LL Cool J Loves “Cheat Meals”

Oh, ladies… we do love “Cool James” don’t we?

Men, you know you love him too – just more of an envious kind of love, eh? ;)

LL Cool J recently released a new program called Platinum 360 which involves an eating plan and workout schedule. He claims that it’s helped him get in shape while working on NCIS: Los Angeles. (I’ve been on sets before… Craft Services tables are a total nightmare for dieters!)

So last week, he was on one of my favorite shows, The Doctors. He was there to talk about his new diet and exercise plan, LL Cool J’s Platinum 360 Diet and Lifestyle: A Full-Circle Guide to Developing Your Mind, Body, and Soul .

Sounds to me like it actually takes the whole “common sense” stuff and breaks it down in a way that’s easier to “digest”. Ha. I kid.

Carbohydrates, Fat & Protein

CARBOHYDRATES
Bad Carbs = Simple Sugars (soda, candy, white rice, white bread).
Good Carbs = Whole grains, natural (fruit) sugars in moderation, veggies.

Seriously, kids. I mean, we all know that we need carbohydrates for fuel. We all know that we should be eating real oatmeal and not “Sugar Crunchies” for breakfast (or donuts, for that matter).

Eat a whole grain bagel with some peanut butter. Better still? Shmear some Laughing Cow Cheese on that baby. I SWEAR it’s just like cream cheese! I’m partial to the French Onion flavored wedges. One per bagel half and I’m in total breakfast heaven.

FATS

Women especially need fat in their diet, to facilitate hormone production. But everyone needs fat (a total fat-free diet WILL make you sick). Many vitamins and minerals are fat-soluble only, meaning they’ll only be absorbed into the body when broken down by the fat we eat.

Think of traffic lights. Red, yellow, and green.

Red = Saturated fats like deep fried foods, lard, some oils, full-fat dressings and sauces.

Yellow = Use caution, these are fine in moderation. We’re talking eggs, milk, cheese, stuff like that.

Green = Unsaturated fats. Think salmon, almonds, avocado. Yum!

PROTEIN

You must remember this from 7th grade health class, right? We need protein because it’s the building block for all your body’s cells, but especially muscle. Yes, your HEART is a muscle. Think about that. We’re not talking about you eating a whole chicken every day so you can bulk up and look like LL Cool J. This is basic body function type muscle strength.

Protein also helps prevent sugar spikes in your blood. Hello!!! Diabetics! Pay attention! Eat up the white meat turkey and chicken (skinless, please) and add in some tuna, nonfat Greek yogurt, low-fat cheeses. Stay away from the Atkins ill-advised bacon and fatty steak, okay?

Check this out: If your body doesn’t get protein in food, it’s going to steal it from your body’s muscle. Do YOU want to be sitting there 10 years from now with pain and weakness in your body? I don’t!

LL’s Number One Tip

Mix up your food based on your workouts. Shock your body. Confuse it, eat carbs then don’t. Eat fat, then don’t.

This isn’t a new revelation, people. Back when I was on Weight Watchers, with their POINTS system, there was a member-derived plan based on one woman’s success with it called the Wendie Plan. The POINTS system basically told you that you had a certain number of POINTS you could eat each day. POINTS basically were an easy way to count calories. Once you met your POINTS, you were done. Well, the Wendie Plan said that instead of eating say, 30 POINTS a day, you’d take the 210 POINTS you got each week and mixed it up. Have ONE cheat day a week.

Example:

Sunday – 25 (Low)
Monday – 30 (Normal)
Tuesday – 22 (Low)
Wednesday – 41 (Cheat Day – Super High)
Thursday – 27 (Low)
Friday – 35 (High)
Saturday – 30 (Normal)

You can do this with daily caloric intake just the same. LL adds in that you should vary up the actual types of food you eat, based on carbs, fat, or protein. So say on your cheat day, you’d have that double cheeseburger or the 2 pieces of fried chicken. But you need to workout extra on that day. On your light days, where you stick mainly to fruit and veggies or something, you’d take it a little easier on the workout.

I simply love this idea. Shocking your body keeps it alert and not knowing what’s happening next. The Wendie Plan works like a charm (when I did it, I consistently lost 2-3 pounds per week). I can’t see why this idea wouldn’t work too!

The Bottom Line

It boils down to common sense and portion control. I’m sick of hearing people whine about not being able to lose weight. It’s basic, people. Eat right, move your body, and damnit, walk tall!

Yes, this makes the assumption that you’re not on medicine or have a health issue that prevents you from losing weight. If that’s the case, talk to your doctor and a nutritionist. But if you’re a reasonably average human being, with lots of desire and no medical reason behind your excessive weight, then laziness (which yes, I’m quite subject to myself) is your only cause.

You know how. It’s just a matter of doing it.

Cooked Oatmeal Isn’t All That Bad

How many times have you found yourself making excuses for why you don’t eat good “Old Fashioned” oatmeal every morning?

• “It tastes so… blah. I need more flavor!”
• “It takes too long to make.”
• “I don’t eat breakfast as it is, and you want me to eat that?”
• “Instant oatmeal is easier/more flavorful/faster/etc.”
• “I can’t ever get the consistency right. It comes out like glue/soup.”

Guess what, kiddies? I’ve used each and every one of those excuses myself, my entire life. Until I got my Type 2 Diabetes diagnosis, I pretty much refused to give it another chance. Granted, while oatmeal is proven to lower cholesterol my cholesterol levels are fine, and there’s no clear and present danger to my heart, the bottom line is that I need to lose weight and I need to do it right. Oatmeal is going to help, and I’m here to tell you: Cooked oatmeal really isn’t all THAT bad.

Why Oatmeal Will Help You Lose Weight

Old-fashioned oatmeal (sorry kids, not the instant kind) is absolutely packed with dietary fiber, which is the stuff that makes your world go ’round if you’re on a diet. The more dietary fiber you consume, the less fat you absorb and the more you flush out your *ahem* system.

Clearly, the better your digestive tract is working, the less time you’ve got food and toxins building up in your body. The less time for fat to absorb into your bloodstream. No, oatmeal isn’t going to make you crap your pants like Alli or Olestra, but it will keep things moving the way they should be. Know how your grandmother had faith in bran muffins? Yeah, that.

I could also get into the whole Glycemic Load stuff – if you’re interested, the oatmeal itself has a GL of 13. As comparison, brown rice has a GL of 17. The lower the GL, the longer it takes to digest the food which means a longer stability of metabolism and blood sugar levels. Also, the longer you stay full, the less you eat, the more weight you lose. :)

So anyway, how does one actually cook old-fashioned oatmeal quickly, and make it taste good?

Here’s what I do:

1. 1 cup old-fashioned oats (yep, out of that big round cardboard box) into a bowl.
2. 2 packets of Splenda
3. dash of salt (maybe a little more than a dash)
4. LOTS of ground cinnamon (I’ll explain this later)
5. 1/2 tbsp light butter (sometimes I will omit this)
6. 3/4 – 1 cup 2% milk (depending on the day, how chewy I want it to be; chewy uses less)
7. stir it up and pop it into the microwave for 2 minutes
8. add fruit or flavorings, stir up again, and enjoy!

I kid you not, I’ve got the process down to less than 4 minutes. I’ve even seen so-called “nutritionist blogs” out there saying that it can take 10 minutes to cook this kind of oatmeal, to which I call “Horseshit!”

Oh, and about the whole cooking it in the milk thing… One of my friends claims he prefers to cook his oatmeal stovetop, in just enough salted water for it to absorb into the oats, and then add a splash of milk to it after it’s done. I’ve never tried it that way, as I said, I like my oatmeal chewy, not soggy or soupy, and that’s the only thing I can imagine would happen using water.

Here are some of my favorite things to add to my oatmeal in step 7:

• 2 tbsp canned pumpkin puree
• sliced banana
• blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, or any combo of them all
• 1 tbsp creamy peanut butter
• a dozen semi-sweet chocolate chips

I’m not a fan of raisins, but I do like craisins (dried cranberries). Problem is they have so much sugar in such a concentrated form. I rarely do the chocolate chip thing because of that too. But for a treat, a change of pace, it can’t hurt once in a while.

I seriously eat oatmeal almost every morning for breakfast. If I’m not eating that, I’m eating some kind of Egg Beaters omelette or something, but the oatmeal actually takes the least amount of time and is quite versatile.

The cinnamon thing…

Ground cinnamon has been shown to actually lower blood sugar in diabetics because it enhances your body’s sensitivity to insulin, which regulates the blood sugar. I swear to you, I put it in just about everything now. I even added it to chili once!

So, how do you do oatmeal?

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I’m Droppin’ Babies Like Hot Rhymes…

Alright, I know that title is completely corny and stupid, but hey… It’s Spring and I’m feelin’ corny and stupid.

So on my last post about my diabetes battle, where I mentioned that I’d “only” lost 7 pounds, a beautiful reader by the name of kirwin left a comment that totally put some things in perspective for me:

I know it’s not the numbers you were hoping for but seven pounds is seven pounds. Consider this: that’s a newborn baby. You did AWESOME, and you are heading in the right direction.

Keep it up. It’s the tortoise that wins the race.

To that end, because I’ve never in my life thought of measuring weight loss to the weight of your average, healthy baby… and because one of my dreams in life is to be a mom… I’ve decided to add the “baby meter” in a way that’s unlike any other baby meter you’ve seen!

I’m going to be naming these babies… and sending them out in the world to live outside my body! Once you give birth, you can’t put the baby back in. You have to name the baby. I see it like I’ve been nurturing these babies far longer than a normal pregnancy… in fact, it’s been about 18 years, so they’re due to get a life of their own, outside my body!

I’d like to introduce you to my first born…

Meet Elardabeth! She was the first 7 pound baby born during my battle against diabetes. Thanks kid, but you’re on your own now!

So for those of you who got to this page by clicking on the “What’s with all the babies?” link on the home page, now you know! I’ll be updating this page with all the babies and their names, every 7 pounds I lose!

Babies I’ve Set Free

Elardabeth

Diabetes Watch: Love Your Junky Trunk!

Okay, so according to a recent study, Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, and Shakira will likely never have to worry about diabetes.

Granted, thus far the study has only been done on mice, and we all know that means that it may or may not yet apply to humans. But what they did was take subcutaneous fat (the layer of fat right below the skin) from the buttocks and moved it to the abdomen areas of the mice. The result was a drop in body weight and blood sugar levels in those mice. Researchers believe there is something in this kind of fat that improves the metabolism of glucose.

What they do know is that women with a larger backside and smaller stomachs have a lower risk of Type 2 Diabetes than women with large amounts of abdominal fat. It all goes back to Dr. Oz and his grotesque display of that “omentum” on Oprah a few years back.

Belly fat in the omentum is probably the most dangerous. It’s only job is to provide fuel to your internal organs, but when you have too much and are not eating properly, it’s delivering toxic fuel to those organs. Fuel loaded with chemicals and poisons that aren’t good for your body. It’s almost the equivalent to putting sugar in your car’s gas tank. Fortunately with the body, as opposed to a sugared tank, you can actually reverse it before it kills the car.

If you’re interested in learning more about how your body works, especially when you’re dieting, you need to grab a copy of You: On A Diet by Dr. Michael F. Roizen and Dr. Mehmet C. Oz. It’s on my reading list for sure.

So get out those “Apple Bottom Jeans” and wear them with pride, ladies! (But get your bellies flat first!)

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Diagnosis: Type 2 Diabetes. Now What?

March 9th, 2009 will forever go down in my life history as the day my health kicked my ass. No, I’m not dying. I’m actually feeling more alive and motivated and inspired than ever before in my near 32 years.

A Little Back Story

Two days prior to the “Day of Dawn” for me, I’d been sitting at my desk and noticed that my left hand had these weird, jerky twitches going on. Not like your everyday eyelid twitch or that rhythmic thumping twitch, no… it was the fingers on my left hand moving around in strange, unbalanced movements. I got a little weirded out so I called the doctor’s office and they set me up for a 2pm appointment.

Now, I need to explain here that prior to all of this mess, I’d never EVER been much of a breakfast eater. I’d wake up around 6 or 7 and drink coffee with 2% milk and equal until about noon-thirty before actually putting something in my mouth that required chewing. I had a feeling they were going to draw blood, so I didn’t even eat that day until after the appointment.

So by the time I got to the doctor’s office and the subsequent lab for a blood draw, I had gone 21 hours without anything but that day’s coffee in my gut. More on that thought later…

The next day I get the call that my doc wants to see me to go over the bloodwork results. Okay, so there’s clearly something wrong, since if everything were okay he’d have called to tell me that and told me to keep an eye on the twitching stuff and let him know if it gets worse or more frequent.

I go into the office and the PA comes in and asks me why I’m there. (In case you’re wondering, I’m not a big fan of any of the PA’s at this office, but whatever…) So I tell her and she leaves and comes back with that finger pricker thing but never says a word. I see her putting it together and I mention that I really hate it. Like, I have a ridiculous reflex against it, have since I was a kid. It’s uncontrollable by myself alone, so I’m hoping she can hold my hand steady enough.

She couldn’t. Or rather, she didn’t even bother to really try. She kind of cupped my finger in her hand like she was holding an egg.

I wound up with an inch long gash on my finger that wouldn’t stop bleeding for hours after I left the damn office.

Doctor comes in and tells me that my cholesterol levels are “perfect”, my proteins and all that other stuff are normal, but my blood sugar was really high, at 183. This slash test just now (also about 18 hours since the last time I’d eaten, by the way) showed 186. He was sending me for a Hemoglobin A1c, which tests for the percentage of sugar bonded to proteins in the blood, and which is a defining test for Type 2 Diabetes. He said that 6% or lower was normal, 6-7% was borderline, and 7% and above was definite T2.

So back over to the lab I go, pulling up the sleeve of the other arm and since I know the hematologist, having a discussion with her about how I’m now officially nervous.

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

I came home and my mother came down to spend time with me. I made a stir-fry dinner with brown rice and we talked about all the things the doctor said. Basically what he told me was that right now, regardless of the test results, the only thing he wants me to focus on is a 1200-1400 calorie per day diet, low in carbs and zero refined carbs, and 30 minutes of exercise every day. Heart-pumping exercise that is, to get the heart rate up.

I’m thinking, “Okay, I can do this. I’ve been wanting to do this, and now I have to do this, and I can do this.”

So the next day I get a call from the doctor’s secretary or PA or whatever, and she tells me that my A1c came back at 10.6% and she is going to make me an appointment to see their CDE (Certified Diabetes Instructor). Um, but the doctor said he doesn’t want me on a meter, doesn’t want me stressing over anything at all, just to focus on calories, content, and exercise. I tell her this, and she says, “Well, let’s set you up with the appointment anyway and if the doctor says no, we can cancel it.”

That, folks, is another long story, but the bottom line is that I didn’t see the CDE, and when I spoke to the doctor about it the other day, he was fine with it.

So Here I Go

I’ve been tracking every morsel that goes into my body with SparkPeople and have really tried to get on the treadmill every day. I’ve not succeeded, but every single morning I tell myself that I’m going to do it. It’s been over two weeks, and I’ve lost 4 pounds thus far.

I’ll be writing about this whole process in great detail of course. My next appointment with the doctor is on April 21, 2009 but don’t worry, I’ve got lots to say even before then… ;)

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