Week 1, Day 3

Last night was fine . . no trips to the bathroom. TMI? Sorry! Other than a glass of water with dinner, I stopped drinking water about 4:30 so I guess it all went through before bed time.

There's so much propaganda in the food industry. So much spin. I no longer know what's true What I do know is that my grandparents and most people in their age and location hardly ever ate out .. probably less than a few times a year; they didn't drink soda; they didn't eat a lot of added sugar, though my grandma almost always had a cake or pie; ice cream was a rare treat; they grew a lot of their own food, including cows and pigs; they processed everything themselves and they ate bacon almost every day. They also worked very hard . . sun up to sundown and often earlier and later. They didn't sit on their butts and watch TV or write blog posts all day. They didn't need to go to the gym or health club . . they truly worked hard. In my opinion, we've become a very lazy country. I think I work hard but there's a big difference in what I do and what they did. My grandparents' lives depended on a successful garden and a fat cow and hog, as well as a good milk cow. I do what I do mostly for entertainment purposes. They knew no other way of life and back in those days, in their location, they didn't have a lot of options.

Most of us these days couldn't grow enough food to feed our family for a week. To me, that is so wrong on so many levels, but I won't go into them here. I'm no better off than most everyone else. We count on someone else to provide everything we need and that bothers me.

I want to grow as much of my own food as I can for two reasons:

1. I know what's in my food, what chemicals have been used on my food and how my food has been handled from the seed stage to the table stage.
2. I find it personally satisfaction to do it myself. That's another thing I think our country is lacking - personal satisfaction earned after a hard day's work to a dedicated project. Again, my personal opinion.

I have to wonder why I care so much about the food supply but yet I'll pour soda after soda into my body. I often think about my plants that I love so much . . my ginger or my lemon trees. I water them every day and I wouldn't think of pouring 4 or 5 cans of Dr. Pepper on them instead of adding water. Why have I done that to my own body.

Just yesterday I read that Tom Hanks had said he was an idiot for the way he had treated his body in his younger years and now has been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Last night Vince and I watched a movie with Tom Hanks -- "Captain Phillips". I thought it ironic that I had read about his diabetes just the 2nd day after committing to healthier eating, and then that same night Vince chose a Tom Hanks movie for us to watch. He stated that the doctor had told him if he could get down to his target weight, he should be ok. I want to get to my target weight before I'm diagnosed with something bad.

For breakfast, I had:

• Oatmeal with blackberries
• Water

For lunch, I had:

• Roast beef with melted Swiss cheese. Vince made a sandwich with his roast beef.
• Beet/Potato Salad (beets, potatoes, onions from the garden). 1 cup of beets has 9 grams of sugar but I'm not concerned so much about naturally occurring sugar in home grown beets and I will probably not eat even 1/2 cup of the beets.

For dinner, I had:

• Leftover tuna salad with avocados, dill spears (homemade), carrots (from the garden).

For snacks, I had:

• Strawberries
• Almonds

I'm anxious for this week to pass so I can weigh myself and see if I've lost a few pounds.