Food-Healthy or Not?

Having had a weight problem on and off for most of my life, I look at food as both an enemy and a friend. I have a love-hate relationship with food, and realize the impact is has on me, not only physically, but mentally. Food can get to the point of running (or ruining) your life...can you go to the Christmas party or your friend's house and have dinner? Will there be healthy food? If not, will everyone think you are snotty for not eating? Will they snicker, will they laugh?

The American diet for the most part is pathetic. Processed food, chemicals, irradiation, vitamins, pills, supplements, organic, or not...the list never ends. And that is just the beginning. Part of the problem with healthy eating is it costs more than cheap, processed food. Organic strawberries-$6.00, 8 processed hot dogs-$0.79, healthy food at a decent cost-priceless. Americans are bigger, unhealthier, and seemingly lazier than ever before.

I used to weigh 240 pounds and worked very hard to lose it. I tried many diets, fasts, pills, counting calories, counting fat, counting every ounce of food that entered my body. I became obsessed. I worked at a forklift factory doing security in a plant that had 3 forklift scales that I would weigh on every hour and average my weight. Every hour, eight hours a day, forty hours a week. Could I leave work thinner than when I got there? How much water could I drink to make that happen? What if I ate just fruit or negative calorie food? How many miles could I walk in an eight hour shift? One, two, four, ten?

The only thing that has ever really worked for me is counting fat grams. Nothing else. Eating a diet that did not have a lot of meat, a lot of veggies and fruit, and drinking a lot of water seemed to be the way to go. I would eat around 17 grams of fat a day, but sometimes consume 1500-1800 calories and the weight fell off.

After a few years though I became very ill with an autoimmune disease similar to lupus. At first the doctors thought I was allergic to something I was eating. Start with the basics-red dye, shellfish, nuts, dairy, strawberries, tomatoes, gluten, who knows? I lived on lamb and rice for six weeks trying to isolate the problem. I started to think everything I ate, everything that I absorbed through my skin was causing me to be sick. I was sick for almost four years before anyone had a clue what was wrong.

I once went to a naturopath/chiropractor who told me I needed to eat for my blood type, O-. My blood type begged for meat, especially red meat, and lots of it. I never was a huge fan of meat, but I figured what the heck, I'll try anything. Up until that point I had eaten mostly lacto-ovatarian and felt fine. Eating for my blood type removed my gall bladder, with a doctor's assistance. After I started eating so much meat, I felt awful. How anyone can do the Atkins diet is beyond me.

Overall, I believe a healthy diet consists of a lot of fresh vegetables and fresh fruit, not a great deal of meat (I don't know the last time someone in the US died from a protein deficiency), whole grains, and water-about a gallon a day. Not that I don't like Pepsi and pizza as much as the next person, but I do know what I feel better and healthier eating.