High Voltage (yes, that’s her legal name) is a New York celebrity personal trainer and professional energy conductor. She is 59 years old and she can probably kick Susan Powter‘s ass from here to Australia, and do it to a throbbing disco beat. She’s not everyone’s cup of chamomile, more of an acquired taste (let’s put it this way: she’s RuPaul‘s energy coach, okay?) but if you’re looking to get more energy into your life, more life into your life, you could do a lot worse than follow her lead.
These are her ten food commandments, heartlessly stolen from her book (now DVD) energy UP! Give them a shot and see if you don’t have a bit more bounce in your step and less in the seat of your pants.
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- no flour: avoid anything made with flour, especially wheat flour (like breads and bread crumbs, crackers, baked goods, and pastas).
- no sugar: stay away from sugary treats like candy, cookies, cakes, and other junk foods. Watch out for added sugars in salad dressings, tomato sauces, and breakfast cereals!
- no salt: steer clear of salty snacks. Watch out for hidden salts in soups, cheese, packaged rice mixes, soy sauce, and other condiments.
- avoid processed foods: eat as close to nature as possible! Stay away from foods that come dumped in a box, crammed in a can, stuffed in a bag, or wrapped in plastic – they’re loaded with chemicals and additives and addictive sugars and salts.
- drink water: without water, there is no life. Without water, this plan will not work. Make it at least six to eight full glasses a day, more if you can!
- fruits and vegetables: open season here. Enjoy all of nature’s best – at least five to nine servings daily.
- poultry, fish and meat: eat skinless chicken and turkey, fish shellfish, and occasionally lean cuts of meat. Steer clear of sausage, bacon, and all processed luncheon meats, fatty marbled beef, goose and duck. Another protein source: eggs (but no more than two a week if you’re watching cholesteral).
- fats: a tablespoon of olive oil or other vegetable oil per day is fine. Beware of fats that are solid or semisolid at room temperature. Butter, margarine, lard, and shortening are all no-no’s.
- dairy products: stick with no-fat milk, skim milk, no-salt-added buttermilk, lo-fat (no salt) cheeses, and nonfat yogurt, please.
- grains: in moderate portions (1/2 cup servings) eat brown rice, wild rice, millet, couscous, barley, kasha, and other whole grains.
This is pretty damn solid, in my arrogant opinion. The sole quibbles I have with it are that couscous is actually a kind of pasta made from wheat, so it would be off the Voltage list entirely; there is new evidence to support the theory that eating eggs does not raise blood cholesteral; and that the hard line she takes on flour should be moderated to allow whole wheat flour (not just tinted brown or 10% whole wheat, real whole wheat). Wheat is a grain just like any other; as long as it’s consumed in moderation and in whole form, it’s a good thing to put in your body.
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timethief
April 18, 2007
Although I wasn’t aware of High Voltage before, IMHO you should edit the post above. The lady is 59 years young .
raincoaster
April 18, 2007
No, she says it this way herself. She also says, “This is what 59 looks like. Okay, this is what 59 looks like with a lot of work done.” But the body (except for the boobs) is organic, not surgical.
Doug
April 18, 2007
This is an article I ran across a while ago. It’s got a pretty good philosophy about diet, covers a lot of territory about the history of nutritionism, and has a catchy phrase to boot.
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?ex=1327640400&en=7c85a1c254546157&ei=5088
As for the wheat thing: the problem (or at least one of the problems) with modern white flour is specifically the milling process. The modern milling process throws off the germ and the bran, leaving only the starch, and results in the wheat heating up to some high temperature (a quick google turned up one article which said 400F) which destroys a lot of the remaining nutrients.
Stone-ground wheat is pretty good for you. It is, pretty much by definition, “whole wheat”. The only problem is that stone-ground wheat spoils fairly quickly (comparable to the rate that milk spoils), as does bread baked from whole grain flour.
raincoaster
April 18, 2007
In her book, Voltage goes into a fair bit of detail about how the refining process, which is really just a Victorian affectation, has removed the best part of the grains, and how proper bread does spoil quicker. It reminds me of the difference between the bread I buy (when I buy bread, that is) and the bread other people buy. When I see a loaf that’s just as good at the end of the week as it was at the beginning, I get scared. But maybe that’s telling me it’s just as bad for me at the beginning of the week than as at the end. Even the microbes won’t touch it!
As a single person, I wish you could buy half-loaves. I cut them in two and put half in the freezer, but it’s a nuisance.
That’s a good article. As long as what you’re eating is good for you, putting the occasional chocolate bar down as well won’t hurt you. What we need to do is reexamine what we think is good for us. The norm, or SAD (Standard American Diet) isn’t working, quite obviously.
You know, this post DOES look funny sitting right above our post about the Canadian Meal at McDonald’s, but this blog is not about being perfect; it’s about having better options and growing the ability to choose those options within ourselves.
timethief
April 19, 2007
Here’s my contribution.
Eating well may mean making changes to eating habits and lifestyle. This may take time as habits are often things we have been doing for ages without thinking about doing them. Some suggestions which may help are::
Make small changes – Not doing everything at once may make it easier to stick with the changes. You may want to start by swapping a chocolate for a piece of fruit.
Take an interest in what you eat – Being part of planning what you eat and helping to cook may help you make changes. Having a say in what you eat allows you to have an idea of what is in your food and to eat well. It may also be fun and allow you to experiment with different foods.
Eat low fat foods and Increase your Vegetable Intake – Foods that are high in fat have more energy and increase the likelihood of you gaining weight but low fat foods have the vitamins and nutrients you need.
Step by Step Planning – By setting realistic short term goals and working progressively step by step you can achieve them.
raincoaster
April 20, 2007
Thanks! Those are awesome. Just the kind of contribution I was hoping to facilitate.
It’s too bad I haven’t built the wiki yet to put this in. What I’m hoping to do is allow the blog readers to build their own resource. When it’s up and running I’ll check with the commenters and see if it’s okay if I add past contributions to it.
Metro
April 20, 2007
Marry a good cook. That’s my major success in dieting.
Extremism in the cause of anything is usually a vice. I prefer to keep my vices more enjoyable. That said, I hold as my key to ‘ealth the Great Secret of the Ancients that lay undiscovered for millenia until Jane Fonda discovered it on a scroll locked in the Ark of the Covenant.
“Eat less. Exercise more.”
Since then it keeps getting rediscovered every ten years or so, repackaged and sold as the latest “diet”.
Four words. And if food weren’t plentiful and cheap in North America on a scale that would stun most of the world into a disgusted silence, the “obesity epidemic” wouldn’t even be an issue.
I have more respect for eating disorders than I once did. But I still wonder: do eating disorders occur in countries where it costs a third of a day’s wages for a person to eat?
raincoaster
April 20, 2007
Ah, but marrying a good cook has also been your downfall. If it weren’t so tasty, you wouldn’t want so much of it. You should try my cooking: the green smoothie fast was a step UP for me.
timethief
April 21, 2007
(1) Commit to making time in your day for a little physical activity and extend that time frame slowly and gradually.
(2) The no pain – no gain mantra is B.S. so don’t buy into it. If you have not been active, start slowly by choosing something that fits into your daily life. Walking or biking to work, dancing and swimming can be great fun.
(3) Make dates with friends exercise with you or join a group.
(4) If the weather is awful then try an exercise show on TV, put on some music and dance or do go out and do some brisk walking in a covered mall.
timethief
April 21, 2007
Edited copy
(1) Commit to making time in your day for a little physical activity and extend that time frame slowly and gradually.
(2) The no pain – no gain mantra is B.S. so don’t buy into it. If you have not been active, start slowly by choosing something that fits into your daily life. Walking or biking to work, dancing and swimming can be great fun.
(3) Make dates with friends to exercise with you or join a group.
(4) If the weather is awful then try an exercise show on TV, put on some music and dance in your livingroom, or go out and do some brisk walking in a covered mall.
raincoaster
April 22, 2007
Or do stairs in your apartment building, if your stairwells are safe. That’s what I generally do when I just can’t get my ass out in the cold rain.
I really must get the wiki up and running over the next week. Would be nice to grow our own encyclopedia of health.
Cord Randell
February 19, 2009
It’s been over 20 years since we partied at Magique and studio 54. Congradulations on your success. I knew you would be a hit. Your energy was always at full speed. E-mail me or call me some time. I used to host parties at all 3 major clubs in 1980-83 and some with the Baird Jones team.
You were always a lot of fun Warmest Regards Cord