Simple Food for Health
My goal is to never get sick again. Now before you criticize me for being a total slacker with no ambition, let me suggest this will be harder than it sounds in a simple goal statement. Why would such a thought occur to me at one a.m. when I should be sleeping? To answer that, let’s dig into why I should be sleeping, since I am actually scheduled to be at work.
This is about day five of a nasty cold, or whatever the heck you call it. Earlier in the year, when the cold and flu season was staging its own biological war on my community, I slipped through unscathed despite every friend, family member, and co-worker becoming ill. I was exercising, eating well, and taking Zinc with my Vitamin C. For whatever reason, I broke this routine and have been fighting various forms of the crud for weeks, this morning being the dramatic climax, I hope.
When my throat hurts, I often eat Wheat Chex cereal because it feels good on my throat — kind of like a scrub brush to sweep the junk out. This morning I decided to try something different: one whole orange and whey protein mixed in water. (In the past this would be a smoothie, be I decided to actually eat most of my fruits and vegetables for a while, instead of blending them. This had the same effect as cereal; it gave my throat a break from the mysterious acid-slime that seems to be running down my throat when it isn’t packing my nasal cavities and cutting off my breathing all night long.)
Which brings us to my very simple nutritional plan that combined with quality exercise, sufficient sleep, and a great mental attitude should remove illness from my buffet bar of misery and productivity destroying excuses.
Whole fruits and vegetables, lean protein, and healthy fats from food such as avocados. But mostly whole fruits and vegetables with some protein. And mostly vegetables, the greater variety the better.
This isn’t a vegan diet, or paleo, or any of the dozens of eating strategies I have tried over the years. This is merely something simple that I hope works for me. (You might notice I didn’t eat all the things not to eat; I am trying to keep it positive.) With luck, I will have great success and share it with everyone. Please leave comments and opinions at the end of this blog article. I would love to hear your thoughts.
DAY 01
NOTE: my starting weight, according to my Fitbit scale was 187.5 pounds with 19.4% body fat. I log my food with the Myfitnesspal app.
0115: One whole orange, whey protein powder in water.
0930: 1 can of chicken (4 servings), 4 cups of steamed broccoli (I ate this until 1110 hours).
* I will add the rest of food I eat at the end of the day, because I am sure everyone will check back to see if I follow through. *
If you have scrolled down far enough to read my post-script, fantastic. Writing non-fiction, as cool and useful as it is, is not my primary calling in life. I have a regular job, because I do enjoy eating, healthy or otherwise. My family is also pretty keen on the idea. Someday I hope that regular job will be replaced, perhaps in retirement, with a full-time income of fiction writing.
To succeed in the ever-competitive fiction market I have learned it is important to write more than other writers; no excuses are allowed. An easy example is Stephen King, who was been writing 3,000 words a day for most of his life. During an interview he once told a reporter that he wrote everyday except for his birthday and Christmas, but later confessed in his book On Writing: Memoirs of the Craft that this was a lie. “I write everyday,” he said.
This is advice worth taking. How can I follow his example if I get sick. Sure, I can gut it out for a time, but staying healthy would be a lot easier. To keep the dream alive I plan to maintain a foundation of health. How could this be wrong?
Thanks for hanging in there, and good luck in all that you do. If you are interested in Science Fiction or what I call Police Paranormal (a bit like Urban Fantasy the way I write it), then check out my books. Enemy of Man is science fiction packed with action in the style of Aliens and Starship Troopers. As the first book in the Chronicles of Kin Roland, it is free. Dragon Badge pits street cops against sorcerers and dark magic as worlds collide. The same deal applies to the Lost Dragonslayer series; the first book is free. (I love reviews, like I really love them, more than chocolate or cute puppy videos.)
One last item for consideration. Should I be worried that my word processor recognizes My Fitness Pal and Fit Bit as spelling errors, demanding with a squiggly red line that they be changed to Myfitnesspal and Fitbit?
Be safe, and please excuse my rather liberal use of the semi-colon in this article, it is two-thirty in the morning after all.
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