Diet Food = Crap Food

Crazy thought right?  Why the hell would diet food possibly be bad?  Well, lets go back to reading the ingredients.  We all look at food and think if there is less fat in our food its gotta be good for us.  WRONG!!!  Our bodies crave natural fatty foods.  When you take that fat out you have to add stuff to it to make it something again.  They bring in a chemist and add other stuff to make it taste almost like what it once was.  Most if not all of the stuff they add is worse for you than the actual fat was to begin with.

If you were to look at Hidden Valley Ranch dressing:

Ingredients :

Vegetable Oil (corn)

Water

Egg Yoke

Sugar

Salt

Cultured nonfat Buttermilk

Natural Flavors

Less than 1% of:

Spices
Dried Garlic
Dried Onion
Vinegar
Phosphoric Acid
Xanthan Gum
Modified Food Starch
Monosodium Glutamate
Artificial Flavors
Disodium Phosphate
Sorbic Acid
Calcium Disodium
Disodium Inosinate
Disodium Guanylate

Ingredients:
Water
Vegetable Oil (corn)
Maltodextrin
Buttermilk
Sugar
Salt
Less than 2% of:
Spices
Dried Garlic
Dried Onion
Natural Flavors
Egg Yoke
Modified Food Starch
Phosphoric Acid
Vinegar
Artificial Flavor
Disodium Phosphate
Xanthan Gum
Monosodium Glutimate
Artificial Color
Disodium Inosinate
Disodium Guanylate
Sorbic Acid
Calcium Disodium

These two Bottles might look like they contain the same ingredients, none of which are good for you.  But click the links to see what exactly they are.  I used Livestrong.com to look up different ingredients.  Look up other ingredients around your house and get a full understanding of what you put into your body every day.

So what do you do?

I do my best to stay away from chemicals added to different foods.  The best way to do that is to make your own meals and plan ahead.  I'll probably never been 100% whole real foods because its so expensive.  But to get as close as you can makes a big difference.  Here is a good rule of thumb for a whole real food diet.

1. 5 ingredients or less

2. You are able to read all of them and associate them to a food item.

These rules are fairly easy to live by, and you can fudge it a little as far as ingredients.  Meaning if you make a smoothie that has more than 5 fruits or ingredients in it then its ok.  Just know what you are adding.  But rule #2 is a must!

If Ranch is a must, you might want to look into buying that organic or possibly making it at home.

Find different things to substitute something you really want.  When I want spaghetti and meat sauce, I get zucchini and my julienne pealer.  Look up different ways to cook zucchini as spaghetti.  Then add your meat sauce.

I've cut out protein shakes and diet pills.  Lets face the facts, they don't work.  I also don't drink soda, coffee, tea, or other processed juices.  I crave water and drink as much water as I can.  I know not everyone is like me and can do that, but look at whats in your food or drink before you put it into your body.  When you decided to take the processed foods out of your life and eat a real whole foods without corn, you will find that these meals fill you up with less food and it stays on your stomach longer.  Your body takes longer to digest these foods and you aren't starving 2 hours later.  I eat 3 square meals each day and took it back to the basics.

Corn

Corn, where do I begin with corn.  I saw a show on PBS one time about the 7 deadly foods or something like that.  My dog Harlee probably stepped on the remote and thats what I woke up to.  Anyway, this lady was talking about corn and how bad it is for you.  If you think about all of the animals that we feed, the main thing we feed them is corn to fatten them up.  If we fatten pigs, cows, and chickens with corn, what is this doing to us?

You may be thinking that you don't eat a whole lot of corn.  But you are most likely wrong.  Take this moment to look at whatever food product sitting near you or in your kitchen.  Read the ingredients on the back or sides.  Do you see maltodextrin, dextrose or high fructose corn syrup?  These are all derived from corn.  

Corn is the most genetically modified vegetable out there.  I'm not a car person by any means but I hear the stuff isn't even good for your car.  Please someone prove me wrong.  

I'm not saying avoid corn at all costs.  I'm saying if you are going to eat it, don't eat it with everything you consume.  If you do pick up some corn, I would suggest to buy it organic.  

You don't have to take my word on this, please feel free to look this up for yourself.  Here is just one place to check out here.

Once I cut corn out of my life I noticed I don't get sick anymore.  I'm not throwing my food up 4 hours later.  You will notice that most of the food you will start to buy corn free are organic.  Trust me its not as expensive as you may think.  I'm also not saying only shop at Whole Foods.  Look into different places you like to shop and just read the ingredients and check to make sure there is no corn in it.  I eat whatever I want (for the most part) as long as there is no corn or corn byproduct in it.

The History

Since August I joined Orangetheory Fitness.  I changed my dietary choices drastically over the past year, and in making all of these changes I've lost 40lbs.  I'm by no means done, however a lot of people have asked how I've done it.  To start any story the beginning is always a great place to fully understand the decisions I've made.

To say I have medical problems would be an understatement.  Since birth I've had issues with my ears and digestive system.  To date I've had multiple sets of tubes in both ears and 2 complete graphed eardrums. 

I have issues where I'm either constipated or very not constipated.  I'm not diagnosed as having ibs (but this is important to know for this next part).  I also have a form of syncope where I pass out and go into a convulsion.  I fell one time face first and broke my nose.  I get a really good warning and when I feel it coming on I don't drive.  In changing my diet, I haven't had an episode in over 15 months.

Due to the syncope issues, I've hit my head a few times.  They tested me 3 major times in my life.  Once when I was 5 and had my first episode while mom was cleaning my little sister's belly button that still had the cord attached.  I had another series of tests just after high school, and the last set of tests were done in 2012.  The last set of testing were conducted by the top neurologist and cardiologist of USF / Tampa.  My heart is in perfect working order, the EEG showed no signs of epilepsy.  The MRI indicated that I have a low cerebellum tonsil (bottom nugget of my brain hangs low and pushes on my brain stem, this is my migraine problem).  The only thing they could tell me is that 25% of women pass out for no good reason, and I'm one of them.

One of the last issues I have is I have an issue keeping my food down.  If something is too oily, like clockwork, in 4 hours it's coming back up.  I'm clearly not anorexic.  This is the main start of my 2 years of research to different foods I'm able to eat and what I'm not.  This isn't just a diet for me.  This is eating clean and healthy to the point I'm not getting sick.