Children or no Children?

[Dreamgiver]

Don't know how I missed this thread before...we have 2 kids, a 4 yr old and a 2 month old, best thing that ever happened to us. I know my wife agrees. Not easy but extremely rewarding. The whole sleep thing is part a matter of luck part a matter of habits. There are many things that can be done to promote healthy uninterrupted sleep in infants, toddlers, and little kids. Same thing goes for discipline and overall demeanor. Most of those traits are learned and developed and the cool thing is that you as a parent shape that. You reap what you sow. We had a few friend couples who chose not to have kids. We grew apart as interests and sleep patterns shift once you have kids. I always see their nice vacation shots on Facebook and all that. Happy for them but I feel like they are the ones missing out, we just postponed those trips by a few years. The thought of not having children and grandkids around when I get older is probably the most depressing thing to think about for me personally and I know my wife would not have married me if kids were out of the question. I wish you good luck figuring it out. If you don't know, just freeze some eggs now as things get much harder from a fertility standpoint for every year that goes by for a woman.

[jessikaur]

OK,

here's the Ebook! I want you guy to read it, use it, and spread it to your patients. It was always meant to be free, as the goal is to help people. I am still editing it as the more people I give it to, I get feedback. I need to write a section on legumes as that's been a common question.

The "ebooK" is a written copy of the advice I was giving, the problem was that so many people were stopping me in the halls to get the advice, that I couldn't get my regular work done (you know, seeing sick hospitalized patients).

Anyway, if you can provide feedback, it is meant for the common person, NOT physicians necessarily, and meant to be easy to understand and follow.

 

Health Book:

Title: A Calorie is Not a Calorie: The simplest way to be healthy and lose fat.

The great calorie myth must be reversed. What you eat is just as important as when you eat.

Weight gain is a hormonal process, and the biggest influencer is insulin. Anything that causes your insulin to rise, will cause you to gain weight. How does that work? It’s simple, insulin comes out every time you eat anything. Insulin’s job is to get the sugar out of your blood and into your muscles or liver or wherever else sugar is needed. Insulin also blocks lipolysis (fat breakdown). Every time you eat something, you are blocking your ability to break down fat, and in fact the opposite mechanism occurs, your body wants to store sugar as fat to save it for a rainy day when you may not have any food coming in. This  is a very rare phenomenon in our society where food is on every corner, and health experts are recommending you eat six times a day.

So what can you eat that would minimize the effects of insulin? As far as macronutrients are concerned:

Fat

Protein

Carbohydrates

In this order.

What does this “diet” consist of? Lots and lots of vegetables with good fat, and moderate amounts of protein.

Any vegetable you want (except potatoes&corn) with healthy doses of fat i.e. nuts and seeds, olive oils, avocados, good quality butter. And any type of protein you prefer: fish, chicken, red meat, pork.

Vegetables are almost a hundred percent carbohydrates, however they do not raise your insulin because of the precious fiber that they are attached to, so the insulin response is almost zero, same with fat. Protein (if eating too much of it) turns into sugar in your body, so eating moderate amounts of it is ok.

What about fruit? Fruit in their natural form is excellent source of essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients. Berries, apples, oranges, are great. NOT JUICED. Juiced fruit has pure sugar that hits your bloodstream hard and insulin rears its ugly head and prevents you from breaking down fat.

What about dairy? Milk is for baby cows, not humans. Having fresh cheese is ok, but lots of people have allergies to this for a reason. So if you have to have dairy, hard cheeses like parmesan, or fresh cheeses are probably ok to cycle in along with fermented yogurts, but not processed yellow cheese that was “raised” in a factory.

What about whole grains? There are far better ways to get fiber than whole grains. Bread has more of an insulin response than pure sugar. There’s a reason that they need to “fortify” bread with nutrients. It’s just not a high quality food, and therefore you should not be eating it.

 

 

So what can you absolutely not have?

NO ADDED SUGAR. Read the labels. It’s in everything. If it has –added-- sugars in it, it doesn’t belong in your body, this needs to be minimized as much as possible. Even zero sugar is ok, your body does not need this AT ALL. You do NOT need sugar to survive.

NO PROCESSED FOOD. If your body does not recognize something as food, we as humans have developed a mechanism that we store such “food”  as fat. What is processed food? Anything that comes out of a package or is not walking around on this earth or falling off trees. This goes for those man-made vegetable oils like corn oil and canola oil.  This goes for artificial sweeteners as well. They are a double whammy in that they are processed AND they behave just like sugar (even with the zero calorie label).

NO BAD CARBOHYDRATES. We are talking breads, pastas, white potatoes, rice, all of these have a huge insulin response. Remember when your insulin goes up, you can’t breakdown fat, and then your body stores these sugars as fat.

DRINKS: Plenty of good quality water, make sure it’s filtered. Coffee (without sugar, milk or artificial sweeteners). Teas; green, macha, black, all of them have great antioxidants. You must stay hydrated, as sometimes your body confuses thirst with hunger.

Now you know what you can and should not eat. Lets talk about when.

INTERMITTENT FASTING: Our bodies were not designed to be constantly eating around the clock. In fact, every time you eat something your body spends an inordinate amount of energy trying to digest that food, and therefore does not have the time or energy to perform other important functions in your body.  And guess what? No food means no insulin response either. This is the most effective way to get your insulin under control, especially for patients with diabetes who are insulin resistant.

So how does this work? It’s simple: just don’t eat. Drink plenty of fluids, including coffee, water, teas etc, just nothing with any calories in it that could cause an insulin response. Start off slowly, you will be surprised the amount of time that you spend eating. Choose breakfast or dinner, and whatever you like less, skip that meal. For example, if you don’t like breakfast, skip and eat lunch and dinner instead. The important thing is to compress your eating window into eventually just six hours.

Why six hours? After 18 hours of not eating your body has depleted its sugar stores, and is now working on your body fat. It replaces the food that you take by eating, by the food located on your body (your fat!) and once you get used to this pattern of eating your hunger goes away. This is a completely normal physiologic response, and was how we were designed to survive.

Lots of wonderful things are happening in your body when you fast. Your body is working at maximum efficiency --it is getting rid of inefficient or defective cells in your body (yes cells that could turn into cancer!) Your growth hormone is increasing, your brain is becoming clearer because it needs to work well in order for you to go out and find food (brain derived neurotrophic factor is increasing, BDNF), your energy levels will go through the roof, as noradrenaline (epinephrine) is naturally released during this process. Oh, and as an added bonus if you use fasting to help with your weight loss, you won’t have the saggy skin problem because your body will be consuming those skin cells for food! Your body will be using every cell in your body, and getting rid of the inefficient or defective cells.

But won’t I be hungry? Hunger comes in waves, and it typically comes in whatever pattern you’re used to eating in, so if you’re used to eating six times a day, six times a day you will get hungry.

We are trying to break this pattern.

Lets get a healthier pattern of only eating one to two times a day, and since you’re only eating one to two times a day you want to eat the most nutritionally sound foods out there so that your body can get all the vitamins and minerals that it needs to function most effectively.

It will take a minimum of a week to break the hunger pattern, but it is much easier if you just start with the diet as stated above without the fasting.

Is fasting safe? YES! We have been practicing this in every religion for thousands of years and in fact, that’s how we evolved. Word of caution for patients with diabetes, if you fast, you need to be very careful about your diabetes medications (you won’t need them anymore!). Pregnant women, kids, and underweight people should not fast. For virtually everyone else, it is perfectly safe as a daily practice.

EXERCISE:

I love exercise, I encourage everyone to move every day as much as they can, but it does NOT cause you to lose weight. You cannot outrun an unhealthy diet. The only thing that will help you remain healthy without fat storage is to not ingest these insulin-responsive foods in the first place.

If you are going to exercise, do it in a fasted state, drink water and go for it, without any food in your body, your body will have no choice but to use your own body fat as a source of energy (presuming that it has already used up the excess sugar floating around).

Best exercise: walking!  We were made to walk, it is the easiest to do, and there is little likelihood of injury, and you can do other things while walking, like talking on the phone, listening to a podcast, watching your favorite tv show or movie.

QUICKSTART GUIDE:

1)      Eat unprocessed whole natural foods without fasting component until you’re used to this pattern. You should not be hungry with this approach: if you are hungry it means you are not eating enough, and likely you are not eating enough healthy fats. Yes fats!

2)      Do not counts calories, and do not worry about the calorie content. For example, yes an avocado has 250 calories, but it has almost zero insulin response, so you will not be storing fat.

3)      After about a week, you will notice that your taste buds change, and that if you have something sugary it is WAY too sweet, and almost sickening.

4)      Your hunger will naturally go away, and it is very difficult to “overeat”  unprocessed whole natural foods. (I bet you can eat three cookies, but would have an issue with three whole apples) So… don’t eat if you’re not hungry!

5)      Start the intermittent fasting at this point, as it is naturally happening anyway.

6)      Because your energy levels will be ridiculously high, you will want to exercise. Walk. Swim. Bike. Lift weights.

7)      And you will never want to go back to your old ways. But even if you do, you’ll know how to get back to a healthy lifestyle by following the simple steps in this lifestyle modification.

 

Just try to remind yourself that what you do every day matters much more than what you do once in a while.

[q-school]

jessikaur wrote:

years!

and she’s been off of them ever since! It’s so crazy that we are not taught proper nutrition!! I argued with her that the ADA website is wrong and she does NOT need to eat q6 hrs in order to control her diabetes. that recommendation is outrageous, but that’s what I keep hearing from the staff!

She honestly, didn’t believe me, and then sent me a picture of her glucometer AFTER eating with a blood sugar in the 90s.

Click to expand...

my mind is boggled what were sugars and A1c before and one week of diet change?

 

[fatlittlepig]

fatlittlepig dares you to post your e-book here.

 

[jessikaur]

years!

and she's been off of them ever since! It's so crazy that we are not taught proper nutrition!! I argued with her that the ADA website is wrong and she does NOT need to eat q6 hrs in order to control her diabetes. that recommendation is outrageous, but that's what I keep hearing from the staff!

She honestly, didn't believe me, and then sent me a picture of her glucometer AFTER eating with a blood sugar in the 90s.

[q-school]

is it even possible to get someone off their diabetic meds in one week?  i mean assuming they needed them in the first place?  how long were they on them in the first place?

 

 

[jessikaur]

Update from OP. Time seems to really fly when you're having fun. I thought it had only been a few months since my last post, but it's been almost a year! that's crazy.

So... still no kids! Age 37, gonna be 38 in october. Did a lot of "soul searching" and trying to find the answer on my own,

Had serious discussions with my husband. I think he saw that I was concerned with having to give up my job, and so with some miracle agreed to take a five year hiatus from his career (or work from home, he is an appeals attorney so it's not that much of a stretch to work from home instead of the office, but little does he know that he won't be able to get any work done if he's child-rearing all day) and be the house-husband.

and even with that.. I couldn't do it!!!!!!!! Now what is wrong with me? I can't figure out what is making me hesitate so much, especially since all of my typical excuses are gone from this forum.

We can afford it, we would be good parents, my husband would put his career on hold.

I think I'm coming to the conclusion that I just don't want to have kids, and then I get the occasional twinge (is it possible that this is a basic physiology and hormonal????) I have analyzed it to death and my rational mind cannot reconcile the thought of being a parent, and making all the sacrifices that everyone on this forum has suggested (being on call 24/7, you don't come first, loss of freedoms) when I am so perfectly happy with my current life??? Do I dare take a chance and be even happier (with the kids?) or do I follow my gut and should be just satisfied with what I have because when I actually SEE parents, I can only think thank god that's not me.

I recently visited my friend with her twins and her now 4 year old (who is still difficult -- the mom's words not mine) and the mom was on the verge of a mental breakdown because she hasn't had a "break" or good sleep in four years. And this mom is a doctor and has a lot of help, she has a nanny, a maid, a daycare, you know all the things that are supposed to make this process easier (and a very supportive mother/husband) but she actually said.. I would say you should have kids only if you were guaranteed an angelic child! (I didn't want to say which one she used as an example for obvious reasons) but we all know there are no guarantees.

But the "parent' job never ends. I hang out with my "swimming ladies" -- my neighbors that swim in the lake with me, and they have kids aged a great variety of ages, and it's from the college student who's gotten into the fourth car accident, to the master's student who is having a mental breakdown from the anxiety and stress from the program, or the son who is coming back to live at home because the parents have a boat that he likes skiing on, to the teenage pregnancy highschool drop out, and these are great parents!!!

Anyway, I keep thinking, if I change my mind, or actually make a firm decision in the future, I can always adopt right? or foster.

As far as taking on a dog to make this decision --- that is a hard and fast NO!!! I am a germaphobe and most days, I think dogs are gross. Plus, they don't wear underwear and sit on furniture.... I've got to be thinking about this wrong???

 

Ok, so career wise. I know I said I dialed it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back and I really did to help make the mommy decision (since that didn't help, I have now gone back to my workaholic ways, two full time jobs, plus my side gig in which I help the nurses/hospital staff with weight loss/fat loss. (basically, I wrote a short little e-book on health an nutrition after basically everyone was stopping me in the hospital for their personalized advice, I've gotten a nurse off her diabetic meds within one week, and countless other "patients" are reaching their goals. I've got to tell you, I am hospitalist, but I really feel I am ACTUALLY helping people with this side gig more than my hospitalist job. So I've been trying to decide,  now since I have a large "patient base" do I monetize it? or just keep helping people since it's fun and brings me a lot of joy. Anyway, that's for a different post.

 

On the travel front: Coming up.. running of the bulls (Pamplona) in July and then hiking across northern spain, in October for my birthday, traveling to Borneo (northern Malaysia) to see the orangutans,  and then Chilean Patagonia over Christmas/ new years... for the comments on maybe travel will get old, I think I would just start revisiting the places that I loved the best (have two good older friends in the 70s that have been doing that.. and they travel everywhere)

 

Also, I think hightower owes us a follow up on how it all turned out!!! Or I dare I say he may be too busy?

[Drop it into MD]

Kids are our best investment.  However all investments come with risk.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJwrEKD8o3c

[fasteddie911]

Not sure the OP is still following as it has been over a year, but just to riffs on kids.  Just gotta do what's right for you, no kids, one kids, two kids, etc.  It's unfortunate how expectations or judgments by others can weigh so heavily on us sometimes.  Having said that, I think there's a difference between how you feel about someone else's kid vs your own.  However, I'm under no impression that kids are always great.  We all hope to have great kids who turn into great adults and everything is merry until the very end, but that's not always the case despite parents best efforts.

[prison-doc]

OP--Sorry I didn't take the time to read your whole post and all the others above but I have traveled much like you and love to travel.  I had a child at age 42 and she is the best thing that has ever happened to me.  I love being a father more than anything in the world but again it is a personal choice.  Before having a child my wife and I would say we will be happy either way but now I couldn't imagine life without my daughter.  Might sound cheesy but it's a love that only a parent would ever know and understand and no traveling experience could even compare!

[sir_throckmorton]

I'm a 31 yo M physician, and my wife and I had our first child just under a year ago. I was never crazy about the idea of having children, but I knew my wife really wanted them. I enjoyed the independence of not having kids and being able to do what we want. Now that he's about a year old, I wouldn't change anything. I certainly have no regrets, and it makes me wonder why anyone would not have kids. He literally learns something new every single day and it's incredible to see. Examples: a week ago, he learned how to gently sit himself down while standing up supported by furniture. The next day, he learned how to mimic us clapping. The next day, he learned how to turn the doorknob and open the door of his bedroom while standing up in his crib. Just today, he learned how to "cruise" along furniture while standing up. Soon he'll be standing unsupported and then walking on his own.

The last 6 months have been incredible to see him grow and develop his own personality. I couldn't imagine not having him in our lives. And again, this is coming from someone who always felt like I would be fine never having children. Looking back, I think it's kind of selfish to think that way. As another reference, I have an aunt and uncle who are in their late 60s who never had children. My aunt had once told us to "not make the same mistake I did in not having children."

Ultimately it's up to you how to live your life. I like traveling as much as the next person, but I would not let that dictate whether or not to build a family. In 10-20 years when you've visited virtually every place you would want to on earth, what do you have to look forward to? When you're retired and no longer physically capable of traveling the world, might you want to have children and grandchildren to have visit during the holidays?

[fatlittlepig]

The White Coat Investor wrote:

I suspect that most will have regrets either way. At times I regret having kids and I’m positive I would have regretted not having them.

It’s a huge commitment of time and resources, but it comes with a great deal of reward and far more important to me than either of my careers.

You can certainly travel with kids, but you will almost surely travel less than you are without them.

Click to expand...

fatlittlepig has never even for one millisecond regretted having fatlittlepigs.

[Tim]

If you get two dogs, you will be “Mutt & Jeff’s Mom” by the kids at the park. You will love your new identity.

[VagabondMD]

Dumpster Fire wrote:

My recommendation is to rescue a dog first. It is a tiny insight as to how your life will change if you have kids and how it gives access to the love in your hearts.

Click to expand...

I love this suggestion. So true.

[The White Coat Investor]

I suspect that most will have regrets either way. At times I regret having kids and I'm positive I would have regretted not having them.

It's a huge commitment of time and resources, but it comes with a great deal of reward and far more important to me than either of my careers.

You can certainly travel with kids, but you will almost surely travel less than you are without them.