Conquering Hunger

A couple years ago I implemented an eating plan of two days a week with virtually no carbs and the rest of the week a Mediterranean diet consisting of few carbs, many vegetables, lean meats and fish, and small amounts of unsaturated fats as recommended in the book The 2-Day Diet: Diet Two Days a Week, Eat Normally for Five, by Dr. Michelle Harvie and Professor Tony Howell. Over the course of several months of following this regimen more or less (I became less strict about portion sizes over time), I lost 30 pounds. The book recommended maintaining the eating plan, but dropping the two days of zero carbs to keep weight off, but to go back to it if need be. Though I largely stuck to a Mediterranean diet, I fell back into some bad habits regarding carbs, eating whole wheat crackers and cheese as a snack, and allowing myself a glass or two of wine at dinner and to browse the snack tables at parties. As of January of this year, I had added back 15 pounds over the last year and a half.

While I was following the plan, I had largely learned to control my hunger, at least compared to any other time in my life. I learned to become much more aware of levels of hunger, and began to separate the feeling of an empty stomach from a feeling of hunger. The book explains what I had learned but never quite internalized: carbs are addictive, especially “simple carbs”: sugars, potatoes, and refined grains, also known as foods with a. high glycemic index. Foods with a lower glycemic index (this is something that diabetics learn about, but is also important to the rest of us) take longer for the digestive system to turn into a form we can use—sugar. When we eat high glycemic index food our blood sugar levels spike. It doesn’t take long before it dives, and when it gets low our body starts craving more food. This process can make us binge, or at least it can cause us to eat more and more often than we should.

Having this knowledge, and even having had the experience of losing the weight, did not make it easier for me to hold the line and return to the 2 Day Diet eating plan, though I tried a few times. I needed some inspiration, and after hearing a radio program, “The People’s Pharmacy,” featuring a scientist describing his research on dieting, I bought his book, Always Hungry? Conquer your cravings, retrain your fat cells, and lose weight permanently, by Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School endocrinologist Dr. David Ludwig.

His approach is very similar to Harvie and Howell’s, especially regarding the role of carbs in weight gain. As you might surmise from the title, he promises that following his plan will teach you how to reach your “set point” or healthy weight, by controlling hunger rather than counting calories or measuring food portions. As with any good book that purports to help people eat a more healthy diet that will help them lose excess weight, he offers a lot of advice about recognizing and implementing habits and behaviors that trigger overeating and might undermine your efforts. I am at a point where I don’t feel I need that help. What I found most helpful was the detailed science that he provided.

Ludwig explains that we need body fat. (I’m going to do my best to summarize the science, but I may get some details wrong). Our large brains use about 1/3 of the energy we consume, even when resting. If we had no reserves, we would lose consciousness and die in a relatively short time. So our body relies on stored fuel, and fat cells are the containers. Fat tissue contains about 3,500 calories per pound, while carbs and protein (found in liver and muscle) have only about 600. Fat cells take up excess calories when we eat and release them for use when they’re needed.

Insulin is the hormone that orchestrates this. It is the insulin level in the blood, or lack of it, that creates hunger. Insulin levels rise as we eat to do their job: they regulate the metabolism, the rate at which our body uses the available sugar in our blood, sends it to storage in fat cells, or frees it from fat for use. When we eat high glycemic index foods, the pancreas produces too much insulin, which triggers fat cells to hoard their stores—they shouldn’t be needed since there is so much sugar in the blood. So when the blood sugar level drops quickly and we get hungry, the fat cells don’t release their stores, and now our body tells us to EAT or DIE! If we don’t eat, if we exercise amazing will power, the fat cells will eventually respond and release needed stores, but how many of us will wait? No, those of us susceptible to these carb cravings (and judging by obesity rates, it must be well over 50% of us) are much more likely to have a little snack—some chips, candy, a cookie, crackers and cheese. 

For dieters who try to restrict their calorie intake and/or increase their activity, Ludwig has some bad news, especially if you’re eating processed carbs, even the ones made from whole grains. If you’ve experienced the thrill of starting a diet and losing a few pounds in the first days or week and then hit a wall despite not increasing your food intake, he confirms that your body can and will slow down your metabolism to protect its fat stores. The cycle of peaking blood sugar, insulin production, and the extreme hunger that follows he says produces stress hormones in an effort to unlock fat stores, but “if these cycles occur frequently, our metabolism suffers a slowdown, which can make weight loss nearly impossible.”

His recommendations: at least for a time, cut out all carbs from processed foods, including whole grain products from flour. Stick to whole or mostly whole grains themselves, like brown rice, bulgur wheat, quinoa, steel cut oats. Avoid all “fat free” products, because they often add sugars. Eat seeds, nuts, whole fat dairy products like yoghurt and cottage cheese (all in moderation, of course). Use olive oil or other mono- and poly-unsaturated fats, and for a sweet treat, eat dark chocolate with at least 85% cocoa (15% or less sugar). 

His promise is that this will end the carb addiction cycle. His book includes 3 phases, or levels, of carb strictness to begin your journey, but as I’ve been practicing a diet so similar for a few years, I don’t feel a need to follow his specifics or use his recipes and behavior logs, etc. But if much of this is new to you, I recommend following his plan. For the past couple weeks, I’ve cut out the bread, crackers, and “fat free” foods I had been eating and have found my appetite reduced to a level in which I can even comfortably well past noon or six pm without feeling like I need a snack to “hold me until dinner.” If, like me, those words are part of your daily vocabulary, you may be a carb addict as well. 

Lazy, Hazy, but not Crazy

I can't believe it's almost a month since I last posted to this blog. For months after beginning a strategy for losing weight last November, I posted every week, usually to give updates on my progress and delve into the successes or struggles I experienced. I transformed my eating habits and lost thirty pounds, and though my goal of forty-four pounds remains something I'd like to reach, I've decided to live with this weight for awhile without "trying" so hard to restrict my eating. And so far I've done pretty well, though predictably, I'm at the high range of the weight I decided to allow myself for "maintenance"-- 180 pounds (I had started at 209).

I don't feel like I've been sitting around doing nothing, but I've been decidedly less ambitious than in the months previous to July 3rd when the fundraising event for AWARE: Artists Working to Restore the Environment was held. I had put so much effort into making that a success (netted over $3,000, $2500 of which I'll be distributing to WV Environmental Council and member groups, the rest of which will be used for upcoming projects), that my wife had mused that I was working harder in retirement than I had for years.

So the rhythm of activity has definitely slowed, and I've actually had time to sit down and read a little in the last couple weeks, ride my bike regularly, play a bit more music, even actually doing a "bar gig" of sorts (tip jar Tuesday at the Boulevard Tavern), dusting off a slew of my original songs many of which have not been played in public much over the years, some of which have only been heard by Rita and a couple others. Not that they've been heard by many others after playing Tuesday night -- it was a pretty empty room. But it was good practice, and when I finished my second set and called it a night with a solo rendition of the fiddle tune, Catharsis, a complex G-minor rockin' contra dance favorite, the eight or nine people at the bar clapped and whistled.

Tonight, old friend Joe McHugh and his wife, Paula, will play for a FOOTMAD Wandering Minstrel Concert I organized for them. They live in Washington state and came here to do a couple programs at the Appalachian String Band Festival at Clifftop, WV, and this is their last stop before heading home. I may also play a little fiddle before the anti-Mountain Top Removal at Kanawha State Forest rally at the WV Capitol beforehand (5 pm).

Rita and I fly out in the morning for ten days in Colorado Springs (visiting grandchild, Jack Martorella, and his parents), Albuquerque (daughter Hannah and husband), and points in between. So this is retirement during lazy, hazy, not too crazy days of summer 2014.

A Non-Religious Prayer

*2 Day Diet Report at end

I was musing (isn’t that the promise of this blog?), about how I ended up so incredibly busy working the last couple months, even though I’m now fully retired. Somehow my musing led me down the rabbit hole of religion and my beliefs (or lack of). Because the way that I have approached the creation of the project that has consumed so many waking (and dreaming) hours, AWARE: Artists Working in Alliance to Restore the Environment (www.awarewv.org), is not very different from the way “true believers” approach their lives.

Though I don’t attribute my mission to an outside force, or God, I do feel an inner compulsion that is probably very much like the feeling religious people express when they say they were “meant” to do something or any of the many ways that idea is expressed.

When I consider the compulsion that drives most of the human population to attribute their success or failure, their purpose in life to an outside force, who are willing to give money and time to create organizations, buildings, cities, and even whole countries (and dreams of all humanity) dedicated to worshiping or celebrating that force, I can’t help but believe that there are, at the very least, biological and physical properties that these ideas derive from.

What I mean by that is that the practice of religion or the practices of religion have real benefits for people whether the beliefs of religion are scientifically observable or confirmable or not. For instance, we know that prayer, or meditation, has value whether the mind is focused on a supreme being or on clearing the mind of clutter. Singing and dancing in large groups or chanting has benefits and can result in states of euphoria whether this occurs among groups of worshipers or attendees of rock concerts or dance events.

So, to me, it’s no big surprise that soon after retiring in the months following the chemical spill into the Elk River which tainted the water of Charleston, WV and 9 surrounding counties, after attending meetings and rallies and lobbying on Earth Day, I began to feel as if there was something important I could contribute. In retrospect, my dreams and fantasies about how I would accomplish this were wildly optimistic. Like someone who reports having received a “vision from above,” it was very difficult for people I talked to about this to convince me that success would be difficult, slow, or unlikely.

Stories abound in all human endeavors of people who believe: in their religious visions, their business endeavors, their scientific pursuits. Rarely is it smooth sailing from vision to reality.

On Thursday, July 3^rd, a scaled down version of AWARE’s first event (my first idea for helping raise money for environmental organizations involved a stadium or the Civic Center) will take place at the Woman’s Club of Charleston. There will be some popular local bands, singer-songwriters, and a few artists selling work. There will be snack food and a cash bar with wine and beer. How many people will show up? Hopefully advance ticket sales do not tell that story, because that number is small. How much money will actually make its way to the groups I hope to help? It’s all in the hands of….no, not a magical power. It’s in the hands of a small group of people who are dedicated to the idea that it’s important to be ACTIVE in environmental issues, and the many other people who have heard of this event, seen the posters, handbills, e-mails or Facebook invites, and are balancing the possibility of going out on a Thursday evening before a holiday for a good cause.

Yes, it’s in their hands…your hands. I hope to see you there if you’re in the area! And, I offer this blessing, as blessings and prayers, I believe, need not be solely for the religious to dispense or benefit from: May your life be enriched through generous giving of your thoughts, time, and resources to finding ways to help make our planet a cleaner, healthier, and more beautiful place for all life.


*My 2-Day Diet Progress Week 34, June 30, 2014

I took a week off from blogging last week, but maintained 177 at weigh in both last week and this week. I seem to have reached a plateau for the past month or so, and will now stop posting weekly, but I will continue posting once at the beginning of each month for at least the next 6 months. I'm still hoping to reach my goal of 165 pounds and maintain that weight, but for now I am very satisfied with my weight and as long as I remain below 180 will remain so.

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 62

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 37.5 in.

Weight end of this week:  177 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week:  no change

Total Gain/Loss:  -32 lbs.

Songwriters, Bars, Drinking, and Not Smoking

I’ve never spent much time in bars.  When I reached legal drinking age I was already a self-described “country hippie” with no money, and not much of a palate for alcohol. The stringbands I performed in from 1972-83 occasionally played in bars, and by then I enjoyed a few beers in the course of an evening, but generally found the drunks who hooted and hollered and sometimes got belligerent as the evening turned to morning to be obnoxious and not the kind of people I wanted to hang out with. When I was dating between marriages, I started frequenting the Empty Glass, a Charleston live music, liberal, social watering hole, but that didn’t last long. The fact is, I don’t like drinking too much and waking up tired or feeling sick and don’t like spending twenty to fifty dollars doing it.

But, I’ve started going out to a bar on Tuesday evenings where a couple local singer/songwriters have started what they call SongwriterStage—a “songwriter in the round” format (though it’s not in the round, it’s three songwriters on stage taking turns), which is common in Nashville for showcasing the wealth of talent available there. I’m finding, as are the 10-20 who have been showing up with me on Tuesday evenings from 7pm-10pm at Timothy’s, a basement bar beneath the Quarrier Diner on, you guessed it, Quarrier St., that the Tri-State area has a wealth of singer/songwriting talent as well. Last night I enjoyed listening to TimBrowning, Mark Cline Bates, and Jeff Ellis.

Singer-songwriters are a pretty needy bunch; that is, they need to find people to listen to them. If you know any, you know that they are likely to sit you down and ask you to listen to their latest song. That’s what they need—at least one person to listen. Here in the Internet age, they might record their new song and throw it up on the web for the whole world to hear, and who knows, for awhile two or three people a day might actually click on it to listen, and if it’s good, maybe twenty, and if it’s great and they’re very lucky, maybe thousands. Maybe they’ll get so well known they can go on the road, get gigs, wake up in a different place every day and almost make enough money to live on.

Anyway, I’m not sorry I didn’t make it as a singer-songwriter back when I had several dozen songs about love and loss and made my CD called Lessons Life’s Taught Me, letting my girlfriend at the time take a picture of me with a cowboy hat on, leaning reflectively against a tree. Continuing as a teacher until I had 25 years under my belt and a pension equivalent to half my salary was a much better outcome.

Tonight, after Timothy’s wound down, I strolled over to the Boulevard Tavern where some friends who play celtic music were playing for tips. Okay, it’s not just songwriters who need to be heard, I guess. I had my third drink there and was feeling pretty good, chatting everyone up about the fundraising event July 3^rd that has been consuming my life lately.

A handsome young bearded fellow responded that he’d heard about it, and even been invited to sell his art there. As we tried to figure out why we looked a bit familiar to each other and whether in fact I had invited him to show his art, it was revealed that he’d gone to high school where my daughter had and knew Hannah. A heavy set girl in the next stool turned to look at me and said, “You were my 5^th grade teacher.”

About that time I started feeling a little old. So here I am at 4 am writing my blog, because I’m somewhat prone to insomnia anyway, and while I fall asleep easily after drinking, I don’t sleep that long.

Thankfully, I don’t smoke anymore and they don’t allow smoking in bars in Kanawha County, which makes the whole experience so much more pleasant, and means I don’t smell like an ashtray and hack and cough because drinking used to be accompanied by chain smoking.

All this to say what Larry Groce says at the end of every Mountain Stage show, “Go out and listen to some live music wherever you are.” Yes, socialize, talk (as long as you’re not near the front of the room), but also, spend some time listening carefully. You might be amazed at how talented the folks you’re listening to are, and that's what they want, for at least one person to listen--even more than money, but drop a generous gift in the tip jar, so at least they can pay their bar bill.

My 2-Day Diet Progress Week 32, June 16, 2014 

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 62

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 37.5 in.

Weight end of this week:  177 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week:  +2 lb.

Total Gain/Loss:  -32 lbs.

Deep Dark Secrets (a story)

I wrote this story a couple years ago...I post it today because I've been just too busy working on my AWARE project to devote time to writing. When I started this blog, Paul Epstein Muse, I thought I'd be posting more of my "creative" writing, stories, or chapters of a book I was working on, than essays or posts that are more reflective, such as the 2 day Diet reports (this week's is posted at the end). I was told by my writing group when I wrote this that it was a bit too heavy handed....what do you think?

Deep Dark Secrets
(c) Paul Epstein 2011

Let’s see, I guess this thing is recording.

Umm, this is Anthony Wallace Casto, Jr., they call me Junior Casto, and I’m down in the Omega #3 under Kenner Mountain on, ummh, November the 17^th, two thousand and ten. There’s been an accident down here and there’s men dead. Two right here in this area didn’t make it to the emergency refuge….uhhn, shoot, I, I r-really do want to live…  I’m recording on this SmartPhone hopin’ the truth will come out someday and them that’s responsible gets what they deserve.

After the explosion, I thought I was already dead. I come to and there wasn’t no sound. It was so quiet, the ringin’ in my ears sounded like wind screamin’ down the holler. I don’t think I was out no more than a few minutes. I didn’t think to look at my watch. It was probably about two hours into the middle shift. I got my breathin’ unit on, took a look around, saw I couldn’t get out and the others in this room was already dead, and come to the refuge shelter. I’m good here for at least a couple days if everything keeps working. Enough food and water for a week or more since it’s made for six men. I figure I got a fifty-fifty chance.

I been down in the mines twenty-six years, and I’ve done about every job there is to do. But I ain’t exactly a coal miner now. I work in the mines, so I’m a miner, but I don’t actually dig the coal, I just work on the machines. I keep things runnin’. What is a miner these days, anyway? An equipment operator.

The explosion didn’t start here. It was probably in one of the other rooms in this section. The continuous miner in this room was down, that’s why I was here. I was inside the fifty-ton monster, workin’ on it. Reckon that’s what saved my life. Anybody that might hear this and not have no idea what a continuous miner is, it’s like a squashed down bulldozer ‘bout twenty feet wide with an arm in the front holdin’ a cutter that looks like a big paint roller with teeth. It cuts into  the coal seam.

If a mountain was a layer cake, the coal’d be the icing ‘tween the layers. The continuous miner crawls through the seam, cuttin’ the coal and shovin’ it back behind at five tons a minute. It’s remote controlled. Like them drones in Afghanistan. They sit in a comfey ole’ chair underground somewhere out west. Like video game players. Nobody shootin’ at ‘em. The continuous miner operator, he’s in the mine twenty or so feet behind his machine, and if he brings the roof down, it’s comin’ down on top of him, too.

A crew comes in behind the continuous miner puttin’ bolts up into the ceiling to keep it from cavin’ in. Another guy dusts with limestone to keep the coal dust from buildin’ up, and another crew has to work on ventilation so’s the methane can’t build up. They was short a couple coal dusters lately, and that’s probably why we had this explosion anyway. Otherwise a little methane might o’ burned off and not gone nowhere. When there’s a lot of coal dust, it blows up big.

It’s the roof bolters who are layin’ back there dead. Willie Ray Tomkins and Punk Wallace. Punk was my second cousin. I told him he ought to find another operation. I told him it wasn’t safe here. But you know how these kids is these days. They don’t believe in nothin’ nobody tells ‘em. They sure as heck don’t listen to experience. Think they know everything. Wonder if it’s got somethin’ to do with them video games they play. They think they can fight and kill anything and everything. Real life ain’t that easy.

Kids ain’t like they was when great-great-grandpappaw Castigliari first come here from Italy to Mingo County, WV when he was sixteen.  He’d already been a miner for three years back in the old country, as the old folks called it. They mined coal by hand back then. They laid on their side in a thirty-inch seam, dug the coal out of the wall with a pick-axe, shoveled it into a cart and pushed it out of the mine theirselves. Nowadays if they ain’t usin’ continuous miner rigs, you’re operating one of them long-wall miners. They’re as big as a few football fields. Roll through the inside of a mountain eatin’ coal and let it cave in behind it. Do the work of a couple thousand miners workin’ by hand.

Course, a lot of guys work on strip mine sites these days. They ain’t coal miners if ya’ ask me. Mountain top removal is just movin’ dirt and rock. They work in daylight. Not much danger there compared to being under a thousand feet of rock.

But still, we wouldn’t have to be dyin’ down here if it wasn’t for them greedy devils upstairs. It’s all about production. You got to get so much coal outta here every hour and if there’s a breakdown then the next shift has to try and make up for lost time. The foreman, he’s like, “Boys, we got to bust ass this shift and we got no time for the b.s. if you know what I mean.” Well the b.s. he’s talkin’ about is all them safety procedures we don’t do half the time. That’s why this is the most dangerous operation in the southern coal fields, and that’s no lie.

It didn’t used to be like this. Not when the union had a lock on things. Oh, there’s still a few union mines workin’ underground operations, but you can’t get on ‘less you got family already inside. Them jobs is like gold. Not that we don’t make good money, too. We do, but money ain’t everything. My daddy and my granddaddy was both union all the way, and they’ve probably done worn out their coffins rollin’ around these last fifteen years since these non-union outfits has taken over and run out the unions.

The union used to keep scabs and non-union outfits out any way they had to. They’d flatten the tires of any miner took a non-union job. If that didn’t run ‘em off, they’d shoot at their radiators. Next time, it’d be the windshield. Not no more. Ben Jenkins, he’s the guy that runs Omega, he’d got around the union by settin’ up little non-union operations that contracted out the work on the cheap. Pretty soon, he just told the union to go to hell, ran his union company outta’ business and opened up a new, non-union company. The State Police went after anybody that tried to stop the scabs, and nobody stood up for the union. Jenkins got the law in his pocket, from the deputy sheriff on up through the state police and into the governor’s office. Then the governor’s people leans on MSHA, the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Them’s the ones supposed to check up on the mine and make sure we’re following all the safety regs. Make sure the emergency shelters is stocked up and the belts is clean, the air’s flowin’ like it should, the equipment is kept up.

It don’t take much to set off an explosion, what with methane seepin’ up out of cracks in the floor and fine coal dust everywhere. If the methane builds up, one little spark can set off a chain reaction when conditions is right. Well, conditions was right today. Two good men dead between me and a cave-in. Don’t know if there’s any more cause I’m totally cut off back here. Just me and two dead men. DEAD! I’m sorry, I can’t…hnnn, hem.

There’s got to be at least six or seven more over in the room where the explosion started. Probably started with a spark from a cutter so the operator, roof bolters, ventilation crew that was workin’ that room, I figure they must be gone just from the blast. How many more depends on how much more roof come down on guys or trapped ‘em somewhere and whether they can get rescue crews down here.

Thing I’m gonna miss worst is my kids, Dreama and Troy. She’s six, and he’s nine. Well, I guess that ain’t right. It’s them’s gonna miss me. Like I missed my dad after that big rock dropped off the ceiling of the Monagan mine and put his lights out. He was only forty-nine. I was nineteen, drivin’ a delivery truck because I’d done vowed and declared I wasn’t never goin’ to work in a mine, but after he died and mom didn’t know how she was going to keep making the mortgage on the house he built out there at the head of the holler, Mama needed me to make enough to make the payments, at the very least. They put me in workin’ right away, the guys in UMWA. They took care of me. They’d say, “look at that Junior Casto—now there’s a miner just like his daddy. You don’t need to hold his hand in the dark, no sirree Bob.” They kept me outta trouble and taught me what I needed to know. Mostly they worked things by the book—they made sure things was safe and everything worked right. And they took care of them that was havin’ trouble. When Jake’s wife got cancer and his mother was too messed up from her meds to take care of his kids, they found ways to cover for him so he’d show up on the books for a whole day even if he only clocked in and dusted one little section. Some of these older guys who were maybe too feeble or gimped up, they’d work it out for them to get a job they could do in a section that wasn’t hardly producing, dustin’ a little bit here and there, do a little maintenance.

It ain’t like that in the non-union mines. They find out you’re sick or you get old and can’t keep up, you’re gone. All about efficiency and production, you see. And if they got a few men out, they put the dusters and ventilators into doin’ somethin’s gonna move the coal out faster. You wouldn’t have that in the union mines. No sir. You had a job to do and they didn’t tell you to do somebody else’s job. If there wasn’t enough workers to mine coal safe in a section, then you’d go over to another section and help them out or you’d just do some maintenance you been puttin’ off for a rainy day, but you didn’t work with no short crews. Sure, your production might be down some, but we was prouder of the number that said how many days we worked without a work accident than how many tons of coal we drug outta here.

Now it’s going back to the way it was. Oh these non-union mines know how to make it look good. They’ll have all kinds of slogans like, “Safety is our First Job!” Or “No Chunk of Coal Worth a Miner’s Life!” They have mandatory safety sessions where we get trained on the new safety equipment and the latest rules and regs. They tell us if you don’t think somethin’s right, just say so and they’ll shut her down. No coal mined until it gets fixed. I dare you to try it though. Tell a foreman it ain’t safe and you ain’t goin’ down and you’ll be lookin’ for a new job next week. 

They tell us MSHA inspectors are our friends, just lookin’ out for us. And then they turn around the next day and give us a heads up when they find out an inspector’s on the way and tell us to go to a different room that day. Or shut down a few rooms and send out a dozen extra dusters before they get here. Because it’s the same ones who’s cookin’ the books. One set of inspection reports for MSHA inspectors and one set for the company managers so they know what the real picture is.

Yeah, that’s supposed to be a big secret, and it is. I’ve asked a few friends here and there if they heard of that and they look at me like I’m crazy. Of course, maybe they’re lookin’ at me like that because they know the truth but know better than to say it out loud. Some of ‘em needs a job that bad. Dexter Mullins said he’s hopin’ to die down here. Really. Because he knows if he dies on the job, the company’s gonna make a big payout to his family. Million bucks, maybe more. Enough to pay off the mortgage, which he got way behind on last time he was laid off, enough for their kids to go to college. Fact is, we all know we got a way better chance of getting’ hurt or sick with black lung than winnin’ the lottery.

Well I reckon I’m gonna shut up. You might be wonderin’ why I ain’t said good-bye to my wife. I’ll tell you why. It’s cause we say goodbye to each other every day before I come to work. We done made all the arrangements a long time ago. We both know it’s just a matter of time. That’s the way it is for the miner. You know there’s a chance you ain’t comin’ home. So I know she loves me she knows I love her and there ain’t nothin’ gonna come between us long as I’m alive. She’ll stay strong for the kids, cause that’s what a miner’s wife does. And everything I’m sayin’ here, she knows it, and she knows that if I don’t come back it’s gonna be up to her to tell what I know. Cause it’s been getting worse every year I been in the mines, and it can’t keep getting’ worse.

More miners been dyin’ it seems every year. They have their investigations and they make new laws about safety equipment that’s needed, but that ain’t the problem. It’s them greedy devils at the top runnin’ these companies and treatin’ us like dogs. No, not dogs, like machines, only they treat machines right ‘cause they know if they don’t get the maintenance they need, the coal’s gonna just sit where it is in this here mountain. No, they treat us like the preacher says they treated the slaves in Egypt. They just worked ‘em to death, and if one fell, another one picked up where he left off. Cause the Pharoah didn’t care nothing about the Jews, they was just work animals to them. And one was just as good as another.

Only they was buildin’ something. They was buildin’ them Pyramids that lasted for thousands of years. And the Egyptians, they was celebrating their leader and sending him off to heaven. That’s what they thought. I guess it ain’t too much different here. Everybody down here loves coal and loves the company. It’s our way of life. In school, you couldn’t say nothin’ against the company or against coal. If someone started talkin’ environment they just got drowned out or beat up. I did it myself, took up for coal. But when you been inside the mines awhile, you start to see things a little different.

You see some of these companies don’t really care nothing about the people who live here. They talk a good game, but they’re just makin’ more and more money so’s their owners can buy another Lexus or another plane and jet off to the other side of the world and have dinner with a politician or a Supreme Court judge who’s going to rule their way in a case to let them screw another worker or a thousand of them, take pensions away from retired miners or their health care, or steal somebody else’s land or pollute the air more or fill our streams with poison or cut down our mountains. They spend more on billboards and TV ads about Clean Coal Keepin’ the Lights On than they spend in Mingo. As far they’re concerned, it’d be better if these little towns died out and we moved so they could mine every square inch of West Virginia. All in the name of jobs while at the same time, every year they buy bigger machines and lay off more miners.

Yeah, I’m probably gonna die…uhnn, ahem, shoot…Preacher…he says I’ll go to heaven. I ain’t been perfect, but I been saved. I’ve got drunk plenty and done things I ain’t proud of. I ain’t always been a great husband, but I’ve done what a man needs to do for his family. Anyhow, I’ve spent most of my life down here in hell, so the preacher says I got a right to spend eternity in heaven. Hope he’s right.

My 2-Day Diet Progress Week 31, June 9, 2014 

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 62

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 37.5 in.

Weight end of this week:  175 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week:  -2 lb.

Total Gain/Loss:  -34 lbs.

Diet Milestone: 33 pounds gone 11 to go, 3/4 of the way to goal.

My 2-Day Diet Progress Week 29, May 25, 2014 

Beginning weight 11/3/13: 209 lbs.

Height 5'8" Age: 62

Goal weight: 165 lbs.

Total loss goal: 44 lbs.

Beginning waist size: 43 in.

Current waist size: 38 in.

Weight end of this week:  176 lbs.

Gain/Loss this week:  -1 lb.

Total Gain/Loss:  -33 lbs.

This week, 7 months into my physical transformation through change in diet, I’ve reached a milestone. I am three-fourths of the way to my goal of reducing my weight to 165 pounds from 209 pounds since I now have “lost” 33 pounds. Go to a gym and pick up thirty-three pounds of weights--it's the equivalent of a cinderblock or a small microwave oven. It’s significant. I have not weighed this little for at least twenty-five years.

When I reach my goal of one hundred sixty-five pounds, I will still be as much as ten pounds overweight, depending on what measure of healthy weight you use. My doctor, an internist, recommended not losing any more than that. He says that when his patients reach my age, he wants them to have ten to fifteen extra pounds, so that if they get ill and lose some weight, they have some fat to lose. Otherwise, they may lose muscle mass, which is harder to regain as you age. At any rate, I am already quite happy with the way I look. For those of you who have been reading my blog, I’ve said before that I always felt pretty good about the way I looked in a mirror, but I also know that pictures don’t lie. And now when I see pictures of myself, I’m amazed at how much better I look, the stronger, leaner face, the lack of a potbelly, and a general look of fitness. Yes, under all that blubber I really did have quite a bit of muscle from all the bike riding and regular workouts at the YWCA.

An Op-Ed in the New York Times last week by medical researchers Dr. David Ludwig (Harvard School of Medicine) and Mark Friedman, a physiologist and psychologist, entitled, “Always Hungry? Here’s Why,” and a wonderful interview I heard on the NPR program, People’s Pharmacy, with Dr. Robert Lustig, a neuroendocrinologist and Professor of Pediatrics at University of California, San Francisco, who wrote a book called Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease (link to radio show and podcast) both reinforce the science behind my experiences during my journey to a healthier body weight (I’ve lost thirty-three pounds since November 2013).

Ludwig and Friedman note that scientists studying weight loss and nutrition have often gotten it wrong in their understanding of the correlations between calories and weight loss or gain. A calorie is a measure of energy in food. It seemed logical that the number of calories you consume minus the amount of energy measured in calories that your body expends should determine whether you gain or lose weight. But some research now indicates it’s not that simple for multiple reasons, including the way our bodies adjust metabolism depending on the types of foods we eat and even the proportion of fat and muscle in our bodies, squeezing more energy out of calories in some instances and passing calories out of our systems unused in others. To make losing weight more difficult for people with excess fat, Ludwig and Friedman found that fat cells require more calories to maintain than other body cells. They postulate that fat cells ‘grab’ incoming calories, causing the body to need additional food to do other necessary tasks such as nourishing muscle and organ cells and performing necessary body functions.

This creates additional hunger, seemingly caused by the existence of fat itself. Compounding that are the effects of the consumption of sugars and other foods with a high glycemic index, which I think of as the “white foods”: white potatoes, white bread, white rice, and anything made with white flour including regular pastas, most cereals, and in addition, all corn and corn products. Among the sugars are honey, corn syrups, fructose, and even fruit juices. And these days almost all processed foods have added sugar in some form, often "high fructose corn syrup."

When I searched for Glycemic Index chart I found wildly
different numbers in different charts. This one seemed
to match what I believe is true, though it has fruit juices
classified at the high end of Low.

If you got thrown by the words, “glycemic index,” let me give a brief explanation of this important concept. For diabetics, knowing the glycemic index values of foods is critical to their ability to control blood sugar levels because of their lack of insulin production. All food must be broken down to its most basic element, glucose, a form of sugar, for your cells to absorb its energy. Sugars and the white foods are the easiest foods for the body to convert to glucose, which spurs insulin production. Insulin helps our cells absorb the sugar, getting it out of our blood stream. We want it out of our bloodstream because high blood sugar levels cause the blood to be ‘sticky’ and not circulate well, causing cholesterol to build up in the cell walls leading to increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and various other ailments. 

 

The lower glycemic foods make the body work harder and take longer to break down into sugar. Lustig’s research and work with obese children has led him to discover that hunger decreases dramatically when the white foods are eliminated and carbs in general are reduced, and blood sugar levels remain steadier. This was my experience when I reduced carbohydrate intake following the recommendations in a book called the 2 Day Diet: diet two days a week and eat normally the rest of the week, by Dr. Michelle Harvie and Professor Tony Howell.

But why? It’s because high glycemic index foods cause blood sugar levels to spike, spurring glucose production, sending the sugars to the cells and a quick drop in blood sugar. In other words, the spike is followed by a dip, and the low blood sugar levels cause your body to cry out for more food. It is a classic addiction pattern, compounded by the fact that no one can live without carbohydrates. You can’t completely remove carbohydrates from your diet; you would starve. I used to snack on corn chips between meals. Of course this was just keeping the roller coaster going. It's funny how obese people like I was don't stop to ask ourselves, "Why am I hungry?" We know our bodies don't "need the food," after all, we're carrying enough fuel in the form of fat to keep the engines of our bodies running for months. And, in most cases, obese people get hungry every every or two. And not just a little hungry, desperately hungry. Well, it's not for most of us a case of some basic flaw of character or terrible childhood trauma, it's body chemistry. An addiction to simple carbohydrates.

What you can do to break the addiction, however, is avoid high glycemic index foods and replace them with low glycemic index foods: low fat meat and fish in reasonable quantities (4 oz. or less), nuts, low fat dairy like low fat cottage cheese and nonfat yogurt (without the syrupy fruit—use fresh or canned fruit); all the green vegetables you can eat of any kind, including tomatoes (yes, they turn red, but start green, just like peppers), eggplant, summer squash. Sweet potatoes and winter squash, lima beans and other beans are in the medium range and fine in limited quantities. Vegetarians will depend on them for protein. Whole grain (make sure its 100% whole grain, though, and doesn't have added sugar) foods like oatmeal or Cheerios, whole wheat bread and pasta, brown rice and such are relatively low in their glycemic indexes, but should not be overeaten. A tennis ball size serving (about ¾ cup) or one or two slices of bread constitutes a serving. I have had many satisfying lunches of just half a sandwich, an open sandwich, or a light wrap made with a small "light" tortilla (or on a low carb day that the 2 Day Diet recommends twice a week, I might use a piece of lettuce or cabbage as the wrap).

For me, that diet, described as a Mediterranean diet in the 2 Day Diet book, has become a way of life. I no longer have to measure portions or keep track of how much of each food group I eat, because basically I now eat as much as I want. It's just that I don’t want very much. My appetite has been reduced so that a salad with a few ounces of canned tuna, sardines, smoked oysters, or a small piece of salmon, chicken, or a couple thin slices of turkey is a satisfying meal. A couple tablespoons of cottage cheese with some canned peaches or pears, fresh strawberries and couple walnuts…a great breakfast or snack between meals. 

One small serving of brown rice with as much broccoli or stir-fry veges as I want, and the equivalent of a small pork chop, chicken thigh or fish portion makes a great dinner. And yes, I sometimes have beef as well if that’s what I want. And if I’m at someone’s house and they serve a rich lasagna dripping with fat and cheeses, I don’t decline it, I just take a portion that is half or less of what we’ve come to think of as a normal serving: about ½ cup in volume. Then I eat it very slowly and eat a lot of salad or other green vegetables. And if they don’t serve any green vegetables, fine, I eat some when I get home.

One food that most people have a hard time believing is not part of a healthy diet is fruit juice. Dr. Lustig recounted a really smart demonstration he and his colleague, a nutritionist, do on visits to schools. They give two students six oranges each. One is given a juicer; he uses the six oranges to make a 12 oz. glass of orange juice, drinks it down, and says, “Now what’s for breakfast?” The other student starts eating oranges. By the time he finishes orange number four, he’s so full he feels like throwing up. In other words, according to Dr. Lustig, though some fruits are considered medium or high glycemic index foods, they have a self-limiting ingredient that keeps us from overeating if we eat the whole fruit: fiber.

I love that science explains why I’ve been successful on this diet. And if you struggle with your weight, there’s one takeaway I hope you get from reading this; it’s that I didn’t succeed because I have superior willpower. I’m succeeding because I stopped feeling hungry all the time. Yes, I did need some willpower in the first month or two. You can go back and read about how I held myself back at parties…or didn’t, and if I didn’t, I forgave myself and started fresh the next day. But as I learned when I (finally after many tries) quit smoking 20 years ago, breaking an addiction takes at least a month. But once you break your carb addiction, you’ll be home free. Go for it!