Thoughts on prune juice and other weighty subjects

The numbers:

• Fasting Blood Glucose:  122mg/dl.  That is what I get for being smug yesterday.  Still, okay.
• Weight:  189 lbs.  Sigh. Thanksgiving lingers on. 
• Exercise:  45 minutes on the bike, and I really pushed it.  I feel great.  At least I accomplished something useful today.
• Mood:  8.00  It's better than it seems.  See below.

Menu:

• Breakfast:  Banana, tangerine, oatmeal and raisins with soy milk.  Have to get my daily dose of plant sterols.I really don't know what they are, but they are supposed to be good for me and soy has a rich source.
• Lunch:  Leftover pot roast sandwich (multi-grain bread) and an apple.  Can't find any Michigan apples, the nation's finest.
• Dinner:  Leftovers again, which is fine. I like leftovers. 
• Snacks:  One serving of pretzel rods (2.5 rods) and one serving of prunes.  No, I do not have a problem; we just have them and I like them.  

Prunes:
How do they make prune juice from a dried fruit?  Why do Klingon's like prune juice?  Is it similar to a Klingon drink?  Did Quaark ever add a little something extra to Wharf's prune juice? 

Other weighty subjects:
Moving on from prunes, I read this about belly fat. Americans have more of it than the English and have a higher rate of type two diabetes than the English.  It seems to be the best predictor of type two diabetes. Comparing American and English people who have all of the usual symptoms to predict diabetes  -- obesity, high body mass index (bmi), smoking and lower education level all in the a group of age 52 to 85 years old -- the difference that seems to explain the higher rate is flabby bellies.  Our waists are just bigger. 

The thought is that fat inhibits the liver and the liver can no longer absorb and store glucose. 

How explain our bigger bellies?  We eat a higher fat diet and we exercise less.  How to fix this?  Eat less, eat better and exercise more. Duh. It always comes down to that, doesn't it?

Well, my belly has shrunk.  My BMI and weight is still higher than it should be, but I am just about passed the the type 2 condition.  Based on me, there may be something to this. My long ago BA degree from Michigan State (Big 10 Football Champs) still remains. Had to work that in somehow.

The Banana Flip Diet

But first, my numbers for today:

• Fasting blood glucose:  108 mg/dl.  Right where it ought to be.  
• Weight:  189.  Stuck and I still have Christmas and New Years to get past.  Still I only gained a pound or two, so it's not all bad.
• Exercise.  45 minutes on the bike.  Back in the saddle again.  After a nine day hiatus over Thanksgiving, I was really feeling it at the 30 minute mark.  Still, I felt great when it was over.  
• Mood:  7.5. Have to break through the rut, drop off the plateau.  

Menu:

• Breakfast:  One banana, one tangerine, oatmeal with craisins.
• Lunch:  Whole wheat pasta with some of Cotten's barbecue sauce and bit of grated cheese.  I called it Pasta di Cotten.  Plus one apple. 
• Stuff and stuff night.  A bit of this, a bit of that.  It did include a lot of leftover roasted vegetables from last night. 
• Snacks:  A handful of Baked Cheetos and a bit of turkey jerky.  

Losing weight is really a matter of simple physics.  The energy used, calories, has to be greater than the energy ingested.  Do that with a sufficient deficit and there is weight loss.  I have hit a plateau, which means I am no longer using more calories than I am taking in.  Not sure what I am doing wrong, but I am not doing something right.  Sort of.  I am now consistently below 120 mg/dl now and most often below 110 mg/dl.  The BG is getting consistently better, yet my weight is staying pretty much in a narrow range.  So I guess I am do something right, just not enough of it.

Which brings me to the Twinkie Diet.   Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, confirmed that if the calories used is greater than the calories consumed, you, I, anyone, will lose weight.  He put himself on a junk food diet, was careful to limit his calories, about 1,800 per day. Every three hours he ate a package of Twinkies.  To add variety, had would substitute other Hostess or Little Debbie's cakes, Doritos, sugary cereals ( Captain Crunch? I love Captain Crunch), Oreos, canned green beans and a few celery stalks.  He also drank a protein shake and took a multivitamin.   By all standards, this was an unhealthy diet.

Yet the results strong suggest quantity to be more important that quality.  His weight dropped, his good cholesterol went up, his bad cholesterol went down, his triglycerides went down and his body mass index went from overweight to normal.   By normal measurements he is in good health, even if much of the food he ate is not consider food for good health. 

Numbers don't lie, right?  Any exam would consider him to be healthy. Maybe I need to change my approach.  Maybe it's time to give up the roasted vegetables for something...better?  different?  tasty?

I have never been a fan of Twinkies. My preferred snack cake of choice was the Banana Flip.  Sadly they are not made anymore.   Here is the only picture I could find of them.  As a kid I loved these things.  Spongy, sweet yellow cake wrapped around a creamy sweet gooey something and it all tasted like bananas, or the laboratory version of bananas.  They were also seemed a bit bigger than competing cake products for the same price, so it was hitting all of my big buttons for a guilty pleasures:  taste, size and value.  

Here is the only picture I could find of them.  My beloved Flip is in the back row.  I can almost taste it. 

Update:  Yes, my beloved Banana Flips are still being made by The Nickles Bakery Company.   Sadly, not available here in Texas, and that may be just as well.  For good measure, here is a recipe for my beloved Banana Flip.  No matter how good, this could never be as good as the original fresh from the cellophane package.