Do I Look Fat In This?

By week 12, I had lost 54 pounds and I was noticing much less aching in my joints and I was sleeping longer. For many years, my sleeping had been a huge issue and I could not tell you the last time I was not in pain. As I continued to read, I began to understand that the raw chocolate contained natural chemicals that helped the human body reduce inflammation throughout. Inflammation is the root cause for much of the discomfort many people live with everyday. But it goes much deeper than just joint pain… Inflammation also affects the heart, hypertension, lungs and almost every organ of the body.

I began to talk to other people who were consuming these products on a regular basis and the stories were astounding. People were getting completely off their insulin shots, getting completely off their blood pressure medicine and getting off of there Cox 2 inhibitors… People were being healed instead of taking meds that treated their symptoms. The human body appears to have amazing healing abilities if we put in the right fuel. Raw chocolate is the right fuel to start. When you add enough water and stay off the processed foods and chemicals your body begins to function and function well.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I am by no means advocating a diet so rigid a busy person can not stay on it… I am merely suggesting that you hesitate 10 seconds before you put “it” in your mouth and ask yourself what is in this food?  I no longer allow myself to eat what is being hyped on TV. Usually if food companies are spending money advertising, the product is bad for you. (personal research) Keeping the antioxidant level high in my blood stream has reduced my appetite for carbs. With that insatiable appetite in check, I am able to make good decisions about food at every meal.

As I mentioned earlier, I was taking 10 to 20 Advil everyday, everyday for twenty years… My kidneys were beginning to lose their ability to filter (Creatinine levels were getting extremely low) the kidney situation was directly related to the ibuprofen consumption.

I went back to the doctor in March of 2009. I had been on the chocolate for 6 months and I had been pretty much off the processed food for 5 months. I weighed and had lost 70 pounds. Oh My God!!!!! Are you kidding me??? My doctor had never seen me below 340 pounds and I weighed 306!!!! I had blood work done again to track any changes and scheduled a return visit. Three days later, I went back to the Doctor’s office to talk about the blood work results. Doc came in the room and sat down… He never sits down. We went through the blood work results and they were as he put it “clinically remarkable”. My numbers were so improved that Doc said that he thought there may have been a mix up at the lab… (Doc in denial).  He asked me what I was doing to make such a major change in my life. I told him “raw chocolate” everyday. This time he didn’t laugh, he ordered chocolate for himself and his sister. How funny is that? Both are still eating the chocolate everyday and both are singing its praises.

You may have noticed that to this point I have not mentioned anything about exercise. The truth is I had not done anything towards that end because I was afraid. Afraid I would injure myself and that would derail my weight loss efforts. Imagine, you have so big for so long that you are worried walking for exercise will cause you harm… Sad…

As much as I would like to fast forward to the present and tell you this is easy I cannot. The daily grind of this life change is the beauty. The “get up every morning and look in the mirror and tell yourself the truth about what is necessary to become healthy” grind.

• Live Strong, Dick

[Note:  Dick's story begins in two previous posts below.  Scroll down to find them.]

I have been blessed with so many good things in my life. Hard work and luck and perhaps Divine intervention have added up to a pretty good ride when my battle with weight is subtracted from the equation.

So at 48 years old, I am surrounded with all the things a man could yearn for but I was approaching the point that none of these blessings maintained their inherent value. I had eaten my way to edge of oblivion…

On October 12^th, 2008 I began to eat this so called Healthy Chocolate and for some unknown reason I ate the chocolate just as I was directed my dear old mom.  I bought 2 months worth and thought “what the hey” might as well eat it. I ate 4 pieces a day and began to consume water at an increased rate. By day 6 my lovely bride asked me if I was feeling alright to which I replied. “I am just fine, dear.”

By day 10, my bride asked me again if I was feeling alright to which I replied, “I fine and why are you asking me that question?” She said, “Dick you are not eating near as much food as you usually eat.” She went on to say, that through all the years she had known me there had been one thing that held true… my appetite…. and from her point of view I was just simply not eating like normal.  So, I dismissed her claim and went to bed per the normal. When I got up the next morning I thought about what she had said so I got on the scale. I had weighed the 12^th and it was 376. Special scales for fat people… $200 dollars… and in like new condition because I had only stepped on them a couple of time in 5 years. Day 11 my weight was 368… 8 pounds in 11 days. Hmmm? I felt fine, didn’t realize I had changed anything but I had lost 8 pounds.

I went to my primary care physician that afternoon and used their scale and my weight was confirmed… 368. So I got excited!!!

By the way, if you want to look at the products from company please to www.cocoxo.net . Look on “my links” ( all kinds of info) and you will be able to learn about the company and the products! This chocolate is a little expensive but when I looked at all the fast food I was no longer eating and all the “crap” I was no longer buying the cost factor went down significantly. I ordered 3 more months worth and started to get excited about the possibilities.

I began to realize I really was eating less and I felt great. I started (involuntarily) cutting back on carbs because I just simply did not crave carbs. I accomplished this by eating lean meat and lots of greens. Over the next 6 weeks my diet consisted of nothing out of a box or a bag and I spent a lot of time shopping for the right food and getting all the processed foods out of my diet. I left off things like pizza, Doritos, cheeseburgers and ice cream… and replaced it with romaine lettuce, blue cheese and bacon salads, with small steaks, fried chicken with skin on but no flour with spinach and cream cheese and chocolate, chocolate and chocolate. I would have some walnuts, almonds and Macadamia nuts and lots of water. As I continued on this pattern I stayed satisfied and by the end of the 8^th week I had lost 44 pounds!!!

I went back to the doctor and when I weighed he said do you realize you have lost 44 pounds? And he asked how are you doing it? I replied I am eating raw chocolate everyday! He laughed at me so I didn’t persist. I left his office with a huge warm fuzzy… with HOPE!!! Let’s face it, I had lost 44 pounds, but I was still a massive human being… But my size 54 pants were now 48’s and that was real progress. And I had done this right through the holidays… WOW!

I stayed at it, I mean I ate the chocolate every day 4 times a, I drank water, I ate greens and lean meat and my body continued to change.

• Live Strong,
  Dick

A little history… I was raised by a mother and father who were raised in the mountains of eastern Kentucky in the 1930’s and 40’s. They were taught to eat lard and flour at every meal. Anything else was a bonus. 

I mean think about it…biscuits and gravy for breakfast, pork fat and biscuits for lunch and of course whatever was in season (deer, squirrel, rabbit) for dinner with biscuits and gravy. Sunday there was usually fried chicken involved and yup, biscuits and gravy. Every meal was a gift and you had better eat every bite regardless of the taste… add lard or flour to taste. So, as I grew up I was shown the diet that my parents knew… both parents were over weight…shock, shock. This situation was further complicated by the “fast food” explosion. I, like 90% of America was all in on the McDonald’s train wreck.

I was very athletic in high school and had several offers to play college baseball and football but I went into the family business, coal mining. So I managed to keep my weight tolerable (250-275) until my mid twenties. That was my first significant orthopedic surgery…we’ll get back to that… My diet was so bad that even in the military I managed to find the wrong foods in 30 different countries. Seriously, countries full of skinny people and I managed to gain weight.

The coal mines played out and I joined the Navy. Much of the physical labor I was doing in the mines went away with the pickax. My job in the Navy was hi tech so there was a lot of sitting involved. I did the mandatory physical training while in the military but there was no nutrition police so it was a food celebration every day. I mean, free food 4 times a day c’mon, add lard and flour and military food isn’t too bad. Okay, you get the drift.

Now in my late twenties I went through 4 serious orthopedic surgeries (Achilles reconstruction, both AC joints removed, and heel bone arch reattachment) due to my body failing under athletic stress. Looking back I understand why I had so many injuries. I was entirely too fat to be playing ball, period. So I got on the couch and continued to eat the food that brought me so much comfort, the food that took me back home, the food that was cheap and always available… lard and flour. Only by now high fructose corn syrup had been added to make everything taste better!!!!!

This goes on for twenty years and we are now back to the 48 year old, 376 pound, scared to death individual who had absolutely no hope.

Hope arrives…

Folks, I want to share with you my friend Dick’s story.  He and I went to high school together and he has been on his own weight management journey.  Having just seen Dick in October, I want to say that he looks AMAZING.

Here’s what Dick has to say:

Hey Katrina! Dick M. here from central Kentucky.

Well it has happened: the Christmas Season has passed and many of us are facing the demons that we manage to leave behind (Ignore) for the holidays. Many of us managed to gain a few pounds during December.  And like me, a lot of us were already in desperate need of some sort of sensible controls to helps us make day to day decisions that bring better us health.

I want to share with you my journey over the last couple of years if I may.

I am 50 years old and I have been over weight most of my life. In October 2008 I was 6 foot 4 inches tall and weighed 376 pounds. I had been on the couch for ten years and was taking massive amounts of pain pills and Advil just to get through each and every work day. At 48 years old I was not sure I would make it to age 55 and to be honest  I was pretty sure if I made it to 55 I would probably be crippled or have zero quality of life. Hope was pretty much gone from my day to day thinking.

There have always been a million reasons why I was so large… family history, stationary life style due to athletic injuries, parents taught me to eat the worst foods on earth… yadda, yadda.

The bottom line is that I had never taken personal responsibility for my health.

In October of 2008 I was introduced to a product called “Healthy Chocolate” raw unprocessed chocolate that is life changing super nutrition for almost everyone on earth when consumed on a regular basis.  Of course I laughed at the very notion of “Healthy Chocolate” and pretty much dismissed it as another scam. But the person that introduced me to the products was my mother and she made a very compelling case for me to at least try the products for a couple of months.

So, I bought two months worth of this “Healthy Chocolate” and began to read about the “ORAC” phenomena. My initial research turned up some very interesting information form many credible medical and education institutions. I found some amazing research results in the National Institutes of Health archives (nih.org) and at Brunswick Labs. I was feeling some relief from my severe Osteoarthritis pain within two weeks of starting the Healthy  Chocolate. I had stopped drinking diet soda (unexplainable at this point) and I had lost 16 pounds in three weeks.

So, I began to dig deeper… well past the first page of a Goggle search.

I being very independent all my life and never being much of a joiner decided to sign up with this company so I could buy the Healthy Chocolate wholesale.

That makes two things I actually belong to… Sam’s Club is the other.

Please let me know if I need to continue. I do not want to bore your readers but I am willing to share an incredible story that could help many people.

Live Strong, Dick