Maintaining weight, eating right and feeling good
Mon, November 8, 2021 Six years ago, in 2015 I decided to make a concerted effort to not only lose weight but to maintain a healthy level. I wrote about it here on this blog. I will be 86 in three months’ time, and I now weigh 150 lbs. The weight I was in my teen years.
Key to maintaining this weight has been the practice of weighing myself every morning on rising from my bed and keeping a daily log. On reaching my eighties, I found it amazing the small amount of food I needed to take in daily, to maintain my current weight. Only 1,250 calories a day.
On a typical day for breakfast, I will eat a bowl of cereal, sometimes a cup of boiled rice, with blueberries added, or two eggs with a slice of sourdough bread.
Midday, a glass of A2 milk, and a hand full of nuts, or maybe two boiled eggs. Sometimes a protein shake made with milk and eggs added.
Evening meal, cheese, and crackers with fruit. Or for a cooked meal fish and a vegetable, or maybe a shrimp and vegetable stir-fry.
On occasions we may eat out at a restaurant, and a typical meal will be a thousand calories in one sitting. I can practically guarantee when I weigh myself the next morning, I will have gained three pounds, which is not a problem as I will be back down to my 150 lbs. the next day, two days at the most.
If I did not religiously weigh myself and log my weight each day, it would be easy to gain a few pounds each day and before I would know it, I would be 10 or 15 lbs. overweight. This daily logging of my weight is an essential part of the weight loss and maintenance regimen.
In 2016, year after my initial weight loss success, I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle became even more important. Here I am six years later, and I am still managing my condition well.
I occasionally have a tremor in my right hand, but not all the time. It does occasionally affect my speech and I stumble over certain words, but it has not affected my walking or balance yet. I view it as an annoyance rather than a disability.
The other big change I made four years ago in 2017, I stopped eating meat. I came to this decision not because I believe meat is inherently bad, but the way meat is produced today is not good.
Animals are raised in a small space, where they have no exercise, and just eat. This cannot be healthy for the animal, so can it be healthy for me to eat the meat of the animal?
The animals are fed genetically modified food, given growth hormones to make them grow in as short as time possible, and antibiotics to prevent them from becoming diseased due to the unhealthy conditions they live in.
I now eat a mainly plant based diet, and apart from that I eat wild caught fish and shrimp; I feel farm raised fish is no better than other forms of meat. I buy only free-range eggs. So where do I get my protein, everyone asks? You can get protein from plants, but I eat such a small amount, how can I possibly get enough?
It is true, most protein comes from meat, and our body turns those proteins into amino acids, which we then build muscle and neurons in the brain, etc. I take plant based amino acids in the form of supplements.
It has worked for me because during my last annual physical exam, when my doctor did extensive blood work, not only were my protein levels normal, but my heart, liver and kidneys were, “As those of a 25-year-old,” in the words of my doctor.
I also take supplements for my gut, and others that are anti-toxins for my joints, organs, and others to repair neurons in by brain. It is the fact that neurons in my brain are dying that has caused my Parkinson’s, and my diet, exercise, and the supplements I am taking, at least appear to be slowing the process down.
I also cut back on vegetables that are in the “Nightshade” group. Tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and potatoes. I have not cut these out altogether but limit them to once or twice a week. The result has been that my arthritis pain in my shoulders, hips and knees has ceased. My wife has had similar results.
People sometimes ask if I miss eating meat, and yes, I do remember the taste of a nice juicy steak with fries. But I enjoy feeling good, and being pain free a whole lot more. And growing old sucks a lot less.
To Share click "Share Article" below
Reader Comments (5)
Dave,
We share many similarities when it comes to diet. I'd be interested in hearing what supplements you are taking for plant based amino acids. It would also be great to hear about the others you mentioned, which contribute to your overall mind and body health.
I'm a couple decades younger than you (which doesn't make me "young", by any means!), and I wonder if my chronic back pain would be regulated be reducing my nightshade vegetable intake. It might be time for an experiment.
I wish you long life and good health. Thank you for sharing this and for constantly sharing your wealth of knowledge. It gives us hope and a plan.
I gave up eating meat (for many years) after a trip through the US western states. If you have never seen 2000 cattle standing knee-deep in a mud and crap feedlot being fattened up for slaughter then it would be educational. I stopped eating red meat the next day
"Most Beef cattle are finished in feedlots. The first feedlots were constructed in the early 1950s. Some of these feedlots grew so large they warranted a new designation, "Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation" (CAFO). Most American beef cattle spend the last half of their lives in a CAFO.[16]"
“Animals are raised in a small space, where they have no exercise, and just eat. This cannot be healthy for the animal, so can it be healthy for me to eat the meat of the animal?
“The animals are fed genetically modified food, given growth hormones to make them grow in as short as time possible, and antibiotics to prevent them from becoming diseased due to the unhealthy conditions they live in.”
I thought you were describing humans!
Children are raised by the “Metaverse”, continue to live in it as adults, illicit drug usage is encouraged, sex work is legitimized and safer thanks to the internet (see recent CNN special), the disarming rise in STD’s is just a part of life with routine visits to the clinic to get their shots, hating one’s body, gender, race and then not allowing same hate towards others, ignoring healthy people’s natural immunity by forcing unneeded vaccines, and in the end hating people that are healthy, that use their brains, that are not dependent, and the greatest travesty, branding such people as dangerous enemies of the state.
One of the greatest attractions, to me, of cycling is independence and freedom; the residual benefits of health, peace of mind and balance in life were always there, unnoticed except when called to mind. It’s not the animals I eat, but like birds, the ones I observe that lift my spirit.
And that cannot be found in a Metaverse.