And so it begins

I remember when my manager told me my new job responsibilities a few weeks ago, managing a project that would require a lot of traveling. I thought it sounded fun, meeting new people, traveling to new places. Things always sound good to me at first, then the reality hits and it doesn't sound so good anymore.

Case in point. Tomorrow my flight departs Seattle to Oakland at 7:15 a.m. My return flight departs San Jose and I arrive back into Seattle at 7:15 p.m. This makes for a very long day.

Next week it's Miami and Orlando. Sounds fun doesn't it? Think again. Fly into Miami, get a hotel for overnight, visit Miami airport in the morning, fly to Orlando, visit the airport that afternoon and hopefully catch that night's flight back to Seattle. Eleven hours of sitting on an airplane in two days.

Then there's Mexico. My husband isn't thrilled with me traveling to Mexico by myself with all the recent reports of violence. I'll be in the airport most of the time or in the airport hotel where our flight crews stay. I'm sure I'll be safe, but it makes me just a little bit nervous hearing the horror stories on the news.

Good times? I don't really think so. I'm wondering how I'm going to handle eating out and not being able to go to the gym on a regular basis. The whole thing suddenly doesn't sound fun to me anymore. Plus the stress of meeting all these new people. I like people, but really, I like people I know, my friends and my relatives. These people will be total strangers that I'll probably never see again.

I know I shouldn't complain. I have a good job. I should be thrilled to be given this responsibility. Instead, I'm feeling apprehensive and a little scared, on many levels. I guess that old adage of be careful what you wish for really applies here.

Note: I'll miss my weigh in tomorrow night, but plan on going Thursday at noon. So far so good on the food and exercise. If I can just make it through tonight and tomorrow without ruining my week I will be a very happy girl.

Why is running so sexy?

I don't have the answer to that question, but it's true. There's something about running that's very cool and very sexy. I don't know if it's the incredible endorphin rush I get or the fact that I'm pushing my body to it's limits or the sweat that pours off of me when I run (okay, I didn't say I looked sexy, but I feel sexy). Maybe it's the incredible sense of accomplishment when I'm done. Whatever it is, I love running and the feeling I get from it.

When I was running 10-minute miles about two months ago I felt great. I was on top of my game. Then tragedy struck. A knee injury caused by running. It hurt like hell, and I didn't think it would ever heal. Finally, after two months of only doing the elliptical and the cross ramp for my cardio, the pain disappeared about a week ago.

Saturday I tested out my knee by walking at 4 mph and jogging at 5 mph, at two minute intervals for only twenty minutes. I didn't have any pain the next day.

This morning, I pushed myself a little more, by walking two minutes at 4.0 mph and then 18 minutes at 5.0 mph (incline of 1.0). Again, no pain and it almost felt easy. I wasn't even breathing very hard and my heart rate was a constant 134.

Wahoo! I feel like I'm back in the game. I finished up my cardio with 20 minutes on the elliptical and then weights for 40 minutes (including 3 sets of 8 military push ups on the Bosu ball--which pushes my heart rate right up to 138 in about a minute).

I really love running. It makes me feel...well, sexy and cool.

P.S. I can't wait for my weigh in on Wednesday, my new weigh in day. I think it's going to be good! That is, if I don't blow it between now and then (always a possibility with me).

Iron Chef: Hot & Spicy Black Bean Soup

One of the most popular Carb-Monster soups on the 5 Day Pouch Test is the Black Bean Soup. It is made from scratch with fresh vegetables and black beans that are rehydrated during the cooking process. In other words, it takes time to make this healthy and crave-stopping concoction. Many times I'm asked, "Are then any ready-made products that will work just as well for the 5 Day Pouch Test?"

A confession to Tony - the anti-jared

I read Tony's Saturday post and was shocked to see he mentioned my blog as one of his favorites. Some of you may remember the flame war Tony and I had a few months ago. I swore that I'd never mention his name again or read his blog. I quit reading his blog for a few weeks, but found myself wandering over there occasionally. Pretty soon I was a regular reader again. I couldn't stay away.

The thing with Tony is that he can annoy the hell out of me at times, and I can totally disagree with what he says. Then he will post something very moving and inspirational, something that really makes me stop and think. With Tony's blog I always feel something. Sometimes it's annoyance, but more often I'm inspired.

Tony had a post a while back about how easy it would be for him to blow off his 5 a.m. workouts. He said he could blow off one, say he was too tired, then two, and the next thing he'd know he wouldn't be working out at all and he'd gain back his weight. He talked about how he refused to let that happen. I can't tell you how many times since I read that post that I woke up exhausted at 4:45 a.m. and thought of Tony and that post. That has got me out of bed on more mornings than I can count.

Tony sneaks into my thoughts all the time. I'll be doing something weight related, working out or eating something, and I'll think of something Tony said in a post. It'll be something positive and something that helps me.

As hard as it is for me to admit this, Tony has helped me, and I'm sure hundreds of others, more than he'll ever know. So Tony, if you're reading this, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Feeling Backed-up? Constipation Relief

Usually we find the constipation questions in the Embarrassing Questions forum at the LivingAfterWLS Neighborhood. At some point or another, most of us after weight loss surgery experience constipation. Really bad unrelenting painful constipation. Have you been there, done that? Recently we discussed this is the Diet, Nutrition & Supplements forum as the Neighbors are looking for natural and

Wet Weather: Don’t Let it Dampen Your Motivation to Exercise

You can exercise when the weather is wet, all it takes is some planning. Here are some ideas to get you started:

- Shopping centre walks - Several shopping centres open early for morning walkers. It’s a great way to exercise while staying warm and dry. If you live in Brisbane, the City Council holds a number of shopping centre group walks through its GoneWalking program.
- Car parks and schools - There are lots of undercover car parks and sheltered areas, you just have to look for them. Make sure the area you choose is well lit and safe and try and team up with an exercise buddy.
- Resistance training – You can do this at home with a theraband or with household items such as cans and phonebooks.
- Hit the pool – Most public swimming pools are heated in the cooler months. Try walking laps in the pool – it’s just as beneficial as walking outside but without the impact on your hips and knees.
- Wear some waterproof gear - Don’t let the rain stop you from going outside. Just remember to take care not to slip on wet surfaces and be sure to get changed straight after you exercise to avoid getting cold.

And of course there’s your local gym. You can try a variety of cardio equipment including treadmills and exercise bikes.

In summary, exercise can be done anywhere for little or no money, it makes you feel great and it helps you lose weight. So don’t let the wet weather dampen your spirits - get out there and exercise!

How You Can Look And Feel Younger Longer

How You Can Look And Feel Younger LongerCopyright © 2009 Jasper Ravensberg, alternative health practitioner It is a fact that we are all living longer and, what's more, we are going to live longer still. According to the opinions of some eminent scientific bodies we shall very soon all be living to 100 years or more, which is wonderful, so long as we are healthy and can enjoy our lives to the

Weekend Update: I'm At Camp!

From our official Neighborhood Weekend Thread:Hi Neighbors! Sounds like everyone is busy!I am attending & participating in a research camp this weekend about long-term life after weight loss surgery. This past week I spent many hours preparing for this weekend and I'm so anxious to learn from others who work in the front-lines of post surgical weight loss. The point of view at this camp is not

Weight Loss Surgery is Easy? NOT!

From my syndicated article file, published in 2005. Not much has changed since then. Please share your experiences with public perception of surgical weight loss. Thanks for stopping by.Gastric Bypass: The Easy Way Out of Fat Land - Right?By Kaye BaileyIf you listen, even for a moment, to the talk in overweight communities you will almost always hear that gastric bypass weight loss surgery is the

Preventing Tooth Decay

Meet Sir Edward Mellanby, the discoverer of vitamin D. Along with his wife, Dr. May Mellanby, he identified dietary factors that control the formation and repair of teeth and bones. He also identified the cause of rickets (vitamin D deficiency) and the effect of phytic acid on mineral absorption. Truly a great man! This research began in the 1910s and continued through the 1940s.

What he discovered about tooth and bone formation is profound, disarmingly simple and largely forgotten. I remember going to the dentist as a child. He told me I had good teeth. I informed him that I tried to eat well and stay away from sweets. He explained to me that I had good teeth because of genetics, not my diet. I was skeptical at the time, but now I realize just how ignorant that man was.

Tooth structure is determined during growth. Well-formed teeth are highly resistant to decay while poorly-formed teeth are cavity-prone. Drs. Mellanby demonstrated this by showing a strong correlation between tooth enamel defects and cavities in British children. The following graph is drawn from several studies he compiled in the book Nutrition and Disease (1934). "Hypoplastic" refers to enamel that's poorly formed on a microscopic level.
The graph is confusing, so don't worry if you're having a hard time interpreting it. If you look at the blue bar representing children with well-formed teeth, you can see that 77% of them have no cavities, and only 7.5% have severe cavities (a "3" on the X axis). Looking at the green bar, only 6% of children with the worst enamel structure are without cavities, while 74% have severe cavities. Enamel structure is VERY strongly related to cavity prevalence.

What determines enamel structure during growth? Drs. Mellanby identified three dominant factors:

1. The mineral content of the diet
2. The fat-soluble vitamin content of the diet, chiefly vitamin D
   
3. The availability of minerals for absorption, determined largely by the diet's phytic acid content
   

Teeth and bones are a mineralized protein scaffold. Vitamin D influences the quality of the protein scaffold that's laid down. For the scaffold to mineralize, the diet has to contain enough minerals, primarily calcium and phosphorus. Vitamin D allows the digestive system to absorb the minerals, but it can only absorb them if they aren't bound by phytic acid. Phytic acid is an anti-nutrient found primarily in unfermented seeds such as grains. So the process depends on getting minerals (sufficient minerals in the diet and low phytic acid) and putting them in the right place (fat-soluble vitamins).

Optimal tooth and bone formation occurs only on a diet that is sufficient in minerals, fat-soluble vitamins, and low in phytic acid. Drs. Mellanby used dogs in their experiments, which it turns out are a good model for tooth formation in humans for a reason I'll explain later. From Nutrition and Disease:

Thus, if growing puppies are given a limited amount of separated [skim] milk together with cereals, lean meat, orange juice, and yeast (i.e., a diet containing sufficient energy value and also sufficient proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins B and C, and salts), defectively formed teeth will result. If some rich source of vitamin D be added, such as cod-liver oil or egg-yolk, the structure of the teeth will be greatly improved, while the addition of oils such as olive... leaves the teeth as badly formed as when the basal diet only is given... If, when the vitamin D intake is deficient, the cereal part of the diet is increased, or if wheat germ [high in phytic acid] replaces white flour, or, again, if oatmeal [high in phytic acid] is substituted for white flour, then the teeth tend to be worse in structure, but if, under these conditions, the calcium intake is increased, then calcification [the deposition of calcium in the teeth] is improved.

Other researchers initially disputed the Mellanbys' results because they weren't able to replicate the findings in rats. It turns out, rats produce the phytic acid-degrading enzyme phytase in their small intestine, so they can extract minerals from unfermented grains better than dogs. Humans also produce phytase, but at levels so low they don't significantly degrade phytic acid. The small intestine of rats has about 30 times the phytase activity of the human small intestine, again demonstrating that humans are not well adapted to eating grains. Our ability to extract minerals from seeds is comparable to that of dogs, which shows that the Mellanbys' results are applicable to humans.

Drs. Mellanby found that the same three factors determine bone quality in dogs as well, which I may discuss in another post.

Is there anything someone with fully formed enamel can do to prevent tooth decay? Drs. Mellanby showed (in humans this time) that not only can tooth decay be prevented by a good diet, it can be almost completely reversed even if it's already present. Dr. Weston Price used a similar method to reverse tooth decay as well. I'll discuss that in my next post.

It's ugly...+11.6 pounds in five weeks

Weigh in 3/25/2009 :

Current weight: 166.4

Gained: +11.8

Total Lost: 72.8

Pounds to lose to goal: 31.4

I knew it would be bad, but I didn't know it was going to be THAT bad.

Last night's meeting was very different than my normal meeting, it was a smaller group and lower keyed. The person that weighed me was the leader. He was really nice and talked to me for ten minutes about what had happened and how I could get back on track. He also said I was still a superstar with a loss of 72.8 pounds. That made me smile.

After the meeting Phil talked to me again, impressing on me not to give up, that this was just a slight setback. It meant a lot to me that Phil gave me the attention and encouragement that I desperately needed after such a terrible gain.

My plan is very simple. Just do what I did faithfully for the first six months:

1. Track my Points
2. Stay within my daily Point range (20 + 4APs + 5 Flex = 29 Total)
3. Exercise 1 hour a day, 5 or 6 days a week (I've never stopped doing this)
4. Water, lots and lots of water
5. Vitamins
6. Healthy Eight Eating Guidelines
7. Weigh and measure everything I eat
8. ******* Don't miss a Weight Watcher meeting! *******

This isn't rocket science. It's really pretty basic. Any idiot should be able to do it. Even me.

When I got home last night I told my husband about my 11.6 pound gain, and how I was really mad at myself about it. This is what he said:

1. "You don't look any heavier at all."
2. "You've been lifting heavier weights, maybe it's muscle gain."
3. "It's probably water weight. We've eaten out a lot lately and they use a lot of salt."
4. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

Honestly, he said that stuff. Bless his heart. I know the truth. I've been eating too much. Plain and simple.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As usual, you can read more about the marriage here.

Calcium Rich Foods for Faster Weight Loss

Calcium is not just good for your bones. It's a real aid to faster weight loss. A recent study found that obese people who increased their calcium intake from 600 to 1,200 milligram lost six times as much weight as the women who did not increase their intake.

The recommended daily amount of calcium for people under 50 is 1,000 milligrams per day. For older people over 50, it's 1,200 milligrams per day.

Most of us know that dairy products are high in calcium. But there are some vegetables which are even better per calorie and other nutrients they provide.

Some very calcium rich foods include;

- Spinach - 245 mg calcium per cup

- Collard greens - 226 mg per cup

- Yoghurt - 447 mg per cup

- Goats milk - 325 mg per cup

- Cows milk - 296 mg per cup

- Sesame seeds - 351 mg per one quarter cup

- Tofu - 100 mg per four ounces

See more info about the benefits of calcium and the best calcium rich foods here.

Skin Texture, Cancer and Dietary Fat

Richard and I exchanged a series of e-mails last week in which he remarked that Thai people generally have nice skin, which is something I've also noticed in Thai immigrants to the U.S. I believe you can often tell what kind of fat a person eats by looking at their face, especially as people age or bear children.

People who eat predominantly traditional fats like butter and coconut oil usually have nice skin. It's smoother, rosier and it ages more gracefully than the skin of a person who eats industrial fats like soy and corn oil. Coconut is the predominant fat in the traditional Thai diet. Coconut fat is about 87% saturated, far more than any animal fat*. Coconut oil and butter are very low in omega-6 linoleic acid, while industrial vegetable oils and margarine contain a lot of it.

I saw a great movie last week called "The Betrayal", about a family of Lao refugees that immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1970s. The director followed the family for 23 years as they tried to carve out a life for themselves in Brooklyn. The main fats in the traditional Lao diet are lard and coconut milk. The mother of the family was a nice looking woman when she left Laos. She was thin and had great skin and teeth, despite having delivered half a dozen children at that point. After 23 years in the U.S., she was overweight and her skin was colorless and pasty. At the end of the movie, they return to Laos to visit their family there. The woman's mother was still alive. She was nearly 100 years old and looked younger than her daughter.

Well that's a pretty story, but let's hit the science. There's a mouse model of skin cancer called the Skh:HR-1 hairless mouse. When exposed to UV rays and/or topical carcinogens, these mice develop skin cancer just like humans (especially fair-skinned humans). Researchers have been studying the factors that determine their susceptibility to skin cancer, and fat is a dominant one. Specifically, their susceptibility to skin cancer is determined by the amount of linoleic acid in the diet.

In 1994, Drs. Cope and Reeve published a study using hairless mice in which they put groups of mice on two different diets (Cope, R. B. & Reeve, V. E. (1994) Photochem. Photobiol. 59: 24 S). The first diet contained 20% margarine; the second was identical but contained 20% butter. Mice eating margarine developed significantly more skin tumors when they were exposed to UV light or a combination of UV and a topical carcinogen. Researchers have known this for a long time. Here's a quote from a review published in 1987:

Nearly 50 years ago the first reports appeared that cast suspicion on lipids, or peroxidative products thereof, as being involved in the expression of actinically induced cancer. Whereas numerous studies have implicated lipids as potentiators of specific chemical-induced carcinogenesis, only recently has the involvement of these dietary constituents in photocarcinogenesis been substantiated. It has now been demonstrated that both level of dietary lipid intake and degree of lipid saturation have pronounced effects on photoinduced skin cancer, with increasing levels of unsaturated fat intake enhancing cancer expression. The level of intake of these lipids is also manifested in the level of epidermal lipid peroxidation.

Here's a quote from a study conducted in 1996:

A series of semi-purified diets containing 20% fat by weight, of increasing proportions (0, 5%, 10%, 15% or 20%) of polyunsaturated sunflower oil mixed with hydrogenated saturated cottonseed oil, was fed to groups of Skh:HR-1 hairless mice during induction and promotion of photocarcinogenesis. The photocarcinogenic response was of increasing severity as the polyunsaturated content of the mixed dietary fat was increased, whether measured as tumour incidence, tumour multiplicity, progression of benign tumours to squamous cell carcinoma, or reduced survival... These results suggest that the enhancement of photocarcinogenesis by the dietary polyunsaturated fat component is mediated by an induced predisposition to persistent immunosuppression caused by the chronic UV irradiation, and supports the evidence for an immunological role in dietary fat modulation of photocarcinogenesis in mice.

In other words, UV-induced cancer increased in proportion to the linoleic acid content of the diet, because linoleic acid suppresses the immune system's cancer-fighting ability!

It doesn't end at skin cancer. In animal models, a number of cancers are highly sensitive to the amount of linoleic acid in the diet, including breast cancer. Once again, butter beats margarine and vegetable oils. Spontaneous breast tumors develop only half as frequently in rats fed butter than in rats fed margarine or safflower oil (Yanagi, S. et al. (1989) Comparative effects of butter, margarine, safflower oil and dextrin on mammary tumorigenesis in mice and rats. In: The Pharmacological Effects of Lipids.). The development of breast tumors in rats fed carcinogens is highly dependent on the linoleic acid content of the diet. The effect plateaus around 4.4% of calories, after which additional linoleic acid has no further effect.

Conversely, omega-3 fish oil protects against skin cancer in the hairless mouse, even in large amounts. In another study, not only did fish oil protect against skin cancer, it doubled the amount of time researchers had to expose the mice to UV light to cause sunburn!

Thus, the amount of linoleic acid in the diet as well as the balance between omega-6 and omega-3 determine the susceptibility of the skin to damage from UV rays. This is a very straightforward explanation for the beautiful skin of people eating traditional fats like butter and coconut oil. It's also a straightforward explanation for the poor skin and sharply rising melanoma incidence of Western nations (source). Melanoma is the most deadly form of skin cancer. If you're dark-skinned, you're off the hook:

I believe the other factor contributing to rising melanoma incidence is sunscreen. Most sunscreens block sunburn-causing UVB rays but not melanoma-causing UVA rays. The fact that they allow you to remain in the sun for longer without burning means they increase your exposure to UVA. I've written about this before. Sunscreen also blocks vitamin D formation in the skin, a process that some researchers believe also promotes cancer. I'll end with a couple more graphs that are self-explanatory (source). "PUFA" stands for polyunsaturated faty acids, and primarily represents linoleic acid:





*Not only do Thais have clear skin, they also have clear arteries. Autopsies performed in the 1960s showed that residents of Bangkok had a low prevalence of atherosclerosis and a rate of heart attack (myocardial infarction) about 1/10 that of Americans living in Los Angeles.

Skin Texture, Cancer and Dietary Fat

Richard and I exchanged a series of e-mails last week in which he remarked that Thai people generally have nice skin, which is something I've also noticed in Thai immigrants to the U.S. I believe you can often tell what kind of fat a person eats by looking at their face, especially as people age or bear children.

People who eat predominantly traditional fats like butter and coconut oil usually have nice skin. It's smoother, rosier and it ages more gracefully than the skin of a person who eats industrial fats like soy and corn oil. Coconut is the predominant fat in the traditional Thai diet. Coconut fat is about 87% saturated, far more than any animal fat*. Coconut oil and butter are very low in omega-6 linoleic acid, while industrial vegetable oils and margarine contain a lot of it.

I saw a great movie last week called "The Betrayal", about a family of Lao refugees that immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1970s. The director followed the family for 23 years as they tried to carve out a life for themselves in Brooklyn. The main fats in the traditional Lao diet are lard and coconut milk. The mother of the family was a nice looking woman when she left Laos. She was thin and had great skin and teeth, despite having delivered half a dozen children at that point. After 23 years in the U.S., she was overweight and her skin was colorless and pasty. At the end of the movie, they return to Laos to visit their family there. The woman's mother was still alive. She was nearly 100 years old and looked younger than her daughter.

Well that's a pretty story, but let's hit the science. There's a mouse model of skin cancer called the Skh:HR-1 hairless mouse. When exposed to UV rays and/or topical carcinogens, these mice develop skin cancer just like humans (especially fair-skinned humans). Researchers have been studying the factors that determine their susceptibility to skin cancer, and fat is a dominant one. Specifically, their susceptibility to skin cancer is determined by the amount of linoleic acid in the diet.

In 1994, Drs. Cope and Reeve published a study using hairless mice in which they put groups of mice on two different diets (Cope, R. B. & Reeve, V. E. (1994) Photochem. Photobiol. 59: 24 S). The first diet contained 20% margarine; the second was identical but contained 20% butter. Mice eating margarine developed significantly more skin tumors when they were exposed to UV light or a combination of UV and a topical carcinogen. Researchers have known this for a long time. Here's a quote from a review published in 1987:

Nearly 50 years ago the first reports appeared that cast suspicion on lipids, or peroxidative products thereof, as being involved in the expression of actinically induced cancer. Whereas numerous studies have implicated lipids as potentiators of specific chemical-induced carcinogenesis, only recently has the involvement of these dietary constituents in photocarcinogenesis been substantiated. It has now been demonstrated that both level of dietary lipid intake and degree of lipid saturation have pronounced effects on photoinduced skin cancer, with increasing levels of unsaturated fat intake enhancing cancer expression. The level of intake of these lipids is also manifested in the level of epidermal lipid peroxidation.

Here's a quote from a study conducted in 1996:

A series of semi-purified diets containing 20% fat by weight, of increasing proportions (0, 5%, 10%, 15% or 20%) of polyunsaturated sunflower oil mixed with hydrogenated saturated cottonseed oil, was fed to groups of Skh:HR-1 hairless mice during induction and promotion of photocarcinogenesis. The photocarcinogenic response was of increasing severity as the polyunsaturated content of the mixed dietary fat was increased, whether measured as tumour incidence, tumour multiplicity, progression of benign tumours to squamous cell carcinoma, or reduced survival... These results suggest that the enhancement of photocarcinogenesis by the dietary polyunsaturated fat component is mediated by an induced predisposition to persistent immunosuppression caused by the chronic UV irradiation, and supports the evidence for an immunological role in dietary fat modulation of photocarcinogenesis in mice.

In other words, UV-induced cancer increased in proportion to the linoleic acid content of the diet, because linoleic acid suppresses the immune system's cancer-fighting ability!

It doesn't end at skin cancer. In animal models, a number of cancers are highly sensitive to the amount of linoleic acid in the diet, including breast cancer. Once again, butter beats margarine and vegetable oils. Spontaneous breast tumors develop only half as frequently in rats fed butter than in rats fed margarine or safflower oil (Yanagi, S. et al. (1989) Comparative effects of butter, margarine, safflower oil and dextrin on mammary tumorigenesis in mice and rats. In: The Pharmacological Effects of Lipids.). The development of breast tumors in rats fed carcinogens is highly dependent on the linoleic acid content of the diet. The effect plateaus around 4.4% of calories, after which additional linoleic acid has no further effect.

Conversely, omega-3 fish oil protects against skin cancer in the hairless mouse, even in large amounts. In another study, not only did fish oil protect against skin cancer, it doubled the amount of time researchers had to expose the mice to UV light to cause sunburn!

Thus, the amount of linoleic acid in the diet as well as the balance between omega-6 and omega-3 determine the susceptibility of the skin to damage from UV rays. This is a very straightforward explanation for the beautiful skin of people eating traditional fats like butter and coconut oil. It's also a straightforward explanation for the poor skin and sharply rising melanoma incidence of Western nations (source). Melanoma is the most deadly form of skin cancer. If you're dark-skinned, you're off the hook:

I believe the other factor contributing to rising melanoma incidence is sunscreen. Most sunscreens block sunburn-causing UVB rays but not melanoma-causing UVA rays. The fact that they allow you to remain in the sun for longer without burning means they increase your exposure to UVA. I've written about this before. Sunscreen also blocks vitamin D formation in the skin, a process that some researchers believe also promotes cancer. I'll end with a couple more graphs that are self-explanatory (source). "PUFA" stands for polyunsaturated faty acids, and primarily represents linoleic acid:





*Not only do Thais have clear skin, they also have clear arteries. Autopsies performed in the 1960s showed that residents of Bangkok had a low prevalence of atherosclerosis and a rate of heart attack (myocardial infarction) about 1/10 that of Americans living in Los Angeles.

The clouds have parted

Sometimes I go back to a post I've written and think what the hell was wrong me to write such drivel? Yesterday's post was one of those posts. I'm not sure what that pity party was all about but I'm totally over it. Your kind and supportive comments were greatly appreciated, and you helped me realize that my life really isn't all doom and gloom. Some days are just like that I guess, where the smallest annoyances seem monumental.

Today is a much better day. I've made peace with myself for some poor choices I made during the past year (with my therapist's help yesterday). I really do think things happen for a reason, and I think my poor choices have actually made me stronger. Even my marriage, which I thought would be destroyed by what I had done, seems to be stronger and better because of it. I really don't regret anything that's happened. For me to feel this way is huge. I've been packing around a load of guilt for almost a year.

Now for the task at hand. I want to get serious about losing the rest of this weight. I don't even know how much I weigh, I've been too afraid to face the scale, even at home. My clothes still fit, but the roll around my middle feels bigger. I know I've gained a few pounds and the first step is to get back to Weight Watchers.

According to my booklet, my last official weigh in was 2/17. Five weeks ago. A lot of damage can be done in that amount of time. There's a meeting tonight at 6pm. I'll be there for my weigh in. I need to get back on top of my game. Enough screwing around, blaming my emotions and my relationships for my lackadaisical attitude towards my weight loss.

I'll report the damage tomorrow. I'm sure it'll be ugly, but that's the purpose of this blog. The good, the bad and the ugly. Such is my life.

LivingAfterWLS Newsletters Honored

Hello Neighbors!I hope you don't mind this self-indulgence but I'm just tickled pink to share the good news that the LivingAfterWLS email newsletters were awarded the 2008 All Star recognition from email marketer Constant Contact. To earn this distinguished honor we maintained an extremely high level of integrity in our newsletters. Our newsletter list grew 100% during 2008 and we sent 758,000

Chicken & Pepperoni - Low Carb Slow Cooker Supper

I have been a fan of pepperoni for as long as I can remember. Here is a recipe from Diabetic Living that incorporates today's leaner figure-friendly turkey pepperoni with succulent dark meat chicken in a no-fuss no-muss slow-cooker supper. At zero carbs you can enjoy this protein dense recipe with a crisp side salad or steamed veggies. It's what's for dinner in your LivingAfterWLS Kitchen!Chicken

Valerie Loses 50 Pounds

Valerie Bertinelli has done it. She's lost 50 pounds. And People Magazine will sell a lot of issues to people who want to know how she did it. She looks really fantastic for 48 years old.

See her 'before' photo on an earlier cover of People Magazine.

See about her book on losing weight - Losing It.

Healthy Carbs - We can have those, right?

Hello Neighbors!One of the things that I struggle with, and many of you as well, is including healthy carbs as part of our post-surgical weight loss diet. We know we need to eat Protein First and saving room for that crisp delicious salad is a tough task. So what role do healthy carbs play in our diet?LivingAfterWLS Salad RecipesSalads are a popular meal both at home and at restaurants. We need

My mood is almost black as the Seattle skies today

Some people will say there she goes again, the drama queen in action. Honestly, I don't want to be like this. I'd give anything to be a normal, even-keeled person, without the highs and lows that are my life. Sometimes I envy the Lexapro induced happiness of my friends. Even though I know it's an artificial state of being, I'm somewhat jealous. I'm just not sure it's worth giving up days like yesterday, when everything was great.

So what happened to my "I'm so happy to be alive" feeling I had yesterday?

1. Yesterday afternoon I exchanged some unpleasant emails with a former friend. It left me with a very bad feeling.


2. I had an argument with my husband almost the minute I walked in the door last night.


3. Dinner wasn't done until 8:30pm (because of #2).


4. I went to bed alone at 9 p.m, angry, hurt and feeling sorry for myself.


5. I drank two glasses of wine last night and went over my Points, again.


6. Woke up late for my workout, and was in a really foul mood.


7. I had a lousy workout this morning, struggled to stay at it for an hour. Everything hurt.


8. The weather sucks again today, cold, dark clouds, and windy.


9. I have my counseling session today, and I'm dreading it. It drains me.


10. I can't figure out how to make Microsoft Project do what I want it to do and my go to person is out for the week. Piece of crap software.


11. I went to Trader Joe's at lunch to buy candy. Yes, I said it, CANDY! I bought fresh strawberries, Fage Greek 0% yogurt and frozen mango instead. I know this should be a good thing but the fact I even thought about buying junk bothers me. I didn't do it but scary just the same.

So that's it, nothing earth shattering happened. Just a serious of unpleasantness. I want that feeling back that I had yesterday, when life was good. I just don't know how to get there.

More Thoughts on the Glycemic Index

In the last post, I reviewed the controlled trials on the effect of the glycemic index (GI) of carbohydrate foods on health. I concluded that there is no convincing evidence that a low GI diet is better for health than a high GI diet, and in fact the long-term trials suggest that a high GI diet may even be better for insulin sensitivity.

Despite the graphs I presented in the last post, for the "average" individual the GI of carbohydrate foods can affect the glucose and insulin response to carbohydrate foods somewhat, even in the context of an actual meal. If you compare two meals of very different GI, the low GI meal will cause less insulin secretion and cause less total blood glucose in the plasma over the course of the day (although the differences in blood glucose may not apply to all individuals).

But is that biologically significant? In other words, do those differences matter when it comes to health? I would argue probably not, and here's why: there's a difference between post-meal glucose and insulin surges and chronically elevated glucose and insulin. Chronically elevated insulin is a marker of metabolic dysfunction, while post-meal insulin surges are not (although glucose surges in excess of 140 mg/dL indicate glucose intolerance). Despite what you may hear from some sectors of the low-carbohydrate community, insulin surges do not necessarily lead to insulin resistance. Just ask a Kitavan. They get 69% of their 2,200 calories per day from high-glycemic starchy tubers and fruit (380 g carbohydrate), with not much fat to slow down digestion. Yet they have low fasting insulin, very little body fat and an undetectable incidence of diabetes, heart attack and stroke. That's despite a significant elderly population on the island.

Furthermore, in the 4-month GI intervention trial I mentioned last time, they measured something called glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c). HbA1c is a measure of the amount of blood glucose that has "stuck to" hemoglobin molecules in red blood cells. It's used to determine a person's average blood glucose concentration over the course of the past few weeks. The higher your HbA1c, the poorer your blood glucose control, the higher your likelihood of having diabetes, and the higher your cardiovascular risk. The low GI group had a statistically significant drop in their HbA1c value compared to the high GI group. But the difference was only 0.06%, a change that is biologically meaningless.

OK, let's take a step back. The goal of thinking about all this is to understand what's healthy, right? Let's take a look at how healthy cultures eat their carbohydrate foods. Cultures that rely heavily on carbohydrate generally fall into three categories: they eat cooked starchy tubers, they grind and cook their grains, or they rely on grains that become very soft when cooked. In the first category, we have Africans, South Americans, Polynesians and Melanesians (including the Kitavans). In the second, we have various Africans, Europeans (including the villagers of the Loetschental valley), Middle Easterners and South Americans. In the third category, we have Asians, Europeans (the oat-eating residents of the outer Hebrides) and South Americans (quinoa-eating Peruvians).

The pattern here is one of maximizing GI, not minimizing it. That's not because high GI foods are inherently superior, but because traditional processing techniques that maximize the digestibility of carbohydrate foods also tend to increase their GI. I believe healthy cultures around the world didn't care about the glycemic index of foods, they cared about digestibility and nutritional value.

The reason we grind grains is simple. Ground grains are digested more completely and rapidly (hence the high GI), leaving less undigested food hanging around the digestive tract. Undigested starch is readily fermented by intestinal flora, creating intestinal bacterial growth and hydrogen gas that promotes the overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria in other parts of the body. Furthermore, ground grains are more effective than intact grains at breaking down their own phytic acid when soaked, particularly if they're allowed to ferment. This further increases their nutritional value.

The human digestive system is delicate. Cows can eat whole grass seeds and digest them using their giant four-compartment stomach that acts as a fermentation tank. Humans that eat intact grains end up donating them to the waste treatment plant. We just don't have the hardware to efficiently extract the nutrients from cooked whole rye berries, unless you're willing to chew each bite 47 times. Oats, quinoa, rice, beans and certain other starchy seeds are exceptions because they're softened sufficiently by cooking or minimal chewing.

Grain consumption and grinding implements appear simultaneously in the archaeological record. Grinding has always been used to increase the digestibility of tough grains, even before the invention of agriculture when hunter-gatherers were gathering wild grains in the fertile crescent. Some archaeologists consider grinding implements one of the diagnostic features of a grain-based culture. Carbohydrate-based cultures have always prioritized digestibility and nutritional value over GI. Have nutrition authorities suddenly gotten smarter than them in the last 20 years?

Finally, I'd like to emphasize that some people don't have a good relationship with carbohydrate. Diabetics and others with glucose intolerance should be very cautious with carbohydrate foods. The best way to know how you deal with carbohydrate is to get a blood glucose meter and use it after meals. For $70 or less, you can get a cheap meter and 50 test strips that will give you a very good idea of your glucose response to typical meals (as opposed to a glucose bomb at the doctor's office). Jenny has a tutorial that explains the process. It's also useful to pay attention to how you feel and look with different amounts of carbohydrate in your diet.

More Thoughts on the Glycemic Index

In the last post, I reviewed the controlled trials on the effect of the glycemic index (GI) of carbohydrate foods on health. I concluded that there is no convincing evidence that a low GI diet is better for health than a high GI diet, and in fact the long-term trials suggest that a high GI diet may even be better for insulin sensitivity.

Despite the graphs I presented in the last post, for the "average" individual the GI of carbohydrate foods can affect the glucose and insulin response to carbohydrate foods somewhat, even in the context of an actual meal. If you compare two meals of very different GI, the low GI meal will cause less insulin secretion and cause less total blood glucose in the plasma over the course of the day (although the differences in blood glucose may not apply to all individuals).

But is that biologically significant? In other words, do those differences matter when it comes to health? I would argue probably not, and here's why: there's a difference between post-meal glucose and insulin surges and chronically elevated glucose and insulin. Chronically elevated insulin is a marker of metabolic dysfunction, while post-meal insulin surges are not (although glucose surges in excess of 140 mg/dL indicate glucose intolerance). Despite what you may hear from some sectors of the low-carbohydrate community, insulin surges do not necessarily lead to insulin resistance. Just ask a Kitavan. They get 69% of their 2,200 calories per day from high-glycemic starchy tubers and fruit (380 g carbohydrate), with not much fat to slow down digestion. Yet they have low fasting insulin, very little body fat and an undetectable incidence of diabetes, heart attack and stroke. That's despite a significant elderly population on the island.

Furthermore, in the 4-month GI intervention trial I mentioned last time, they measured something called glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c). HbA1c is a measure of the amount of blood glucose that has "stuck to" hemoglobin molecules in red blood cells. It's used to determine a person's average blood glucose concentration over the course of the past few weeks. The higher your HbA1c, the poorer your blood glucose control, the higher your likelihood of having diabetes, and the higher your cardiovascular risk. The low GI group had a statistically significant drop in their HbA1c value compared to the high GI group. But the difference was only 0.06%, a change that is biologically meaningless.

OK, let's take a step back. The goal of thinking about all this is to understand what's healthy, right? Let's take a look at how healthy cultures eat their carbohydrate foods. Cultures that rely heavily on carbohydrate generally fall into three categories: they eat cooked starchy tubers, they grind and cook their grains, or they rely on grains that become very soft when cooked. In the first category, we have Africans, South Americans, Polynesians and Melanesians (including the Kitavans). In the second, we have various Africans, Europeans (including the villagers of the Loetschental valley), Middle Easterners and South Americans. In the third category, we have Asians, Europeans (the oat-eating residents of the outer Hebrides) and South Americans (quinoa-eating Peruvians).

The pattern here is one of maximizing GI, not minimizing it. That's not because high GI foods are inherently superior, but because traditional processing techniques that maximize the digestibility of carbohydrate foods also tend to increase their GI. I believe healthy cultures around the world didn't care about the glycemic index of foods, they cared about digestibility and nutritional value.

The reason we grind grains is simple. Ground grains are digested more completely and rapidly (hence the high GI), leaving less undigested food hanging around the digestive tract. Undigested starch is readily fermented by intestinal flora, creating intestinal bacterial growth and hydrogen gas that promotes the overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria in other parts of the body. Furthermore, ground grains are more effective than intact grains at breaking down their own phytic acid when soaked, particularly if they're allowed to ferment. This further increases their nutritional value.

The human digestive system is delicate. Cows can eat whole grass seeds and digest them using their giant four-compartment stomach that acts as a fermentation tank. Humans that eat intact grains end up donating them to the waste treatment plant. We just don't have the hardware to efficiently extract the nutrients from cooked whole rye berries, unless you're willing to chew each bite 47 times. Oats, quinoa, rice, beans and certain other starchy seeds are exceptions because they're softened sufficiently by cooking or minimal chewing.

Grain consumption and grinding implements appear simultaneously in the archaeological record. Grinding has always been used to increase the digestibility of tough grains, even before the invention of agriculture when hunter-gatherers were gathering wild grains in the fertile crescent. Some archaeologists consider grinding implements one of the diagnostic features of a grain-based culture. Carbohydrate-based cultures have always prioritized digestibility and nutritional value over GI. Have nutrition authorities suddenly gotten smarter than them in the last 20 years?

Finally, I'd like to emphasize that some people don't have a good relationship with carbohydrate. Diabetics and others with glucose intolerance should be very cautious with carbohydrate foods. The best way to know how you deal with carbohydrate is to get a blood glucose meter and use it after meals. For $70 or less, you can get a cheap meter and 50 test strips that will give you a very good idea of your glucose response to typical meals (as opposed to a glucose bomb at the doctor's office). Jenny has a tutorial that explains the process. It's also useful to pay attention to how you feel and look with different amounts of carbohydrate in your diet.

It's good to be alive

This morning I read Dawn's post from Friday, and it put a smile on my face. The reason was because I had a similar feeling myself this morning. That "it's good to be alive, and I'm loving life at this moment" kind of feeling. It happened at the gym today, at 6:20am. I was twenty minutes into my thirty-minute hill routine on the elliptical, level 14. Across the room my husband was on a treadmill doing his hour-long routine.

I was thinking I had ten more minutes and then I'd be off to the weights to do my upper body strength routine. I love lifting weights, especially for my upper body. I love seeing the muscles in my arms. It gives me a little thrill that I can lift 20-pound dumbells and do military push ups using the Bosu Ball (30 reps today!). That's when it hit me. Life is good. MY life is good. Don't misunderstand me, my life is not perfect. Far from it, but I'm finally feeling like I'm in a good place. I feel like I've been in a dark hole for the last year, living a lie, and hating myself for so many reasons. Now I have so many reasons to be happy, to want to be alive.

The sun was shining when I drove into work this morning. I thought that was very appropriate because I feel like the sun is shining on my soul today.

The coyote, the weight loss and the marriage

The Coyote

This is what I saw when I looked out of our bedroom window Saturday morning. A wild coyote inside our backyard, frantically pacing back and forth along our fence. She couldn't figure out how to get out. In fact, she's still out there and it's Sunday afternoon.

We left the gate open all night and she never left. During the night she dug a huge hole underneath our shed and has apparently moved in. My husband saw her head sticking out of the hole this morning. 

We've called animal control, the department of game and the police. They told us there are at least 300 coyotes within a one-mile radius of our house. As long as she wasn't attacking anyone, there wasn't a thing they could (or would) do. 

We don't live in a rural area, we live in the suburbs. There's a lot of undeveloped land around here, but it's very populated where we live. Anyway, I'm not sure what we're going to do about this coyote. I hope she comes to her senses and leaves of her own accord. We can't have a wild coyote living in our backyard (or can we?). I read they mate for life. What if her husband is out there waiting for her to come home? He's going to wonder what happened to her.

The weight loss journey

My weight loss saga continues. I'm still not tracking my food like I should be doing. I have good days and not so good days. 

Yesterday was a not so good food day. It started out great and was great right up until 6 p.m. We went out to dinner with my family that are visiting from Alaska. Mexican food again, and Fajitas again, but this time, I ate the WHOLE thing. I was starving again. I don't know what that's all about but it has got to stop.

I made it to the gym before we went to dinner so hopefully that counteracted some of the damage. I also found out that half ball thingie I've been talking about is a Bosu Ball. I turn it upside down and do military push ups on it. I'm up to eight, and that just about kills me. Today I'm going to do eight, then try for a second set. 

The marriage

I'm not going to talk about my marital problems on this blog anymore. I've noticed that it's taking over. The name of this blog is Diana's Weight Loss Journey, not Diana's Marriage. 

I still want to blog about it, for the same reason I blog about weight loss. It helps me understand it better. Plus, it might help someone else out there going through similar problems. I created a new blog that will be about my marriage and the other parts of my life. 

Of course, the weight loss and the marriage are intertwined. A lot of my weight issues are because of problems in my marriage, and a lot of the problems in my marriage are because of my weight. However, I think the people that read this particular blog are more interested in how I lost weight and how I struggle and fight to maintain my weight loss (and lose the last 20 pounds). They're not that interested in my marriage.

If you still want to read about my marriage and my personal life, my other blog is This is my life. I have it in my profile as well as in the blog list to the right. Otherwise, I won't bore you with the details anymore. 

Integrated Nutrition, Lifestyle and Health Database

Ricardo from the website Canibais e Reis has just released a fantastic resource for anyone who's interested in the relationship between nutrition, lifestyle and health. It's an excel spreadsheet that integrates information from several international sources, including:

• UN Food and Agriculture Organization Statistical Yearbook
• FAOSTAT food consumption database
• British Heart Foundation Health Statistics database
• World Health Organization Global Health Atlas

This database provides a wealth of information on 86 different countries, and even includes a macro feature that automatically plots variables. This is an empowering resource for those of us who like to do our own research and come to our own conclusions, and I thank Ricardo for his hard work.

You can read more about the database and download it here.

Integrated Nutrition, Lifestyle and Health Database

Ricardo from the website Canibais e Reis has just released a fantastic resource for anyone who's interested in the relationship between nutrition, lifestyle and health. It's an excel spreadsheet that integrates information from several international sources, including:

• UN Food and Agriculture Organization Statistical Yearbook
• FAOSTAT food consumption database
• British Heart Foundation Health Statistics database
• World Health Organization Global Health Atlas

This database provides a wealth of information on 86 different countries, and even includes a macro feature that automatically plots variables. This is an empowering resource for those of us who like to do our own research and come to our own conclusions, and I thank Ricardo for his hard work.

You can read more about the database and download it here.

Chinese Diet Slimming Green Tea

Chinese Diet Tea and Chinese Slimming Tea Information

Today we are going to talk about Chinese diet green tea. It seems that a lot of people are misunderstanding lately the importance of drinking simple water or Chinese weight loss tea at least two or three liters per day. Chinese and Japanese medicine, Asian in general states that in order to avoid cancer and other extremely dangerous diseases of the contemporary world, one should drink a lot daily. In this post we are going to talk about the importance of certain green teas around the world, especially Chinese, which we consider to be having a special and positive aspect in comparison with all the others that are widely available on the tea market these days.

However, we also have some answers and solutions for all those that are seeking to lose weight with a Chinese diet tea program. First of all it is necessary to mention that most of the programs out there cannot be trusted and you are simply going to lose your precious time. On the other hand, in order to gain at least some kind of experience you are going to need to pass through at least some test and find out what works better for you. For that particular case we also have alternatives on this blog and are willing to spend some time and write a little bit about what should be done and tested and why not. There are a lot of features that people need to remember about when willing to try the famous Wu Yi tea for example. It is considered to be extremely effective when it comes to burning the fat, therefore getting rid of the calories in the body. Someone who is really looking to start a proper weight loss tea should also try to consume at least one liter of Chinese O Long or Wu Long tea in order to see some results. Nevertheless, one of the most common mistakes that usually beginners make is the fact that they aren’t actually doing anything else except drinking one or two cups of a particular Chinese weight loss tea a day. This is not going to work guys and we are going to explain why in this post, in the next few paragraphs. So can green tea help you lose weight?

Yes, Chinese green tea can easily help you get slimmer, they say, but is that true. Is it the truth that everyone should be aware of and seek or is it just another scam that people should avoid in order to get rid of the possibility of wasting money on weight loss tea products that simply doesn’t worth it. A lot of people trust the Chinese oriental culture when it comes to good and alternative medicine and if people from the Asian continent are actually advertising some kind of amazing product then it is probably going to work and bring in awesome results without you doing any work at all. Yet, we are not accusing anyone, we just seek to open people’s minds and eyes when it comes to overcoming some issues and fighting with those things that we are trying to conquer all our lives. In this post we are talking only about organic teas.

Chinese slimming tea is basically the same good old weight loss tea that is also well known. We found out early this morning that some of you who are regularly visiting this blog are willing to read more and to known more about easy weight loss tea and if it contains a lot of anti oxidants, who have the job to do everything possible in order to get rid of the extra calories in one body. It works and we have achieved great results with it but we cannot guarantee that people are going to have the same results as most of you seem not to understand what is going on. This is no magic bullet guys and you are not going to get rid of your love handles in terms of ten or twenty pounds in one single night. It takes time, it takes effort, it is hard work and you aren’t going to do it that easy because there are some things that you have to make a commitment about in the first place and only then you are going to succeed. A lot of us a having problems when we stumble upon things that we thought were true but in fact it was only a pathetic illusion and we realize how wrong we are. Our theory on this is simple. Only the one that doesn’t live doesn’t make any mistakes and it is inevitable to pass through this life without assuming the possibility of gaining that much experience and not making any wrong steps to the left or to the right. This attitude and philosophy has to be applied to the weight loss tea program that you are going through right now.

One of the most well known issues that beginners stumble upon when they start to search information about Chinese weight loss tea is the fact that they easily get rid of everything that seems not to work for them without even trying. Not trying, not experimenting and not realizing what best works is the biggest mistake that one can do. We urge you not to follow the bad results of others and do what you can to test all the ports and accessibility options before trying anything. Chinese diet green tea is going to work very good for you if you are willing to follow the step by step advices about losing weight and how to combine it with exercises and other particular training and attitude systems that we developed and are looking forward and doing everything possible in order to share it with the rest of the world. Our common stuff is based on those things that most of us tend to ignore just because of one mighty common trait – laziness :).

We are not born lazy, and we have no idea what that is when we first appear in this world, but times passes by and we start to notice our parents that in fortunately don’t really understand that most important values of this life unfortunately. We are not going to say all of them but in over sixty percent of the cases parents are pretty much responsible for the attitude and the character that the child is getting, assimilating, testing, experimenting and implementing. So why do you think we started to talk about this in a post or article that has the Chinese diet green tea topic. Well first of all because in order to expect at least some kind of results you are going to need to make changes to your mind, body and spirit. You are going to need to take decisions that you never thought about, you are going to need to make commitments and to realize that things aren’t really working the way they should and only because of that you are going to fail miserably each time the reality just led you to a spot where you have never been before. Get used to the various textures of pattern interrupt and understand how certain things work in this life. There are plenty of other issues that one needs to take into consideration and that is because a lot of people are not really aware of the fact that the world we live in has it’s certain universal rules and so on but it doesn’t mean that we cannot be like water, slim and thin and be able to control our own faith as long as we are doing things as we should. Find out why most people ask others if wu long tea is safe or not?

Getting slimmer with Chinese diet tea is real and you should forget about the fact that others call it a myth or a scam. We know – a lot of people managed to get rid of certain health issues and this helped them, actually the green tea is something extremely interesting and you should be aware of what is really happening before you decide to take certain decisions. The commitments that you make before you test certain things are not the one that you should spiritually remain anonymous about. You should be honest in training your body, mind and spirit. Frankly, we understand that the way we treat these problems might seem a little bit complicated for the average Joe, but this Chinese weight loss tea website is for those that really have the necessary guts to take decisions and are definitely willing to change something in their lives. From now on we invite only those that are willing to do something about it and not only stand and watch as the world goes by and the time flies near. This is not going to happen. Believe it or not the main reason why most of the people fail when it comes to Chinese diet green tea and losing weight with it is their pathetic attitude. They give up before even trying and they don’t have the will to go further. Did you ever hear about kaizen - a Japanese term that signifies the never-ending improvement and stands behind a lot of the things that managed to get this country to the point where they are not. However, when we are talking about simply weight loss system with Chinese tea the same principle can be applied and you are going to understand why this works and other thing doesn’t just because of you. One should always have to seek new opportunities, options and ways to do things. If you are that person who is willing to get rid of the love handles, belly fat or extra weight call it as you wish then you need to actually want to do it; the way we see this is that you actually have to test it in all possible ways. Don’t just get on a diet that some called expert diet expert sold it to you for twenty bucks and expect some miracle to happen. Chinese diet tea doesn’t work that way and stay tuned because we are going to explain why. It is actually a long process that many people seem to ignore and they understand things wrong.

Chinese weight loss tea is a simple ordinary green tea that has some anti oxidants. That is all basically about it. Do not expect some ultra secret alchemy options to come into play because that is not going to happen. You are the phenomena behind its potential of being effective. No other person is there to help you achieve that kind of results and you should understand that. Without doing that you are going to miserably fail each time you make or try another weight loss campaign. It is what it is and this is not going to lead you anywhere just because you people are doing these things with another way then anyone else. You should realize where you are making the mistakes. Now, the question is. Can you really lose weight with Chinese weight loss slimming tea? Yes, you can, but how? This is another good question. Actually the antioxidants that you are going to consume and that are going to make the process of calories burning in your body go faster is a good thing, but only relying on that fact isn’t going to get you all that is necessary and we are now trying to explain what is really going on and what you should be paying close attention to. There are person that seem not to understand the basic principles behind this. If you are really willing to get rid of your love handles then start jogging in the morning. We are into some kind of sports and we have actually known a person that was quite overweight but he was actively waking up early in the morning at maybe 5AM and running, meaning jogging. For the last five or even six years he has the say old school regime. Doing the same boring thing each morning and guess what. He doesn’t need probably to drink Chinese weight loss tea but he managed to get rid of his problem and this is how we see things guys. No magic bullet, there is not magic bullet out there. The only problem is the will to work hard and achieve that level of results without understanding what is really going on. You need to stay focused you need to make it for your mind to be ready to stick to a certain commitment and get going. Getting something in life and especially getting rid of addictions or losing some extra pounds is something compared to having a prosperous business. You know a business model and you follow it and try to replicate it as long as it possible and reap the rewards. There aren’t other options out there for this kind of approach and attitude. Hard work is involved and one should be actually aware of these things because all those that are willing to do something about this need to make it continuously possible and to have the attitude of water. Be water, said Bruce Lee, and you are going to succeed. This is also the key to success with weight loss tea.

They key and maybe you can also call the secret of success in losing weight with Chinese diet tea is actually setting a goal and working hard in order to achieve it. Does this mean that you have to drink like ten or twenty liters of this tea per day? Well not, but in case you are going to need to do it you should be psychologically and morally ready to perform something like this. You have to have guts in order to succeed. This is what it is. Losing weight is not a big deal if you know what you are doing. There are many other things in life that are much more complicated then understanding how you can use the anti oxidants in Chinese diet or weight loss tea in order to burn the fat in your organism and actually get a little bit slimmer. A lot of people have succeeded and you are not the only and the last one. There are going to be a lot of systems out there and programs promoting all kind of fluff but as long as you are going to be able to make the difference between things that are really working and just scam that you can read about in each and every newspaper you are good to go.

You want to lose weight, eh? Well alright. First of all – set a goal. For example, put a number and stick it to your working desk or in your kitchen. If you are willing to get rid of five or tend pounds write it on a piece of pare and stick it to your fridge and each time you pass by you are going to notice it and to take attitude because this is the power of mind that people tend to ignore. Now, you have a goal. The next important thing about this is make that commitment, this is like swearing something. You are not going to eat this and that, you are going to follow a strict program of physical exercise and you are going to try the Chinese diet green tea program. This should do it.

Remember, Chinese weight loss tea can help you, but you have to change your attitude and remember that not everything thou are being told about it is true.

So, are you still interested in a quick weight loss diet?

Looking forward to your slimming success,
Huang Jiung

When the truth hurts

Yesterday morning I wrote a long, rambling post about my marriage. At noon I read it again and deleted it. I know some of you read it and a few responded. Thank you for your support. As always, it is greatly appreciated. You have no idea how much it means to me that people reach out to me and genuinely care.

The reason I deleted the post was because it was flippant, sarcastic, and made fun of my marital situation. The truth is that a marriage in trouble is nothing to laugh about. It's not funny. It hurts. That's how I handle painful emotional situations, I laugh. Ha ha, my life is so funny. If I was being honest, I'd tell you how much it hurts and how it's not at all funny.

We have an appointment next Thursday for our first session of marriage counseling. My husband insisted on it. Recently he discovered some things about me that I wish he didn't know. They're private things, and things that shame and embarrass me. Even in spite of finding out about my deepest, darkest secrets, he still wants to save our marriage.

In the meantime, we've started reading the book, The Love Dare. It's the book mentioned in the movie Fireproof. We started the book several weeks ago, before he knew my secrets, but for some reason we stopped. Perhaps because I wasn't giving it my all, or perhaps I just didn't care. On Tuesday, after one of our worst arguments of my 22 years of knowing my husband, he insisted on the marriage counseling and working through The Love Dare book with me.

We're only on day five. So far, it was the hardest day for me. It was about being rude in your marriage. The discussion questions at the end of the chapter tore me apart. I ended up crying and saying I just can't do this. I left the bedroom and sat in the living room, crying my heart out. I didn't expect him to come after me.

In the past when I cried he would only get more angry and frustrated with me. Last night he came to me, held me, and told me it was okay. That we'd get through this. He said we had to work through the hard stuff to get to the good stuff. He said he would never give up on me, on us. Honestly, I didn't know he loved me like this. If our situation was reversed, I'm not sure I would be so understanding.

I'm not sure what's going to happen with my marriage, but I feel more positive today than I have in years.

In case you're wondering, these were the questions that we each had to answer and then discuss:

1. How does your spouse feel about the way you act and speak around them?
2. How does your behavior affect your mate's sense of worth and self-esteem?
3. Would your husband or wife say you're a blessing, or that you're condescending and embarrassing?

Then there are the three guidelines for etiquette in a marriage. Just so you know, I have broken all three, consistently, for 20 years.

1. Guard the Golden Rule. Treat your mate the same way you want to be treated.
2. No double standards. Be as considerate to your spouse as you are to strangers and your coworkers.
3. Honor requests. Consider what your husband or wife already asked you to do or not do. If in doubt, then ask.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About my eating and exercise

Yesterday was a horrible eating day for me. I've been feeling like I'm starving, and wanting to eat everything in sight. I'm sure it's my emotional roller coaster that's causing these feelings. I want comfort and love and I think I can find it in food. It's a stupid line of thinking and one I'm trying to stop.

I'm still tracking my Points. Yesterday was a 42 Point day. Yeah, I know, horrible when my goal is 29 total Points a day (20 + 4APs + 5 Weeklies).

I feel a little more in control today. I weighed this morning and I'm down 3.2 pounds from Wednesday. Still up over seven pounds from my lowest weight. It's a struggle.

Exercise is good. I'm putting in an hour a day, six days a week. I'm thinking about cutting back to five days a week. That sounds healthier and more maintainable. Plus I want my weekends to be free. I want to let up on some of my obsessive, compulsive habits. I want to be more normal.