Fellow fruities, I would appreciate your help!
My dad is having a hard time with his health lately (mainly loosing weight, even after starting to eat a healthier, but also joint and shoulder bursitis issues). I've been chatting with him lately about changing his diet (he's already in agreement with eating less meat and dairy, but not vegetarian or vegan) to high-carb. He disagrees on the higher-calorie thing, and on simpler meals (natural-hygene-type-diet) and thinks that he already eats high-carb (but he doesn't). Since I'm 17 and have only been following this diet for two years, and used it to GAIN and maintain weight in recovery from an eating disorder, he doesn't give my opinions much thought.
Quick background of my dad:
- 50 years old
- General Contractor/Carpenter: does a lot of heavy lifting and has a lot of achey issues, especially with bursitis in his shoulder
- Highly active as a young'un, used to be a swimmer and football player and worked a lot as a kid, used to eat massive amounts of food (like most active male teens)
- Hates that his metabolism has slowed so much and how it's harder to loose weight: weighed 170ish in his twenties and now weighs about 220 (not sure of the exact number, but he says that he's fifty pounds overweight)
- Always has a beef with my arguments about veganism/fruitarianism (no, I don't bring them up or argue them very often, but they do inevitably sometimes pop-up and we occasionally get into a debate that can get frustrating), but this is because he likes to analyze and scrutinize everything, like me.
I know that we have some wise and seasoned members on this forum--would any of you be willing to share your experiences with the high-carb lifestyle? I would be oh-so-very grateful for anyone's story! Be sure to include age (at least approx. ), a quick background, and a brief outline of your diet. (:
Love,
Shannon
Replies
While he don't visit here much, Richard is a stone mason. That's got to be one of the most physical jobs in construction.
http://www.30bananasaday.com/profile/RichardGambino?xg_source=profi...
Hi Shannon, your Dad is a lot like my husband, who at age 50, is a long term carpenter/house builder with lots of aches and pains. He has recently given up milk and now eats more fruit, but I hope that someday he goes totally hcrv mostly because I want him to know what that feels like. It makes you feel amazing. I feel better than I ever have at age 47. No more migraines, eczema, back pain, awesome digestion and immunity. The longer you eat this way the better it gets, and the better your life gets, I have experienced that personally.
I joke with my husband about going fruity - he would need SO many calories to do what he does all day building houses, hold down 3 side jobs maintaining summer homes, come home and cut our wood for fuel in a Maine winter, etc etc. It would be more like 300 bananas!
That's EXACTLY what I was trying to tell my dad the other day! He's just so stubborn in his calorie-restricting-to-lose-weight mindset. As a six-foot male, working an active job, he probably needs as much as I do (I'm a 5'5'' teenage female, but I do a fair amount of exercise and eat around 3500 a day). Silly omnivores. (;
I am 50 eat 3300 calories i sleep like a 12 year old again i have taken up running and cycling given up coffee because of the carbs muscles are growing and i am losing fat and my mood is steady . 5 times the stimulated energy i had before : )
i stuff my face every day all i want maybe show your dad this thread ?
he needs to try and see for himself no excuse not to try try and he will know no try never know how sweet this is
I'm 48 and one of the main reasons I was finally motivated to do something about my diet were the aches and pains I was feeling from being overweight. I didn't want to be old AND sick, in the future.
So, I promised myself to stick with 811 for a month and then I could decide whether to continue or not. I did it strictly by Dr Graham's book - no cooked food allowed. In full disclosure, I did cheat twice with a slice of bread with mayo when I couldn't stand the 2am screams from the mayo jar coming from the fridge. *grin* It was a controlled cheat and didn't result in a binge, so I'm hesitant to even tell people in my life, but I'm being honest here, because I knew it wouldn't result in a binge session for me. I did it guilt-free and enjoyed the holy-heck out of every mouthful but I limited myself to just one slice each time.
My aches and pains were about 75% gone within 2 weeks and I was pain-free by the end of the month. I lost 8kg (about 18 lbs) within 6 weeks, painlessly. My blood sugar has never tested normal since I was 18 (I was always on the freak-out-the-medical-staff end of the scale) but I never took meds to control it. I only used to cut back on sugary junk food and Coke to control it, in the past, until my symptoms subsided. At the 6 week point my blood sugar tested 5.2 on a 4-6 scale in Australia.
My breakfasts were either banana smoothies (7-11 bananas + 300-500ml water) 80% of the time, or watermelon 20% of the time. I did juice a honey pineapple + 5 oranges drink once in that time, too. Lunch was usually 1 liter of green juice (spinach or kale + parsley + carrots + celery + enough apples to sweeten the drink so I could get it down and not taste the green stuff) or more banana smoothies if I was out of veggies. Dinner was as big a salad as I could handle - iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers with the skin on and red cabbage. I aim for 4 liters of distilled water every day (I don't count the water I use for food prep) and get at least 2 liters in every day.
My husband is 70 and a former door-hanger contractor for 30 years. Although he's overweight, he's a machine and is physically active every day doing scrapping now which involves lifting appliances on and off his truck. He's had sciatica for decades which he blamed on the door-hanging. He started drinking more water since it's around the house all the time now and hasn't had a sciatica flare up in months. I prepare a portion of everything I eat for him to taste while he's still eating SAD. He's not eating nearly as much meat as he was in October (when I started) and feels a lot more energy. He hasn't been trying to lose weight (he loves his bread) and is simply delighted with the energy increase and reduction of aches and pains. He's even admitted that he'd be happy to shift to much more raw food in his diet and that happened quite naturally with no nagging on my part, whatsoever. He listens in on the videos playing on my computer when he's around and has always been a fan of Jay Kordich.
I encourage everyone who's curious to just promise themselves to stick with this for a month as best they can - the cleaner, the better because it will be a fair way to determine the benefits. It's a huge learning curve to handle prep time, food supply and storage and all the other lifestyle changes that are a part of 811. I gave myself 3 months before I allowed myself to get frustrated and to get myself into a rhythm.
I'm a convert and I can't see myself ever not doing 811. I've never been a dieter (I'm a picky food loving hedonist and said I was going to be skinny "the next time around" and I could do marvelous things with butter in the past, including converting a Malaysian vegetarian friend to my butter-only mashed potatoes *grin*) and really only tried Atkins (and only lasted a month) 10+ years ago. This is the easiest and funnest "diet" I've ever heard of, once you get the learning curve down. I'm still trying to get my head into the blender like a little kid, to get as much of the banana smoothie out as I can. *grin* My saddest days are when I run out of bananas.
I hope your dad gives this a try for one month. It's not painful as long as your food stash is reliable and if you've been doing this for 2 years, I'm sure you're well-organized, Shannon. Best of luck!
T
Thank you SO MUCH for sharing your story! This is really helpful. The aches and pains are especially pertinent to my dad, so he should be interested in that. Your story is inspiring, and I'm hoping that my dad will see that starting a more high-carb diet can help
him with these kinds of things--that it's not just some fad diet that only works for calorie-burning youngsters.
Thanks again, especially for taking the time to share your story!
Much Love,
Shannon
U
Then your hub is sure to love this one :)
We love this one!!! And so does Jay!
I was just on his Facebook page yesterday and he is one of the kindest, most generous and PATIENT people I've ever met.
Thanks, Windlord. :}
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