I happen to take a quick glance across the room when we first caught each others eye. I happen to be a shy individual when it comes to encounters such as these but for some reason the sight of her smooth chocolate skin gave me the courage and drive to stand up and begin making my way over to unforeseen destiny. My palms were damp with anticipation as I got closer and closer. I was so nervous and I knew it might be a bad idea approaching a stranger such as this fine chocolate being but I didn’t care. This was destiny and now was my time to seize the day. When I got within a few feet I began to open my mouth and utter the words “O damn you are looking mighty fine. You here all alone?” She said nothing back. She just sat there surrounded by her peers mocking me and probably laughing on the inside about how ridiculous I looked drooling with my mouth open. Before I could say anything else my conscious got the best of me and a little voice inside my head said this was wrong. I was told to stay away from this sort of thing and I promised myself that these days were in the past. I pulled my lunging hand away and turned gently to the side and I thought to myself, “Damn you cream cheese brownie! Why can’t I have you? Why?
Ever since my diagnosis I was forced to reevaluate how I ate and drank. My doctor told me that my body was having trouble regulating my blood sugar and all of the anxiety and exhaustion was stemming from that. If I didn’t cut my intake way down the aftermath could be extremely detrimental to my health. So that means I had to cut my diet down to the bare essentials and cut out most if not all the alcohol and sugar in my diet. I quit drinking a while ago so that transition wasn’t hard and sweets never triggered my taste buds so I knew that wasn’t going to be to difficult as well. However the minute someone tells you that eating something as simple as a cookie is forbidden, that cookie turns into a secret object of desire. My whole life I never had cravings for sweets but suddenly a brownie has become the Playboy under my mattress. Sweets are now my vice. They are my addiction, they are my sin.
Sure my new found cravings might be a little extreme and slightly perverted but in most cases the feelings I am having are shared with the rest of the world. Serotonin is the everyday feel good hormone. When serotonin is low, it causes one to feel depressed and sad. Fortunately simple sugars, when ingested, trigger small amounts of serotonin into the blood stream and give us the feeling of warmth and happiness. When the serotonin goes back to being low, are cravings for sugary sweets increases. Before you know it you are in a downward spiral of crying and than liberating your depression with chocolate milk and Twinkie injections. Sure I do feel better now that I have been exercising and eating healthier but I fear that the forbidden fruit I once rejected has turned into an uncontrollable craving.
Sweetener is in EVERYTHING we eat and as the years progress, sugar and the much revered high fructose corn syrup can be found in more and more foods we commonly buy at the grocery store. So for a person like myself who is trying to cut out sugar and sweetener all together, the task of finding the right foods can be down right impossible. There in lies the complicated and often misunderstood dietary habits of western culture. Finding simple delicious foods that have not been scientifically modified, or enhanced with artificial sweeteners can be quite the daunting task. Just go down one of the center aisles at any local grocery store and you will find nothing but quick ready to eat foods that are specifically designed to attract the consumer to busy to look and see what they are really eating. Bright packages that say low in fat or high in vitamin C attract people like myself who get suckered into eating something I think is beneficial for my body. However flip the package over and look at the ingredient list. Even the popular Nutri-Grain bar which is wildly advertised as being beneficial to our health contains not only high fructose corn syrup but a cornucopia of ingredients that look like they belong in a tube of antiseptic, not in a breakfast bar. Even further down the aisle you find items such as salad dressing (yes even Paul Newman’s “Natural” dressing is guilty) ketchup, mustard, fruit juice, tea, canned fruit, apple sauce, cereal, oatmeal, soda, chips, crackers; all of which contain high fructose syrup, a completely man-made artificial ingredient that is cheap to produce and an almost unlimited supply. When someone like me is forced to regulate what goes into his body, finding that right kind of food can become quite the arduous task.
I offer no solutions to my dilemma because for the time being I want to focus on the problem. I know there is a bright light at the end of my journey but for the moment I continue to tip-toe through a dark and mysterious tunnel that is the American diet.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
“Oh my god its happened. I got old. “ This was the first thought I had while sitting in the doctor’s office for the second time in a month. I sat on the exam table, ironically covered in choo-choo trains, pondering the years that led to this moment. What was I doing here? I am still a young pup in his prime. A adolescent being who has yet to make his stamp on the world. Why am I here worrying about my health? This kind of thing wasn’t suppose to happen yet. Health problems are suppose to happen when my face begins to wrinkle or when I find the dreadful first grey pube. Yet there I was nervously waiting the doctor’s return to tell me what chronic or fateful disease I was carrying. I was scarred out of my mind.
This all began a five months prior when I started to feel like my energy level was dropping tremendously. I would wake up in the morning after sleeping eight hours and just feel horrible. I was tired, lethargic, depressed and cranky. I figured it was stress related, as are most things in my life, but at the time things were going great. I loved my job, I had a great girlfriend, my daughter was lively and precious and everything was falling into place. For the first time in a long time, I was actually happy and worry free. Yet still I felt off in some way. So maybe it was my habits that got me to this point I thought. However, I really didn’t have any bad habits. I quit smoking a long time ago, I didn’t drink and I exercised regularly. I was at a complete and total loss as to what was wrong. Considering the fact that I haven’t actually had a proper check-up in over five years, I figured it was time. A week later I found myself at the doctors peeing in a cup, getting blood drawn and the ever-so-lovely turn and cough. Feeling ok about the visit I went home and seven hours later I got the call that no one ever wished to get. “Cory, this is Dr. Reynolds, I need to see you in my office to go over your test results.”
So there I was. Waiting nervously two days later. Wondering if I had cancer, diabetes or heaven knows what else. Turns out I had nothing that I feared so much. What I was suffering from was a strong case of Hypoglycemia and high blood pressure. AWESOME!!! I thought. I’m not going to die. The doctor smiled and said, “well not yet anyway”. I had dodged diabetes by a fraction but I found out that I am still susceptible to it and I am not out of the woods by any means. Hypoglycemia is very similar to diabetes in that my blood glucose levels are very low but the damage to the body is much lower. So there was something to definitely wrong with me and if I didn’t make a change, my future was in jeopardy.
“So what did I have to do?”, I asked the doctor. “Well Cory, tell me about your diet” My diet?!?! I laughed out loud. I know for a fact that is not the reason I am here today. I explained to the doctor that I am a budding chef and devoted foodie. My whole life is food. Ever since I was young I wanted to know everything there was about food and the culture that surrounded it. Food aloud me to express myself and in a way it saved me from turning into something that my daughter would not be very proud of. I owe my entire life to my passion for food and cooking so how on earth was it responsible for my failing health. The entire idea seemed silly and I figured that I would stop drinking soda, run a little more and everything would be fine. However I humored the doctor and for the next month I began to monitor my eating habits on a day to day basis. Keep in mind I work around food all day long so it was a challenge trying to figure out what food or foods my be harming my health. Most mornings I began my day with a protein bar and a vitamin water. I never have time to cook breakfast so eating on the go is a must. I wound snack on random items throughout the day and wouldn’t really eat another meal until four or five in the afternoon. This mainly consisted of a hamburger and a salad. Like I said I never eat fast food so if I do get a burger it would be from somewhere like Red Robin and the salad would come from veggies I purchased at the super market. In the evening I usually made my own meal which consisted of everything from Thai food to home-made meat loaf. Dinner varied on what was already in my fridge and what I was able to afford to buy at the store. So after a few weeks of studying my everyday eating habits, I came to the conclusion that I had no conclusion. I mean I really thought I was eating healthy. I didn’t drink , I don’t inhale McDonald’s. I eat my greens and all my meals are generally home made. The doctor made it sound like I was injecting Crisco in my veins and using Snickers bars as suppositories. I was at a total loss but determined to find the source of my troubles.
I can’t really say what was the turning point in my discovery but I decided to look at my food from a different perspective. I began to break down the food I ate into ingredients and more importantly where those ingredients originated. Everything from the meat and bread to the fruits and vegetables. I examined it all and with the help of a few documentaries and books I started to realize that I had been living a gigantic lie. The foods I though were healthy and important to the stability of my well-being were in reality, a processed nightmare which we call “The Western Diet”. Even the items coined “Organic” were harmful in their own way.
So thus begins my journey into what exactly the western diet is and how it can be eradicated from my dinner plate. I set up this blog not only to chronicle my journey, but to write about the thing I love most dearly (minus my daughter and my loving girlfriend) and that is food. From this point on you can expect a weekly entry and I hope you enjoy and even learn a little something in the process. Cheers!!
This all began a five months prior when I started to feel like my energy level was dropping tremendously. I would wake up in the morning after sleeping eight hours and just feel horrible. I was tired, lethargic, depressed and cranky. I figured it was stress related, as are most things in my life, but at the time things were going great. I loved my job, I had a great girlfriend, my daughter was lively and precious and everything was falling into place. For the first time in a long time, I was actually happy and worry free. Yet still I felt off in some way. So maybe it was my habits that got me to this point I thought. However, I really didn’t have any bad habits. I quit smoking a long time ago, I didn’t drink and I exercised regularly. I was at a complete and total loss as to what was wrong. Considering the fact that I haven’t actually had a proper check-up in over five years, I figured it was time. A week later I found myself at the doctors peeing in a cup, getting blood drawn and the ever-so-lovely turn and cough. Feeling ok about the visit I went home and seven hours later I got the call that no one ever wished to get. “Cory, this is Dr. Reynolds, I need to see you in my office to go over your test results.”
So there I was. Waiting nervously two days later. Wondering if I had cancer, diabetes or heaven knows what else. Turns out I had nothing that I feared so much. What I was suffering from was a strong case of Hypoglycemia and high blood pressure. AWESOME!!! I thought. I’m not going to die. The doctor smiled and said, “well not yet anyway”. I had dodged diabetes by a fraction but I found out that I am still susceptible to it and I am not out of the woods by any means. Hypoglycemia is very similar to diabetes in that my blood glucose levels are very low but the damage to the body is much lower. So there was something to definitely wrong with me and if I didn’t make a change, my future was in jeopardy.
“So what did I have to do?”, I asked the doctor. “Well Cory, tell me about your diet” My diet?!?! I laughed out loud. I know for a fact that is not the reason I am here today. I explained to the doctor that I am a budding chef and devoted foodie. My whole life is food. Ever since I was young I wanted to know everything there was about food and the culture that surrounded it. Food aloud me to express myself and in a way it saved me from turning into something that my daughter would not be very proud of. I owe my entire life to my passion for food and cooking so how on earth was it responsible for my failing health. The entire idea seemed silly and I figured that I would stop drinking soda, run a little more and everything would be fine. However I humored the doctor and for the next month I began to monitor my eating habits on a day to day basis. Keep in mind I work around food all day long so it was a challenge trying to figure out what food or foods my be harming my health. Most mornings I began my day with a protein bar and a vitamin water. I never have time to cook breakfast so eating on the go is a must. I wound snack on random items throughout the day and wouldn’t really eat another meal until four or five in the afternoon. This mainly consisted of a hamburger and a salad. Like I said I never eat fast food so if I do get a burger it would be from somewhere like Red Robin and the salad would come from veggies I purchased at the super market. In the evening I usually made my own meal which consisted of everything from Thai food to home-made meat loaf. Dinner varied on what was already in my fridge and what I was able to afford to buy at the store. So after a few weeks of studying my everyday eating habits, I came to the conclusion that I had no conclusion. I mean I really thought I was eating healthy. I didn’t drink , I don’t inhale McDonald’s. I eat my greens and all my meals are generally home made. The doctor made it sound like I was injecting Crisco in my veins and using Snickers bars as suppositories. I was at a total loss but determined to find the source of my troubles.
I can’t really say what was the turning point in my discovery but I decided to look at my food from a different perspective. I began to break down the food I ate into ingredients and more importantly where those ingredients originated. Everything from the meat and bread to the fruits and vegetables. I examined it all and with the help of a few documentaries and books I started to realize that I had been living a gigantic lie. The foods I though were healthy and important to the stability of my well-being were in reality, a processed nightmare which we call “The Western Diet”. Even the items coined “Organic” were harmful in their own way.
So thus begins my journey into what exactly the western diet is and how it can be eradicated from my dinner plate. I set up this blog not only to chronicle my journey, but to write about the thing I love most dearly (minus my daughter and my loving girlfriend) and that is food. From this point on you can expect a weekly entry and I hope you enjoy and even learn a little something in the process. Cheers!!
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