March 20, 2008: First Week Completed
I’ve heard from many sources that it takes 21 days to form a habit. If
that’s the case, I’m 1/3 of the way there. Today marks Day 8 — the start
of my second week — of eating nothing but raw foods.
So what do I think? I like what I see so far:
* I first posted my weight back on February 26. It was 245.5 pounds. Today
(slightly more than three weeks later) it’s down to 227.5 pounds — 18
pounds lost forever! Total weight loss since the first of February is
probably close to 30 pounds.
* I’m wearing clothes that I haven’t fit in for years. Today I grabbed a
pair of pants off the shelf that didn’t fit even a week ago; today I wore
them to work.
* I seem to be sleeping just a bit less. I’ve averaged 8 hours of sleep a
night for years; lately it seems to be down to about 7 hours.
* I no longer get weak when I’m hungry (or at least not as fast). Today I
went six hours after I woke up before I ate anything (it was 15 total hours
since I had last eaten) and could have gone longer without any problems. A
few weeks ago I would have melted into a puddle on the floor had I waited
that long.
* I’m focused on living instead of on what I’ve left behind.
As I walked past a co-worker who was eating a bag of chips this evening, I
couldn’t help but feel a bit smug for a moment. After all, he’s eating
“dead” food; I’m not. Then again, it took me almost 50 years to get to this
point, so the feeling quickly left.
Just read over the posts I’ve made thus far on this blog (starting at the
beginning) and you can see how much I’ve changed in just over three weeks.
And I think this is vital to the small success I’ve experienced thus far.
Looking back at the first post, I seriously doubted that I would be able to
leave cooked foods behind. To be honest, at that time I was thinking of it
as “giving up cooked foods”, but I soon learned that having that attitude
would doom me to failure. You’ll never be able set and reach goals if you
focus on what you might lose or what you think you’ll be giving up. It’s
not a matter of losing; it’s a matter of gaining, and each person has to
decide what they want.
Let me take it a step further, if I may. It’s not a matter of deciding what
you want — you take action on what you truly want every day. Sadly, for
most people it means not living life to the fullest as they listen to
conventional wisdom (which, incidentally, means that you experience
conventional results).
What’s to give up? What do you have to lose? I have people look at me
funny, but when I give them my “30 second elevator speech”, they
understand.
Here’s that speech, reprinted in its entirety… sort of…
I’ve seen many people who experienced some type of health problem as a
result of being overweight and out of shape. For some, it’s diabetes; for
others, heart problems; and for still others, various skeletal and muscular
problems caused by simply carrying around too much weight. High blood
pressure, hardening of the arteries, sensitivities to food…
At any rate, I also have first-hand knowledge of several people who, when
faced with a health crisis, took action to reclaim their health. One is the
pastor of the church I attended as a child. Back in the early 1960s, he
needed quadruple bypass surgery because he was quite overweight and didn’t
take good care of himself. After the surgery he was put on a restrictive
diet and an exercise program. He not only lost weight; he regained his
health and went on to live and lead his church for another 40+ years.
So I simply tell people that I decided to go on the “heart problem diet”
before the health problems surface. With my 50th birthday about a month
away, nobody argues with me. Of course, if people want to know, I’m more
than happy to tell them the real reasons for doing this.
A three day weekend awaits, and while I have every intention of writing…
You know how that goes! Now that the first day of spring is upon us, the
weather has finally gotten cold here in southern Germany and we’re actually
getting some snow. Where’s Al Gore when you need him?
In reality, my take on global warming is that we need to strike a balance
between living and taking care of our planet. We simply don’t know if this
global warming is due to all the crap we throw in the air; 150 years of
climate data simply isn’t enough to plot trends of a planet that is
millions of years old. On the other hand, why pollute if we don’t need to?
There is lots we can do to reduce the amount of pollution we produce. And,
of course, I’m happy to say that as a raw foods eater, I no longer
contribute to the market demand for meat and dairy products, which are two
HUGE contributors to pollution (according to the sources I’ve read).
That should be enough for today. Stay encouraged and stay focused.
Remember, it’s about YOU, not somebody else, and you can’t give unless you
are strong enough to do so. So get strong and healthy and stay that way!
Smacznego,
Tom