Moving to Real Whole Food Can Be Easy!

A Path to Better Health and Permanent Weight Loss.

I Made This Black Bean Chile Yesterday

Let’s start with this. Like many of you, I love processed food, fast food, and restaurant food. That is part of the business model for those industries. Businessmen who make their living selling food have learned that combining just the right amount of salt, sugar, processed carbs, and fat while achieving the perfect texture create products that are irresistible. There are processed and fast foods that I will eat when I am not hungry and the most that I eat, the more that I want. For people like me, cookies, pretzels, crackers, donuts, hamburgers, French fries, and peanut brittle can be addictive. I find that I am hungry again soon after I eat those foods.

When I was eating those foods, I weighed 307 pounds at my heaviest. If you struggle with your health and weight, I totally get it. I had large cell lymphoma when I was just 43 years old. My obesity increased my risk. The doctor told me that I would be cured or dead in 6 months. There was no middle ground. I have been far too heavy and I have faced a deadly disease that may have had its origins in my obesity. This is one of the health topics I am most interested in.

Now I eat real whole food most of the time and I have been doing that for over 20 years. That helped me lose 70 pounds. I was prediabetic and my blood pressure was 160/100 at my heaviest weight. Now my sugar is much lower than it was then. I have avoided diabetes. My blood pressure now runs about 120/70. I changed what I eat most of the time, but at family celebrations, tailgates, and eating out, I just eat what I want. One meal a week, I live to eat. The rest of the time, I eat to live and the good new is that it is just not that hard. Like you, for me fast and processed food tastes better. Of course, real, whole food is not as tasty as fast and processed food, but it is very good. You don’t need to be hungry.

Let me just talk about an example. I love peanuts. I will eat chocolate peanut clusters or peanut brittle in excess. I will eat too many salted peanuts, but I like roasted, unsalted peanuts well enough and if they are in the shell that slows me down even more. As most of you know, a peanut is not a nut at all. It is a legume and that means it is more like a bean. Peanuts taste good, and they are very satisfying food. If you look at my last post on diet, I discussed the importance of low sodium and high potassium in your diet. A quarter cup of unsalted peanuts contains zero mg. of sodium and 160 mg. of potassium. Most of the calories come from a healthy fat and protein. The fat is like olive oil. A quarter cup of salted peanuts contains 100mg of sodium.

A dried black bean is a lot like a peanut. A quarter cup of dried black beans contains no sodium and 520 mg of potassium as well as 5 grams of fiber. Almost a third of the calories are from protein and nearly one fourth of the carbs are in the form of fiber. A half cup of canned black beans contains 86 mg. of sodium and 335 mg. of potassium. Dried black beans are less expensive. The store brand at Walmart is only about $1.75 a pound. I used dried black beans in the chili in the picture above. I just soaked them in a pot over night. The other major ingredient is ground beef which contains 300mg of sodium and around 1200mg of potassium. That pot of chili is very healthy, and it satisfies my hunger. It was very easy to make, tasted good, and inexpensive. It is possible to eat healthy even if your finances are limited. I probably cooked that whole pot of chili for the cost of buying a burger, fries, and soda at a fast food restaurant. Eating healthy will help you stay healthy. An apple a day does keep the doctor away.

Unlike whole peanuts and beans, a slice of white bread is highly processed. Each slice contains 170 mg of sodium and 25 mg of potassium. There is only 0.6 gram of fiber. If you are going to eat bread, take a look at Dave’s Killer Bread. It has 5 grams of fiber a slice, 170 mg. of sodium and 100 mg of potassium. It is healthier because it contains more potassium and fiber.

Anything that is an unprocessed plant is loaded with potassium. One cup of corn cut off the cob has almost 400 mg. of potassium and very little sodium. Two corn muffins from a commercial mix contains 690 mg. of sodium and just 90 mg of potassium. Below is a list of whole, real products and their processed counterparts with their sodium content. There is a huge difference between the processed and unprocessed product.

.In the last post on diet, I explained how important your sodium and potassium intake is to your general health. If you want to be healthier longer, eating real whole foods is one of the best things that you can do. Of course, low sodium food does not taste as good. I get it. I used to salt my food before I tasted it. Here is the good news. The tastes you prefer can change. When I cut way back on salt, my taste preference changed, and now country ham just tastes like salt. A much lower salt diet is easy for me now. Moving to low sodium, high potassium food can be cheap and easy. That is the beauty of it. No counting calories. No measuring portions. No special programs. Just eat real whole food until you are not hungry and then stop. That is a path to better health and permanent weight loss. Make the right way the easy way!