Sid's Super Diet

[Supernova]

To Supernova, thanks for following. What kind of weight loss have you had over two months and how do you feel in general?

All the best Sid.

Hi Sid,

Most people lose a lot more than I have tbf, I have only lost a stone and some can achieve that in 2 weeks but my body shape is changing too thank goodness due to exercise. I have breaks to go to APAT & start having solid meals a couple of days beforehand.

I also have no immune system due to my meds so I pick up bugs/colds/flu/viruses etc very easily. So my reasons for juicing are to get me off the meds & all the other meds I have to take to counteract the meds. My weight ballooned through them also along with a ridic amount of side effects both physical & mental. It was my cardiologist who swung it for me when I said I was getting very depressed about the weight the meds were putting on. He said that they clung on to all the salts & sugars etc that were in processed food & carbohydrates. While I was on the meds and eating 1200 calories a day containing some of these I'd never lose weight, no matter how much exercise I did.

I  saw the Joe Cross video on YouTube and did a bit of research and decided to juice to help me get of the steroids faster as it's like a roller-coaster, you get the meds down then catch something and they go up, you get them down a bit then catch something else. Vicious circle. But I've looked into various vegetables now that have the natural alternative to some of the meds I'm on and I also know which ones can be detrimental.

I can honestly say I've never been more optimistic about curing myself and getting off them than I am now, it's become a bit of a pet subject but I think my skin etc has improved massively, I feel fantastic when I'm well. I also think I'd have been alot worse with my health without them. I missed having juices this weekend, it was like my body was craving them. I'm back on them today until the 31st and it felt great. My plan is to juice until I'm off the meds & lost the weight & even then I'll continue to have at least one a day when I can.

That's how good juicing is, it's all about getting the micro stuff in there in the best way your body can accept it.

I hope this helps and encourages you.

Shaz

[El Sid]

Thanks Supernova (Shaz) for your in depth reply. I hope that you turn it all around, sooner rather than later. I know how the side effects of some of these drugs etc. are so debilitating, but also realise that they are a necessary evil.

Your confidence in juicing is highly encouraging and the wise words of your cardiologist are enlightening. The only foods I have heard about that may counteract the side effects of steroids are coconut oil and avocadoes. As an anti-inflammatory I put turmeric in every batch of juice I make. Turmeric’s efficacy is increased by the addition of black pepper.

Shaz, your optimism will speed your recovery.

                                                                                        

It was suggested recently that everyone over a certain age should be on statins to lower cholesterol. This is where the pharmaceutical companies add insult to injury. It has been acknowledged that their side effects definitely cause memory loss and possibly diabetes. 
                                                       
I have seen the effects of memory loss from statins on two of my friends. They came off statins and virtually immediately stopped struggling to remember what day it was. They have kept their cholesterol levels down by simply eating natural diet which includes simple foods such as oatmeal (a plate of porridge a day) and a couple of cans of three-bean salad a week. (Check out canned food to ensure there is no sugar or salt added.)

The medical profession ranges from brilliant to downright dangerous, do they seriously believe that we have gone so far up an evolutionary dead end that everyone in the country over a certain age should take statins? Look deeply into the side effects of any prescription drug you are offered.

Anyone offered a non prescription drug, in a pub or on a street corner; look deeply into your soul. I have lately seen more poker players than usual going for a quick high. Seeing some seemingly intelligent people imposing sickness on themselves, and their families, is not pretty to watch. They suffer with the famous blind spot syndrome “I won’t become addicted, this won’t happen to me.”  Every drug addict in the world suffered with this syndrome before becoming addicted.

Enough of the rant –

Today’s weight loss is negligible, down just 2% of a stone, due to the body rebalancing itself with water retention. The autonomic nervous system regulates weight loss by retaining fluid, this is so that the balancing mechanism in the middle ear has time to adjust to weight loss, specifically so that our spatial awareness catches up with our size and we don’t fall over as we walk; not being used to a sized down body.
 
I swim three to four times a week and since losing the initial stone I am putting more effort in. Hopefully some of the fat will turn back to muscle. If I can put in enough effort I may be able to replace each 7lb of fat lost with 1lb muscle gain.

Shaz’s encouragement has been taken on board and I will update tomorrow, in a much lighter vein, hopefully with a significant weight loss.

[El Sid]

To Red Fox,

While it works for you continue - over the years I have attempted healthy eating but my gut always took charge over my brain because of sugar and carbohydrate addiction, which is rife in our society because of the amount of processed food we have all eaten.

When you get to exercise, short bursts of intensive exercise rev up your metabolism for 24 hours so little and often of more intense exorcise is the answer but take it easy to start with.

All the best   Sid

[AndrewT]

Hopefully some of the fat will turn back to muscle. If I can put in enough effort I may be able to replace each 7lb of fat lost with 1lb muscle gain.

Fat cannot turn into muscle.

Fat is stored energy, which the body can convert to glycerol and then glucose to provide energy. You lose it by exerting yourself through exercise so your body needs more energy than you're getting from the foot you've eaten.

Muscle is made from protein - it's totally different.

[El Sid]

Dear Andrew T,

Haven't eaten any foot. To be more explicit, I'll turn the fat into energy, use the energy to turn some protein, hopefully fillet steak, into muscle.

I'll correct myself, I have eaten some foot, after drinking champagne from her slipper I sucked Millicent Thurrock's toe. I forgot this incident as it left me with a bad case of athlete's mouth that I would rather forget.

[El Sid]

Up at 4am - a vast change in well being. Finding a out a lot more about this diet as I go on. Weighed in this morning at 16 stone .77 - Three and a half pound lighter than when this thread started. Moving in the right direction. Will probably not post now until Monday when I hope to have hit my 7lb weekly target give or take a few ounces.

I will pick up where I left off the day before yesterday with a quote by Muhammad Ali.
“The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life”
 
How do you get to eighteen stone to begin with, you don’t necessarily need to eat junk food to get there, you can eat too much good food.

My eating patterns changed dramatically throughout my life, but my early life set the pattern.

My mother and I spent a little time in prison, she was twenty- four and pregnant; it was December 1944 and she wouldn’t be giving birth to me for another four months. She found herself in this precarious position because she went absent without leave from the Royal Air Force.

For four years my mother was a cook in the air force, and cooked for the intake at Haverford West, at its busiest she and her team cooked for three thousand eight hundred airmen, well aware that this could well be the last meal they ever ate. Men we we owe our freedom to.

Corporal Goldie as she was known truly had a heart of gold.  My problem with her was; when she was eventually honourably discharged  she only knew how to cook in bulk. Subsequently I was seriously overweight as a kid and weighed fourteen stone at fourteen years old.

This was all about to change. My father could see that I needed to shape up so he sent me to the Polytechnic in Regent Street where I joined the boxing club.

Four years of hard training saw a big transformation, at eighteen I was a smooth moving, light heavyweight, 5ft 11in weighing 12stone 7lb. My trainers at the Polytechnic included Johnnie Carol, one of the best counter punchers the UK ever produced and the amazing Dave Thomas ABA Heavyweight Champion. I owe my life to Dave as what he taught me pulled me out of many tight spots throughout my existence.

Apart from having become half-handy at the game I was a mine of boxing information, a regular Nat Fleischer.

As mentioned my hero was Muhammad Ali, when he fought Sonny Liston for the first time he was an 8/1 underdog. I placed a full week’s wages, £15 on Ali (Cassius Clay at the time) and my confidence in him was well rewarded.

Around the time of the fight my compatriots in training and I, used to skip to the music of Duke Ellington’s, Take the A Train. We were emulating the fearsome Sonny Liston who, solemn faced, always skipped to this piece of music.

I have to digress here to mention that Duke Ellington’s – Take the A Train - is actually the handy work of Billy Strayhom. The story goes that Ellington liked Strayhom’s compositions and telephoned him to come to New York to collaborate with him on some music.

Strayhom asked Ellington for directions to where he lived. Ellington told him to take the A Train. Subsequently on the way to Ellington’s home Strayhom wrote this famous piece of music while travelling on the A Train.

Back to the Polytechnic Gym in Regent Street, there were two, intensive two-hour training sessions a week. Tuesdays and Fridays, in these hectic two hours we would use heavy bag, light bag, medicine balls bounced on flat stomachs, skip endlessly and spar for about half an hour. These two hours of perspiration would see a weight loss on the training session of 7lb. All quickly replaced by drinking an adequate amount of water. I never ceased to be amazed at this immediate and dramatic weight loss.

Apart from these workouts I used to run five miles twice a week, while having a physically intensive job. So how does a person go from super fit to super fat? Well it’s easy.

You only need to put on a just over a stone a decade to go from thirteen stone at twenty to eighteen stone at seventy; a weight rise of less than two pound a year.

Everybody’s weight history is different, there are the lucky ones who somehow managed to maintain a stable and healthy weight throughout their lives; they probably have no idea of how lucky they are.
For those of us who need to lose it – without food cravings it’s no big deal.

[RED-DOG]

Up at 4am - a vast change in well being. Finding a out a lot more about this diet as I go on. Weighed in this morning at 16 stone .77 - Three and a half pound lighter than when this thread started. Moving in the right direction. Will probably not post now until Monday when I hope to have hit my 7lb weekly target give or take a few ounces.

I will pick up where I left off the day before yesterday with a quote by Muhammad Ali.
“The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life”
 
How do you get to eighteen stone to begin with, you don’t necessarily need to eat junk food to get there, you can eat too much good food.

My eating patterns changed dramatically throughout my life, but my early life set the pattern.

My mother and I spent a little time in prison, she was twenty- four and pregnant; it was December 1944 and she wouldn’t be giving birth to me for another four months. She found herself in this precarious position because she went absent without leave from the Royal Air Force.

For four years my mother was a cook in the air force, and cooked for the intake at Haverford West, at its busiest she and her team cooked for three thousand eight hundred airmen, well aware that this could well be the last meal they ever ate. Men we we owe our freedom to.

Corporal Goldie as she was known truly had a heart of gold.  My problem with her was; when she was eventually honourably discharged  she only knew how to cook in bulk. Subsequently I was seriously overweight as a kid and weighed fourteen stone at fourteen years old.

This was all about to change. My father could see that I needed to shape up so he sent me to the Polytechnic in Regent Street where I joined the boxing club.

Four years of hard training saw a big transformation, at eighteen I was a smooth moving, light heavyweight, 5ft 11in weighing 12stone 7lb. My trainers at the Polytechnic included Johnnie Carol, one of the best counter punchers the UK ever produced and the amazing Dave Thomas ABA Heavyweight Champion. I owe my life to Dave as what he taught me pulled me out of many tight spots throughout my existence.

Apart from having become half-handy at the game I was a mine of boxing information, a regular Nat Fleischer.

As mentioned my hero was Muhammad Ali, when he fought Sonny Liston for the first time he was an 8/1 underdog. I placed a full week’s wages, £15 on Ali (Cassius Clay at the time) and my confidence in him was well rewarded.

Around the time of the fight my compatriots in training and I, used to skip to the music of Duke Ellington’s, Take the A Train. We were emulating the fearsome Sonny Liston who, solemn faced, always skipped to this piece of music.

I have to digress here to mention that Duke Ellington’s – Take the A Train - is actually the handy work of Billy Strayhom. The story goes that Ellington liked Strayhom’s compositions and telephoned him to come to New York to collaborate with him on some music.

Strayhom asked Ellington for directions to where he lived. Ellington told him to take the A Train. Subsequently on the way to Ellington’s home Strayhom wrote this famous piece of music while travelling on the A Train.

Back to the Polytechnic Gym in Regent Street, there were two, intensive two-hour training sessions a week. Tuesdays and Fridays, in these hectic two hours we would use heavy bag, light bag, medicine balls bounced on flat stomachs, skip endlessly and spar for about half an hour. These two hours of perspiration would see a weight loss on the training session of 7lb. All quickly replaced by drinking an adequate amount of water. I never ceased to be amazed at this immediate and dramatic weight loss.

Apart from these workouts I used to run five miles twice a week, while having a physically intensive job. So how does a person go from super fit to super fat? Well it’s easy.

You only need to put on a just over a stone a decade to go from thirteen stone at twenty to eighteen stone at seventy; a weight rise of less than two pound a year.

Everybody’s weight history is different, there are the lucky ones who somehow managed to maintain a stable and healthy weight throughout their lives; they probably have no idea of how lucky they are.
For those of us who need to lose it – without food cravings it’s no big deal.

Nice bit of reminiscery there Sid boy.

I love to hear peoples stories, especially nicely presented potted histories like these.

More please.

[Royal Flush]

Loving it Sid, very curious to know exactly what your intake is each day/week

[Supernova]

Hi Sid,

Thank you for your reply & comments.  I've never been as happy & as positive about my life as I am now, some way to go I know but it's just a question of time.

I didn't know about the coconut oil - I have some somewhere which I'm not sure what to do with apart from cook a curry or make raw chocolate with, neither of which are options right now. I knew about the avocado, one of the plans I have to follow has a lot of recipes which either 1/4 or 1/2 avocado is listed, I try to stick to 1/4 due to the high calorie content but they provide good fats & blend into the green juices very well.

I'm really enjoying reading your story Sid & thank you for the tips.

Shaz

P.S. Is the turmeric you use fresh or powdered? I've read about it but fresh is non existent near me.

[El Sid]

To Flushy, Once you reconcile your intake with your outtake, the body becomes balanced. My dearest friend Terry Cryer, once took a photograph of Satchmo, his face was covered in grease as he'd just eaten a plate full of lamb chops. Terry made some witty aside as he took the famous photo, (You can find it on Terry's internet site.) Satchmo's reply to Terry's comment was.
"The more you eat, the more you shit and the more you shit the thinner you get."

To Shaz, Glad to hear you are feeling so well, You can buy fresh turmeric in Indian and Chinese supermarkets. It freezes and loses none of its potency. It stains when you peel it, but the stains come off with lemon juice.

Went to Luton to play at Gentings for the first time, excellent place. Will update tomorrow, about the best laid plans.

[El Sid]

Click to see full-size image.

[El Sid]

As they say in the trade, “If it’s Noah Boeken, don’t fix it.”

My Idea of writing a weight loss, diet book was stimulated by Joe Cross’ documentary, Fat, Sick And Nearly Dead. I believed that losing 1lb a day was the motivation people needed to go on a weight reducing diet.

I also realised that getting people to live on nothing but vegetable juice for the duration of the diet was only going to appeal to very few. In my wisdom, I was sure I could ameliorate the perceived daily grind of juicing (which is actually no grind at all, once you start feeling the benefits.)

The idea was simple (as most of my ideas usually are) it was to juice on alternate days, Juice one day and eat a no carbohydrate and no sugar diet the next.

Well I tried this method last week from Monday to Monday and managed to lose just over 2lb in a week as opposed to the 7lb a week I lost sticking to the juice diet, virtually religiously. So my idea of making it easier for the man and indeed woman in the street still produced results, but not dramatically enough for it to have the “Wow” effect that a diet book needs to be worth writing.

Of course, the initial weight loss I experienced and the euphoria of the amazing way I suddenly felt, enthused me to spread the good news. This was no clinical trial, just the experience of one man, and it’s a well known fact that initial weight loss is faster than ongoing weight loss.

The real good news is that Joe Cross’ method of destroying Carbohydrate and Sugar cravings is amazing. I will be back on juicing every day this week and next; until I fly to Florida for the Card Player Festival.

As Shaz has attested in this post, the feel good factor in this juicing diet is truly amazing. My personal feeling is; give juicing a chance and it could well cure whatever ails you. In the words of John Lennon, “All we are saying is give juicing a chance.”

All the information you need can be found on Joe Cross’ own website, where you can find a link to his multi-award winning documentary: Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Two other great sources of information on Facebook and Youtube are Dr. Mercola and a juicing fanatic, Drew Canole who has taken over the mantle of Jack LaLanne. Look up Jack Lallane on Youtube and read about him on Wikepedia, he lived well into his nineties and was as strong as an ox until the end.

Having sold thousands of diet books when I owned City Books in Hove, I am totally aware that a diet book based on anything but the truth is a waste of time; that’s why the vast majority of diet books are total crap.  

One good diet book I would recommend is Leslie Kenton’s raw energy. Another great book, if you are suffering from Carbohydrate and Sugar Addiction, as most overweight people are is, Potatoes not Prozac by Kathleen DesMaisons.
I shall hopefully make my way to my desired weight goal without boring you regularly with a 1lb by 1lb account of my progress.

With my new found energy I intend to return to playing more poker, but still in my old lethargic style of just calling where most players would raise.

All the Best  El Sid,  Sid Harris.

Added on the advice of a friend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WuJrfYG7oh8
Dr. Robert Young tells it as it is.

[Marky147]

Interesting documentary and definitely some food for thought in it. I might get myself a juicer and try a few of the juices on the site.

[RedFox]

Hi Sid

So enjoying this diary well written and extremely interesting story.

Im still endeavouring with my cautious style and trying to avoid snacks which were mainly biscuits, still successful and 3 lbs dropped this week.

I was interested in your boxing days and tried the sport when 19 mainly to get fitter for the sports I loved rugby and football.

My weight when that age was in the region of 11st 4 lbs and height similar to yours a tad under 5 11. I didnt last long due to conflict of interests but the coach at the boxing club felt if I was to box competitively he wanted me to get below 10 10 and fight welterweight. As much as I tried I couldnt get the 1/2 stone off - dipped below 11st but bounced back up to become reasonably comfortable at 11 7.

Still cant believe I nearly hit 19 st and all seems to be on the belly. Its not what I want and Im very serious to ensure I get this weight reduced for health and feel good reasons.

Im interested in what will you do once you hit your target weight - stop juicing and eat a balanced diet?

Cheers

ps Im on the verge of buying a juicer but tbh a wee bit worried taking weight off so quickly wont help after reaching my desired goal.

[Supernova]

Hi Sid,

Raw turmeric found - on the web of all places, will have to see what condition it arrives in.

Re diet books, it's a known fact that only a small percentage of dieters keep the weight off, every new diet books sell in millions probably to the same people who bought the last one. Sticking to the diet is one thing keeping it off is another. People have a tendency to go back to old eating habits. What can really make a difference is a lifestyle change or as I call it a foodstyle.

You may or may not of heard of Jason Vale (the Juice Master), he got into juicing because like Joe Cross he was overweight, and very unhealthy. He brought out the lose 5lb in 5 days & 7lb in 7 days juice plans & has just done an extended 28 day juice with a group of volunteers with various illnesses for a documentary to be shown next year.

I can recommend a the following books I have of his that I've read (there are more):

Slim4Life - Freedom from the food trap

Turbo-charge your life in 14 days

Both are about why diets don't work, why we get hooked on carbs etc and how to change by adding juicing to your life even in a small way and there are some recipes in both books.

The fresh & funky juice book is also good, mainly recipies.


I look forward to your next update Sid & what your eventual decision will be on how you will continue.

Shaz