HFCS & Green Smoothies

     Fitness to me also means health, so this won't mainly be an exercise blog. Rather it will be about improving health with food, supplements, changing routines, and random odds and ends I find or hear.
     My food revolution started with my father.. When I went off to college, he told me about the evils of High Fructose Corn Syrup. I instantly began cutting it out as much as I could.  When my now-wife and I moved in together, we made it a larger scale cut-out, going so far as to pull things out of the cabinet and either donate them or throw them away. If it had HFCS in the first 5 ingredients, it was gone. And if it had just plain Corn Syrup in the first 3 ingredients, it was gone as well. But it wasn't easy. It really is in most packaged things, and in a lot of foods that you wouldn't expect to have sweetener of any kind in it. Start reading your labels!
     This change came with the watching of the documentary King Corn.

     These 2 guys wonder what it takes to grow an acre of corn, and ask a farmer to help them with that experiment. Very eye-opening about many areas of the agricultural industry in America. We highly recommend.
     Since I've stopped eating so much of it, I can generally taste HFCS when I'm unaware of its presence in something I'm eating. The food will usually taste kind of fake to me nowadays. Last week, I ate a Cookies N Cream candy bar, one of my childhood favorites, and I didn't like it... Don't enjoy Yoplait Thick N Creamy anymore either.
      The wife gave up a lifetime addiction to Diet Coke. She tried it a month later and couldn't stand the taste of it. (That's aspartame, however.)
     So many things that started out as treats like ice cream, soda, candy, cookies, are now the lifeblood of our society. It's not a wonder most of us are unhealthy or obese. The fact that we eat more fresh things, or things that don't contain these artificial sweetener, means that when we do have any of the above mentioned, they're back to being a treat. And I don't feel guilty for having a soda a couple times a month, instead of a couple times a day.

Another source that really opened my eyes about the world of nutrition was the book Green For Life. 

     I had gotten a weird notion to put spinach in my berry smoothie one day, and when I told my friend, she told me about this book. I took a lot of things it said with a grain of salt, but what I ultimately took away was that we need to be eating more greens.
Because of this book, I learned about the existence and basic yummyness of many greens. To include:

Kale

Collard Greens 

Swiss Chard

     Among others. I like spinach in my smoothies, and even broccoli, though I have yet to perfect the amount of it (too much and it's chewy, too little and you don't get the health benefit).
     When I make them, I make a full blender's worth. It takes me a day or two to drink the whole 50+ oz, but I enjoy them a lot. They are great for post workout, for in between meals, part of a meal, or as a meal. The wife and I frequently travel on the weekends, so if it seems unsure the quality of our nutritional intake over the weekend, then I'll whip up a 32 oz bottle and take it along. I offer a taste to anyone that is willing, and have changed a few minds on the subject.

     Because of childhood health issues, I'm 24 and have arthritis everywhere. It didn't help that I was overweight either, but there were still underlying issues not caused by the weight. Since I began making these changes, my joints hurt maybe only 30% of the time, instead of 80% of the time. The weight doesn't just fall off me, but everyday I feel more and more healthy and capable of doing more things I never thought I'd be able to.
     It was necessary to change my lifestyle, not just go on a diet. I recommend everyone else do the same. Make a commitment to these changes. It doesn't mean you can't ever have that guilty pleasure. It just means you don't have it that often, so instead of being a guilty pleasure, it's just a pleasure.
Happy Trails!