The Water-Walking Diet
by Kendall Johnson, Jr.
So, I've lost fifty pounds (50 lbs., 22.68 kg – that's from 233 lbs to 181 lbs.) since last November, and along with all the gracious compliments, the question “How did you do it?” usually follows suit. My mother was the first to suggest writing it down, and when a friend seconded Mom's suggestion, I decided that it's possibly a good idea. What follows is my “diet” in my own words.
Ironically enough it started with a switch to sugared colas in lieu of artificially sweetened ones. Aspartame was discovered when someone who was using it as an insecticide accidentally stuck a finger in their mouth and noticed it was sweet. Aspartame has been reported to cause many health problems, so I switched to regular, sugared cola and just cut back on the total volume per day I was drinking. And I started to lose a little weight – most of it seemed to be water weight because artificial sweeteners cause some if not most people to retain fluids.
Rewind a bit here. I excluded any meat from the bovine animal from my diet in May of 2006. I immediately noticed a marked improvement of my clarity-of-mind, so I tested this twice by eating a hamburger from a random source. Immediately after both tests, my mind became cloudy, and I was confused and disoriented. So I have not consumed any beef, beef stock or any product including either, since. This alone has greatly improved my health because our bodies really do not know what to do with beef.
Then, after this past holiday season, I completely stopped eating anything on the menu at any fast-food type restaurant. Conspiracy theory or not, those companies add components to the food that are detrimental to health, if only by creating a desire to eat more of it, and more often.
Then, recently I stopped eating pork altogether. Around that same time, I stopped eating “tubers,” which is any food that grows underground.
The meats I eat are: any seafood, chicken and limited turkey because turkey has a component that produces sleepiness, i.e., one of the reasons grandfather always takes a nap after the holiday meals.
I also gave up caffeine almost completely. I used to drink multiple cups per day of strong, fully-caffeinated coffee, and I was able to, over time (a year), reduce that to several cups of “half-caffeinated” coffee, then to decaffeinated, which still has 0.3% caffeine, then several weeks ago I put my coffeemaker back in the box and away. I have a cup of caffeinated green tea occasionally, and I do have an occasional Coca-Cola Classic, if I'm in the mood to treat myself.
So what do I drink? Water. Not out of a fancy bottle, but over ice from the refrigerator and the water itself from the door of the fridge, too. Actually, pure water acts as a catalyst in our bodies when it's ingested. When consumed as a component of more complex liquids, like sodas, the catalyst effect is greatly reduced. I stopped drinking alcohol in 2005, but surprisingly (and oddly) I get so revved-up on pure water it is truly amazing.
I do not avoid sugar. It seems that the less I avoid sugar and actually include it in moderation as part of my diet, the more the pounds keep coming off.
So here's an example of my daily food intake:
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Breakfast: 2 toaster pastries, 4 ounces of “Tang.”
Lunch: 1 can tuna in spring water (plain), 1 can asparagus pieces, 1 slice of cheese, 5 “Ritz” crackers
Dinner: 10 small shrimp (plain, with sauce), 1 can navy beans (drained, plain), crackers, cheese
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Another large component to my diet has been occasional exercise; more specifically, walking. I try to go for a walk three to four days per week. Some weeks I only go twice. I don't nail myself down to a strict exercise regimen because I feel that's unnecessary. No gym membership here. I walk at a brisk enough pace to get everything going (sweating, heart rate, breathing) but not enough to be uncomfortable. I walk a path away from the house until I feel like stopping, then I turn around and walk home. Sometimes the total ends up being as little as a half mile, sometimes as much as four miles. At first it was around the block. Getting around my own excuses for not going was the first step.
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Unfortunately, society paints such a pretty picture of life that includes images and suggestions of incredibly harmful eating habits and foods. The hardest part of this diet for others, I suspect, will be divorcing the romantic images and thoughts relating to food and eating in general from your life. This diet has not been very difficult at all for me. I've always been mostly disgusted by the thought of it being necessary to absorb something that used to be alive into my own body in order to sustain my own life. Life feeds on life, but it seems awfully violent and gross to me.
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And to the critics who will cite “daily nutritional values” and et cetera?
The Koala, indigenous to Australia, eats only eucalyptus leaves its entire life after it is weaned from its mother's breast milk. So every molecule that is every Koala originates from eucalyptus leaves, air, water and mother's milk. Koalas are mammals. Human beings are mammals. You do the math.
I don't count calories, and I don't listen to nutritionists and quote unquote health experts. The pharmaceutical companies' blood money is lining their pockets, too.
May The Force be with you, and Bon Appetite!
-Kendall Johnson, Jr.
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