Friday, April 15, 2016

Well-Seasoned, And Trimmed Up by Guest Nike N. Chillemi

I'm entering a new phase of life as a 'seasoned citizen' where I find myself increasingly focused on health and a healthy life-style. I'm convinced many of the debilitating illnesses afflicting seniors have to do with life-style issues. In many cases a life-time of eating an unhealthy diet finally caught up.

Like many other people, I've tried an untold number of popular diets. If a magazine at the supermarket check-out featured a diet plan on its cover, it would often be added to my purchases. With fad diets, I found I did lose the ten pounds they claimed would come off the first week, but then I gained it back and then some. Some popular diet plans ban sugar, others cut carbs, while others cut fat content. Personally, I believe losing weight boils down to cutting calories and downsizing portion size.

I lost forty-eight pounds over the last year and a half by decreasing my calorie intake and increasing my physical exercise. I didn't go on an eight-hundred calorie diet. I never could've kept that up. Eight-hundred calories isn't a healthy calorie intake for an adult. Our bodies need enough fuel to keep all systems going.

After I got my accurate weight from my doctor, I Googled one of the many diet sites with a formula telling how many calories it takes to maintain that weight. Then I made a significant calories reduction, without going into deprivation. My doctor advised me to keep my carb count down, as well as my calorie count. Specifically, I was not only to reduce carbs but to changed the type of carbs I ate. On my new diet I could eat small amounts of brown rice instead to white rice, multi-grain or whole wheat bread rather than white bread. I nearly cut out sugar, junk food and most prepared foods. I purchased the foods God made, brought them home, and cooked them. With my sugar intake way down, my taste buds weren't jacked-up, and fresh fruit began tasting really sweet and delicious, so did some vegetables.

My goal was to lose weight, and that I did. An added benefit of cutting out "the whites" (sugar, white bread, white rice, white potatoes), junk food, and processed food was that my bad cholesterol went down and my good cholesterol went up.

I discovered what Veronica "Ronnie" Ingels, private investigator, and the heroine of my detective story trilogy learned -- that healthy eating can be fun. In the first book of the trilogy, HARMFUL INTENT, Ronnie went undercover in an organic cooking class. The experience changed her entire approach to food and eating. Hero Dawson Hughes knew Ronnie as a meat and potatoes gal, but came to respect her commitment to healthy eating.


Bio:
Like so many writers, Nike N. Chillemi started at a very young age. Her first major work was a Crayola, fully illustrated book she penned as a little girl (colored might be more accurate) about her then off-the-chart love of horses. Today, you might call her a crime fictionista. Her passion is crime fiction. She likes her bad guys really bad and her good guys smarter and better. Nike is the founding board member of the Grace Awards and is its Chair, a reader's choice awards for excellence in Christian fiction. She has been a judge in the 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 Carol Awards in the suspense, mystery, and romantic suspense categories; and an Inspy Awards 2010 judge in the Suspense/Thriller/Mystery category. Her four novel Sanctuary Point series (out of print), set in the mid-1940s has finaled, won an award, and garnered critical acclaim. The first novel in her Veronica "Ronnie" Ingels/Dawson Hughes trilogy, HARMFUL INTENT, won in the Grace Awards 2014 Mystery/Romantic Suspense/Thriller/Historical Suspense category. She has written book reviews for The Christian Pulse online magazine. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and John 3:16 Marketing Network. http://nikechillemi.wordpress.com/

Purchase Links

1 comment: