Take Control Of Your Health Before You Lose It

Daniel 1:11-16, “Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom the prince of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink. Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenance of the children that eat of the portion of the king's meat: and as thou seest, deal with thy servants. So he consented to them in this matter, and proved them ten days. And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king's meat. Thus Melzar took away the portion of their meat, and the wine that they should drink; and gave them pulse.”

This is a famous passage of Scripture with health enthusiast. Unfortunately, most people who are familiar with this passage don't eat this way. Pastor Rick Warren made a big deal of this passage a few years ago. He was selling his “The Daniel Plan.” Have you seen Rick Warren lately in 2021? He looks like Jabba The Hutt from Star Wars, weighing about 700 pounds!

I don't throw rocks at anyone, I am struggling myself with my weight. I lost 20 pounds earlier this year on Guam. But when I moved to Pensacola Florida I broke my stride. Now I am surrounded by fast food restaurants while living out of a suitcase in a hotel. So I have gained 10 pounds in two months! I decided today not to let this continue, so I went to Wal-Mart and bought a big sealable container and several bags of dry beans. I bought a pot with a strainer in it to soak the beans in. I also bought a small Crock Pot and several spices. ...

The Beans, Spices And Sealable Container I Bought At Wal-Mart Today

I am going to eat one cup of dry beans cooked per day. That will give me a diet high in protein and fiber. I have learned much about gaining and losing weight over the past few years. One thing I have learned is that you cannot starve yourself to lose weight. You can try, but you will very likely fail after 12 hours, because you will be too hungry. The key to lose weight is TO EAT, but you need to eat Low Calorie Density foods, like beans, yogurt, sweet potatoes, fish and vegetables. 

I will soak one cup of dry beans each day, drain the water, and at night put that cup of beans in the Crock Pot overnight on low so it will be ready to eat in the morning. Beans are a GREAT way to lose weight, and they make you feel full. I was going to also buy a Nutra Ninja, but Wal-Mart ran out of the 1,000 watt units. I bought a couple cases of mineral water. It is important to drink a lot of water to lose weight, because it speeds up your metabolism. Lord willing, I cannot wait to rent an apartment, so I can bake fish in the oven and barbeque chicken.

Anyway, I don't want to gain all my weight back, so I am fighting my bad eating habits. Eating junk food is why so many people are fat slobs! What you eat today you will crave tomorrow! Yogurt cannot compare to Little Caesars. One Little Caesar's pizza is 3,000 calories! I can eat the whole pizza in one day! Add a coke and some brownies and you've got 4,000 calories for the day. You will gain 1 pound every 4 days eating like that! It's fun at the start for a few months, until you cannot bend over anymore and your guy makes you look pregnant! No thanks!

The only way to avoid becoming an obese fat American is YOU MUST GET AWAY from the way American's abuse their health. You must prepare your own meals and eat at your own pace. Just one double-cheese WHATABURGER is 950 calories! Add a milkshake and that's another 560 calories! Add some fries and you've got another 300 calories. That's 1,810 calories so far for the day! It is SO EASY to eat 5,000 calories a day! Just 3,500 calories is one pound of weight! Your body burns about 2,000 calories a day on average! You get the picture!!!

For the next few months I am going to be watching my diet. I usually don't have a problem with my diet, but right now I don't have a refrigerator or a stove, so I am limited. This is a bad time for me and I need to be careful, or I'll look like Fat Albert! I have learned that there are no gimmicks to lose weight. There are no magic pills, or clever methods or special secret to losing weight. It all comes down to calories in versus calories out. You need to reduce your calorie intake below your maintenance calories (i.e., the number of calories your body needs each day to maintain the same weight). If you eat 1,200 calories you will lose weight! You can lose 2 pounds per week by just eating 1,000 calories per day total. It's not easy to do if you snack a lot! Just one original glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut is 190 calories!!! I can eat 2 boxes (12 doughnuts) per day just for desert!

The only way to lose weight is you have to want it bad enough to pay the price of changing your eating habits. You can still eat, and you should eat, but you need to eat nutritious foods and abandon the burgers, pizza, pasta, deep fried foods, milkshakes, rice and deserts. Our mind is our own worst enemy. I kept justifying eating junk food by telling myself that I'm living out of a suitcase. I realized today that my body is lying to me! So I decided that I CAN eat healthy right now. Being in constant neck pain doesn't help. I get depressed often. But I don't want my diabetes back, which WILL return if I gain any more weight. So I am going to fight this. I see obese people everywhere I go, even doctors! It all comes down to personal choices.

The hardest part about losing weight is that it takes time, and most of us lack the discipline and patience to consistently eat healthy long enough to see big results. I just set a short term goal of losing 10 pounds. The first 5-8 pounds is water and the undigested food in your stomach, so to lose a solid 10 pounds you need to drop at least 15-18 pounds on the scale. The best place to start is right now, today. Eat a healthy meal today, and go from there. When you feel hungry, eat, but eat low calories density foods.

Today I ate a package of oatmeal for breakfast, which was about 150 calories. I had a chicken breast sandwich on one piece of Dave's Bread with some spicy sweet mustard. It was great! That was only 150 calories too! I ate a couple olives and two pickles. I took w multivitamins. I drank a protein shake, which was 180 calories. And I did sneak one glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut, which was 190 calories. So for the day I had about 800 calories total. I'll repeat that tomorrow and add a handful of mixed nuts too, which is about 100 calories. I'll eat 1 cup of dry beans cooked tomorrow, which is about 337 calories. I'll remove something else, so I can try to limit my total calories to 1,000 for the day. That is my goal each day.

So here are some helpful take away points that I have learned to lose weight quickly:

1. Eat oatmeal every morning (it will make you feel full)
2. Eat beans each day (they're high in protein and fiber and will make you feel full
3. You don't need to exercise or go walking. Walking will just make you more hungry. Your diet is the key to losing weight.
4. Drink lots of mineral water (I buy cases of Dasani water if available. Water increases your metabolism and flushes out your system, keeping you hydrated)
5. Avoid all sugars (specially liquid sugary drinks like Coke and fruit juices)
6. You can eat about 100 calories of dark chocolate each day (dark chocolate helps curb your appetite, provides fat and gives energy. I love dark chocolate covered raisins. Don't eat too much or you won't lose weight!)
7. Eat a high protein diet (poached and hardboiled eggs, baked fish, grilled chicken, protein shakes, beef jerky, yogurt, soy, et cetera. Protein makes you feel full).
8. Avoid all junk food (Little Caesar's and MacDonald's is bad! Junk food is high calorie density and will make you crave more junk food. All that dough is fattening.)
9. You need to aim to consume 1,200 calories total per day, or less. You can do this comfortably if you eat sweet potatoes, baked fish, spinach, vegetables, yogurt, cottage cheese, oatmeal, berries, nuts, beans and other low calorie density foods.
10. The best way to lose weight guaranteed is slow (not for health reasons, but simply because it works! Starving yourself to lose weight is non-sustainable. I cannot even go 12 hours without eating! But if your tummy is full of all the good foods I just mentioned, your body is content, and you can live with that. I mean, that is sustainable).
11. Don't watch the scale each day, it will fluctuate all over the place, watch your daily total calories. Guaranteed, it is a scientific certainty, you WILL lose weight if your total daily calories are reduced below your maintenance calories (the number of calories you need to eat to maintain your present weight, which is usually your present weight times ten). Let's say you weigh 180 pounds. 180 times 10 = 1,800 calories. So you need to eat less than 1,800 calories to lose weight. That is why I recommend eating a total of 1,200 calories each day. You can lose one pound per week this way. If you eat even less calories you can lose two pounds per week, but don't push yourself too much or you'll binge eat. Eat a lot of protein and fiber to feel full. Beans are the best!
12. Rinse your mouth with Listerine a few times each day. A clean mouth is a deterrent to eat.
13. Plans your meals a day ahead, so you won't eat randomly. Plan your work and then work your plan. I like to bake a bag of Barramundi fish and a bag of chicken thighs on Sunday and then refrigerator it to eat all week. Those are my favorite meats. Pick your favorite fish and cuts of chicken. You can barbeque or bake them, but don't fry anything because all that cooking oil is VERY fattening. One Tablespoon of any kind of oil is 120 calories!!!
14. When you are snack hungry, eat healthy foods (I make a big pot of beans and when I feel cravings throughout the day I will eat a few spoonful's of seasoned beans. Don't eat chips because they are processed and fattening! Don't drink sodas because they won't make you feel full and contain lots of calories.
15. Losing weight is a yoke of wood, but becoming a fat slob is a yoke of iron! I know this sounds terrible but it helps me lose weight. Think of some horribly fat person that you know, or have seen recently, and let that disgust motivate you not to become like them. My former landlord looked like he was pregnant at age 75. When I thought of how disgusting he looked, it motivated me to lose weight. I am not talking about looking down on people or judging anyone, I am simply saying to look at what their abuse has done to ruin their health and let that perceived knowledge cause you to eat right! I cannot believe how fat some people are! We have done this to ourselves. People are depressed. Gaining weight makes them more depressed. Then they blame everyone else.
16. Count your daily calories. I said that before but it is important. I don't care how healthy you eat, you won't lose any weight if you're eating too many calories. Counting calories is the most important thing to lose weight! You'd be shocked how many calories are in your favorite junk foods! You can have a few hundred calories a day of junk food. Your body needs a reward, but eat them sparingly. I love baked fish! It will fill you up and help you lose weight. I put lemon on top.

Here is one person's comments about what is wrong with Little Caesar's pizza:

Let me explain why. The flour that makes the pizza dough is highly refined and therefore it's easily digested into your system causing a rush of sugars into your blood stream. Along with the sugars entering your blood stream are the fats from the cheese. These fats are converted to fatty acids in the intestine where they also get absorbed. Now, you have a cascade of events which lead to fat gain. Your body releases insulin to get rid of all of the sugar in the blood. This allows the cells of your body to take in those sugars. This also unlocks the fat cells to accept all of those fatty acids and any additional sugars that can't be utilized by the liver or muscles. This is an extremely fattening meal. SOURCE

I LOVE Little Caesar's pizza, but you WILL gain weight eating it! Can you just eat one or two slices? Not a chance! I must eat at least half the pizza! That is my total calories for the day, which is not enough food for my nutritional demands, and I will crave it again tomorrow. I usually eat the whole pizza by the end of the day. Your body needs nutrition. Pizza lacks good nutrition and is full of fats, carbs and is highly processed (manhandled). Don't eat pizza if you want to lose weight! Once in a great while is okay.

I use pizza as a reward for eating healthy. If I can lose 10 pounds, then I can eat once at Little Caesars. But friend, literally, you can undo a whole week's worth of fasting in just one day if you abuse it. You must still count calories, even if you have a treat day. The problem is that one treat day may retrigger your cravings and you have a bunch of treat days! Eat beans, which will help get your body used to healthy food. Losing weight is much more difficult doing it alone. If you are married and your spouse wants to lose weight with you, then you are very blessed. 

It is very important to count every calorie you put into your mouth while losing weight, to ensure that you remain within your calorie limit for the day. Just one Tablespoon of butter is 120 calories. A little butter is good, because the fat will make you feel full, but make sure to count those calories, because they add up quickly. Weight is lost about 1/4 pound per day, if you limit your daily calorie intake to 1,000 calories. Chicken sandwiches are great on a slice or two of Dave's whole grain Bread! Oatmeal for breakfast is great! Wish me good luck! I hope you will join me if you are also struggling with your weight. 

I have gained and lost weight like a yoyo over the years. It's all because of my poor dietary habits and I admit it, which is half the battle. The good thing with me is that when I see my weight going up, I take control and fight it before it becomes a problem. It would be best if I would get to my ideal weight at 150 to 160 pounds and stay there, but I choose too often to indulge in our excess American culture. But I'd rather keep fighting weight gain than not try at all, which I can see many people have given up! I just wanted to share some of the things I have learned.

The key is to find a balance between healthy eating and the junk foods that we enjoy. The majority of our food intake ought to be beans, oatmeal, nuts, yogurt, fish and other healthy choices. I love Chinese food, and the vegetables are great, but the eggrolls, Sweet and Sour Chicken and dumplings are all unhealthy deep-fried foods. Americans are the fattest people on the planet, because of our excessive society today. As I type I am eating a big bowl of fresh cooked beans. They taste great and provide lots of protein and fiber. I used chicken seasoning for the base. I cut a piece of Polish sausage and put it in the beans last night to flavor it. I cooked the beans for 12 hours on low.

I have been losing the battle lately with my weight because I don't have a stove or refrigerator, but I am fighting weight gain. Beans don't require either a stove or a refrigerator, so they are the perfect food for me now to lose weight. I learned from my former doctor that eating a vegetarian diet will automatically return the body to its proper weight.

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