It's a wonder I see so many minivans crossing the drive-thru line everyday looking for food that really doesn't amount to much more then an MRE. When was the last time you were driving down the road and said "Hey kids you hungry, how about chicken and dumplings in a plastic bag?". They are going to stare at you like you just gave them an algebra equation.
I did gain some weight and started looking chunky, even though I remained active and so this is when everyone else says "Ah see, you can just gain and lose weight whenever you want."
Wrong. This was the result of not only unhealthy eating but also unhealthy choices in general. You know those isles and isles at the grocery store that have endless choices. I find it interesting to look at the faces of people in there shopping. Most are unhappy just about being there, and the rest are lost in endless choices of packaging and marketing labels trying to find something to eat. It's no wonder we spend tons of money each year on "DIET" plans that don't work for us. Or, and this is my favorite, pay for someone to send us prepackaged meals so we can lose weight (remember me mentioning MRE's earlier). This is a huge industry that want's you to continually purchase whole meals from breakfast to dinner.
Now don't misinterpret this, I believe if anyone can find their avenue in this life to lose weight, exercise, eat healthy, and find happiness outside a cheese burger or pizza then far be it from me to judge any choices you make. This is of course my opinion on the topic and my effort dealing with weight. Many people struggle with this but mostly deal with the last bit of weight, since this is mostly what is left after eating processed foods.
Interesting enough a lot of the stuff your body can't break down is just sitting there under the skin waiting for you to do something with it. But you won't, since your body can't technically digest it. So that layer will slowly be freed up and transported away, but only after you stop replacing it with more un-digestible foods. It took me a while to figure out that even the muscle building "protein shakes" I was getting was actually causing me to gain more weight then muscle. I thought I was doing something good for myself?
Here's the kicker on the whole deal. Quality is quantity and the only way to go. Your body loves quality food and nutrients. It will survive longer off of healthy foods then non-healthy ones simply because it understands the chemistry. Your body doesn't understand fast food hence the fat storage, but it does understand certain enzymes and proteins that are most readily digestible. I was drinking a complex chemically derived muscle formula full of sugar (for flavor) and all my body would do is stick it away as fat. The quantities of nutrition were all out of whack and my metabolism was jumping up and down with my glucose levels.
So finally I decided enough was enough and if I'm going to do this thing I'm going to do it right this time. That's when I decided habits were better then diets which I'll get into more in a future post. I started forming healthy habits, started dropping the unhealthy ones (well most of them) and really started to use my main muscle. No, the one between the ears. I've read; label after label, cross referenced price per gram, per pound, per ounce, converted ounces to grams, grams to pounds, sat online calculating shipping cost with store cost, and so on. What I've found is there are some things out there that are worth the cost since your going to pay for them separately anyway, and most important is that the quality usually is worth the cost. Unless of course your drinking gold flakes expecting healthy skin from it which is just ridiculous.
So ultimately it comes down to choice. Like anything in life you have a choice to not pull up to that speaker and say #3. To read a label and say this has to much sugar for me and my children. To start looking at the real cost of food and see what your life or your children's life is worth to you.
