Support is Important; Athletic and Otherwise…

On a fateful day in April, 2008 I drove back to work from a pretty upsetting meeting with a Flight Surgeon. She’d just informed me that my fasting glucose level (FGL) was pre-diabetic, and my cholesterol levels were near 300. That’s AFTER 12 hours of fasting.

I’d been informed that, due to my family’s long and horrible history with diabetes (it’s pretty much killed my mother’s entire side, including her), it was imperative that these numbers be dropped, and soon. I had thirty days. One month. One month to pull off what I was realizing was a complete lifestyle change. Failure on my part meant a loss of flight status in the Navy, loss of flight pay, loss of job specialty (after 15 years at the job), and possible early retirement or separation from the service as “Not Physically Qualified” (the dreaded NPQ’d, as we say.). My life (and by extension, those of my wife and children) had come to a serious fork in the road.

I’m now thoroughly convinced, after the past year’s work, that people who can’t (or won’t) change their lifestyles, habits, diets, or exercise patterns to achieve fitness and health are lacking two critical elements: proper motivation and proper support.
Proper motivation isn’t “I want a nice body”. Proper motivation isn’t “I think I should work out a bit more…” PROPER, real motivation is when failure is absolutely not an option. It’s when the results of that failure are unthinkable. It’s when the results of failure are not abstract; they are real, in the “right-now” immediate world, with real-world consequences. Even people who face real health issues sometimes cannot bring themselves to effect actual change in their lives, because the consequences do not seem, well, real. That wasn’t me. Financial ruin, loss of my job and pension and benefits, and a completely uncertain-at-best future for my family stared me in the face. Oh, along with the real possibility of early death or long, debilitating disease and illness. That’s the brutal, in-your-face, ice-cold right-NOW motivation I’m talking about.

There’s also support. I can say without any hesitation whatsoever that it would have been damned near impossible to make all the necessary changes in my lifestyle that I did without the unbelievable efforts my wife, Lauren, put in on my behalf. She researched the foods needed, she kept spreadsheets of calories and glucose, she bought and read cookbooks, she scoured websites, and she shopped for and bought the foods. Cooked them damned good, too. Most importantly, she SUPPORTED me mentally and morally. She didn’t “enable” me, like many well-meaning but misguided friends will (“aww, you can have just ONE piece of cake, Dude…”), she really kept at me to both eat right and record what I was eating. She made sure I made food for the next day and packed it every night. And, probably most importantly for “motivating” me, she looked at me one day, about two months into the process, with an open-mouthed, pleasantly surprised look of, well, something great when I walked into the room shirtless for the first time in months (at 40 years old, I’d successfully recovered my abs).

That was worth a million bucks of coaching right there.

Pantry Raid

We love that so many people are enjoying and following our blog. We also love that we're getting a lot more sun this holiday weekend than anticipated, so this post is being written with both those facts in mind. One of the requests we've received is for more recipes - a little more tangible "eat this", as it were. With that in mind, here's a recipe I can whip up in no time from common pantry items. It's low cost, low carb, and low effort.

Grilled Mediterranean Tuna Wraps
1 family size (12 oz) light tuna pouch
1/2 cup roasted red peppers, diced
1 shallot, minced
1 Tb minced garlic
1 tsp herbs de Provence
salt & pepper to taste
4 oz aged, smoked Provolone cheese, shredded or sliced
4 10-inch whole grain tortillas

Warm the first 6 ingredients in a non-stick skillet over medium heat, stirring gently. Preheat a home grill (e.g. Cuisinart Griddler, or a panini press) to high. Divide the tuna mixture evenly into the 4 tortillas. Add 1 oz cheese to each, then wrap. Grill wraps until golden brown and crisp, about 5 minutes. To serve, cut in half on an angle, arrange on plate and garnish with fresh herbs if available.
Makes 2 generous servings of 2 wraps each.

Since this is the first time I've posted a complete recipe, here are some general tricks I always use, regardless of what I'm cooking. I keep parsley, basil, and mint growing on the side of my house for garnish and fresh taste. I take an extra minute to plate the meals I serve and make them look as professional as I can. No, I'm not a chef, but I've certainly been to enough restaurants to know how I like my food to look. The better it looks, the better it will taste. Finally, I keep a few flavorful ingredients ready to go in prepackaged jars. My favorites? Organic minced garlic and roasted red peppers. (I keep taco seasoning on hand too, but that's another recipe.) Convenience foods can wreck your diet and budget if you use too many, but if you read labels and only keep the few that you really love to use on hand, you'll enjoy cooking and dining more.

I hope the next time a few friends drop by you'll give this quick recipe a try. In the meantime, Pete & I wish you all a safe and happy holiday weekend. Love and heartfelt thanks to all of you who have served and still serve the USA!

Howdy, Partner.

Nope, it's not what you're thinking. Although it can be helpful to take on a new diet with a friend or partner for support, I'm talking about the foods you eat. In my last post I discussed the benefits of eating more often, 5 or 6 smaller meals a day. To help smooth over those peaks and valleys in your energy even further, eat foods that compliment each other. No worries - you don't have to start carrying around some "pocket" reference of 10,000 foods and cross-reference which food goes with which other food. Actually, just have two different foods each time you eat. How easy is that?

It's super easy. Your basic food groups in a low carb diet are generally proteins, whole grains, vegetables and fruits. By combining foods from any two of these groups, they help balance your body's reaction to your meal. For example, fruits can spike your blood sugar or cause a "sugar rush". If you eat them with whole grains, your body will take longer to break down and use that sugar, so the spike or rush will be reduced.

Here are some examples of snacks Pete enjoys -

6 oz low fat or fat free yogurt with a granola bar
1 medium apple with Triscuits (whole grain crackers)
celery sticks with peanut butter
light tuna in a whole grain tortilla
trail mix with raisins or Craisins

Pete's a creature of habit, so he has the same snacks all the time. You, however, can customize your own snacks now that you know the secret to balancing your foods. Pete makes all his meals the night before work, but I like to make a week's worth at a time when I can. It's entirely up to you. Just pick a few combinations you like and be sure to pack those snacks together. Enjoy!

Instant Gratification

You want a quick fix? A jump start on your healthy new diet? Try scheduling your eating. In fact, try to eat more often. Honestly, that was the first change we made to Pete's diet and the results were almost immediate.


Like many career people, Pete was eating only twice a day. Breakfast was usually leftovers or some other fairly filling meal (since he only ate a couple of times a day he figured he could afford "dinner" for breakfast). He had breakfast at 4 am most days, then worked out, then worked all day. He worked through lunch, too. Sound familiar, anyone? Eventually he'd come home, usually around 5 pm, and we'd have dinner as a family around 7 pm. Of course he was starving by then, so I always made huge portions for him.
Unfortunately, his diet strategy was doing more harm than good, and in his case, he'd been eating this way for decades.


Our bodies aren't designed to handle binge and starve cycles, which is what many lifestyles and even "diets" create. When we eat on that schedule, the body reacts by hoarding calories, since it "thinks" that it will be a long time before it receives any more. Meanwhile, it also has to deal with this sudden flood of food. It's like a Thanksgiving dinner food coma every evening. His body was also forced to contend with a severe blood sugar spike from all that food twice a day. Instead of living in balance, his body was pushed to extremes every day. If you've been living this way, it may sound like I'm making mountains out of molehills with this, but that's exactly what's happening to your body. To put it another way, if a balanced eating schedule is like living in suburbia, then Pete's habit was to run back and forth between the North Pole and the Equator every day.


So if you want to feel an immediate difference in your health and energy level, try eating smaller meals more often. Pete resisted that suggestion from me for years, claiming he wasn't hungry at lunch time. In reality, he was too stressed out and busy to take the few moments he needed to eat. Once he tried it, though, he felt better within a day or two. Of course, you can't eat six huge meals a day and expect to be healthy, but you can, and should, eat six small meals each day. Try bringing a few healthy snacks with you during the day, or simply make your regular meals but divide them in half and eat them a few hours apart. After years of one lifestyle, Pete needed reminders at first. I send him emails, texts, or calls (not all at once - no one likes a nag). Sometimes he'd set his watch alarm every four hours, when it was practical. Use whatever tools you have at your disposal, but try this eating schedule. You'll feel better from it from top to tail in a matter of days.

Mission Impossible?

About a year ago, my husband came home with very upsetting news. His fasting blood glucose (FBG) reading was 110. That's right on the borderline for pre-diabetes. His cholesterol was also creeping up, and, as if to add insult to injury, these numbers were all from his 40-year checkup. You'd never know he had any medical issues. He's tall - 6'3", in fact, and very lean, never more than 220 at the most. Even at 40 he was out performing many of the 20-year-old "kids" he worked with every day. You see, my husband is in the Navy, so his physical health has been closely monitored for at least the past 16 years. He's exactly that guy you look at and hate for being so fit. But inside, apparently, it was a different story. This first notice that there was anything amiss came with a command from the flight surgeon : Get your numbers down in 30 days, or lose your wings. If we didn't find a way to improve his health dramatically within 30 days, we would lose his flight pay, he would be reassigned at best, and he might even lose his position and pension. After 16 years of service, we were about to lose everything.
As I write this today, my husband is at work, on base, doing what he loves. He's in wonderful shape inside and out, and we're both much happier and healthier than we were one year ago. What exactly happened? Well, he dropped his FBG 30 points, and his weight 20 lbs in those 30 days. Neither the flight surgeon nor the dietitian had seen anything like it, but there he was, strong, lean, healthy and determined to eliminate any question about his fitness. How did he do it? Well, our learning curve was more like a rocket launch. We tried everything we could right away, and have spent the past year enjoying a more leisurely sampling of menus and methods. Now that the panic is past, we've also focused more on the cost of good nutrition. Low carb often means lean meat, and that adds up quickly. Now that he's healthy, we experiment with less expensive meals that net the same health and nutrition for us in the long run.
This blog is his story of determination, my story of support, and our story of gleaning the best of everything out of a tough situation. We'll share what worked, what didn't, what had us pulling out our hair and what made us laugh our butts off, all in the hope that it will help you or someone you know overcome your own health hurdles and enjoy a long, healthy life. Thanks for joining us!