Rozey Thorn Trees

 My 9-year old chose my next health video for me to watch on Netflix. Game Changers. She chose it based on cover photo with a female athlete. It’s really good! It features elite vegan or plant based world-class athletes. Why and how they chose their diet and how much better plant protein raised their game. So far it’s great and I look forward to seeing more.

I remember being impressed with the documentary Forks Over Knives when it came out in 2011. Clearly, its plant-based diet presentation, though compelling, didn’t have a serious effect on my dieting habits. Watching it 14 years later in my fourth month of a dedicated Whole Foods plant-based diet makes a difference. I can attest that this diet change has turned my life around significantly for the better: I’ve lost over 40 pounds I’m looking and feeling fitter by the week and I no longer on the precipice of becoming a diabetic like my doctor had warned back in February. The meat and dairy industry’s propaganda and the sheer power of salt, fat, and sugar still have some sort of sway over me in that I catch myself fantasizing about joining family and friends consuming American cuisine. I appreciate the books, podcast, and media that Gregg has been Encouraging me to consume each week to help me keep my head in the game, to reach my weight goal within the year, and to continue my lifestyle c...

I think it’s funny that Penn Jillette confesses that he celebrated reaching a BMI measurement of overweight with his diet while still maintaining that the Body Mass Index is BS. He says it’s because he’s an hypocrite. Haha. I too am of two minds about the BMI: I have made my healthy BMI weight number my objective goal for this year of WFPB dieting, while questioning the sanity of losing 100 lbs to reach a weight that seems way too thin! I just want to personally attain a difficult goal, then make a decision from firsthand experience what my ideal weight should be.

 I bought corn masa mix for the first time. SOS-free. Just add water, roll into a dough ball, flatten it into a tortilla, then pan-fry or, what I prefer, air-fry! I have been mixing tortilla pieces into my rice and salad bowls this week. I am enjoying it very much.

 Okay. I’m impressed with how much and how quickly Penn Jillette lost weight. I see the logic and reasoning behind his health coach’s unconventional plan. Here’s a summary from ChatGPT of CrayRay’s plan for Penn: “Penn Jillette, known for his work as a magician, actor, and author, lost a significant amount of weight quickly—around 100 pounds in just a few months—using a highly restrictive and unconventional approach called the "potato diet" as a starting point. Here’s a breakdown of how he did it: ### 1. **The Potato Diet**:    - **Initial Phase**: Jillette began his weight loss journey by eating nothing but plain potatoes for two weeks. The idea behind this was to simplify his diet to an extreme, removing all flavor and variety to break his addiction to food and reset his palate. This approach is based on the principle of monotony leading to reduced calorie intake because when food is bland, people tend to eat less of it.    - **Nutritional Impact**: Potatoes, ...

In Penn Jillette’s book about his diet journey, he makes a rather profane but insightful point comparing the diet struggle to the struggle associated with being religious. Penn, a devout atheist, draws an analogy that might resonate with anyone who has ever found themselves trapped in the endless cycle of guilt and self-doubt that too often accompanies dieting—or any strict regimen, for that matter. Penn recounts a lesson from James “Amazing” Randi, who explains that when you’re sick, one of three things can happen: you can get better, you can get worse, or you can stay the same. Quacks, whether in the medical field, diet industry, or even spiritual circles, thrive by manipulating these possibilities: - If you got better—This “solution” is working. - If you stayed the same—This “solution” stopped things from getting worse. - If you got worse—You’re not doing the “solution” right; it’s your fault, so keep trying and paying. This explanation struck a chord with me. Diets, like many other...

 We celebrated the success of our JC Superstar musical tonight. I was very good keeping my plate and cup WFPB without an issues. I snacked before I left home, I drank water on the way over, I filled up my plate with grapes, strawberries, watermelon, and cantaloupe. And I drank nothing but water during the gathering. No one seemed to notice or care.  Here’s the big news to me, though, I didn’t talk to anyone about my diet or feel the urge to, not even once! Now that I mention it, the same thing occurred Friday night at a family gathering!

 Dr. Greger has got me thinking about how much of my lifelong diet struggles are primarily environmental, not genetic. How often I told people that my appetite and weight gain are genetic (I still believe that’s true; just pull up photos of my half brothers’s body type to photos of me, and the Mexican people I’m related to!)  But Greger talks about how research indicates strongly that the cultural environment plays a strong role in setting me up for failure. This doesn’t let me off the hook. I have to own up to my role in it too. It’s nonetheless helpful to hear that it’s understandably difficult to fight against culture.

 I am at the part of Penn Jillette’s book Presto!  where he explains that his friend CrayRay’s crazy potato-only diet (for two weeks) includes no exercise.  He wonders why his friend didn’t lead with that (“he buried the lede”). The logic and reasoning behind this no-exercise method is that exercise makes you hungry and requires you to eat more calories to build up your muscles, which takes longer and makes it harder to lose the weight. CrayRay’s plan is for Penn to first get to a healthy goal weight as recommended by his doctor, and then to begin an exercise regime. It makes sense. It makes me want to back down at last a bit from m ambitious plans to tackle a half marathon until I reach my goal weight! Here’s ChatGPT’s take on it, which makes more sense: Penn Jillette's approach to weight loss, as described in his book "Presto!" and the potato-only diet introduced by his friend CrayRay, is certainly unconventional but has elements that can be understood within certain we...

 I go back and forth on whether I’m looking and feeling fit, or not, day by day. Some days I’m very impressed with my progress. I’ve lost over 40 lbs, I’m knocking out 36 pushups every other day, I’m buying smaller sizes, etc. Other days I feel as fat as I was 40 lbs ago! I know I need to carry on day by day as I’ve been doing to continue my progress. And I am! And I will! Just do it!

 In Penn Jillette’s Presto! , he references the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment done in the 60s and 70s by Walter Mischel. I’m familiar with it because I used to talk about it with my high school students. The result of the experiment is that students who ate the marshmallow instead of waiting were less successful in life. I remember follow up experiments indicated that impulsive students who were given a strategy to control their impulsive behavior increased their success rate. I like Penn’s take on himself neither as being impulsive (he’s very disciplined) nor as tricking himself from eating the marshmallow. He’d be the one staring at it daring it to tempt him; he’d even put his mouth and tongue all over it without touching it. I think I relate to all three: impulsive, disciplined, and on the edge.  Honestly, he and I have lived recklessly when it comes to controlling our appetite our entire lives. At least now we’re focusing on getting back to health.

 I’ve been watching the documentary what the hell Health I’m Netflix. It’s pretty disturbing. It’s an exposé on how much money big Meat and Dairy pour into lobbying Congress to protect them from lawsuits from people dying of heart disease. The evidence is very convincing that medical ethical standards have been seriously corrupted to accommodate the propaganda that meat and dairy are healthy for us. I’m open to reading pushback about the documentary, but considering how much healthier I look and feel after just three and a half months of my WFPB SOS-free lifestyle, I would have to be hard-pressed to change my opinion! Quotes on Protein from What the Health Greens, beans, vegetables are loaded with protein All protein is initially made by plants. All of it. And it is not necessary to eat animal tissue in order to get protein. Only plants have the ability to actually take nitrogen from the air, break those molecules apart, and incorporate that nitrogen into amino acids and then make ...

 Today I began reading Penn Jillette’s book Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales . In chapter one, Penn recalls playing an important role in a movie he created where he got to play the part of a very big man. In interviews, he spun his narrative so that it sounded like he gained over 100 pounds for this part. He admits that he lied, but that he also believed the lie. The reality is that for much of his adult life he was already 100 pounds overweight. I can certainly relate.

I finished watching The Engine 2 Diet: Kitchen Rescue DVD video and bonus clips . I was inspired to make Rip’s Tofu scramble meal. It’s very good but I would have loved some salt in it! I also made chocolate pudding with roasted chickpeas, cocoa powder, and dates (plus I added a frozen banana and maple syrup). I got the idea on social media. Sophia and liked it. The girls instantly knew it wasn’t for them—too bitter. I like it by itself. It’s even better with crunchy peanut butter on apple slices. I’m going to try new recipes from Rip’s E2 book this week starting with salad dressings and dips. Tofu seems to be the key ingredient.

 One of my secondary motivations for losing weight was to look better onstage to play the role of Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar in a summer family theater church production. Last summer my daughters and I played in a  production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat . The director called me up, sight unseen, and asked if I’d play the part of Pharaoh. Yes! Sounded like fun to me, and it sure was. I thought that squeezing into a Vegas jumpsuit I rented from a costume shop would add to the humor of the role. I hammed it up with my best fat Elvis impression. I remember the whole experience fondly. Well, that was one year ago. About 40 lbs ago!  My performances this weekend went very well, in part because I wasn’t feeling self-conscious about my weight. There’s a shot of me on the top left. I’ll post a close up when I get one.

 Rip Esselstyn writes in The Engine 2 Diet that his Three-Bean Chilli recipe made visiting fire fighters gassy. It takes about 3 weeks for the gastrointestinal tract to adjust the healthy cleansing food like beans. Good to know.  Dr. Greger writes in How Not to Die that   flatulence is natural when changing to a WFPB diet especially when consuming beans:  This happens because these foods contain types of carbohydrates that are not digested in the stomach or small intestine, making their way to the large intestine, where they are fermented by gut bacteria, producing gas as a byproduct. Here are a few key points the book discusses regarding gassiness: 1. Adapting Over Time: The body often adapts to a higher intake of fiber-rich foods over time. The gut microbiome can adjust to the new diet, leading to a decrease in gas production after a few weeks of consistent consumption. 2. Gradual Increase: To minimize gassiness, Dr. Greger suggests gradually increasing the intake...

 Michael Pollen reports in his book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto , that nutritionists are puzzled as to how food cultures like the French and Greeks can eat the way they do, i.e., fats, carbs, and wine, and be healthier and live longer than Americans. The answer seems to be that the French and Greek diets add up to more than merely the sum of their nutritional parts. Americans struggle to appreciate the value of communal eating, the kind that involves a labor of love cooking up cuisine that is passed down over generations, sitting at a set time with family and friends for an hour or 2 at lunch and 1 to 3 hours at dinner. This contrasts starkly against the American norm of eating, often ready-made meals, for 20 to 30 minutes, maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Typically food is served restaurant style in the sense that each family member gathers what they want to eat independently of each other. Their eating times together are in passing. Unfortunately, the American style of ea...

 I’m enjoying watching  Forks Over Knives Presents The Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue with Rip Esselstyn. It’s helpful to see him consult with couples in their homes. He goes through their fridge and cupboards to explain which products are optimal for a heart healthy diet, then shops with them to replenish what’s been removed with a whole-foods, nutrient-rich, plant-based items. Then he cooks an amazing meal with them. I appreciate the tips and advice he gives throughout the program, like the following: Portabello mushrooms are great substitutes for hamburger  Animal products don’t contain fiber which is why Americans struggle to be regular  If there’s less than half a gram of fat per serving, manufacturers are allowed to label their products “fat free” Whole Grain is the label to look for, not merely Wheat Get recipes from engine2diet.com: He makes lasagna, sweet potato fries, and kale salad with the first couple  Keep the sodium to calories ratio 1:1 or less Old Fash...

 Here’s my conversation with ChatGPT about swimming today: Me : I swam laps today at The Y for the first time. I accomplished 12 laps in 30 minutes (33 laps equal 1 mile). ChatGPT : That's a great start! Swimming is an excellent full-body workout that’s easy on the joints. As you keep at it, you'll likely see improvements in your endurance and lap times. How did you feel after the swim? Me : Very good. It’s not my favorite form of exercise. I find it uncomfortable to swim because I am not used to it. My nose guard helped prevent water from getting into my nose. I swallowed water a little bit one time which I recovered from right away. It took a while to adjust. I began slowly with dog paddling. I observed experienced swimmers around me using proper techniques that swim fast and smoothly through the water. I experimented with various swimming positions. Once I exerted myself a bit and tired myself out fairly quickly. I’m not discouraged because I know that in time I’ll make prog...

 My knees aren’t as sore this morning after the rowing machine last night as they had been a week ago. I’m noticing that I’m walking a bit stiffer these days as I adjust to my triathlon+ exercise regime. It’s all fairly lightweight, I expect, for others who have been at it awhile. For me, it’s a big deal to have consistently exercising the past month! I’m almost to my next weight goal of 215. I just need to lose .10 more lbs! Then I move my goal down to 210. It’s taken me far longer to lose this set of 5 lbs than any other set for some reason. My wife says it’s a more reasonable and healthier pace of weight loss than what I was doing.

 A former student and her fiancé came over for lunch today. We had tried for three years to find a date for them to come over for a meal! (COVID had thwarted our plans once or twice:) It’s always nice to have visitors because it forces us to make our place look extra nice. I gave them a head’s up about my WFPB SOS-free diet. We prepared a salad bar if healthy veggies to add to their rice/couscous/spinach bowls. They liked that I had balsamic vinegar as dressing. I offered them olive oil. Sophia made homemade pizza dough from scratch. And our guests gifted me a dessert of vegan ice cream. Well, I decided to make it a special occasion and not ask questions about forbidden ingredients, to a large salad bowl, and take modest portions of the foods that were suspect. My daughter confirmed that she had never seen me cheat on a diet before! Haha, don’t get used to it, kid. (I can’t say that the vegan ice cream was particularly tasty. It was okay for what it is, but not worth cheating with ...

 This video clip lists 5 sports that are associated with longer life spans: swimming, biking, soccer, badminton, and tennis in first place. Racquet sports have the best ratings, even table tennis!  I’ve started making a pickleball court behind the barn. 🙂 I have not quite enough space for a regulation-sized court. That’s alright. I’ll do nicely. I just need to by a net to prevent balls from going into the woods where there’s poison ivy.

 My knees are sore from riding the rowing machine a couple days ago! I thought I had taken it easy. I guess not. I’ll wait until Sunday to try again — but slower. Today was bike day. My knees felt good enough to put in 5 miles within a half hour. ChatGPT says that’s a rate of an advanced bicyclist! Really? I doubt it. I’m truly a beginner at this. I visited a different Y today. It’s a nicer newer facility than the one near my home, but I didn’t care for their exercise bikes. The first one didn’t work. The other bikes are a different and older technology than what I’ve been training on. I prefer my Y because of it. I went shopping last night with a renewed interest in healthy pasta options based on Esselstyn’s book. It’s not easy to find quality affordable SOS-free WFPB pasta. I bought couscous, pasta made with beans.  Laura bought me authentic Mexican tortillas the other day. SOS-free and delicious! I couldn’t find any at Meijer without any salt, so I bought corn meal to make ...

In Chapter 3 of The Engine 2 Diet , Rip Esselstyn emphasizes the importance of reading food labels. While it's common sense to check labels to ensure products are healthy, Esselstyn highlights that labels often lack critical information. Here’s a paraphrase of his key points: Rule One: Be Skeptical of Marketing Claims Marketing terms like "2% fat," "reduced fat," "fat-free," "healthy," and "natural" can be misleading. These phrases might not mean what you think they do. Rule Two: Study the Nutritional Facts and Ingredients List Always read the nutrition facts and ingredients list of every product. Companies can make a product seem healthier than it is. For instance, a drink labeled "2% fat" might actually contain more than 30% fat based on its calorie content. Let's break down the fat content in milk as an example: 2% Milk: One cup (244 grams) contains 5 grams of fat. On a weight basis, this is 5g/244g = 2% fat. Howeve...

Look who can almost fit back into his wetsuit he hasn’t tried on in decades, ha! I have a new goal to set for myself. Lose fat so I can zip this suit up! I went for a swim in our pond this morning not because I wanted to, but because I missed my swim day yesterday and meant to go this morning during pool hours at the Y, but I missed that too. So to make up for it, I swam in the pond for 20+ minutes.  I was happy to find out that my wetsuit worked well enough so I wasn’t too shocked with cold up front to swim. In fact, I took off the top part at the end because I was too warm. Plus, by the end of the workout, the water felt warmer than the air.  I would definitely do it again.

 I read in The Engine 2 Diet about measuring body fat percentage. The average male should have less than 20%, females 25%.  I found a body mass calculator online to plug my data into: age, height, neck and waist measurements.  I was definitely above the 20% number back in May at 42.4% according to the BMI index.  In June my percentage dropped to 38.2% (BMI).  Today it’s at 36.4%. I’ve got a long way to go!

 I misplaced the my The Engine 2 Diet book. I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I looked to see if any audiobooks on hold came through for me. I started listening to Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food , which led to a fun coincidence: Yesterday, during my conversation with the restaurant owners after church, the wife mentioned that she used to be 100% WFPB vegan but is now about 85%. She realized that she had become too judgmental of herself whenever she cheated a little on her diet and of others who weren’t eating healthy enough by her standards.  She learned the word orthorexics—people who have an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. She decided she wanted to back down from that form of eating and thinking. I asked her to repeat and spell that new word for me—orthopedics. I agreed with her that there’s such a thing as taking dieting too far.  Well, last night my jaw dropped when I heard Pollan say the same word, haha! I’m enjoying his perspective on the matter. I atta...

 I had a pleasant conversation with a restaurant owner/manager and his wife about my diet and how they used to be dedicated vegans for many years but have become more flexible these days mainly because of the foodie business they’re in and because their kids are not fully cooperative.  I’ve visited a few restaurants, including theirs, The Sovengard (https://www.sovengard.com), and have begun to rate them by how accommodating they are with WFPB options.  Minimally, I hope to see a small house salad served without cheese, croutons, or dressing. I was most impressed with Pepinos Sports Bar chain for their generous serving of a good looking salad.  A couple restaurants impressed me with at least a couple of quality vegan or “vegan option available” selections: The Sovengard (https://www.sovengard.com) offered a charcuterie board called Mother Earth, and Blue Water enticed me with their vegan GF make-your-pizza choices with a large variety of toppings—I went with carameli...

In Esselstyn’s book "The Engine 2 Diet," on page 91, there's an inset box titled "Motivation, Baby!" where he writes about completing his first Hawaii Ironman triathlon. He started out great, but by the end, he had fallen far from first place—567th, to be exact. Yet, he crossed that finish line. The lesson here is to never quit, because giving up would make it much easier to quit the next time things aren't going your way. He encourages us to take that same attitude toward our diet: to not surrender to bad habits and temptations and to set up successful patterns for life. This encourages me because I'm constantly struggling with temptations to cheat on my diet, skip walking and exercise, and put off my reading goals. Last night, for example, I was exhausted. My full schedule had taken up much of my day, and I realized I still had a lot of reading to do and push-ups to complete. From experience, I knew that if I took a moment to sit, rest, spend quality t...

 I went to the YMCA today to bike ride for 20 to 25 minutes. I looked over the screen settings a bit and discovered that there is something called an FTP in my personal preferences. Turns out that there is a fitness test that I can take to determine what my level is, I figure out how to connect my phone to the bike screen using Bluetooth and then setting up my FTP test for 20 minutes. I got up to The six level with the score of 148. It did take me a minute to figure out how to work the manual pedal speed settings during the first minute of the test as a result at the end of the test a window came up, advising me to redo the test because I spent too much time out of the zone. No problem. I’ll plan to do a retest in six weeks.  I plugged my FTP Number into a Chat GPT formula to figure out my classification:  I’m a novice bike rider at 2.2 Men: • Untrained: < 1.5 W/kg • Novice: 1.5 - 2.4 W/kg • Intermediate: 2.4 - 3.6 W/kg • Advanced: 3.6 - 4.9 W/kg • ...

 Really good first musical rehearsal. The director has a gift directing children. It’s a pleasure to assist and not have all the work and pressure that comes with directing a musical.  I appreciate Rip’s perspective on healthy living in The Engine 2 Diet. He doesn’t assume all his readers are committed or will ever be committed to an E2 diet. I like how he provides so many positive examples and testimonials to motivate us to take first step. I looked up various food pyramids today including vegan and children food pyramids.