The Technology that may just save this old Marine's life

As a disabled vet I am eligible for the Veteran Administrations MOVE program, a national weight management program designed by the VHA National Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention to help veterans lose weight, keep it off and improve their health. I am all over that!

A Partner With Your Healthcare Team

This little device here is my new friend, it greets me every morning with all kinds of cool suggestions on how to make healthy food choices. It attaches to a scale that I can send in my weight with and is connected to the nursing center at the Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center in Phoenix where I have been assigned my own personal nutritionist. I weigh in once a week but check in daily for tips, helpful suggestions and questions designed to motivate me. Check out the one here on How Do I Get Started With Changing My Eating Habits

How Does A Veteran Get Into The Move Program?

I wasn't kidding about the saving my life part. Since leaving the Marine Corps in 1972 I have struggled and fought a mostly losing battle to maintain my marine corps weight or some semblance thereof! Even accounting for my age (61) I am way over the line for any kind of healthy outlook, pre-diabetic and fed up with the way I look and feel. I have tried everything but I think this time between the support I get from the Viterion 100, my VA nutritionist, the follow up MOVE Forward programs, and the staff of the VA MOVE Program in Phoenix, I may just have a shot at becoming human again! The good news is that a low carb approach works great with the MOVE program – so stay tuned for progress reports!

Read the rest of this entry »

Scrapbooking is a Great Craft

Just not my personal choice of craft. You see, what a lot of people don't know about me is that I am a Vietnam vet disabled Marine.  I get a real kick out of smashing tile and tesserae into little pieces, gluing the bits on things and calling it mosaic art.

I only mention the marine thing so that you understand that no one can say I am less of a man because I prefer playing with glass to watching football. I have played football and it effing hurts!

My wife is just sooo possessive of my time she can hardly bear the thought of my absence – even for a few hours. That’s what I tell my sports nut buddies but truth be told I am married to the most understanding wife ever to come down the pike. So, for the present time anyway, my once monthly, one -quarter appearance during football season is sufficient (at least for now) to convince them that I am still one of the boys. Read the rest of this entry »

Guys Can Craft Too!

A Guest Post By Dudley Kraft

Hi all! this is Dudley Kraft, it's my distinct pleasure to be here guest posting about two of my favorite subjects on my dear friends craft blog, the Lowcarb Crafter, those two subjects being crafts and healthy eating. I think the two go together because it's so easy to nosh while you craft and sitting on a stool for hours on end sewing is not exactly conducive to burning calories. Needless to say my weight gain soon began to concern me and I thought, what if a person could be involved with crafts and lose weight too?!

I have discovered that you can be into crafts and still be enjoying those snacks but only if you choose the right foods to snack on.  No matter what kind of craft you are passionate about, you could be a scrapbook aficionado, into paper crafts, fabric crafts, glass crafts, mosaic, scrapbooking, etc. you don't have to gain weight while crafting unless you make the wrong choices. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a tip from a former marine who gained too much weight after leaving the Marine Corps.

You don't have to dedicate yourself to any diet plan or low-carb regimen to lose weight. Just substitute what you might eat in carbs with fat instead, bacon vs donuts, cheese vs cereal, or a sandwich with mayo without the bread.  Doing this will have much less impact on insulin levels, where upswings cause weight gain.

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When I was a kid I used to watch in awe as my Dad chowed down on a sandwich he made with liverwurst or other deli items  (usually a Dagwood size, if you recall what that was and if you are too young to know about a Dagwood sandwich, well, just think huge). He would rub his hands together in anticipation, open his mouth as wide as he could, and take these monster bites, rolling his eyes and moaning with pleasure. He didn't restrict his great white shark bites to just sandwiches either, just about anything he consumed was done in a manner that suggested it might be his last meal.

Of course, later on when my mouth could handle it I too started eating like my Dad, hogging it down in a way that I convinced myself had me enjoying food more. I didn't just pick up this eating style during my stint in the Marine Corps, although back then I ate fast because I either had to or was in a hurry to get somewhere. The marines have a saying about chow time;  "take all you want, but eat all you take".

Unfortunately, as a result of his bad eating habits,  Dad became extremely overweight, developed diabetes and died at the tender age of 62 from complications of a gastric bypass operation.

After I joined the marines I had to learn how to eat all over again. In USMC boot camp I was always hungry, not because they starved me (just the opposite) but because I was expending so many calories in training I needed the nourishment. And the food was darn good too! Since leaving the marines I have had to watch what I eat and was not always successful, I gained weight and before I knew it had gained more weight than I thought possible. Before I discovered the low-carb lifestyle I was headed toward repeating my Dad's mistakes and fortunately I woke up in time to reverse that trend.

As a low-carb aficionado my sandwiches (I call them roll-ups) now consist of ingredients such as ham, turkey, roast beef, tuna salad, cheese and lettuce, minus the bread and I don't really miss it. I may never be able to give up bread completely but the carbs I have resisted not eating bread with a sandwich allow me to eat other carbs I enjoy, especially pasta (low-carb) and fruit.

What brought all this up was  coming across an article in Men's Health titled Chew on This which brought back memories of Dad's eating habits because the article is about what Dutch researchers discovered;  that big bites (and fast chewing) can lead to overeating. I didn't know about this and was surprised to read that people who chewed large bites of food for 3 seconds consumed 52 percent more food before feeling full than those who chewed smaller bites for 9 seconds. Their findings suggest that tasting food for a longer period of time (no matter how much you bite off) signals your brain to make you feel full sooner.

I wish these Dutch scientists had discovered this in time to help my Dad, he might have lived longer had he been able to change his eating habits by taking smaller bites and chewing longer. If you find yourself doing the same thing, taking big bites and gulping, remind yourself to slow down, try taking smaller bites and see what happens. You might be surprised at what you discover.

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