“I’ve always been a crappy eater – never enough, never consistent (too busy), and what I did eat was lots of fast foods, junk foods at TV time, and the like, but I was generally fit and in good health.
But in January of 2020, I got an eye opener at a too long ignored routine physical exam: my fasting glucose (sugar) levels (6.3) had jumped up and put me in the risk area for diabetes, and my cholesterol numbers (Chol 6.4 / LDL 4.13 / TG 1.90) were now exceeding current medical guidelines. And my weight had been creeping up bit by bit over the years in spite of my exercise regimes: not so you’d notice, but a couple of kilos/pounds year by year, every year. Yikes! So my doctor gave me some warnings and said we’d better check again in a couple of months.
I had been working with Shannon helping her develop a smartphone app that embraced her ideas and she suggested that I myself should give it a try… to work on getting my blood work numbers down, better control of my weight, and overall better health. I wasn’t entirely convinced of all her theories, but I thought I’d amuse her: eat more? (ridiculous) and mix and match foods each meal to get a zero or lower ‘balance factor’ number (impossible)
So: I started using her Balanced Cafe app to measure, monitor and advise me: it told me how much to eat (wow: probably 25% more than I had ever eaten daily), and matching up meal ingredients to get that ‘balanced’ number. I never changed what I ate, just how much and how I combined them in each meal to get a better ‘balance factor’ value.
It wasn’t easy at first, forcing myself to eat more, and more regularly, and working up meal choices that netted each meal to get a better ‘balance factor’. But funny things happened: I now felt ‘full’ by the end of the day, and as time went on, didn’t have the desire for the junk food at TV time. I didn’t notice any weight changes but after about 3 months stepped on the scales and found I had dropped over 5 kilos! (12 pounds) And better yet, those golf slacks that I couldn’t wear any longer because I was popping the snaps – I discovered they weren’t popping any more!
Better yet, I completed another blood test after 5 months and found:
- my glucose levels had dropped dramatically (from 6.3 down to 4.8), and I was now in the lower part of the ‘ideal’ range!
- my cholesterol levels (Chol 3.94 / LDL 2.11 / TG 0.82) had cut in half!
- And now, I’m down 8 kilos! (18 pounds)
Shannon, her theories, her Balanced Café app, and her enthusiasm in getting more people on a great routine to manage their eating habits and general health – well, it doesn’t happen instantly (no instant gratification), but her program philosophy works! As the classic rock group (the Monkees) said in their song – “I’m a Believer! “ – Thank you, Shannon!”