Steroids is my guess.
Mmm... delicious steroids.
Years and years of dedication.
Oh, I don't doubt it!
You can't eat that.
You could if dedication were a vegetable.
Years and years of dedicated eating of lots and lots of food.
Ah yes, but what kind of food?
How does Pritikin effect your blood sugar numbers? Do you stay away from starchy carbs like potatoes and bread on the diet?
No. The Pritikin program advocates a more agrarian eating practice with plenty of cardio and resistance exercise. Whole grains, nuts, legumes, fruits and vegetables of all kinds, instead of fatty and processed foods. The whole idea is that you can eat and not be hungry because what you eat is more important than how much you eat. For example, for lunch, instead of a cheeseburger, eat a large salad with tomatoes, lettuce, celery, cauliflower, etc, and top it off with a balsamic vinaigrette. You could have eaten 900 calories, 12 grams of fat and 1000 mg of sodium. Instead, you ended up eating 100 calories, 0 grams of fat, and 100 mg of sodium, and your stomach is full, and you can always go back and eat more. You see, the starches and carbs are balanced out by the exercise and diet changes. I still have to be careful on things like bread, as they have a lot of calories, but I eat whole grain bread that is as low in calories as I can find.
For breakfast, eat soaked grains, like oatmeal, instead of bacon and eggs. You can even have meat too, like fish, or a very lean meat, but you'll want to avoid red meat, because it's still packed with fat, cholesterol and sodium. The farther away you move from processed foods, the healthier you'll be. Combine this with strenuous cardio and resistance exercises (like 30 mins of brisk or power walking a day), and you start to lose weight. Lose weight, your blood pressure and blood sugar drop, making it possible for you to drop medications (at the advisement of your Doctor) after a certain amount of time.
Here's a quick bite on the Pritikin diet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pritikin_Diet
For me, it is already starting to work and I've only been on it for a little over two weeks. My pants are looser, my breathing more steady, I have more energy. I put my mom on it with me, and her blood sugar (even controlled) went from around 200-220 to 90-110 after a couple of days and has stayed between 90 and 150 since then.
My own blood sugar bounced around at first, but now it's settling in lower than when I started, and I take oral meds for it (averaging around 160-180) and the program is already starting to do as well as the meds do (about 120-140 now).
The greatest part about all of this is that I don't feel hungry all the time. When I do get a little hungry, I grab a yogurt or a banana. If I'm very hungry, I eat a nice salad. Over in the dinner threads, you can see what I've been cooking for the past week. On some I even post the nutrition info. That's all Pritikin friendly. I am ecstatic, and I think I finally found something that works well.
I cross my fingers and hope that one day I won't need medications to have normal blood sugar and blood pressure, when I'm thinner and fit, and can run a city block without getting winded. I happily await that day and will work my stomach off to get there.
