The cost of food

 Have you ever thought about the price of food at popular fast food joints and drive-thru restaurants? Everyone always wants to get a better deal for their buck. But are they actually getting a better meal?

Many popular fast food companies are offering deals such as a dollar for a hamburger or a dollar for a french fry or a dollar for a soda pop. But when it comes down to it, is that dollar what you want to look at for your health? 

Studies show that most people who eat fast food and processed food, end up being a victim of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure). So by this you end up paying not only more money into the system to care for your health, but you're also paying with your body or with your life. 

Who in their right mind would want to inflict heart disease upon themselves, or diabetes upon themselves, or paralysis from a stroke?  Who wakes up in the morning and says today "I want to have a heart attack and have to have a triple bypass?" Who says "I can't wait to get home and poke my finger so I can see if I need to get some insulin in me?"  What person actually enjoys having a stroke so that they're face droops and their body does not function anymore? Let's get down to the nitty-gritty . Who wants to lose their freedom to choose? These are the kind of questions that people don't think of as they're putting that next french fry into their mouth.

As you're reading this are you finding yourself getting angry with me? Are you thinking about discontinuing this article? Or are you thinking of how you would like to write a comment to me that would be obscene?

Well I don't blame you. A little over a year ago I was in the same category that you are in now. I loved fast food. I loved French fries, and Hamburgers, and Tacos, and Deep fried chicken, and potatoes any way you could get them. And most of all I love the soft warm buttery taste of fresh out of the oven bread. My husband and I could sit down with a loaf of bread and devour the whole loaf in one sitting. It didn't matter what kind of bread. It could be white bread, it could be banana bread, it could be zucchini bread. As long as it was bread it was yum. We would binge eat and wouldn't stop until the entire loaf was gone.

What we got for our love of food, was a massive amount of weight put on us. I ended up with hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes, neuropathy (nerve pain in my feet), migraine headaches, fatigue, and arthritis through all of my joints. The weight that I've been carrying is breaking my hips down, so that I would probably have to have hip replacement surgery in the next 10 years.

For the love of food, I'm paying with my body. What's worse is all the medical expenses. My insurance rates have doubled. My deductibles are larger than they used to be. I'm having to have more annual testing on things. I can't find life insurance but I may need it. 

Cancer and diabetes run rapid in my family.  The women in my family tend to die early. They die in between their 40s and their 60s. My brother found out that he had type 2 diabetes 5 years ago. I told him to watch his feet for ulcers, because ulcers can lead to amputation. Working in Nursing and Care facilities I saw a lot of people that were amputees because of diabetes. My brother didn't listen to me. He thought that because he was the older sibling, he was smarter than I was. He kept drinking diet soda, and beer, and eating anything that he wanted, because he honestly believed that his insulin injections would take care of anything. His blood sugar continue to rise and he ended up becoming an amputee. He lost has left foot, and  his right leg up to the knee. He also became blind in one eye, and he now attends dialysis three times a week.

So when my doctor told me that I too had become a diabetic I became afraid of becoming my brother. But unlike my brother I decided to do something about it. I was determined to go home and start massive research into what I needed to do to become normal again. This started me on the path of a ketogenic diet. 

Well it's been over a year. I weigh 78 pounds less than I did before. And I can honestly tell you (since I have had my A1C checked repeatedly over the past year), I am at 100% in remission, and no longer am a diabetic. My doctor tells me that there is no cure for diabetes that you can only be in remission, but I plan to continue to live the ketogenic lifestyle and therefore I have no plans of returning to the status of diabetic.

[I just want to remind you by me saying this that we are talking about type 2 diabetes that is created by the way that we live, and not type 1 diabetes the way that some people are born. type 2 diabetes is something that you can manage and that you can be cured from (although doctors refer to remission). Type 1 diabetes is something that you cannot be cured of.]

What I'm trying to tell you here is that going out everyday and eating fast food and junk food and food that's processed and food that is unhealthy for you, maybe those things cost less money at the time; but then later on down the road with the health problems I was having, I ended up paying for my decisions.

So I guess I'm just asking you the biggest question here... Do you want to pay for your lifestyle now or a few years down the road when you are just getting to relax a little? Instead of enjoying your Golden years, instead you have pain filled years.  Right now you have a choice. Each time you eat those bad unhealthy foods and make those choices, you're going to pay more down the road even though you didn't pay much for it today. It's not dollar for dollar like you think it is. It's a life sentence.

If you want to stay healthy and have a long life, you need to make the choice to live a healthy lifestyle. No one can do it for you, you can't be lazy about it. You can't make excuses. you can't say "well I like this better and I just can't get away from this" It doesn't work that way. Listen! When you're suffering, and telling yourself "why didn't I do this", it's too late.

Americans have enormous health problems. They get worse and worse and worse. Each year the grocery stores put more junk on the shells. Go to a store pick up an item read the label and see how much wheat, corn, sugar, sodium and fructose corn syrup is in the labels. all of these things are bad for your health period and they will take their toll on your body.

Other countries like Australia are right behind the American people. Here is a video of what dietitians are finding in australia.

https://youtu.be/kocPaXRcPmA

If you want to change your life you can do it today and there's help available. Dr Sten Eckburg on YouTube tube is an expert who is helping his patients for free. Then there's Dr Berg he actually has products and information for sale that will help you on your path period you can also find hundreds of doctors who believe in the ketogenic lifestyle including the most important cardiac specialist in San Diego California

I think about all the time I wasted, not knowing. If I could tell my younger self what I know now. All I can do is pass this information along to you, and hope that you utilize it.

The ketogenic diet has been a real saving grace to millions of people in the world. So you just have to ask yourself one question. "Are you going to be one of those millions?" I am!