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The results continue to amaze me!  4/25/16

4/26/2016

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It’s been just over seven weeks since my eating experiment has begun, and since that day on March 1st I’ve not eaten flour, sugar, milk, and caffeine.  What was supposed to be a single month has now turned into almost two, and with the benefits I see daily, will stretch into three as I add May to the list.  As of this Monday, my waistline is down almost 4 inches and my weight is down over 30lbs. 

This may seem strange to you, but after almost two months without sugar, my romance with food has ended.  I faintly recall the old days of looking forward to a particular dessert and then taking that first bite, just to have the wave of pleasure wash over me and my taste buds.  I often found myself longing for sweets, just to recapture that emotion, but often found that I was a slave to my cravings.  Soon it seemed everything could be solved with a little cash and a quick trip to the grocery store.  Now, food has become a basic source of fuel for my body and I reach for it just to keep my energy level up.  The emotional attachment is gone now and I don’t find myself longing for sweets or particular foods any longer.

If I’ve become addicted to anything during this process, it would have to be my results.  With each week that passes, my memories of the food I used to eat are overshadowed by the changes I feel and see in the mirror each day.  I purposefully have kept all parts of this grand experiment to a level that anyone can accomplish, just to show others what can be done on a basic level.  When I changed my eating, I didn’t really exercise for the first two weeks because I wanted to keep my focus on the eating change to start.  After a couple of weeks, I integrated some basic cardio and minor weight/ab work for a total of 9 visits to the gym over a 17 day period.  While it was easier for me to have a workout destination like a gym, everything I did could actually be done around the house or neighborhood.   When April arrived, I picked up my frequency of going to the gym with a goal of 4 out of 7 days in the week, for around one to one and half hours each visit.  My goal was still to do the basic level of exercise and not try to kill myself with weights.  I don’t prescribe to the “no pain, no gain” mentality and wanted to show that results could happen either way.

In the back of my mind I envisioned it being like the Biggest Loser, with fat just falling off my body each day, but that isn’t what exactly happened.  The reality was I seemed to have a stagnant first week in April, which I couldn’t explain and that I didn’t find motivating.  Thankfully, I wasn’t fazed too much and kept up with the plan of eating and exercise.  The following week, things caught up and my pants were looser.  Then I could start using our new scale because I wasn’t over the weight limit on it any longer.  Finally I could wear a pair of pants higher on my waist and not feel like I was getting chopped in half when I sat down.  Little milestones were being met each day, which then motivated me to keep on track.

I can hardly believe I made it this long and have seen such results, but the thing people fail to understand is that it gets easier as time passes.  The longer you go without sugar and flour, the more your mindset changes about what you can accomplish.  I think if you honestly ask yourself if you would cease to exist if all processed food in the world suddenly disappeared tonight, you would have to admit that you could survive just by adjusting your eating mentality.  My goal continues to be one that shows you that it is possible to change your life and speed up the results you want to see, both physically and mentally.  You just have to believe that you can do it and create a plan.  Figure out what’s truly holding you back and get past it.

Don’t forget, shoot me a quick message or email for a free copy of a book I wrote about making this change in my life.  I’ll be happy to send it to you.

John Graham

Email me at [email protected] for your free copy of the book.

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Exercise blues and book news - 4/12/2016

4/12/2016

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Well, April is underway and I’ve dedicated myself to regular visits to the gym, along with maintaining the elimination of sugar and flour from my eating.  I’m not positive if there’s science behind it, but it seems that when I start to visit the gym regularly, my weight loss results plateau a bit.  In my mind I’m always thinking the pounds will just melt away, but in reality it ends up being just a pound or two.  This is precisely why I don’t believe in scales, even if it’s just once a week.

Don’t panic though, just because I didn’t lose a ton of weight this first week, doesn’t mean I’m going to head to a pizza place and drown my sorrows.  The key for me is whether my clothes continue to fit better, (which they do), and that I continue to feel healthier and ache free, (which I do).  These two things, along with continuing to eat full delicious meals and never feeling like I’m hungry, more than makes up for my lackluster scale performance.

I took some time last week and put together a book with some things I discovered along with my personal experiences from my March experiment.  What started as quick scribbles and thoughts has become over 50 pages of writing, blogging, recipes, handouts, and worksheets designed for someone who might be thinking of trying some time without sugar and flour.  I realized after I read the whole thing yesterday, that I will likely be rewriting some chunks of it so it doesn’t sound too much like a diet book, because it’s not.

I feel that my goal will be to encourage folks to purge their system of sugar and all the artificial sweetners, chemicals, and other hidden processed items.  If my story helps you to make the leap, even for just two weeks of your life, then your brain will do the rest.  There’s no point for me to try and talk you into 2 or 3 months of drastic eating change because it would likely feel impossible to you, but I know from my experience that at the two week point of my experiment I realized that a month was possible.  Then at the one month mark, after seeing and feeling the results, I realized that two months were possible.   My goal is to just get you started on the journey and then you can decide how far you want to go.

I know that if I can encourage you to do this experiment 100% for two weeks, then the sugar haze you live in will be lifted and you’ll see the possibilities for your own life.  Will it be a tough two weeks?  You bet.  Can you do it?  I have no doubts.  I actually think you could do a month no problem, but let’s start with two weeks.

In fact, I’m so comfortable with the benefits of this experiment that I will continue to revise and grow my book and give it to you for free.  Just hit me up via email at [email protected] and let me know when you’re ready.  I’ll gladly send you a link to the latest edition of the book if you keep me posted on your progress.  Try to ask around a month before your “being healthy” deadline so you have time to get organized and plan things out, two things I believe are incredibly important before starting.

All the best!
John Graham

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Still Plugging Away

4/8/2016

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People have asked me how I’ve survived this long without feasting on my favorite foods, and I find that it’s really hard to describe to them where my mind’s at.  The best way to explain it is that my favorite foods used to have a personal and emotional hold on me, much like a friend would.  For me, food like pizza, hamburgers, ice cream, etc were similar to a friend that I wanted to keep in close contact with.  I thought about them regularly and even found myself missing them if I went more than a week without them.  In times of stress or boredom, I would want to reach out to them because I knew they would comfort me in my time of need.  When I ate the food, it seemed to stimulate the same parts of the brain that a good conversation with a friend would and let me feel satisfied.  This feeling would be short lived because I would immediately start missing it again.  For some reason, if I tried to ignore a food, like when I would try to be “healthier”, then I would suffer a sense of longing for it, waiting for the day when we would be reunited.

Now before you reserve a room at the funny farm for the “crazy fat guy” who is emotionally attached to pizza, take a moment and ask yourself how many times you’ve said you can’t live without a particular food or drink.  Now that I’ve been without sugar and flour for over a month, those emotional ties have been severed and everything looks different when I see food.  I now have started to understand how some hardcore healthy eaters can eat the same salad, vegetable, or fruit for a prolonged period of time.  Food has become more like a simple energy source rather than an object of desire to me, so I’m completely content without sweets.  My body simply registers the fuel and then I can practically feel it burning away the fat reserves.

If you would have asked me two months ago what I thought I would feel like after a month of no sugar and no flour, I would have never thought that I’d be content and ready to keep going.  That’s what’s happening though and I can hardly believe it myself.

On another interesting side note, our eight year old son has become less combative at dinner time since we eliminated sugar and flour from our diets.  While he still eats food with flour and sugar for other meals, he has begun complaining less and is now more willing to try new foods for dinner.  I can’t prove for sure that it’s due to our change in eating habits, but it’s a pretty interesting coincidence.  He also realized that he loves natural unsweetened applesauce, so that has become his “treat” for dessert or as a snack.

So here’s my plan for April so you can get your scorecards out at home.  The most important thing is to continue forward with my experiment of no flour, no sugar, no caffeine, and no milk.  The second goal is to increase my exercise level to really maximize the eating component.  I’m moving from 45 minutes of basic cardio and some ab work in March, to at least an hour a day for 5 days a week, with a healthy bonus on the weekend with the kids.  I’m guessing that will involve a walk, a hike, some Frisbee, or some other fun activity.  Maybe I’ll even try some strange Pio yoga stuff that my wife thinks is so cool.
My strategy is to lose an additional forty pounds on top of the twenty I lost in March.  I’m not really putting a time limit on when I’ll reach my goal, but my hope is that it will take just a few months.  I have recorded my weight from this past Monday and plan to weigh myself just once a week to see and share how I’m progressing with my goal.   This means I will continue to blog at least twice a week, once with the weight update and another time with just my odds and ends reflections.

As a special bonus for those of you who actually read these blogs, I will be creating a workbook designed to help you conduct the experiment yourself.  This should be completed very soon and I’d be more than happy to share it with you in the hopes that you keep me updated on your progress.  I honestly believe that you have the willpower to do the same thing I’m doing and would encourage you to think about it.  I’m adapting the workbook for a two week cycle instead of the full month, but it should work for both if you are especially brave.  Send me a message at [email protected] if you are interested.

Onward to the finish of week 1!

All the best.
John Graham

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Day Thirty-One  4/1/16 Experiment Recap

4/3/2016

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The thirty-first day has come to a close and my experiment is officially over.  It’s hard to believe that it’s been a month since I stopped eating processed sugar and flour, along with caffeine and milk.  It’s also funny that I decided to up my water intake and that part became the most difficult of the entire experience.  My hope was to sit at the computer and provide you with some profound reflection on the month, hopefully motivating you to try something similar.

This whole thing started with those “What would you give up for 30 days” memes you see on the internet and I’ve realized now that mine would say: 

“What foods would you give up for a month in exchange for losing around 20 pounds, not needing antacids, getting better sleep, and having all your aches and pains disappear?”

I would have probably just scrolled right by this meme because there surely would be some kind of catch to make it impossible, right?  When I started this, I expected to feel better, but had no idea it would be this impactful.  In fact, I purposefully created an experiment that anyone could do, so no one could say I had an advantage over others.  I’m just a guy who’s much more picky than you, but still made it work. 

Going without sugar and flour for a few weeks slowly begins to adjust your mindset about food and emotions.  I think I described this in a previous blog as almost being an “out of body” experience.  The old me would have a stressful day at work and then feel a need to stop at the store because I truly craved something sweet.  I still have stressful days at work, but my drive home consists of thoughts about how tough it was, but not that I “need” anything to help me cope.

Previous attempts at being healthy have been healthy breakfasts and lunches, while dinners were still filled with starches and flour.  After a few weeks of eating salads for lunch, my brain was still addicted to sugar so each bite was like torment.  I would choke down the healthy meal while every fiber of my being wanted to eat “real” food.  This would cause me to begin eating less healthy after two or three weeks, and then throwing the whole idea out after a month tops.  Now that the sugar is out of my system, food has become more like fuel and my body doesn’t care if it tastes amazing or just so-so.  That might sound a little weird because I still enjoy a tasty meal, but now the little voice that was always comparing every meal I ate to a delicious pizza, has been quieted down.  If I’m eating vegetables, it’s not screaming that I better get some ice cream soon after to balance things out.

In fact, that voice in my head that is always encouraging me to stop for a hamburger, some cookies, a pizza, and anything else, has gotten quieter with each passing day since giving up sugar.  I’ve realized it’s the same voice that tells me I should buy something sweet when grocery shopping because it’s on sale.  I used to hear that voice talk me into buying sweets for my kids because I needed to show them that I loved them.  I honestly believe that the “voice” in my head gained its power from sugar and the more I ate, the louder and more powerful it became until I couldn’t hear anything else.  Taking away its energy to control me has been the most interesting part of this experiment.  Take a moment and think about the “voice” that you might have.  It could be telling you that there are foods you would die without, or soda you need every day just to function.  Taking two weeks or more from sugar and sweet food and drink allows you to pull back the curtain and see the voice for what it is.  A hurtful thing that doesn’t have your best interest in heart.  Finally, once you quiet that voice down, you begin to see everything differently and you’ll be thankful when you reach that point.

I can’t say for sure how strict I will be for the months to come, but at least I’ve been given the ability to look at each meal objectively and determine why I want to eat it.  I no longer feel the “pull” of certain foods filled with sweet goodness that want to derail my healthier lifestyle.  It’s something I wish everyone could experience.

My hope is that you’ve gained something from following my month-long adventures through these blogs.  I highly recommend that any challenge you undertake that might need some accountability, you think about daily blogging.  It helped keep me honest.  More blogs will continue into the future as this experiment progresses.

All the best and thank you for the support!
John Graham

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Day Thirty  3/30/16

4/1/2016

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The final day looms before me like the last 25 meters of a marathon.  The finish ribbon is waving in the wind, just a hop, skip, and a salad from me completing an experiment that I thought might not be possible a month ago.  This month has flown by for me and I’ve gotten through each day with the support of someone in my life telling me I motivated them, or that I was just plain crazy.

I decided to call my doctor today and asked to pick up my check up numbers from my annual physical in January.  I think it will be interesting to see where I was with my weight and where I am now.  True, I didn’t start this experiment as a weight loss program, but it’s a nice side effect.  My final official blog tomorrow night should have some interesting results to share.

​Unofficially though, I plan to continue to blog through the month of April so please plan on checking in on me during the month.  I’ve decided that I will continue forward with the experiment and add on April to see what happens.  I’ve reached a point where I don’t think I can just grab some sugary food on Friday and tell myself it was a nice experiment, but it isn’t who I am.  The results I feel in my joints, legs, and attitude put me in a situation where I want to keep moving forward.  I almost wonder how many people do something similar to what I have and end up just continuing forward and not going back to their old ways.

I might just end up raising the stakes a bit also.  This weekend is my first convention of the year and I’ll be hanging around lots of geeky people and comfort food for long hours.  My goal is to plan out my strategy and execute it so I’m not swayed by all the deliciousness available.  I figure this will definitely test my resolve and give me an idea of a “real-world” situation.  Either way, you’ll hear about it.

It would be great to hear from you after this month long trip.  What do you think about me stretching it out for another month?  Have you thought about trying the experiment yourself?  What time frame do you think you could survive?  One week, two, four, or more?   Send me a message or post a comment, I’d love to know.

What I ate today
  • Fresh batch of eggs and turkey Kielbasa with some extra sharp shredded cheddar on it.
  • A basic salad for lunch.
  • Dinner was meatballs with an orange type sauce.  A side of Quinoa that you can put the meatballs on.  A helping of broccoli.
  • I feel like I should have eaten more today, but I was busy and got sidetracked.

Onward to the final “official” day – thirty one.

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    John Graham operates FIGID Press and works closely with new creators to help them realize their goals.

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