Healthier weight with healthier choices
Don’t get Ronald Jackson started about the good old days.
Back then he drove a truck and worked construction, and eating was more a function of time than quality. He made time for pancakes in the morning and ice cream at night, but in between was all sorts of fast foods.
“I loved it all,” Jackson says now. “I was in and out of trucks a lot, so I was looking for something quick and easy. I needed to grab something on the go.”
The problem was that the only thing going was his health.
Nutrition is often taken for granted, and fortunately for Jackson, two things happened that were seemingly unrelated that led to an almost complete reversal in his day-to-day diet.
The first, and arguably the most important, was a friend of Jackson who extolled the virtues of vegetarianism. From his friend, Jackson says he learned the importance of reading food labels and finding the nutritional value of the foods that he was eating.
If his friend was the carrot, his doctor was the stick.
Last year, Jackson, 69, was diagnosed with osteoarthritis (degenerative arthritis) of the hip and required hip surgery. His orthopedic surgeon told him that he would perform the surgery, but his results would be better if he lost weight.
At the time, Jackson was just under 6 feet tall and weighed 220 pounds.
The surgeon said that his extra weight put a strain on his hips and knees, and that he needed to get to 200 pounds.
It took about three months, but Jackson lost 30 pounds and had the surgery last April.
As Jackson tells the story now, he says he could never return to his old eating habits.
“I’ve done research on what to eat and what not to eat,” he says. “I look for fat and cholesterol, sugar and sodium content.”
For instance, he has changed from whole milk to 1 or 2 percent. “It wasn’t easy to do,” he says. “But now that I’ve done it, I can’t drink whole milk anymore. I had some once, and it was too rich. I had to dilute it with water to make it more palatable.”
Jackson also keeps track of his salt intake, trying not to exceed the recommended maximum of 2300 milligrams (mg) a day.
Jackson is semi-retired now and readily admits he still has cravings. “I love ice cream, cookies and cake,” he confesses. “But I’ve learned to eat good substitutes. I eat low-fat ice cream instead of regular ice cream, and I am able to find low-fat cookies. [On one day], I really needed some cookies. And I found some that had 9 grams of sugar instead of 25 grams of sugar.”
His new lifestyle does have its drawbacks. “My girlfriend does not like to shop with me,” Jackson explains. “She says I take too long. But she looks at just the product. I look at the ingredients of the product.” |
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Ronald Jackson is a savvy food shopper. Before he buys he reads the nutrition labels for unhealthy fats, salt and sugar.
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