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OK, this rate I can handle. I'm noticing that my body shape is changing a lot too, since I'm getting in almost enough protein now my muscles are beginning to firm up again. The loss of midsection weight is most certainly noticeable though. . .and my pants keep trying to fall off, I've had to switch back to my skinnier pants I was wearing about a year ago, my newer stuff just sorta. . .well. . .succumbs to gravity now.
Also, now for a little mini rant about something I noticed. Now, as has been mentioned here and there, I'm Cajun, born and grew up in the Cajun heartland here in the US. I was use to seeing most people being a lot smaller and a lot healthier than they are where I currently live. Upon moving to Illinois, I noticed something: The people here are so much bigger on average. And they were much unhealthier that people in the south. Now I know well that someone can be large yet still be pretty healthy, some people are just like that and I've known a few, though they were rare, in the south like that. However that doesn't seem to be the case up here.
I found myself baffled and trying to figure out how the hell the majority of people could be so damned big and unhealthy up north compared to the size of most people in Cajun country where we Cajuns loved to cook and eat and most of us had never ever considered going on some type of diet because we were, as a people, pretty darned healthy.
Now, as much as some people may expect me to go on about fast food being the cause, I won't point the finger at just the fast food. We had quite a few fast food places in Louisiana but the people who are part of the Cajun culture still managed to stay, overall, healthy.
Then I lived up here for a little over a year, with two people who grew up here in the north and noticed something: Fast food was always an option. It's not the fact that those fast food places are here that is making people fat, it's the fact that the people up here are raised to embrace that availability. Hungry? Why cook? There's a fast food joint right up the road. The question up in the north doesn't seem to be "What should we cook for dinner?" it's normally "Where should we go for dinner?" and I'm pretty sure that's a huge part of it right there.
Then there's the overly processed packaged foods. I was putting in some of the nutritional information for Cajun foods since I made an order from a Cajun food shipper a few days ago (Some even pre-packaged let me mind you but not overly processed) and I noticed something: The nutritional content of the Cajun food is much better than that of the pre-packaged foods here. Pre-packaged foods that most eat up here are packed with sodium, tran fat, sugars and all these unneeded additives. They are overly processed and they have to add salt and sugar to make up for the lack of flavor in these overly processed foods. The Cajun foods have flavor naturally so all those additions aren't needed in them.
Well, needless to say, I think I've found the problem and looking at it now, having had no choice for a while but to eat like a northerner for over a year and watching my health get this bad, this fast (Granted I've always had shaky health but that was due to genetic issues, not diet, before, even with my shaky healthy I was still feeling ten times better than I do now) on this northerner diet, I am fully convinced that it's the addiction to convenience that is the cause of most of the obesity up here. Hell, the cause of most of the obesity in the south outside of the Cajun culture.
There are better options, options that taste better, really don't take too much time to prepare and won't kill you like the lifestyle up north is doing. I remember, in the south, even though my joints hurt and I had pre-hypertension due to an overactive adrenal gland, I was still pretty lively but in only a little over a year of being up north and not really changing my lifestyle, only my eating habits because of those around me, my health has gotten much worse, I went from having pre-hypertension which I've had since I was a teen, to being at stage 2 hypertension levels, only because of a change in diet. I've found myself healing slower, even though I still heal and recover faster than most up here, more prone to illness and slower to recover from illness.
This convenience food is killing people, it's not just fast food, that TV dinner is just as guilty. Yea, have a quick fix once in a while, but stop going overboard with it. How many overly processed packaged foods have you had this week? How many times have you eaten out? There are things you can cook that are healthy and taste damned good but take less time than getting in your car and going to some fast food place, waiting in the drive through to get your food then coming back home. There are low effort foods that are healthier you can make, hell, there are packaged foods that aren't near as bad as the overly processed stuff. Look up boudin balls! Those things are great and easy to fix!
Seriously, I see the problem now, when I first came up here I didn't, now, well, it's hard to miss it when it's staring you in the face and you're starting to feel it killing you. Most northerners who grew up on these foods would say I'm overreacting and that it's not that bad. Here's the issue: They grew up on that overly processed junk, they've never known how it feels to really be healthy. I do know and all of these health issues, feeling worn out like this, it isn't normal.
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