found in my town that is not a cheap one. It is night time here and I have got my first lot of rice in, and I have set it to be ready at 5:30 tomorrow morning. I hope it all works! I will let you know how it goes. My fingers are crossed.

I have just realised after re-reading your last post that you suggested an order to watch those video exceprts in. Oops, I didn't notice that before. I started with the Doug Lisle one. I watched 44 mins of the 59 mins before it stopped working. I must have exceeded the download limit for the month so it is on dial up speed now and what I watched took 6 hours to download, so I haven't watched the other two yet, but I will definitely watch one tomorrow night and one the night after.

I have the Esseltyn book already! I agree that there are great recipes in there that I liked the look of when I read them. I have not made one of them

I should let you know the books and dvds I already have. I have:

Books
by Dr McDougall I have
Quicky and Easy cookbook
MWL book
Dr M's digestive tune-up

by Neal Barnard I have
Eat right, live longer
Breaking the food seduction
Turn off the fat genes

I also have The China Study, The Pleasure Trap, and Diet for a New America

DVDs
by Dr McDougall
Dr McDougall's Total Health Solution
McDougall's Medicine

by Jeff Novick
Lighten up: weighing in on the weight debate
Calorie density
The Pleasure trap

Most of the books I have read numerous times. I have watched all of the dvds many times, and I love them all. I notice that Jeff has a new 'Fast food' dvd out. I would really like to get that one, and I will.

Oh, and you asked about a microwave. Yes, I do have one.

So, I am hoping that I wake up to some freshly cooked rice tomorrow that I can have for breakfast and to take to work tomorrow. And when I get home there will be a refrigerator waiting for me. For the last 10 years I have not been able to use a freezer as I have just had bar fridges that did not have space to freeze anything other than ice basically. This one has enough space to freeze lots of frozen vegetables, which I think will be one ofo the most easiest and successful ways of adding vegetables to my meals. I have to admit I am not a huge lover of vegetables.

I'll check back tomorrow with hopefully good news about my rice cooker

Ben

PS. I have added a ticker, but do you, or anyone else, know how to add the weight graph with the ticker? I have tried to find out how today with no luck

[Mrs. Doodlepunk]

Ben, when you sign up for the ticker and see the weight graph, look at the bottom under the graph for a small blue hot link. Click on that to get the code for the graph!

I also wanted to say that I'm cheering for you!

[SactoBob]

Ben, you're off to a great start and have more background on the plan that I would have thought. That's great.

The Pleasure Trap book that you have is, I think, written by Dr. Lisle rather than Jeff Novick. If you have read that book, you don't need to see Dr. Lisle's video lecture, although it is great.

One of the first things you should do IMO is to find a "go to" recipe that is easy and quick to prepare and will satisfy your hunger. I like the Very Quick Black Bean Chili on p. 228 of the Esselstyn book. It tastes great and keeps well in the (new) refrigerator. Try some other recipes too if they seem more appealing. Another "goto" item for me were Japanese Sweet Potatoes. See if you can find some (oriental food store?) and wash and bake them for about an hour at about 375 degrees. You can keep a few in the refrigerator. They rewarm great in a minute or two at low power.

You want to start developing "go to" foods because it is when you are hungry that you are most likely to go off plan. Make sure that there is always plenty of great food around. Apples, bananas, any whole fruit, are also great things. Do you have any diagnosed medical problems? I am assuming that fruit for you can be eaten relatively freely.

Do you like potatoes? Here is a great and filling potato dish that you can make. viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18966 Take a look at it and maybe give it a try. It keeps well and reheats well.

You are going to be faced with a lot changes that will seem difficult at first, and it will be mostly up to you how to deal with them. Before you get serious about adherence, I think it wise to have all your tools and weapons lined up.

Read up on your rice cooker how to use it as a steamer, and if it didn't come with a steamer basket, get one. You don't want a metal one if your rice cooker has an expensive coating on it. Steaming is a great and tasty way to prepare vegetables etc. Also check if your rice cooker has directions for oat meal (if you like it). Or maybe you would like rice and vegetables better for breakfast. Either way - you already have he idea. Prepare breakfast the evening before, and it is warm and ready when you are.

You have Jeff's dvds, so you already know how to read labels. Make sure that any canned items you buy don't have added oils, etc. or have more sodium (salt) per serving than calories per serving. I am assuming that Aussie label laws are similar to US?

Another thing that will be ideal for you is a Bento Box. This is the one I used. http://www.amazon.com/Zojirushi-SL-JAE1 ... 857&sr=1-1

What I normally did was put a lot of last night's dinner (e.g. the Chili) into the bento box. I might also have a warmed sweet potato in there, and a salad if you like.

You said that you didn't like vegetables much. Don't worry because your tastes will change. For now, you might want to get a bottle of balsamic vinegar, or some lime juice or limes, to see how you like vegetables with these. I don't like greens very much by themselves, and often start meals with a bed of greens over the rice. Example - pour the Esselstyn Chile over a bed of brown rice and greens. Any greens are fine. I like spinach a lot and often use mixtures that the store prepares to speed preparation time.

It might be fun to post a picture here as another way to follow your progress visually. Also, I think we should have a weekly weigh-in documented. The problem with the tickers is it only shows beginning weight versus current weight. It would be good to have weekly data points both for general knowledge and to alert us of any problems that could creep up in terms of understanding or adherence along the way.

So soon we should have a general plan of attack for every day. Your rice cooker can have most of breakfast ready in the morning. You can put last night's dinner in the Bento Box for lunch, and you will have some favorite recipes for dinner. You may want to set the rice cooker to have brown rice ready when you return home in the evening. You can always snack on a sweet potato or fruit, or warm some chile or whatever and pour it over rice. You will always have warm rice available. If you have extra time, see if you can try another recipe or two.

In the meantime, try to focus more on whole plant foods and taper off or quiet anything with dairy, meat, or oil. Do you find that you have to eat out a lot? Or are restaurants not a necessary evil for you.

[Ben]

Thanks Mrs Doodlepunk, but I did not see a graph when I signed up. I have gone back there and tried to find one without any success. I am hoping that one might magically appear when I update my weight on my ticker? Fingers crossed.

Hi Bob, and anyone else who reads this.

Well my rice this morning was not a success. Nowhere in the instructions does it say how much water to put in the rice cooker. I know that sounds hard to believe but I am sure it doesn't. So I tried filling it to a certain line and obviously that was too much because when I opened the cooker this morning what I saw very much resembled a puddle. Too much water. Tonight I will set it again but I will try 2 parts water to one part brown rice and see how that goes.

My refrigerator arrived! For about 10 years now I have only ever had a bar fridge. They are tiny and the freezing function has been almost non existent. This is going to be a good change.

Oh yes! I made a mistake there with The Pleasure Trap. I have both the book and the DVD by Doug Lisle.

I had another look through the Esseltyn book last night for some recipes I like the sound of. There are some Indian flavoured recipes in there. I really LOVE Indian food so I will have to give them a try.

In terms of medical problems....I have hypothyroidism, but that is being controlled by tablets. I like most fruits. I like potatoes in a limited way. I prefer them cold.

I have eaten no meat today which has been no real problem at all. This morning for breakfast I ate some of the very soggy rice, plus a banana. For lunch I had 2 or 3 (I can't remember) muesli bars. For dinner I had oatmeal. I had chocolate bars as snack throughout the day (their days are numbered I know).

For the next two days I will not be able to go out and buy much food as I have very limited funds. But before Thursday I am going to work out ingredients I want to buy to cook certain recipes, and on Thursday I will have a big shop. I am looking forward to it.

Right now I am so exhausted I can hardly think straight. Today was the first day of a new school term and it was a very, very busy day. I am going to go to bed now.

I will work on getting a photo, and also keep trying to figure out how to get a graph with my ticker. Is that what you were thinking Bob, or do you think listing what my weight is each week at the bottom of my posts (like Letha used to do) would be more helpful?...Actually I just had another idea....maybe I could keep a weekly tally of my weight (and loss each week) in one post that I could just go back to and edit each time....probably in my first post on this thread might be a good place?

Thanks for all your suggestions and questions Bob. I'll report back tomorrow to advise the second try with the rice cooker went.

Oh, and I rang up and confirmed that yes, I have used up my monthly computer download limit so for another couple of days I am on dial up speed. It took 6 hours to download that Doug Lisle lecture yesterday so I will leave those other two lecture you suggest until Thursday night

Ben

[SactoBob]

Ben,
Re the rice cooker, I don't know your model, but have you read the instructions? Most of them have markings in the bowl, and come with a measuring cup. On mine, if you put 3 of the cups of brown rice (which I wash three times) you then fill with water to the 3 cup level for brown rice inside the bowl. The more you get off the meat, dairy, and oil, the better you will be, and the more you get on whole, intact, plant foods, the better you will be.

As for the weights, I think a graph would be great, but it would be a good idea to pick a day of the week when you want to weigh yourself and record it. I'll give you a day or two to get the rice under control. The amount of water is pretty critical to success. Some cookers only have measurements for white rice, and you just have to eyeball a bit more for brown. You will have it down soon.

BTW, do you have a pressure cooker? It is not essential, but if you have one, it can same some time. So let me know when you have the rice down and can make a recipe or two out of the Esselstyn book.

[CJJ]

A note on the rice cooker. There should be markings on the cooking vessel itself but you must put the rice in first and THEN put the water to that level mark for the quantity being cooked. At least this is the method used for my rice cooker. I would think there would be a small measuring cup included with the cooker too (I add the water using the small measuring cup). Be aware too that the measuring cup included is NOT the same as a standard measuring cup. What they consider a cup of rice or water would not be the same as an 8oz cup of rice or water. Weird I know and I don't understand it but there it is.

On the graph - I also did not understand this at first at TickerFactory.com. Once you have made your ticker (like in my signature) you go back to page ONE of the process. There it SAYS something about graphing your weights but I never saw any graph...UNTIL I added in a second weight! My weight loss was showing up on the 'list' with an edit/delete link next to it. There is a little linky to ADD PAST DATA and then I put in my beginning weight (no clue why it wouldn't be there already ) and wah la...the graph then shows up. Under the graph now there is a little link that says ADD to your blog/web page so clicking that will take you to the URL code you need. I hope that helps!

[Rain]

Hi Ben. I'm glad you're here, and we're all rooting for you.

About the rice cooker, maybe I've been doing it wrong all this time, but I have never paid any attention at all to the lines inside the bowl, and have always just added twice as much water as rice, and it has always worked out well for me.

[afreespirit]

To see your graph, just click on your ticker design once you have signed in with your PIN. The graph will appear (probably only after you have more than one wt recorded as CJJ said).

Ben wrote, "....maybe I could keep a weekly tally of my weight (and loss each week) in one post that I could just go back to and edit each time....probably in my first post on this thread might be a good place?"

This would work, but I don't like the edited posts as much, because they do not show up as new posts and thus the thread falls further and further out of sight, unless it is 'bumped' up by a new post at end of thread. The Monthly Processed Foods Journal is an example of this.

[Herbivore]

Nice to see you here Ben. Glad you are joining in.
Where abouts are you in Aus?

[Ben]

Hi Bob and everyone

Thanks to everyone who replied about the graph. Yes, I will see if the graph comes up when I enter my second weight.

Herbivore - I am in a town called Mount Gambier, in South Australia.

Debbie - cute is good

About the rice and the rice cooker: Yes I have read the instructions. The only problem is that the figures and buttons depicted in the instructions are different to the ones on the actual machine! And there are lines in the inside of it, but these are what I used on my first try and they led me to put too much water in it!

But the good news is that this morning the rice was MUCH better. Almost perfect in fact. Although tomorrow I will put in a slightly smaller amount of water. So I had rice for breakfast and lunch today. No meat again. But I must admit to having some chocolate and icecream.

I willl be able to start experimenting with recipes from this Thursday. I am thinking that I will be ready to take a significant step towards eating a whole lot better from this weekend.

I don't have a pressure cooker Bob. I like the idea of them, but whenever I have been tempted to buy them I either did not have the money or was put off by fears of being blown to smithereens by them

Ben

[SactoBob]

Good going on the rice, Ben. And are you sure that you are using brown rice rather than white rice? It is a general rule that it is always best to consume all food in its whole and intact form.

Since you have read The Pleasure Trap, you know that we can sense any time the calorie density of a food has been increased, which is why food tastes better when that happens. But since our instinct of taste was not designed for the processed foods available today, we will have to defeat that instinct. Once we defeat that instinct, we will find lower calorie density foods very tasty. But until that happens, we will crave that chocolate and ice cream. It takes most people 30 days to 90 days to make the entire transition to where the whole foods taste great if you totally abstain from the old foods. However, if you don't totally abstain, you will keep teasing yourself and not loose the taste for the artificial, processed foods.

Don't worry about that now. Keep working on tools and recipes. If you can taper off foods like chocolate and ice cream, great. But you will eventually want them out of the house and out of your mouth. Be prepared for the real battle when you start eliminating these foods in earnest. You body will tell you, perhaps rudely, that you are doing the wrong thing and maybe even endangering your health. The battle will be won or lost in that 30-90 days, so be ready for a fight.

One of your best weapons in this fight will be having lots of good food available, and learning to eat until you are satisfied. If you let yourself get hungry during this transition period, you are in trouble. It is hard enough to resist the cravings of the magic foods when you are stuffed. If you are hungry, you will probably give in and be back almost to square one.

Meanwhile, work hard on your recipes. Ask questions about any canned foods that you buy if you are not certain. Learn how to refrigerate the dishes, how to pack them for work, etc.

Now that you have the rice down, think about a standard breakfast that you might eat. I worked with Jeff Novick on this. My usual breakfast is oatmeal topped with fruit and ground flax seed. Your rice cooker should be able to do oatmeal - check it out and give it a try. It could be nice to wake up every day to warm oatmeal.

Sometimes I have leftover rice topped with steamed vegetables. Does your rice cooker have a steam function? If not, you will want a steamer basket to put in one of your pots to steam vegetables. Steaming is a great way to cook because no oil is added. Try steaming some vegetables - it takes awhile to find out how long you like them steamed - me usually 10=25 minutes, depending on which vegetables. Steamed veggies over rice is fast, good, and good for you. P

[Ben]

Thanks Bob for all your advice and thoughts.

Yes, the rice is definitely brown rice. I have eaten a whole lot of crap over the years, but one thing I have never gotten into is white rice. I actually prefer brown rice to white rice. I remember one meal about 5 years ago that I had (it was lunch) where I had a plate of just brown rice and I finished it off with a ripe juicy pear. I remember thinking that these were the greatest things a person could eat and how lucky I was to enjoy such a meal.

I really feel like I am going to enjoy just plain and simple meals more than using complex recipes. This is one of the things that drew me to being the 30 day unprocessed food challenge. But I can see I was not ready for it then, but I am getting ready for it (or at least a similar version of it) now. I want to take a major step towards it over this coming weekend.

Yes, my rice cooker has got a steamer with it. I am sure I could cook oatmeal in it, although I am used to cooking it on the stove and it only takes me a short time so I may well just stick with that. I think that in terms of having a regular breakfast (which I would like to have)...oatmeal with fruit on top is going to be the best option. I already have this more often than not and I enjoy it. I usually have it with a banana sliced over the top, but now that I have a working refrigerator with a freezer (!!) I might try berries.

On a side note, Over the last ten years I have only had bar fridges (ie. tiny little ones) and the freezer was (a) far too small to freeze anything at all hardly, and (b) constantly frozen up. Therefore I have spent ten years practically unable to freeze anything. Now that I can freeze things I may even do something RADICAL like make a big batch of something and freeze meal size portions for later!!!!!

Ben