[podcast]http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/wp-content/uploads/LLVLCep7.mp3[/podcast]
Hey everybody and welcome back to “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show With Jimmy Moore” for our seventh (yep, I said SEVENTH) episode! As always, Jimmy has a podcast show for you today that is practical, encouraging and motivating for anyone who wants to lose weight and keep it off for good.
Do you remember the last time you were sick or really stressed? Did it have a negative impact on the way you looked at food? Do you sometimes follow the old adage to “feed a cold” a little too enthusiastically?
If so, then listen to Jimmy Moore this week who has been battling a cold himself as he offers some excellent advice for you to think about before shoveling a big bowl of “comfort food” like macaroni & cheese or chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream into your ailing craw!
This week “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show” is proud to introduce to you the latest sponsor to join the team: CarbSmart! This incredible online low-carb retail store has products that will help people on every level of their low-carb lifestyle. In fact, they have put together a beautiful array of special Christmas gift baskets ready to be given to that low-carb friend or family member in your life. THANK YOU, CarbSmart!
Also, we are appreciative to ChocoPerfection bars for their sponsorship of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” They have been thrilled to have the opportunity to serve so many of you over the past month or so and stand ready to help provide you with their signature decadent-tasting chocolate bars without the sugar. Go get ya some TODAY!
LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE 7:
– Our sponsors CarbSmart and ChocoPerfection
– ChocoPerfection “Raisinets” recipe
– Blog posts I have written about being stressed while on low-carb:
“I Need Comfort Food, I’M STRESSED!” and
“So Bad News Really Does Come In Threes”
Did you miss any part of what Jimmy said in this week’s episode? Click through below for a full transcript!
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there everyone! You are listening to lucky Episode 7 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore” and today I’m gonna discuss a subject that all of us at one time or another during our low-carb lifestyle have had to face at least once and oftentimes a whole lot more than that. It is unfortunately an inevitable part of life in general that cannot be avoided, but how you handle it can spell the difference between your success or failure in your weight loss and weight maintenance efforts. We’ll get into that more momentarily.
First off, I’d like to introduce you to a brand new sponsor of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” But they certainly don’t need any introduction to the low-carb community because they have been a leader in providing quality products and customer service for 7 years. It’s CarbSmart, America’s favorite low-carb, sugar-free, diabetic-friendly online retailer offering more than 1300 speciality items to help people who are following the low-carb lifestyle. With Christmas just around the corner now, CarbSmart has some absolutely gorgeous gift baskets for that special low-carb loved one in your life. Visit CarbSmart.com to browse through the selection of 15 different low-carb Christmas, Hannakuh and kosher baskets that can be delivered just in time for the holidays. But you’ll want to get your order in soon to beat the rush!
We are also proud to be sponsored by ChocoPerfection bars found online at ChocoPerfection.com. If you haven’t placed an order for these incredible sugar-free, low-carb chocolate bars yet, then you really don’t know what you’re missing. There’s a reason I describe ChocoPerfection as the “best-tasting low-carb chocolate bar” that’s ever been created. It is indeed the real deal as so many of my podcast listeners and blog readers can attest to and I think you’ll agree with just one bite. Go to the show notes section at TheLivinLowCarbShow.com to find a link to a special recipe featuring ChocoPerfection bars and blueberries. If you loved Raisinets as a kid, then you will DEFINITELY want to try this awesome recipe.
Alrighty then, so how’s it going for you this week? Are you feeling good and is life going great in your world right now? If so, then that’s absolutely fantastic! CONGRATULATIONS and keep at it! Hopefully that motivates you to do your very best on your low-carb lifestyle and I cheer you on to continued success. But, sometimes life itself has a way of butting into our normal day-to-day routine and get us off our game, doesn’t it? You know what I’m talking about–it’s the dreaded unexpected turn of events that slap you upside the head like a two by four and leave you shaking your head in stunned amazement at what just happened. Whether it is something with your job, your family or even yourself, the stresses of life can ruin what is otherwise a relatively perfect life. And this includes your low-carb lifestyle, too.
When strife happens, our first reaction for the most part is to turn to those things that make us feel good and comfort us–like food, for example! You know, I’ve personally had one of those weeks I’d rather forget. After visiting with my family in Florida over the Thanksgiving holidays which was wonderful, I returned home with a very special gift all wrapped up nicely for me. But this isn’t the kind of gift you EVER want to open. What is it? You may notice it in my groggy, stopped up voice today, but I have a pretty bad head cold right now. And it’s not just any cold, though, this one’s a knock-you-off-your-feet, full-fledged slamma jamma doozy of a cold! It hit me right between the eyeballs last Monday afternoon starting off innocently as a slightly dry, scratchy throat and then slowly progressed into my nasal cavity, worked its way down into my chest with congestion that created a deep cracklin’ cough, and just an overall feeling of BLAH! Most of the the week I have been just so dead tired to the point that I haven’t even felt well enough to go exercise. People who know me and my rigid exercise routine will tell you that Jimmy Moore MUST be sick if he doesn’t go for his daily cardio workout! But that’s how bad it has been for me. In fact, when I thought I was feeling well enough to go play volleyball at my church last Thursday night as I do every week, I came home and discovered I had a fever of 101! Boy oh boy! And then to make matters worse, Friday rolls around and my wife gets a call out of the blue from her father with news that her mother has been hospitalized and will need to have most of her stomach removed in an emergency surgical procedure to be done sometime this week. So we immediately packed up her things and drove 500 miles to Virginia coughing and hacking all the way there, slept overnight on Friday, and then drove back home to South Carolina sick as a dog still on Saturday. I have slept most of the weekend trying to shake this darn thing, but it has refused to go away.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve been THIS sick because I have generally been quite healthy ever since losing nearly 200 pounds on low-carb and taking daily vitamin supplements since 2004. Nevertheless, the inevitable happened and I have been as sick as sick can be. In fact, as I record this podcast show right now, I am currently going on about one week since my symptoms first began and I’m STILL dealing with this stupid cold. The worst part is it has impacted my regular low-carb routine which has led to a slight weight gain this week. No, I haven’t cheated and given myself permission to eat a bunch of high-carb foods that I don’t need just so I can try to feel better. But I have probably eaten a little more food in general this week than normal. I don’t know what it is about colds, but they do make you want to just eat, eat, eat. Combine that with the inability to exercise and it’s a lethal one-two punch to your diet when you are livin’ la vida low-carb. This is not the way I had this week planned ahead of time. Sadly, this is the kind of thing that could very well discourage someone who is less experienced at dealing with such situations as they arise during their low-carb lifestyle. That’s why I decided to do this podcast today on this topic because it doesn’t need to be that way.
When people are stressed or feel bad during an illness, why do we always want to turn to food for comfort? Especially when you are on a weight loss plan such as low-carb, the very last thing you would want to do is sabotage your hard efforts toward changing your habits, right? But guess what many of us do anyway? We stuff our mouths with such things as pizza, potato chips, cakes, cookies and who could ever forget ice cream. UGH! Emotional eating that is dictated by how we feel is an extremely risky place to be in. Admit it, though, you know you’ve done it, haven’t you? Don’t lie because I know you have. Heck, I’ll admit I have, you have, everyone has at some point in the past. Life can most certainly deal some hefty blows that make you just want to reach for a big bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup, candied pecans, whipped cream and a cherry on top. Can I get a witness anyone? Hoooooo! After all, you do know stressed spelled backwards is DESSERTS, so we’ve all done it before. But now that you’re livin’ la vida low-carb, the days of mindlessly stuffing your mouth with high-carb, sugary junk food are well in the past because you have committed yourself to be forever changed.
You are livin’ la vida low-carb and you know being sick or stressed does not give you a free license to blow your low-carb plan. Sure, I know it’s tempting to rationalize supposedly how much better eating those high-carb comfort foods will make you feel to just have a little bite or two. That’s a natural feeling to have and I certainly don’t blame you if that desire creeps its way into your head. But don’t fool yourself into thinking you can splurge your way through sickness or difficult circumstances because these events are recurring for the rest of your life. How you deal with them individually starting right now could be the major difference between whether you become a weight loss champion or just another has-been who blames his diet for being the culprit in his inability to drop the weight. By actively refusing to give in to that temptation to eat a high-carb comfort food by reaching for a healthier low-carb food instead during your time of stress or sickness reveals a lot about your character and whether you have chosen to be on a diet or if you have earnestly made the change in your mind that low-carb living is truly going to be your permanent lifestyle change. This doesn’t just happen, you must make a conscious decision to do this and never look back again. Falling prey to temptation when you are weak is a sign that you have not solidified that change in your mind yet. People ask me all the time what they need to do to lose weight. You might be surprised to hear me say that they don’t necessarily need to go on a low-carb diet. Say what? You heard me, not everyone needs to go on a low-carb plan. While I think it is an excellent method for losing weight for many people, I don’t consider low-carb the ONLY way people should eat unlike those sanctimonious low-fat diet supporters who think their way of eating has been anointed with some special magic powers to help people lose weight and get healthy. The fact is low-carb is and has always been just as healthy and effective as low-fat, but the media, government and those so-called health “experts” have refused to admit it to the general public. So what are my simple steps for weight loss success? Here they are: make up your mind ahead of time that you will sincerely put forth the effort to lose weight no matter what, find a plan that works for you, implement that program exactly as prescribed by its author, and then keep doing it for the rest of your life. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. If you can do low-fat using that criteria, then go for it. And, yes, even livin’ la vida low-carb. It’s all a matter of personal choice based on what you can make work for you. So, GO FOR IT!
Before I go today, let me offer one more word to the wise: Just because you are sick or stressed doesn’t mean your low-carb commitment should be a mess. It is indeed possible to stick with livin’ la vida low-carb even in the midst of turmoil. Just remember, comfort food doesn’t have to be carb-y food, so make up your mind before the sickness and stress comes that you will remain faithful to your low-carb plan. Don’t pretend you’ll never get sick or be stressed either because sooner or later it’s gonna hit ya! Hopefully by the next podcast show I’ll be feeling a lot better, so wish me well this week. And until next time, keep on livin’ la vida low-carb!