Eggstraordinary Ingredients.

Back in my early 20s, I was a pack-a-day smoker. That was until Michigan increased taxes on cigarettes by 50 cents to $1.25 per pack of 20 cigarettes in August 2002 and again by 75 cents to $2.00 per pack in July 2004. The Michigan tax is in addition to the federal cigarette tax of $1.01 per pack. With cigarettes close to $5.00 per pack, I instantly quit smoking and never looked back.

Quitting cigarettes wasn't easy. It takes about three days to get the nicotine out of your system and curb the nicotine withdrawal headaches. I expedited the process by drinking about a gallon of water daily while rotating in a gallon of orange juice over 72 hours. I then carried straws everywhere I went to replace the holding of a cigarette for the next 12 months.

Only after three days of your last cigarette do your lungs begin to repair themselves from the smoke damage. If you pick up smoking again, you damage your lungs again, and only after you stop smoking will the lungs once again repair themselves. You have to stay off cigarettes for good if you want your lungs to reach optimal health.

Losing and sustaining weight loss is very similar to quitting smoking.?You must overhaul the habits that got you to where you are healthwise; it is no easy feat. Moderation doesn't work for most people for several reasons: Gut damage, ultra-processed food is designed to be addictive, and finally, it takes an average of 3,500 to lose one pound. Let's say Monday to Friday, you stay in a calorie deficit of 500 calories. That's 2500 calories. Saturday comes, and you eat out for dinner and enjoy a glass of wine and dessert. Not only are the chances high your restaurant meal undid the calories deficit that week, you likely went over in calories with that one meal because of how many restaurants prepare their food. This vicious cycle leads to eating disorders and other unhealthy habits.

You would never smoke cigarettes in "moderation" because you would be right back where you started. Same thing with ultra-processed food.

On a related topic, Tobacco companies own countless big food names. A couple of examples include:

Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds led the transition to sweetened beverages in 1963 when it purchased Hawaiian Punch from Pacific Hawaiian Products Company, according to the documents.?Other products in this family brand include Nabisco, Oreo, Ritz, Snackwell.

Philip Morris purchased Kraft in 1988, combining the company a year later with its other food unit, General Foods Corp. to form Kraft General Foods. The company was later reorganized to form Kraft Foods Inc. in 1995. In the process, Philip Morris acquired Kool-Aid, via General Foods, in the same year. Other brands owned by Philip Morris include: Oscar Myer, Jello, Post Cereals, Maxwell House)

How to lose weight for good without "dieting"

After learning I was lactose and gluten intolerant with a leaky gut in 2018, I began to overhaul my diet in phases. I eliminated most commercial dairy (except organic butter), gluten, candy, and my 6-cup-a-day coffee habit and stopped eating out; I went from eating out for 90% of my meals to cooking everything at home. By the time COVID hit in March 2020, I was down from 169 to 148lbs. I slashed my cholesterol by 40% without a single pill.

My weight continued with a slow and steady approach of 1 to 2lbs per month. In March 2021, I weighed in at 132.4. Despite the extreme adversity I have been under, I sustained my weight; Today, my weight fluctuates between 130 and 134lbs; I wear size 26 jeans and size 4 to 6 tops. At 5'10" tall, I don't need to lose more weight, but I am focused on building muscle.? I never had a target weight of 131lbs. My actual target was 145. My body has other ideas; my body's natural preferred weight is in the low 130s as this is where I stay despite people messing with me.

The best part of all? The days of my annual sinus infections are gone!! I have been off of all allergy medication now going on two years. In 2018, I was contemplating sinus surgery. When I ran my first marathon in 2019, I ran it with a sinus infection that post-race resulted in a round of steroids for a week! It was painful.

Stop eating out

Much of the Western diet consists of ultra-processed food products that contain countless chemicals that create havoc in our gut and hormones. And unfortunately, our labels don't inform us of what we are actually consuming. And these food products are designed to be addictive. Nor are they healthy. I often get asked, don't I get tempted? No. I don't. Now after learning what is in our food. For me thinking back to my health in 2018, when I had to visit a chiropractor weekly to pop my hip back in place due to high levels of inflammation, is all it takes for me never to want to touch certain food products again.

Last month, I went to a high-end QSR restaurant for the first time in two years and ordered "eggs." I usually love eggs and eat about a dozen a week. I tasted the eggs and hated the salty taste and the strange aftertaste, so I pushed the plate away. I refrained from questioning the staff about the eggs with children at our table. When I got home, I did a little research and learned most restaurants use an egg product that consists of vegetable oil, lecithin (food filler), and other preservatives with very high sodium content. Since this restaurant doesn't release its "proprietary" ingredients, I asked if they crack eggs in your restaurant, and they said no. I asked do you buy egg product mixture that contains soybean oil? They said it was a vegetable oil mix, and they couldn't release the ingredients.

A treat to me would be a real omelet made with actual eggs cooked in organic butter. Not soybean chemical egg product.?

This restaurant isn't alone. You do not know what you are consuming when you go out to eat. The only way to control what goes into your body is to cook at home.

Here are the "egg" ingredient lists of common QSRs. Please note that I do not believe eggs cause high cholesterol, as my own lab indicates; I believe it's the soybean oil and chemicals added to eggs in restaurants that cause high cholesterol. On any given day, if you frequently eat out, you have no idea how much-added oil and chemicals you are consuming. You have to cook at home to control the quality of ingredients.

Chick-fil-A

Egg (whole eggs, water, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, natural butter type flavor [medium chain triglycerides, coconut oil, natural flavors], xanthan gum, citric acid, annatto [color], butter flavored oil [soybean oil, palm kernel oil, soy lecithin, natural flavor, beta carotene]) **ingredient list from Hash Brown Scramble Bowl w/ Nuggets.

Starbucks:

CAGE-FREE SCRAMBLED EGGS?[WHOLE EGGS, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, SALT, LIQUID PEPPER EXTRACT, XANTHAN GUM, CITRIC ACID, SKIM MILK, SOYBEAN OIL, CORN STARCH].

McDonald's

Folded Egg:?Eggs, Nonfat Milk, Modified Food Starch, Salt, Citric Acid.

Taco Bell

Eggs:?Cage-free whole eggs, soybean oil, salt, citric acid, pepper, flavor (sunflower oil, flavors), xanthan gum, guar gum. Contains Egg [certified vegetarian].

There are certain added ingredients that are common among the fast food breakfast "egg." Here are some of the most frequently listed ones and what their function is, according to the FDA.

Xanthan gum, powdered cellulose, and carrageenan:? Xanthan gum is approved as a food additive for use as a stabilizer, emulsifier, thickener, suspending agent, bodying agent, and foam enhancer in foods. Provides "expected texture" and a creamy "mouth-feel" when used in reduced fat foods; also used as a thickener to produce uniform texture and "improve 'mouth-feel."

Modified food starch:?A fat replacer that provides "expected texture and a creamy 'mouth-feel'" in reduced-fat food.

Soy lecithin:?An emulsifier that prevents separation, reduces stickiness, controls crystallization, keeps ingredients dispersed, and helps products dissolve more easily.

Citric acid:?Control acidity and alkalinity, and prevent spoilage.

If you want to lose weight for good, focus on eating food grown and born that you cook yourself from one ingredient foods. Your body will reset its metabolism as it heals itself. In my case, it took me?nearly two years to reset my metabolism?and heal my gut. And with a healed gut, I got rid of the inflammation that plagued my body.

While my gut continues to be sensitive, mainly from endurance training required for IRONMAN, all of my joint pain is gone, and I run pain-free for miles and miles. Despite my long training hours, I don't use over-the-counter pain meds. I don't need them.

Back in 2018, I had so much inflammation and fluid retention in my hip that I would switch sides of the road depending on the slope to run, so my right hip was less impacted. Today, it doesn't matter where I run or how long; the pain is gone.?I have a V02Max of 57 at age 44, placing me in the top 1% of all women. I am doing something right.

Much like quitting cigarettes, only when you get rid of the foods that got you to your current state will your body begin to heal. If you have "cheat" days, your body can't heal itself; it goes back to the beginning.? Health is a journey, not a six-month diet. The more you exercise discipline and willpower, the easier it gets. And once you know what it feels like to be healthy, it becomes second nature to stay on track.

Control Ingredients

If you are craving cookies, bake them at home with organic chocolate chips (I love HU Kitchen), use 100% real butter, eggs (NOT egg product), unrefined coconut sugar, and substitute oatmeal for the enriched flour. Oatmeal is easy to make; blend it until it is a powder. I use a Nutribullet.

If you are craving potatoes, make them at home with organic olive oil.

If it helps, I do not count calories; calorie counting is flawed because it assumes 100 calories of processed egg product is used in the body the same way a 100-calorie real egg is used by the body. It's just not accurate. But I do eat a lot of high-volume, low-calorie food such as fresh or frozen fruit. I eat intuitively for the most part. If I am craving shrimp, then I eat a lot of shrimp.

I buy most fruits and veggies in bulk frozen from Costco to save on costs.?

Here are my go-to staples:

Bananas

Vital Proteins Collagen Protein

Eggs (I eat about a dozen a week)

Frozen veggies (I buy in bulk at Costco)

Almond Butter

Organic full-fat butter

Organic unrefined coconut oil (My favorite cooking oil!!)

Olive oil

Frozen Mangos

Almond Milk (about to experiment with Raw Milk)

Raw Honey

Organic Maple Syrup?

Hu Dark Chocolate

Laird Superfood Bars

Salomon (I buy frozen at Costco)

Cod (I buy frozen at Costco)

Shrimp (I buy frozen at Costco)

Sardines (bulk at Costco)

Chicken breast?

Ground chicken or turkey

Oranges (I buy fresh)

Watermelon (I freeze it for slushies post workouts)

Oatmeal (Huge fan of Bob's Red Mill)

Potatoes (sweet and white)

Basmati Rice (I buy in bulk at Costco) ( I eat about 40lbs of rice alone each year!)?

Frozen cherries (I buy in bulk at Costco)

Banza Pasta

Frozen blueberries (I buy in bulk at Costco)

Matcha Green tea by Laird Superfood or Vital Proteins. I don't drink coffee. Women, especially those over the age of 40, shouldn't be drinking coffee. Another topic for another day.

I also supplement with whole foods based vitamins from Megafoods a few times a week.

Let me know how I can support you or your organization on the journey to health.l

**this article is not intended to be medical advice** I am simply sharing information.

In good health,

Ilana