Halloween is still two weeks away and the "pre-holiday" avalanche of inexpensive candy is pouring out of the marketing and advertising departments of the candy companies...ending up on office help-yourself tables and in grandparent packets for grandkids. And Halloween is down the road...

The only way to eat healthily in America, should you need to do so to control blood glucose, fat, cholesterol, blood pressure, and other threats is to be counter-cultural. You gotta go against the grain. And the grain is very entrenched and well organized.

Food means so much in our culture. So easy and at hand.

A daily struggle.

Here's to Melissa, who for her good health has lost 50 lbs. since May while working FT, with her husband raising two young children, and working toward her Ph.D.

She's become a zucchini freak, finding unexpected ways to incorporate that fervent, elongated vegetable (grated) into quiche and other delectables. She fits in visits to the gym and walks her dog for exercise.

Ya gotta have a plan. After a weekend with relatives filled with food, she told her husband that they needed to figure out how to get back on track, with shopping for and preparing balanced meals. He agreed. They did it.

For me, living alone and wanting to lose 22 lbs. to get to a healthy body mass index BMI, planning is starting in this cooler weather with shopping on the same day of the week and spending Sunday afternoon cooking a large melange of vegetables. This week too, a beef roast that will give me 4 oz. of protein per meal. 

Leaving the clean kettles on the stovetop for the next meal I'll cook.

Leaving the old Weight Watchers scale out on the counter and using it.

Thinking about meals beforehand, preparing them for a healthy balance of vegetables and protein, fruit and grains.

For the pre-diabetes regimen, no white rice, no white bread, no white pasta...and no candy, ice cream, cake or cookies that spike the blood sugar and stress the insulin...producing a plummet in blood glucose that shrieks to be refilled with...sugar and fat.

The challenge is to make the healthy food as appealing, more appealing than the addictive sugar-fat-salt processed food.

Working to militate against old long-held habits, working to develop lifelong healthy eating...here's to it!

Thank you, Holy Spirit!



Photos: Zucchini, Melissa before, Melissa now


October 9, 2012 Tuesday