Escape from Registerfly

If you haven't already heard, the popular domain name registrar Registerfly.com is in a tailspin leaving thousands of customers unable to renew or transfer their domain names. I was one of the luck ones and was finally able to get my domain names transferred successfully to GoDaddy.com. However, a blogger at pokerrouge.com figured out a loophole to get their "Auth Code" which is essential for getting your domain name transferred. You have to follow these steps very carefully in order to do this. If you are still having trouble, check out the posts over at www.registerflies.com which is full of useful information gett the hell outta there. Good Luck!

Sugar Free Chocolate Milk

Several months ago, I went on a no sugar diet with dramatic results. Obviously, the first week was the worst with the cravings but after that, they tapered off a bit and I could easily turn down any sweet. I now simply miss the ability to have a dessert after dinner or something as simple as chocolate milk, one of my favorites. However, I just recently discovered Stevia, the natural sugar substitute that is about 300 times sweeter than sugar. There are a ton of sites out there which discuss this "dietary supplement" (sssshhh... don't say sweetener unless you want the FDA investigating you) so if you want to learn more, I suggest you google "Stevia".

Giving up chocolate is really sad because chocolate is actually good for you if it wasnt for all the fat and sugar. It turns out that cocoa is extremely high in Antioxidants. So here is a basic recipe for creating a sugar free, chocolate milk that is high in antioxidants and if you were to make with a lowfat milk, is virtually guilt free:

Sugar Free Chocolate Milk
1/4 Cup Water
1/4 Cup Cocoa Powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp sea salt
Stevia to taste (I have used Approx 60 to 80 Drops clear liquid extract OR 1/2 TBsp of Nunaturals NuStevia)
1/2 Gallon Milk



In a small saucepan, heat the water and Cocoa to melt the cocoa and stir constantly to break up any lumps. Once the Cocoa has melted, add the Vanilla, Salt and Stevia. Remove from the heat and add about a cup of the milk to thin out the chocolate mixture. Pour into your half gallon of milk, shake and enjoy.

Note: You could probably just melt the cocoa in a 1/4 cup of milk from your half gallon but I have found it easier to do this with water and since I get Whole Raw Milk from a farm, I usually pour off a little cream from each new jar and save that for making butter. This leaves me a little extra space to add the melted chocolate mixture.





Also, I have not tried this recipe with pure Stevia yet but would guess the measurement to be a fraction of a teaspon but will update this recipe once I have figured that out.

Certificate Lists Truncated

On February 9th, Microsoft released an update which updates the root certificates for XP, 2003 and Vista to include members in its root certificate program.

The update is intended to add the root certificate Authorities that support Extended Validation (EV) certificates in Windows Internet Explorer 7. EV is part of the Anti-Phishing feature of IE 7; IN a nutshell, when you access a website that is encrypted, (its URL starts with HTTPS and you see the lock icon), EV ensures the the Website operator has been identified and authenticated by a third party and the site is secure, as well as providing additional information regarding the website owner. For example, EV capable web browsers will show a Green background in the URL field while browsing an EV validated site while a know Phisher or Fraudulent website will show a Red background.


As a result of the certificate update, the number of trusted root certificates has grown dramatically (not sure of the exact number). For the most part, this is fairly benign and in fact beneficial for EV but you may experience problems setting up secure connections to your systems if you issue your own internal certificates from an internal Certificate Authority. For example, Live Communication Server users may not be able to logon using TLS encryption and your Unix/Linux systems may not be able to contact your Active Directory Domain Controllers for LDAP authentication.


You may see an error in the Server System log similar to the following:

Source: Schannel
Event ID: 36885
Description: When asking for client authentication, this server sends a list of trusted certificate authorities to the client. The client uses this list to choose a client certificate that is trusted by the server. Currently, this server trusts so many certificate authorities that the list has grown too long. This list has thus been truncated. The administrator of this machine should review the certificate authorities trusted for client authentication and remove those that do not really need to be trusted.

The reason for this is that when a client attempts a secure connection to a server, the server sends the list of trusted root certificates to the client for the client to choose certificate which they both trust. However, with the recent update, this list of certificates has grown too long and the server sends a truncated list of certificates back to the client. If the certificate the client intended to use did not make the cutoff in the truncated list, the secure connection will fail. I recently experienced this problem when my internal certificate authority's root certificate was truncated from the list sent to the clients.

You can definitely remove all "expired" root certificates and then move on to removing certificates which you determine are never likely to be used. However, ensure you keep all the well known Certificate Authority root certificates such as Thawte, Verisign and Microsoft.

Alternatively, you may be able to add a registry key to the server that disables the sending of the trusted root certificates to the client. This forces the client to utilize its own list.

Note: Although I have not seen any side-effects to making this change, there may be some other ramifications of making this change but I have yet to see any.

Registry path
HKLM SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL
DWORD: SendTrustedIssuerList

For more information, See: TLS/SSL Tools and Settings on Microsoft's Site.

Energy Bar / Power Bar Recipe

After much searching online for a healthy power bar or engery bar recipe, I finally decided to make my own without the butter and sugar called for in most recipes. Although I used http://www.rwood.com/Recipes/Energy_Bar.htm as the basis for my energy bars, I really don't like raisins. So modified the recipe and improvised heavily as I was cooking. The result was a very tasty and moist energy bar, almost like a brownie. The next time, I think I will cook it for a bit longer to dry it out more so it will hold up better and be a bit lighter for the trail and possibly add a bit more cocoa and stevia:

4 Tablespoons Coconut oil, plus a little more for greasing the pan
1/4 Cup Milk
1 Teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/4 Cups oat or rye flakes (or a combination of both)
1Cup chopped nuts (Almonds, Walnuts, Pecans, etc)
1/4 Cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 Teaspoon sea salt
2 Eggs, lightly whisked
1 Cup cooked quinoa
2 Tablespoons agave nectar
2 Teaspoons (more or less to taste) of pure Stevia extract (Increased Sweetness)
1 Cup dried coconut flakes
2 Tablespoons Chia Seed (Chia Gel formed by the seeds will keep you satiated longer)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly coat a baking pan with cocounut oil
Melt the Coconut Oil and cocoa in a large pot over medium to low heat. Add the flakes and nuts and saute, stirring constantly, for 3 o 4 minutes, or until aromatica nd a shade darker. Stir in the salte and chia seed and saute for another minute. Pour into a large bowl.
Stir in the eggs and then the rest of the ingredients into the dry and stir until blended uniformly.
Spread the mixture in the the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until pulling away from the pan's edge. Invert onto a rack to cool. Cut into bars. The energy bars will keep for a week but best to store in freezer until they are needed.

Awesome and Free Remote Control Software

I recently stumbled across a piece of software that makes remote user support extremely easy. Best of all, it is completely free. The software is called Crossloop which is based on VNC technology. VNC is open source software that has been around for some time but can be difficult to configure, especially on the fly when you are attempting to help somebody with their PC issues from a remote location. In fact, crossloop is VERY much like Ecogent's Echo VNC but without all the configuration steps required to set up your own reflector server or to pay for a VNC reflector service. According to crossloop:

CrossLoop is a FREE secure screen sharing utility designed for people of all technical skill levels. CrossLoop extends the boundaries of VNC's traditional screen sharing by enabling non-technical users to get connected from anywhere on the Internet in seconds without changing any firewall or router settings. It only takes a few minutes to setup and no signup is required.

For hardcore techies, crossloop is pretty basic but I can say that it is (or will) be extremely helpful, even for geeks when helping out someone with little computer experience. The only drawback is that it does require a download and installation at both ends which means you will have to convice your Mom & Dad that the software is safe and free of virus and spyware, not to mention walking them through the download and install process. However, compared to some of the other alternatives out there which usually have a fairly high cost, it is definitely worth taking a look at.

Windows Home Server Announced

During the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show or CES in Las Vegas, Microsoft revealed its plans to release Windows Home Server (WHS). Planned to be released in late 2007, Windows Home Server will be marketed to families with 2 or more computers in their home. Some of the key features include:

• Centralized backups of connected PCs


• Act as a central hub for media and files to connected Microsoft PCs and devices.


• Remote sharing of content stored on the home server
  

Check out Paul Thurrott's most excellet winsupersite for a full review. Interestingly, Paul Thurott mentions the possibility of buying just the WHS OS and installing it on any old hardware. However, other reviews state that you will only be able to buy it as an embedded OS appliance. According to Engadget:

• Units are headless and embedded only -- you cannot buy WHS and put it on an old PC.
• There is no common web interface. Interaction is entirely client software based, or done over SMB.
• It cannot directly stream media to Media Center Extenders, but it can stream media directly to Windows Media Connect-enabled devices.
• It does not use RAID, but instead uses a RAID-like drive pooling system with built-in redundancy. Expanding capacity is as simple as adding additional drives internally or externally via USB. We can't say for sure, but we have a feeling if you were to unplug that external drive, your data wouldn't go with it since it's probably spanned across the array.
• The client software, which is installable only on Windows PCs (duh) monitors PC health, manages backups, and supports full disk images and versions. If your computer crashes hard you can pop in an restore CD and it'll pull the disk image over the network.
• Your WHS device gets registered with your Windows Live account and is made easily-findable by authorized parties (i.e. you and anyone you designate) while on the go. You can even connect to it via Live and pipe a Remote Desktop connection to a PC on your home network through this Home-finding Live feature.

I think the backup capability of WHS is probably the single best redeeming feature. However, nearly all the features listed can be obtained through other free or extremely inexpensive means such as online backups via carbonite.com, media sharing through orb and Network Attached Storage (NAS) through FreeNas. So it seems to me that WHS will not be a big hit with the Techie crowd but it will be interesting to see what the folks at Hack A Day come up with if it is released as an appliance. Heck, I would buy the cool looking glowing applicance just for the cool factor... and turn it into a Linux box.

How to Install Windows Vista

A friend of mine sent this to me this morning, it is an excellent tutorial on installing Microsoft's newest Operating System - Windows Vista.

Enjoy...

The Healthiest Dessert

Recently I started buying Quinoa in bulk as I have come to find out that it is is one of the healthiest foods on the planet. If you have never tried Quinoa, do yourself a favor and pick some up at your local health food store.

While no other food can, by itself, furnish all the essential nutrients for living, quinoa comes as close to being complete as many other foods from the vegetable and animal kingdoms.

-Al Durtschi

It is about the easiest food to make, you simply measure it into a saucepan and add 4 to 5 times the amount in water. Bring it to a boil and let it boil all the water away, this usually takes 20 to 25 minutes. Thats it but keep your eye on it when the water starts to dry up as this is when it can burn. (If you are not sure you have pre-washed Quinoa, you should wash it first to remove a bitterness caused by saponins that cover it)

By itself, quinoa is pretty bland but this makes it ideal for adding to other dishes like salad, oatmeal, spaghetti sauce, etc. Especially if you want to add a bit of nutrition (quinoa is pack full of good carbs and has a complete amino acid profile) to a dish.

Anyway back to the healthiest dessert ever so hear it is...

Quinoa with Milk and Berries

1 Cup Boiled Quinoa (chilled)
1/4 Cup Whole Milk
1/8 tsp Stevia
1/4 Cup Frozen Berries

So you've got your boiled up Quinoa, all you have to do now is to place it in a fine mesh strainer and rinse it with cold water or place in the refrigerator for an hour so until it is nice and cold. Then you scoop your Quinoa into a bowl, cover it with cold milk, add a small spoonful of Stevia to taste (This is very arbitrary as all types of Stevia will measure differently), then add a handful of Frozen Berries. Even my picky kids love it.

I prefer the Stevia extract which has had its bitterness removed and I get the frozen berries in a giant bag mixed with rasberries, blueberries and marion berries from Costco.

Drink Water to Lose Weight

I think I am walking around half dehydrated most of the time and living in Colorado's dry climate doesn't seems to help. So I was curious as to the affect of water on weight loss and it turns out that drinking plenty of water is key to losing weight. In fact, the average person is supposed to drink about 8 Glasses a day, which seems like a lot. But in Colorado where everyone walks around with their trendy Nalgene bottle, this isn't as hard as it seems. If you are carrying around a few extra pounds, you should be drinking another 8 ounces per 25 extra pounds of body weight. Don't know how much extra you are carrying? Check out your Body Mass Index or BMI if you want a real scare.

Shrek to be Government Spokesperson on Obesity

Apparently Bush has recently added his "2 cents" into the fight against childhood obesity which affects 15 to 18 percent of children and Teenagers.

I was wondering whose bright idea it was to get Shrek involved in this fight? Is it just me or does this seem a bit hypocritical? Umm, let's see a huge fat Ogre to be the national spokesperson to children on fighting obesity? Maybe he'll throw green filling Snickers bars and Shrek 3 Happy meals to the children as a consolation prize to his seminars.

This comes after Disney has reacted to controversy over the big fat green ogre plastered on just about every green junk food product over the last few years. Maybe Shrek 4 will introduce us to a much slimmer, happier and fit Shrek.

Free Poster - Honest Food Guide

One site I thoroughly enjoy reading is www.newstarget.com and their sister stie, www.truthpublishing.com. Recently they offered a free food guide which you can download here. You can also order a laminated version for free, all you pay is $3 for shipping.

The Honest Food Guide (HFG) is now available for downloading free of charge and is:

- Free from the corruption and influence of various food industries (dairy, beef, junk foods, etc.)
- Designed to benefit you, not Big Business
- Offers genuine nutritional information, not watered-down information designed to boost the sale of milk, beef and grains

The reason I mention this is that I received mine the other day and was pleasantly surprised that it included two audio presentation by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger.

1 of Grocery Warning Welcome Audio ($9.95 value!)
1 of Secrets of Quinoa ($9.95 value!)

I just listened to both of presentations on my drive to and from work and just wanted to get the word out. If you do nothing else, at least download and check out the food guide, it may just change your life.

Windows Vista Released

Vista will be released to the public on January 30, 2007 and everybody is wondering whether or not to upgrade.

Sure, it has a slick new interface and some additional security features such as Windows Defender Anti-Spyware (which Microsoft purchased from Giant Company Software, Inc in 2004), upgraded Outlook Express known as Windows Mail and built in Least Privilege User Account (LUA), now known in Vista as User Account Protection (UAP) but is it truly worthwhile to upgrade?

I'll get right to the point... Don't beat yourself up over the decision to upgrade or not to upgrade. Wait until you purchase your next computer and get it with Vista pre-installed or until Microsoft decides to drop support of Windows XP. At the very minimum, I would wait until Microsoft releases the first Service Pack for Vista. This has pretty much been my policy for all new MS operating systems and has served me very well. You can always install (or should install) antispyware on your XP machine, and XP already has built in LUA. All you have to do is not logon as an administrator unless you are installing software ... or temporarily make your account an administrator until your are done installing software. XP Pro has a cool utility called Runas which makes this even easier. This little trick, though a pain at times, will save you a ton of grief when you stumble on a malicious website or open the next "I Love You" virus.

I don't think I'm alone in my assessment about Vista.

If you decide to become an early adopter, be prepared for headaches when you find that not all your devices or applications work. However, a little known trick may allow you to get those pesky XP apps working on your vista box. All you need to do is right click the installer executable, select properties and select the compatability tab and the select the Compatability mode for Windows XP Service Pack 2. I have found this works about 90% of the time for software and driver installations.

Ok, if you are still reading this, you are probably determined to upgrade your XP box. If so, first check out Microsoft's Upgrade Advisor which is a small piece of software that you can run on your system to determine which version of Vista is best for you.

A word about hardware performance...

I installed Vista Enterprise on my 1.7Ghz HP Laptop with 1GB of RAM despite all the warnings about beefy hardware requirements. It turns out that Vista has a feature which assesses your hardware peformance, known as the Windows Performance Rating. When I ran the Windows Performance Rating from the Vista control panel after installing on my laptop, I received a score of 1 out of 5. This is pretty bad and would normally lead me to believe the machine is not capable of handling Vista. On the contrary, my experience with Vista is that it has performed admirably well despite my poor hardware. So don't let your hardware rating fool you into believing you cannot run Vista. I believe the low score my laptop received was due to the basic onboard video card but I think most laptop users would be in the same boat. The single performance problem I have noticed, which is exceedingly frustrating at times, is that every time I click the Start Menu, there is a noticeable delay before the menu appears. That is my only real complaint with Vista, other than the fact I cannot use all the cool 3D windows that "would have been" installed if my system had rated higher on the Performance Rating scale. That is, if I only had a sweet new graphics card.

Anyway, I work with computers on a daily basis and it did take some time for me to learn the new interface. All the familiar control panel items are is still there but access to them is often different or must be done through a wizard. However, I must say that once I got used to the new interface, I rather enjoy it. In fact, it looks like a Mac!

If you are still hell bent on upgrading, some final words of advice, never upgrade an Operating System if you can afford the full version. Always, always install a fresh installation of the full version if possible. You will save yourself a ton of headaches down the road.

Finally, if you are installing Vista yourself, you may as well by the OEM version for "system Builders" it is available for anyone to buy, it just doesn't include all the fancy packaging but is almost half the price. Here is a link for your convenience...

Say Hello to My Little Friend...

As most of the country is aware, Colorado has been getting back to back snowstorms for about the last six weeks. Now don't think I'm lazy, when in fact I rather enjoy the exercise of shoveling snow. However, at one point during the "Blizzard of Christmas '06", I was out there shoveling every 6 to 12 hours just to keep up with the drifts. When it was all over, I not only shoveled my entire driveway numerous times but also shoveld about six feet into the street so we could get the car out.

Normally, a snowstorm around here isnt such a big deal but with all of this shoveling, I was a bit worried about exacerbating an old back injury. So.. like any good consumer, I got online and started looking for power tools to make the job a little easier for the next time.

Say hello to my little friend... The Toro 1800 Power Curve Electric Snow Thrower


I found the Toro 1800 after quite a bit of comparison shopping. In fact, Consumer reports rated it as a best buy in 2004 and again in 2006.

According to Consumer Reports:

In our last snow-thrower report, we rated the Toro 1800 Power Curve ($300) as the top electric machine. Able to clear an 18-inch path, it did well at cleaning down to the surface and was very easy to handle. It's best for short, flat driveways and snowfalls of 4 inches or less.

I was a little wary at first as all the neighbors on the block run gas powered snow blowers but that just seemed a bit overkill for our neighborhood. However, after I read the reviews on Amazon.com, I was sold.

One of the best features I found is that it is very light and has an extra handle so you can pick it up to clear steps with ease. Kind of like vacuuming steps with an upright vacuum. Try that with a gas powered monster. I'm glad I didn't get one of the gas powered monsters. Another key feature is that it is powered when you squeeze the handle. So you literally just plug it in, squeeze the handle and go. I have only used it in one big storm now, but I notice that by the time my neighbor had fiddled with his gas powered machine and got it started, I was well on my way to being done with our drive.

The only drawback I found is the power cord takes some getting used to, once you figure out how to manage the power cord it is a breeze.

Granted, it does not have the power of its gas powered older brothers but it gets the job done.

Raw Milk, Unpasteurized and Unhomogenized

About a 18 months ago, we were getting milk delivered to our house twice per week to satisfy the insatiable milk habit of my kids. I swear, these kids were going through gallons of the white stuff on a weekly basis. As a result, my wife and I ensured we were getting the best milk around, delivered twice weekly to our door and guaranteed to be free of growth hormones by the Dairy.

This was a double edge sword for me as it seems that while I was in the Navy, I somehow lost the ability to drink milk. Who knows if it was the Anthrax shots (dont get me started on that) or the rotgut milk they have onboard ship but as soon as I returned from a six month deployment to the the Gulf, a glass of milk was the last thing I could drink. This was a real bummer because I grew up having milk at practically every meal. The weird thing was that it took a really long time to figure this out as I just couldnt figure out what was causing my health problems. Finally, I tried some lactaid and the symptoms I was experiencing were relieved. I couldn't get through life without drinking Milk! What the heck is one supposed to put on their morning cereal if it isnt for milk. So, with my kids going through a ton of milk every week, I was either buying lactaid milk separately or drinking the delivered milk along with a handful of Lactaid pills.

One day that summer, I was getting dinner ready and realized I had left our milk on the porch all day. I figured it would probably be fine to drink for dinner and possibly for another day or two as milk sours over time right? Wrong! After doing a bit of research on the Internet, I found that pasteurized milk does not sour, it rots! That milk smelled awful and about 3 gallons promptly went down the drain, what a waste. While doing a bit more research, I stumbled across the realmilk.org website which had a ton of information on the health benefits of drinking raw milk and the awfulness of pasteurized milk. They recommended a book called "The Milk Book: The Milk of Human Kindness is not Pastuerized" which I promptly ordered from Amazon.com.

Later that week, I was discussing my milk woes with a co-worker whom told me that she has been picking up raw, unpasteurized and un-homogenized milk from a local dairy. The next day, she brought a jar in to let me try it. I have to say, it was very strange to be holding a jar of raw milk, somehow it just felt illegal or something. In fact, I have since come to find out that it was. Apparently, Colorado is rather liberal when it comes to raw milk. In Colorado, you can legally drink raw milk from cows that you own but you cannot sell it or give it away. However, Colorado had just recently passed a law that allowed people to buy "Shares" of a dairy herd in order to purchase raw milk.

So I headed home with my contraband milk and prepared to offer it to the family. It was a strange experience, that 2 quart Ball jar sat on the kitchen counter and everyone just stared at it as we tried to overcome a lifetime of fear of all things unpasteurized. Just check out what the FDA has to say about it and you will know what I mean. Eventually, I poured a glass and down the hatch it went. After feeling no ill effects, I poured some for my kids who thoroughly enjoyed it. It was delicious, it was creamy and it was gone in no time. I brought the empty jar back to my friend shortly thereafter and was dying to find out how I could get more.

Over the next couple of weeks, I had gotten in touch with Julie from Ebert Farms about signing up for a Share or two in their dairy herd. However, before we committed to this, I had to see the farm for myself as I still had the FDA warnings whispering in my ear despite all I had read to the contrary. So I had dragged the entire family out to the farm where Julie gave us a very thorough tour. We met the cows by name, we toured the milking facility and learned the whole twice-per-day process of getting the milk from the cows into those 2-quart Ball jars, and we left there feeling extremely impressed. It was small, it was clean and the folks running it had a real and profound interest in producing the best quality milk you can find.

It has now been well over a year since we started getting fresh raw milk from the farm and our family drinks 5 gallons a week with no ill effects, myself included. I have long since tossed out those Lactaid pills and I don't think I could ever go back to store bought milk. We get weekly updates from Julie about what's happening on the farm and we always know which cow is pregnant, who has calved, what the new calves names are; I continue to be impressed with Julie and the Barnyard Crew.

Mini-ITX Cigar Box PC

If you have never seen a mini-itx, it is essentially a miniature form factor motherboard packed with a bunch of onboard components. The coolest thing about the mini-itx is that you can cram it into the unlikeliest of places. Just take a look at all the home built PCs at mini-itx.com. Well, I figured one of these suckers would make a perfect Endian Firewall for my house and look cool too! I could put my computer and my wife's on one one subnet, my kids computer with a gazillion content filters on another and my public access servers on yet another. In addition, I could try my hand at building one of those cool looking cigar box PCs like on min-itx.com. So, I got a studly looking black cigar box on Ebay and dremmeled the heck out of it to make room for all the components, check out my cigar box PC pictures here. However, during that time, my regular Linksys router was starting to have fits. By the way, those things suck ever since Cisco bought Linksys. Don't buy one unless you can get one of the old versions from before Cisco neutered them or at least get the Linux version that only seems to be available online.

With the Linksys going into conniptions, the wife was complaining about our phone service (Vonage), our internet connection, and the frequent need for router reboots (those things don't handle peer to peer too well you know ;-) So I needed that Endian appliance in place, and fast. To do that, I just slapped a couple nics into an old pc and booted up the Endian firewall. Fifteen minutes later, my Linksys was thanked for its brief and painful service and relegated to providing wireless access to the Kid's subnet in my house. It has been solid as a rock.

So... Now what to do with my half built cigar box? I know, I'll build a MythTV server and have the Cigar Box prominantly and proudly displayed in my living room....

Fast forward a few weeks and I havent even touched the MythTV config, and a few weeks later we went through a huge TV upgrade. We are 100% HD and even have an HD DVR/Tuner from Comcast. It seems the MythTV idea is now obsolete or at least not useful without sinking a ton more dough into it to make it HD capable.

So now I have a dilemmna, is there a market out there for a cool looking, mini-itx form factor, cigar box PC? I guess we'll see, I've listed it on Ebay if anybody is interesetd. Check it out!

Adventures in Weight Loss and Healthy Eating (cont.)

By Christmas I had lost 16 lbs and I was no longer worried about those stupid Gap Jeans. Funny, I would never have thought of myself as such a granola but the changes I saw piqued my interest and I started researching how crappy the stuff is that we eat every day. I found that pretty much everything coming from your local grocery store in a can, jar or box is full of chemicals such as hidden MSG (there are like 80 common food additives hiding it), preservatives and chemicals that are known neurotoxins. All of this stuff is approved by the FDA as "Generally Assumed Safe" or GAS but what the heck does that really mean, is it still Generally Assumed Safe when you that stuff all day every day? Anyway, I also started looking into healthy substitutes for stuff like cooking oil (like coconut or grapeseed oil. See:http://www.newstarget.com/009701.html) and alternatives to sugar such as Stevia vs the neurotoxic sugar substitutes. See the Weston A Price article on Sugar Free Blues.

Speaking of Coconut Oil, I have done quite a bit of searching for good quality, inexpensive Coconut Oil and the 54 oz Jars of Nutiva at Amazon seem to be the best deal I could find. Make sure you order two so that you get the free Super Saver Shipper from Amazon. Don't worry, you will go through it in no time.

If anybody can find a better deal for the same quality, I would love to hear from you.

In the end, eating became a conscious and deliberate activity. Before preparing any food I asked myself the following questions:

1. Is the food I'm planning to eat a whole food source? (carbs, proteins, vegetables, nuts and fruit), that is, is it real or at least minimally processed?

2. Does it round out my diet? (Carb source, protein source, veggie or fruit)

3. Will it spike my blood sugar and cause me to crash? See blood sugar/glycemic index info at: http://www.nutritiondata.com/topics/glycemic-index

By the way, here is another interesting article on sugar, again from Weston A.Price: http://www.westonaprice.org/transition/sugars.html

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I had given up my morning coffee because I found that it was making me hungry even after I had just eaten. That was probably the hardest aspect of this whole lifestyle changing thing but after a week or so, I no longer missed it. But let me tell you, that week was a real drag, I had no energy, constant headaches and multiple urges to give up all this healthy living. But in the end, perseverance one out and I can tell you that I now feel dramatically different. I am full of energy, I eat when I get hungry, which not very often and I'm always very satisfied after a meal. I dont know if it is the diet or being caffeine free but sleep is awesome now.

I wouldn't attribute the 30 lbs lost and three extra notches in my belt since November due to diet alone. I have also been going to the gym for an hour each day, 5-6 days a week . However, the wholesome diet certainly gives me the energy to do that. I used to chug a meal replacement drink just before going to work out and I would be drained during and after my workout, in fact I would be jittery after a hard workout. Now I eat a small meal one hour before working out, or just a very small snack (maybe a celery stick with peanut butter or a bit of ham on a slice of bread) just before hitting the gym. Now I feel like I can workout for hours without feeling drained.

If you are looking to drop a few pounds, forget all those diet fads and use your common sense. Its easy, just ask yourself, is it healthy to go on a strictly protein diet? Which is better, Wonder Bread or whole grain bread made out of a very short list of ingredients (Whole grains, yeast, salt water, etc)? Which is going to give you more long term energy, white rice or brown rice?

Want to start shedding pounds and never go hungry? Here are the not so secret facts in no particular order:

1. Go for the slow carbs (always choose the brown stuff, brown rice, whole grains).

2. Only eat nutrient rich whole foods.

3. Ditch the sugar (table sugar, fruit juice, honey, syrup, brown sugar, cane sugar, high fructose corn syrup, sodas, etc, etc.

4. Eat every 3 to 4 hours at least. (As an example, cut your daily lunch in half and eat half around 11AM and half around 2PM.

5. Eat a healthy snack before you get hunger pains.

6. Ditch the coffee and other caffeinated drinks, they will just make you hungry by increasing your stomach acids.

7. Hit the gym. (Get a pedometer and if you arent getting 15000 steps by the end of the day, get off the couch and watch TV from your treadmill.)

8. Dont be afraid of the good fats. Slap a little coconut oil (Yum) on that whole grain toast, it will make you much more satiated.

9. Study a Glycemic index chart, and stick with the foods low on the glycemic index scale. In other words, consciously eat like a diabetic.

10. Finally, ditch the breakfast cereals. Did you know the glycemic load of a bowl of Cheerios is about the same as pure table sugar? Try the Old Fashioned, thick rolled oatmeal, you can get it in bulk at most health food stores such as Whole Foods, Vitamin Cottage or Wild Oats (I cook mine in half water, half milk, toss in a bit of pure whey protein, a bit of coconut oil, scoop a few flax seed in there, slice up a banana and smother it in raw whole milk.Yum!)

Anyway, I should wrap this up but if you are interested in finding out about eating healthy, check out: http://www.westonaprice.org it is all about eating "whole food", that is food in its natural state (not processed/chemically altered). You can't go wrong with that. Also, if anybody reads this and doesnt think I'm too crazy, I'd be happy to hear about the healthy stuff you substitute for the grocery store crapola or even a recipe or two.

Adventures in Weight Loss and Healthy Eating

OK, it started when my wife and I stopped at the Gap Outlet to pick up a few items of clothing just before Thanksgiving. I found a some good deals on some badly needed jeans and simply purchased my size, or what I thought was my size without even trying them on. When we got home I had a "duh" moment as they simply did not fit. I complain to my wife that they should fit as they are "my size", so they must be defective. Must be why they are selling at the "outlet" store, they must be defectivly labled. My wife looks at me curiously and says, "Honey, they are sized right, you are just gaining a bit of weight".

Yeah, in the back of my mind, I realized this was the case but I just didn't want to admit it. I had been about 204 lbs when I joined the Navy in 1996 and was literally in the best shape of my life at the time. Now, I was pushing 232 and contemplating the thought of returning the jeans for a larger size. Hell no I thought, so I set them on top of my dresser with the lofty goal of being able to fit into them shortly.

About a week later, after having walked past those crotch huggers a dozen or so times, I received and email from a friend which consisted of an article by a guy named Tim O'Shea that blames the sugar industry and the drug companies for all the evil in the world. It seemed a little extreme at the time and normally I would have just sent it into computer limbo with a flick of the mouse button, (did I tell you it is super long too) but in the back of my mind, I knew I just had to read it. So I read how we are all addicted to sugar and don't even know it, and how sugar is going to cause the earth to come off its axis and fly into the sun :-) However, at the end of the article it states:

I CAN QUIT ANY TIME

That's what everyone addicted to anything for the past 300 years has said. So do it. If you think you aren't addicted to white sugar, prove it. For 48 hours. Not only cokes, high fructose corn syrup fruit drinks, donuts and ice cream, but condiments, sauces, and aspartame drinks as well. 48 hours. Meet the monkey.

So I took up that challenge. No big deal I thought, I could do this for a week or so....

It was a bit harder than I imagined, but not nearly as difficult as the article made it out to be. However, what really surprised me was that by the end of that first week, I had literally dropped 4 pounds and I had a light bulb moment. Hey, at this rate, I can fit into those jeans by Christmas!