Why Was I Sick and Fat?

I really began to study nutrition with a specific purpose in mind when my wife Diane was diagnosed with cancer in 1997. Before then I believed all food (except junk food) was nutritious. I basically thought all food was equal. I believed all food produced life. I loved to cook, and I used to prepare vegetable soup or chili for friends and family, with added grains, herbs and spices and proclaim to them how healthy my food was, even after I had boiled it on a hot stove for a couple of hours.

I didn’t realize until I was in my 40s that you can cook the life out of food. That’s right. You can kill the life force in food with heat. Once you heat anything above 115 degrees you kill the enzymes or the life giving property of that food. It is essentially a dead food after it is cooked. That’s why many health practitioners recommend you lightly steam your vegetables so you don’t destroy all the enzymes.

The glycemic index is a numerical measurement of how fast a carbohydrate will raise a person’s blood sugar. Fruits and vegetables can be either high or low glycemic. The higher the index number, the greater the blood sugar elevation will be after eating a carbohydrate.

A low glycemic carbohydrate such as avocado, spinach, asparagus, green beans or tomato will produce a small rise in insulin. While eating a high glycemic carbohydrate like white potatoes, watermelon or pineapple will send your insulin through the roof almost instantly after ingesting it.

Many doctors believe whenever you increase insulin by elevating blood sugar, your body goes into “fat storage mode.” Most high-glycemic foods are also acidic, and we know that an acid-based diet causes our body to store fat in order to protect our organs and arteries from the caustic acid. Other doctors and nutritionists believe it’s actually the acid-based diet that causes the fat storage.

Control Blood Sugar, Lose Weight, and Keep It Off

I became very passionate about my health and the health of others, after losing my first wife Diane, to cancer in 2001.  I’ve been involved in health and fitness for many years.  I was a professional boxing coach for over 20-years of my life, I owned my own health club for over 10-years.  I was a personal trainer, and a professional boxing trainer, I have managed a diet center, and I’ve been a certified reflexology therapist. You would think that, with my background and the knowledge that I have, I wouldn’t have gotten fat, be out of shape, sick, and suffering from disease.

When I was 59 years of age I was about 210 pounds. I’d been as heavy as 227 pounds, but 210 pounds of fat was too much for my short 5’7” frame.  I was beginning to get very ill.  My blood pressure had soared to 183 over 100 and I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  I would go to bed at night and when I got up the next morning I would be so tired I couldn’t get out of bed. So I forced myself to get out of bed.  I would get ready for the day and go to work.  I would be so tired by 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning that I would need to take a nap.

A Quick Overview of the History of the Raw Food Diet

Raw foods are a more healthy way of consuming foods than is eating cooked foods. On the ladder of evolution, cooking foods is a new conception.

The first documented use of fire by human beings was believed to be for making tools as opposed to for the purposes of cooking. It dates back to 400,000 BCE.

In North America, the first person credited with the start of the raw food diet was Sylvester Graham (1794- 1851). Graham was a 19th century advocate for a healthy lifestyle. Graham wrote a book called "Lectures on the Science of Human Life."

Over the years there were plenty of 19th and early 20th century American citizens who were firm believers in the raw food diet (or in some cases semi-raw diets). Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (the creator of Kellogg cereal and many say, peanut butter) lived from 1852 to 1943. This well known doctor lived mainly on apples and nuts.

Dr. James Caleb Jackson (1814-1895) was known to serve primarily raw foods and lightly cooked foods of a vegetarian nature at his spa called Our Home. Our Home was one of the first successful health spas that got its start in the 1850s.

Balance Body pH

Let’s talk about balancing pH in our bodies. In chemistry there is a scale that determines whether a substance or a body is alkaline or acid. That scale starts at the number one and goes to14. One would be the most acidic and 14 would be the most alkaline on the scale. The number seven is neutral, it’s neither alkaline or acidic. Water is said to be neutral, however some water contains alkalizing minerals (calcium, magnesium, sodium, or cesium etc.) in it and the minerals alkalize the water.

Our blood was designed by our creator to be slightly alkaline, as was our bodily fluids. Our blood needs to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 7.3 constantly. That is slightly alkaline, or just faintly above neutral. Doctors and scientists tell us that, if it deviates even the slightest bit we would die.

Eat an Alkaline, Low Glycemic Index Diet

Whenever we eat something with a high glycemic value like a candy bar, a Twinkie, or even a high glycemic piece of fruit, the consumption of those high glycemic carbohydrates spikes our blood sugar and insulin.  A numeric chart called the Glycemic Index shows whether a food is low glycemic or high glycemic. The higher the numeric value of the carbohydrate is on the chart the quicker it will elevate blood sugar. The chart runs from 1 to 105. Any carbohydrate below the number 50 on the chart is considered a low glycemic food. Anything above 50 is moderately high and carbohydrate foods above 55 are high glycemic. Protein and fat do not elevate blood sugar. Therefore they are not rated on the GI scale.