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Coming out of my sheltered no sugar world

5/28/2016

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I should have fallen off the wagon.  I should have been writing this blog tonight with a tinge of defeat in regards to my no sugar/no flour experiment that is now wrapping up its third month.  I should be telling you about my mother’s recent visit with us for nine days and how it messed up my controlled eating environment, which led to eating out, which then rolled into multiple days of eating sugary food, which then caused me depression and made me lose my will to even go to the gym any longer, so I have to “get back on the horse”.  Those statements are how I would have started this blog in any other time of my life when I tried turning over a “healthy leaf”.

To be honest with you, I had actually prepped and given myself permission to indulge myself a bit during my mother’s visit, simply because I knew we would be doing some sightseeing, eating out, and running around.  I’m not trying to say my mother visiting makes me unhealthy, but just that I realized I would be in more of a “real world” situation than I had been up to this point.  This thinking, combined with the fact that I haven’t eaten flour or sugar for almost three months, meant anything could happen.

In all actuality though, it ended up being a pretty healthy week for me once again.  While I didn’t go to the gym that regularly, we still did a lot of walking and the occasional bike ride.  Yes, we ate out, but I didn’t feel the need to eat things that were filled with sugar or flour.  I actually ended up dropping a pant size during this time.

You see, the reason I’m writing this is because people just don’t understand one important fact when you give up sugar and flour.  It gets easier the longer you do it.  This may be tough for you believe, but it’s completely true.  I’m not sure if it’s because you eventually shake the hold that sugar has on you, or if processed foods are a conspiracy to keep your body confused and craving things, but you end up just not thinking about what you’re not eating.  This is the complete opposite of “diets” where you might give up oreos, but still snack on sugar free cookies every so often, or eat some angel food cake with cool whip because it’s a “healthier option”.  In the end, sweet is sweet and processed is processed.

If you have the courage to try this experiment, I promise you that in the beginning, you will crave the soda you are used to drinking every day and you might in fact feel like you will die without it.  As time goes on, your romance with that drink will begin to fade until it’s a forgotten lover from an immature time in your life.  I can promise you that after a month without sugar or flour, you won’t find yourself “throwing in the towel” of your new healthy lifestyle just because your favorite cookies were at a party you attended and it must be fate that you should eat them.  I know this last example too well from previous healthy attempts in my life.  I’d go to someone’s house for a visit or event and see my favorite foods sitting on the counter, and suddenly it becomes their fault for tempting me with the deliciousness, so I have to eat as many as possible.

Over time your brain shifts from “it’s impossible to give up sugar” to “wow, I can’t believe I’m surviving and seeing amazing results”, to “candy and donuts….MEH”.  The benefits you will feel both physically and mentally after just two weeks of going cold turkey will amaze you.  In fact I feel confident to challenge you to just try it and if you don’t feel better physically after two weeks, then you have my permission to call me an insane liar.  But…if after two weeks you feel like it has made a positive impact on your life, then shoot for a month and see what happens.  If you’re like me, you’ll realize that it’s easier to keep going forward than try and turn around and go back to the place you were.

As always, my resources are free for you to use, just let me know what you need.

All the best!
John Graham

[email protected]
 

Click the book cover for your free PDF edition of my story.  Stop waiting to feel better!

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A blog about my pants - 5/19/16

5/19/2016

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Have you ever given much thought to your pants?  I have a chance to really think about my pants over the past few weeks and it’s been enlightening.  You see, I’m really tall, standing up straight at around 6’6, which rarely happens because I tend to hit my head on things.  Being this tall means I should buy my pants at a “big & tall” store so I can have a length of 36”.  This keeps me from looking like a 12 year old boy whose mother won’t get him new pants after a growth spurt.

I have a pair of blue jeans that are the perfect length that I enjoy wearing, but up until 3 weeks ago, I would wear them below my belly and cinch them with a belt.  I had to wear a belt all the time because my gut was big and my butt was not.  (Graham men have always been lacking in the butt department, but it’s something I’ve learned to live with.)  My day was typically spent constantly pulling up my pants for fear of displaying my butt crack for the world to see.  As an extra measure, I typically wear long shirts so I have two layers of crack protection.

Since my blue jeans were the “proper” length for someone my height, but I wore them low all the time, the butt of the jeans would hang down and I would look like those punk kids who really should pull their pants up.  This was something I dealt with while wearing those jeans, and then slowly filled up my wardrobe with shorter inseam pants that contained higher butts.  This helped me to avoid the embarrassment of a saggy butt, but kept the threat of the butt crack front and center.

This was my life for the past decade, either short pants or saggy butt pants, and it was something I had grown comfortable with.  Then, around a month ago, after losing five inches from my waist due to my experiment, I decided to attempt the buttoning of my pants across the proper location of my body.  After a little straining, the buttoning did occur, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t move around and definitely not bend over.  I affectionately called this moment, “putting on a man girdle”.  I decided that my favorite pair of jeans had now become my “goal” pants and my goal would be to wear them around my waist in the near future.  This led to a renewed commitment of getting out and doing some cardio exercise to complement my not eating sugar or flour.

Three weeks ago, at the end of April, I was able to button the pants while also being able eat and breathe.  I’ll admit that tying my shoes was a bit of a challenge, but I figured I would suffer through it in an effort to get my body trained to wear my pants at my waist.  I decided that moment, that I had rejoined the society of waist level pant wearers and wouldn’t go back.  I wore my pants into work and fought the urge to tell people to “check out my non saggy butt”.  Thankfully, fighting that urge allowed me to avoid any discussions with the HR department.  I still committed to hitting the gym and eating right.

Last week, around the ninth of May, I realized that my pants were actually becoming comfortable and that I no longer needed to rely on a belt since my waist did much of the work keeping them up.  My percentage of time pulling up my pants decreased dramatically and I enjoyed the life of someone who didn’t have to worry about flashing his crack at innocent bystanders.  This was a whole new world for me and I walked a little taller as a “high pants man”.  Unfortunately, when I tried to replicate that feeling with my other pants, it didn’t work as well.  While they fit well around my waist, having my socks completely visible to the world because my pants were so high, was definitely a turn off to all innocent bystanders.  So now, most of my pants aren’t wearable and I realize that it’s almost time to shop at the big & tall store again for some 36 inseam.

Today (May 18th) was another realization for me, which was I will need to start wearing a belt again fairly soon.  It amazes me after almost 3 months of not having sugar and flour, while doing some regular exercise, that my body has become a fat burning machine.  In less than a month’s time, a pair of pants went from unbuttonable, to uncomfortable, to a perfect fit, and now loosening up just a bit where I need a belt. 

So what’s the point of this blog, besides having you think I’m some sort of a “pants voyeur”?  It goes back to what I’ve said since the beginning of my experiment.  Think of the health benefit you want to experience and really ask yourself what you would give up for it.  If I told you that yes, you had to give up sugar and flour, but you can eat until you’re full, never feel hungry, still eat amazing meals, not spend any money on weight loss gimmicks, have more energy, feel better, not have acid reflux, lose your aches and pains, and feel results faster than ever before.  Would you be tempted?  Could you at least try it for two weeks?  Look at the sugary items in your pantry and ask yourself if they are worth it.

For me, having a pair of pants go from unbuttonable to feeling loose in under a month is the motivation I need to keep going.  Having someone like you decided to kick sugar out of your system is another way that motivates me.  Take the plunge, make a plan, and just see what you’re capable of and know that my resources are at your disposal.

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Into the 3rd Month - Just eat.......right

5/18/2016

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I’m a fan of eating, which is evident by looking at my size.  Even though I’ve drastically changed my eating habits, I still like to eat when I’m hungry and eat until I’m full.  Granted, that full feeling comes sooner now than it used to just a few months ago, but I don’t stress about how much of a portion I just ate for a meal.  Portion tracking may be important to you, so I’m not opposed to it, but some people will just give up on healthy eating because they stop recording their meals.  This is why I focus more on eating the “right” foods and focus less on how much I’m eating.  You’ll find that eating the proper foods will cause your body to clearly let you know when you’re full, so portion control comes naturally.

The food I tend to focus on eating fits into the middle or lower side of the glycemic index.  Low Glycemic eating basically means you don’t eat foods that jack up your blood sugar level by being processed too quickly in your body.  The faster your body processes foods with high sugars or starches can make your insulin production to get out of whack and cause the “lows and highs” of your day.  Now, I’m not a doctor and my explanation isn’t super detailed, so do your own research to decide if I’m nuts or not.  Basically you need to eat like a Diabetic so you don’t end up becoming one. 
As I go through my day, my goal is to keep my blood sugar level as even as possible.   There’s a sweet spot where your body becomes a fat burning machine and your goal should be to keep it there by eating good, high fiber foods regularly through the day as much as possible.  Keeping the balance of your blood sugar level allows you to have your body work for you instead of against you.

This philosophy of Glycemic eating makes it so I cringe a bit when someone tells me they are trying to “lose a few pounds” by not eating food.  To me it sounds like someone saying they’re trying to get better gas mileage in their car by not filling up the tank.  Your body is a machine that requires regular fuel and if you neglect it, then it just doesn’t work right.  So yes, eat often and eat until you’re full, but make sure the food you choose will help you instead of hurt you.

I know this makes it seem like you have a lot to keep track of as you pick out your meals for the day, but trust me that it gets easier after a little practice and research.  I don’t think twice anymore about grabbing sweet potatoes at the grocery store instead of the bag of white ones.  Sweet potatoes have more fiber and are just a better choice.  You can still slice them, mash them, and enjoy them as much as the white, so it’s an easy choice.

The same thing goes for grabbing some Quinoa or Cous Cous versus the white rice.  I’ve found that you can still pour the sauce or meat chunks over either and the taste is similar.  The white rice just isn’t as good of a choice every meal.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying white potatoes or rice are evil and should be avoided, in fact, I’ve enjoyed both during these past months and felt no guilt.  The key has become to not depend too much on a particular food, so you mix it up a bit.  Would I rather eat mashed white potatoes with every meal?  You bet.  Do I need to eat them with every meal?  Not at all, so I have other options to help me minimize the impact.

When I started this experiment in March, I had a friend mention that he’d been doing the same thing for almost six months and I remember thinking to myself that it would be impossible to go without sugar and flour for that period of time.  Now I’m halfway through the third month and think to myself that six months is very possible.  What I didn’t realize at the beginning is a secret that the food industry doesn’t want you to know – it gets easier to live without sugar, the longer you go without it.  Much like any drug, the longer you’re “clean”, the easier it is to make better choices.  Is it easy in the beginning? No.  Can you get through it?  Yes.  Once you do get through the initial pain of giving up sugar, you find a rhythm and move on.

In the two and a half months that I’ve done this experiment, I’ve had people I know start “diets” the incorporated eating better and trying to exercise, but they kept their sugar “vices”.  Most of those folks have stopped during these same months and shifted back to their old eating habits, simply because the hold that sugar had on them drew them back into the web of sweetness.  Once they started back down the sugary path, it didn’t take much to slip all the way down.
I’m not saying I’m perfect and I’m definitely not saying that I’ll never have sugar again, but if you want to truly make a change in your eating habits, you have to purge the sugar from your system.  Going without sugar for a prolonged period of time helps you see things more clearly and understand how much your life revolved around it.  It allows you to watch shows about the power of sugar and realized they might just be on to something instead of just being “crackpots” who are trying to take your cookies away.

Give yourself two weeks or a month without sugar and flour and see what I’m talking about.  If you don’t see things differently after 30 days, or if you think that day 30 is still as hard as day 1, then find me and smack me around for lying to you.  I’m pretty confident that I’ll be “smacked free” at the end of the month and you’ll be trying to convince others to go without sugar for the same amount of time.
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Keep in mind that my book is available for free, you just need to ask for a link.  I’ve been very happy to hear from some folks that have taken the “no sugar” plunge in recent weeks and the positive health impacts they are already enjoying.  Stop listening to the sugar in your brain telling you that it would be terrible for you to give it up.  I can hear it’s little voice now telling you that Summertime would be just too challenging to abandon it, especially since it’s coming up on picnic and barbeque season.  Trust me, that voice will talk you into waiting for “a little longer” for the rest of your life because to sugar, it’s never a good time for you to quit.  Make the decision and start your own experiment today.
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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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