Food, Glorious Food!
Yes please
Let’s get to the meat of this, pardon the pun. I love food. Gimme! Gimme! Burgers, Pizzas, especially pizzas, Thai, Chinese, (We are still talking about food), Caribbean, (oh I love me Island foods), whatever the food, I love it. In fact, I am hungry now just writing about food. It really is a good thing that I am blessed with good genes or I would be obese. As luck or genes would have it, I think I actually lose weight the more I eat. Sorry!
With age and a young family of three healthy boys, it became top priority that I pay more attention to my lifestyle and make necessary changes. I want to play with my kids, not watch them play from the confines of my bed or couch. I also realize that I do not have to be obese to be unhealthy.
So what am I doing about this? About two years ago, I discovered the magic of hot water with lemon. Read my blog about that here. With this elixir, I went from 195lbs to 180lbs within a few months. (I am 6″1′). I also recently joined a weight loss or weight management as I prefer to call it, program. My work sponsors it for all employees and their spouses. It is called The Enforcer Ecoaching and is a venture put on by Cleveland Clinic. Participants receive pedometers to track their daily steps and report to a health coach. The minimum steps required a day for a healthy lifestyle is 10,000. This sounds easy until you check your pedometer at the end of the day and find out you have only put in 2000 steps. You never want to email those figures to Dr. Mike as he would admonish you for not trying. This means running around my bed trying to add some much-needed steps to the meter. Working a desk job is no excuse.
Dr. Michael Roizen who is famous in the field of healthy living and the co-writer of a series of books with Dr. Oz called ‘YOU’, is the Ecoach. He is also the wellness guru at Cleveland Clinic. Him and his team reply to all my queries and give me regular pats on the back and recommendations. I once sent in my steps and they were around 6000. (slow day), Dr. Mike was not impressed. He urged me to get them back up to acceptable levels and recommended that I not try for close parking when I go shopping. I took that one to heart. All participants of The Enforcer program were also given a free ‘YOU’ book, ‘You On A Diet’. I am also required to send in my daily foods but I said nay to that. Trust me Dr. you really don’t want to know.
For exercise, I have been doing the one hundred pushup challenge for almost a year now. I came across it online and shared it with a few of my friends. Great program! I more than tripled my pushup reps in a matter of a few months.
Now when it comes to all those weight loss programs out there, Weight Watchers for me, carries the most weight. Pardon another pun. The thing is, with The Enforcer, I don’t have the luxury of eating whatever I want. I am destined to life without the fun foods. No more Burger King and Pizza hut and what kind of life would that be? Weight Watchers on the other hand promotes a diet based on enjoying your foods BUT eating it in moderation and tracking your calories intake. Now that’s more realistic and that I could live with.
My take? More cake
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