10. Lose 10 in 21 B4 2024

We are doing a weight loss experiment where participants will eliminate certain unhealthy foods for 21 days

The details are outlined in the episode

Everyone is encouraged to participate

Email me at jkauffman16@gmail.com if you decide to jump in with us.  Please!!!

Transcript

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All right, people, I'm back. Here we are with episode number 10 of dysfunctional foodies. In this episode, we um I'm gonna focus on weight loss only because I decided that you know part of my trying to help people think, uh, in addition to this podcast being about nutrition and health and moving from the you know the sad standard American diet to the mad, which is the Mediterranean slash Asian style diet, there is a weight loss component to it. You know, there's a health component and there's a weight loss component. And so I went on Facebook and I said, hey, who wants to lose 10 pounds in 21 days, which is half a pound a day? If you do, I have um, I think a way that we can get there. Anyway, that's what we're gonna do. And thankfully, several people said, I'm in and I'm excited, and I'm thankful uh to those people. And you know what? Going on a limb here, this may not work at all. But I think it will, and excuse me, even if it doesn't, you're gonna eat um a little more healthfully for three weeks than you have been because of what we're gonna do. So um, you know, very specifically, I I want to thank, and I'm gonna use your first name because it doesn't divulge who you are in case you're trying to be private, but I want to thank Mary from Savannah who jumped in and is excited about this, and actually she's gonna rally up uh a bunch more people, she said, and thank you. Um my friend and ex-employee Jessica. Uh I'm so happy that you're gonna um try it too. Kevin, my friend and world traveler, who um uh I'm excited to have because he's such a gourmet eater. Melissa, my friend, uh ex-customer of Ten Bistro. Thank you for being involved. Lynn, uh my high school buddy, who now lives in South Florida, Marilyn, who I used to work with at the school. She's gonna get a bunch of folks to jump on in. And my my dear friend Elena from South Florida. Uh just uh a few, that's most of the people that have said I'm in right now, and I really appreciate it. And we're gonna have some fun and we're gonna communicate with each other, and we're gonna share the highs and lows and um the successes of losing 10 pounds in three weeks, 21 days, half pound a day. How are we gonna do it? That's what you've been waiting for. I know. And I was at dinner last night with my family for my daughter's 25th birthday. Happy birthday, Max. And we were the group of about eight people, you know, mostly family, some not. And they're like, oh, so how's it going with the thing that you're doing on, you know, in your episode or your podcast? We saw the thing on Facebook, and you know, family will be your toughest critics, of course, especially your children. And they um are very fond of pushing back and telling me how it's not gonna work or it's gonna work, or or just arguing in general, healthy argument, of course. And uh so they were like, What's the deal? Like, you know, uh, what's your plan? What are you gonna make people do? What are you gonna suggest people do? I said, just wait, listen to the episode, it's coming out you know, Sunday night or Monday. They're like, just tell us. It's like, okay. So I told them. And immediately there was pushback on every single one of the things that I said that we were gonna do. But that's that's okay. And I think at the end of um the discussion, the discourse, uh, all of them saw the the value in what we're gonna do, and even two people at the table said, Count me in, I'm gonna do it too. And what was funny was that we were at a little pizza joint, and um the guy from behind the counter was eavesdropping, and while he heard people pushing back to me, he said, Hey, by the way, I'm really into health and nutrition, and everything he said makes sense. And this guy was built like uh, you know what they say about brick shit house, right? I was like, flex those muscles, and he flexed, and this guy was just in great shape. So it was it was validation from the pizza guy, and that's all I really need. All right, so on that note, let's get into it. For nine episodes, I have spoken about these ten simplified steps of getting from the sad to the mad. And in each episode, I would break down deep dive into one or two of them, right? If you haven't listened to the, you know, all the other episodes, you know, when you're bored, when you're driving, listen to them. But these what here's what the ten are. And I'm gonna go through them quickly because this is not what we're focused on today. The ten simple steps, tongue in cheek, they're not so simple. Ten simple steps to achieve health, wellness, and some weight loss. Number one, read labels, don't eat chemicals, preservatives, or additives. Number two, eat a whole food, plant-forward diet like they do in Mediterranean countries and in Asia. Number three, stop eating fast food and other foods you know are unhealthy. Number four, surround yourself, purchase the most nutrient-dense foods proven by science, like salmon, broccoli, kale, blueberries. Number five, cook at home, do your own meal prep. You do have time, turn TV time into kitchen time. Number six, have the willpower, common sense, and foresight to eat well. You, not your subconscious, is in charge. Control your thoughts. Number seven, eat healthy snacks if you if you snack, get sugar out of your diet, get sugar from fruit only. Number eight, eat less food. Calorie reduction extends life, and intermittent fasting cleanses bad cells and creates weight loss through ketosis. Number nine, get great sleep, and number ten, exercise daily. So from the ten, which are designed for comprehensive wellness, longevity thing, we will pull out four and focus on those four for 21 days. And as I uh so as so I don't forget, we're gonna we're gonna focus on these four things during the dates of November 27th through December 17th. So you can do a normal Thanksgiving, eat whatever you want, have a good time. And then in between Thanksgiving and your Christmas holidays, that's when we're gonna focus on this on our goals here. Try to lose 10 pounds in 21 days, and that way you can have a normal Christmas and enjoy that too. So that will be fun and easy. Okay, so here we go. Before we start, I wanted to um I reminded myself that one of the things that is going to work for us in this experiment is that we're gonna support each other, we're gonna be accountability partners for each other. Uh, and uh it reminds me of when my brother-in-law, Chef Barry Kramer and I decided to quit drinking together. You know, like the dry January thing. And or usually just for a week, we tried to do it. And the bottom line is that it's easier when there's other people involved and accountable uh for when you share your experience. And um, it also reminded me of when I quit smoking. You know, I never smoked a lot, but it was like within the first year of owning a restaurant, so it must have been 2012, and um I decided to quit, and I said to all of my employees at the time, I said, if anybody sees me smoke a cigarette, I'll give you a thousand dollars. And there was no way I was gonna give any employee a thousand dollars, and that helped me by stating it, by putting it out there. So letting people know that you're gonna lose 10 pounds in 21 days is um is a good thing because it'll it'll help you hold yourself accountable. So here we go. The first thing this group will do is to eliminate the consumption of dairy for the 21 days, three weeks. Dairy is generally agreed to be a category of food that uh is either not necessary or most agree unhealthy. Yeah, you can get some calcium and protein, but you can get plenty of those two items in other foods that are good for you and that don't deposit fat and excess cholesterol in your arteries. So cut out the cheese for three weeks. I I I you know back to the people that said that they were in, I think of my friend Kevin who travels to Europe often and probably eats delicious brie and camembert cheese. And I know if Kevin can do it, we all can do it. So to be clear, dairy consists of milk, cream, cheese, and butter. And the the first response is, oh my god, I love cheese. You know, it doesn't love you. You know, and for 21 days, can you find other options? Yeah. And I'm not, I'm trying not to preach about this stuff. I um currently, you know, my lifestyle, I'm not saying that I avoid all these things, but I certainly can do it easily because um I've reduced from where I used to be with cheese consumption and butter and cream and cream or my coffee. Every day, naturally, without thinking about it, I'm at like 90% reduction. Every once in a while, 10%, yeah, I'll do it. I'll have a slice of pizza or two or three, and I'll even smear some good quality butter on my bread. But I will not be doing that for the next for the 21 days during our experiment. Alright, that was the first item. Second item. Okay, here we go. Bread. We will not eat bread for three weeks. Just like cheese, the first thought in your brain is no, I love bread. Well, you know what? Same here. This is from the internet. The highly processed flour and additives in most bread makes it unhealthy. Consuming too much bread can contribute to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Buying bread that touts the word whole still does not guarantee a healthy product. Cutting out bread reduces, carb intake, and thus lowers blood sugar levels and insulin resistance. You know, Americans love to put everything in a sandwich. I think eat between the bun was some company's slogan for a while there. You know, have a burger, but occasionally, if you if you want to, make sure it's lean, you're like 90-10. Have the lettuce, the tomatoes, the red onions, the pickles. Avoid the ketchup, it's all sugar. Put some mustard on there. Uh put it in a lettuce wrap or just put it on the plate. When you finish and you're satiated, because you will be, you won't even think about the fact that you you really miss that button. You won't, because that's not how eating works. We we think we eat with our eyes, um, we we get these flavors in our mouth, and then all of a sudden that part is done, and we're full for a long time. So being full is kind of a universal feeling. It's like I'm full no matter what. Um sometimes there's some lingering taste in your mouth, but you know what? You won't care that you eat the bread when you have everything else, and you're just not not hungry anymore. If you have to go to fast food, which I highly recommend nobody does fast food ever again in their lives, um order two chicken biscuits, hold the biscuit. Do it like that. No bread. It's the first one. No cheese, no bread. The third? Probably the hardest of all. No processed sugar. Sugar from fruit is fine. Just don't do fruit juice because it's it's just way too much. You know, when you eat an orange, the quantity of juice compared to a glass of OJ would be like eating six oranges, and you don't get the fiber and the good stuff. But yeah, 21 days of no donuts, cake, ice cream, candy, cookies. You know, kid food. Food that tastes good, but we all know we should not eat. And no sweetened creamers that are always on the top of the top 10 lists of bad things for you, period. Um, you know, you know what has sugar in it. You can make delicious coffee creamers. And by the way, back to my my family dinner, you know, one of the family members, when they heard about this, they were like, oh my god, I have to have that coffee creamer. And you know what? I get that. Because that's one of my true pleasures as well. Now I have gone to black coffee and it's not as good, but I can do it. Um I don't need to have that sweet balm in the morning. But there's ways to get around it, you know, because quitting coffee in the morning is harder than quitting the creamer in the coffee. So a little coconut milk, a little almond milk, both maybe, a little vanilla that you have in your cupboard, a little monk fruit sweetener, and it tastes almost the same. I'll be honest, it isn't quite as viscous, you know, it isn't quite as thick and creamy, but you get that same flavor profile, and you can enjoy your cup of coffee. And then you're out the door and it's done, it's behind you, and you haven't hurt yourself in the process. We're all addicted to sugar. Me, probably from the wine, you from the same or other things is difficult, yeah, but there are tricks and acceptable options. You know, 70% dark chocolate is mildly sweet and supposedly very healthy. I like dried mangoes or dates as a finishing touch after my dinner meal. I know you'll figure it out. And you know, you know that um sugar, processed sugar, is more addictive than cocaine. So that's gonna be tricky, but um you can get her done. Alright, that was the three. So it was no cheese, no bread, no sugar, no cheese, no bread, no sugar. The fourth component is probably gonna be the easiest one, even though at first you will shudder. Some won't, because some are already doing it. It's intermittent fasting. Now, it let me just make it simple. Just skip breakfast. And you're intermittent fasting. You're doing the 16-8 right there. 16-8 is an eight-hour feeding window, that's when you eat, and 16 hours of not. You're letting your body rest, replenish, and cleanse. That's the science. It repairs and cleans cells. Your body goes into ketosis where it begins to burn fat storage for fuel. So just skip breakfast and then eat your, you know, break your fast, as they say, which is you know, have your first meal, break the fast, at 11 or 11.30. I've been doing it for this last week, and I actually feel better than before, regardless of the ketosis or weight loss. Um I've already lost the weight. I was at 199, now I'm at 169, 170. So I don't want to lose any more weight, but I like the feeling, the energy I have in the morning, and I feel like I'm doing something healthy for myself, so it motivates me there. The fifth component is exercise. And you're probably tired of hearing everybody talk about it. I hope that you're doing some, but if you're not, that might be the habit that might be not difficult for you to do, but you've got to implement it because it's it's critical. We all know what we should do. Move the body. My favorite post was from a doctor on the internet that came out and said, Great news, I have um the cure, not the cure, I have something that will help you prevent and address the following ailments. Sorry, any sort of listing of heart disease, diabetes, depression, Alzheimer's, blood pressure. And the list went on and on, and in the end he said, the good news is it's free. It's called exercise. Yep. Exercise will do all those things. It'll also help you burn some calories, which is the goal of this particular exercise, this 21-day exercise. Ways we will support each other in uh the process of no cheese, no bread, no sugar, no breakfast, and exercise, those five things, is I'll text people daily. We can all text the group at least one picture a day of a meal that you're having that doesn't have cheese, bread, sugar. And to inspire people, to give ideas to the group. We'll share success as we see it happening. Like weighed myself, lost three pounds in three days. Um everyone should weigh themselves every single day in the morning. And just, you know, uh whatever you think will help this group, let's I'm not in charge, we are all doing this together to see if this is all it takes. And this isn't a long-term thing. I mean, this is just to make a dent, right? The goal is to I think that by doing these, you know, no cheese, no sugar, no bread, skip the breakfast thing, it will push you towards all the other things. You know, putting more veggies on your plate, being more mindful when you eat, eating less food in general. And then the exercise will give you energy and also remind you that you're exercising some self-love by focusing on what goes past your lips. Back to tips and hacks and suggestions. The only cheese, cheese-like product I use in various places is the nutritional yeast. It sounds gross because uh nutritional yeast, um, but if you're not familiar with it, it looks and tastes like parmesan cheese, and um it's good on salads, popcorn, pasta dishes. I don't recommend that you eat pasta during these 21 days. It's just gonna be a self-defeating endeavor. But um if you have to, eat, try to get eat whole wheat pasta. Um, or if you have to have pasta, at least, you know, don't have Alfredo sauce, don't have cheese on it. Um just don't ever touch that parmesan cheese that's been sitting on that table all day for weeks, by the way. Yeah, if you have to have a pasta, have a pasta with like an uh extra virgin olive oil, garlic sauce with veggies, or a tomato based sauce, be careful. Most marinara sauces have sugar. And then um, yeah, I mean, you have some meatballs on it if you want, but just no cheese, no bread, no sugar. And then instead of butter, extra virgin olive oil, you can use avocado. You know, you can eat several eggs a week if you want. For um bread-like substances, I like soft corn tortillas for tacos. Or I've just recently made quinoa tortillas. It was super easy. I took one cup of quinoa, soaked it for 30 minutes with one and a half cups of water, and then um just soak the quinoa for 30 minutes, pour off the water, and then put a cup and a half of water on that one cup of quinoa. Put it in a blender and just blend it for a while until it looks like pancake batter, and then just in a saute pan, uh pour it like a pancake, and you've got these delicious tortillas that hold together real well, and you can put stuff in there, and that's that's your bread. Don't go nuts with the gluten-free bread. There's still carbs and heavy with starches and etc. That won't really help you that much. Remember that fried chips and potatoes are fattening and unhealthy, so avoid the fried food and you know the white potatoes. Sugar, monk fruit sweetener, stevia, date syrup. Um, you know, raw honey can be healthy, but it can be as high as white sugar in a glycemic index context. So not too much honey. And then, you know, you're gonna get sugar from your wine if you drink wine. But this is a good time to reduce if you can or if you want. I can't take alcohol away from you because it's too much. You would lose your mind. You've already you're already doing no cheese, no bread, no sugar, um, no breakfast, and having to exercise a little bit, which should be a good thing. I won't take the alcohol away, but I will not drink for 21 days while we're on this because I need to do something difficult with you. This other stuff for me at this point is very easy. I've been doing it in one form or another, and it's not daunting at all for me. So I'm not patting myself on the back by that. I'm telling you that not drinking for 21 days will be a challenge. But that's how I'm gonna contribute to this. Of course, I'm gonna do all this stuff also. And I know that um that some people already say, yeah, I'm not gonna drink too. So some people will be quitting that. That helps with the whole losing 10 pounds in in three weeks, but I'd really like to see if we could do it with just the five things, no bread, no sugar, no um no cheese, skipping breakfast and exercising. No bread, no sugar, no cheese, skipping breakfast and exercising. And you know, you find me repeating that over and over. Well, there's a reason for that. I'm trying to get it deep into your subconscious. No bread, no cheese, no sugar. Skipping breakfast and exercising. So, my friends, I believe that is all I'm gonna talk about right now. And I I thank you once again for testing this with me, experimenting this with me, and um being excited, being strong. And you can travel to Thailand, you can travel to London, anywhere you want, and you can still do these things. And we're doing it in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and when it's done, you're gonna have to go shopping for new pants. Alright, let's get her done, folks. Thank you. Bye.