My organic garden just got protection.

I hired Dan Brown of Enright Construction to build a deer fence fence. Dan and two helpers did it all in a day, even moving a couple of those raised planing beds a bit for better positioning within the fence. I couldn’t be happier with their work.  They built a six foot high deer fence around the series of raised bed planters I’m using for my vegetable garden.

You can see it in the picture or follow my video tour.

All previous attempts to grow stuff ended in defeat. The deer, helped by woodchucks and rabbits, ate just about everything that came up.

The fence is made of four inch square wire at the top and chicken wire up to about two feet to keep our the rabbits.

Strawberries are already blossoming. Radishes just went in. Peas will go in this week. The other veggies will be between now and Memorial Day, when the chance of frost in my part of Michigan is over.

We eat a lot of veggies. We always choose organic. But buying organic at a store is costly. Growing our own not only saves money but tastes better because what we pick, we immediately eat. Zucchini, leafy lettuce, green beans, peas, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and acorn squash will be my main crops.

I don’t mind sharing but I’m hoping for victory over the critters this year.

Super Healthy Me - What happens if you only eat food that is good for you?

What do you eat? People keep asking me that. I tell them most nights, it’s pretty much the same thing.

My favorite meal: steamed Brussels, grilled zucchini, peppers, mushrooms and chicken.

At three nights a week, we eat a variety of the shish kabobs you see on the grill. We cook up a bunch of them. The amount you see in the picture lasts us for three meals, sometimes four. Each kabob consists of free range chicken grilled on a skewer with generous hunks of onion, green, red and yellow peppers, zucchini and mushrooms.

For a meal, I’ll eat no more than three pieces of chicken… about 3-4ounces – and a plate full of the grilled veggies.

Usually, I have also have fresh salad with about two ounces of various over-the-counter dressings.

On two nights a week, we have a large salad, topped with grilled chicken instead of the kabobs.

Best dessert in the world: Fresh fruit

My favorite veggies are fresh and organic Brussels sprouts, green beans and asparagus.

On the other nights, we usually eat out or try different things like salmon and rice, salmon on the salad, a homemade soup and salad, fruit, etc.

Super Healthy Me - What happens if you only eat food that is good for you?

Whew. I just carried four 50-pound bags of top soil from the trunk of my car to my garden, traipsing across the lawn and up a few steps to the raised beds.

I did it one bag at a time.

And I couldn’t believe how hard carrying those extra 50 pounds were on my knees and my back.

A year and a half ago, I was carrying that much weight plus nearly 20 more pounds. In fat, mostly around my gut.

Amazing that I moved around at all like that.

The fat loss was gradual. Back when I weighed nearly 260, I got no relief from all that weight. It was with me day and night. Grinding down on my joints. Today, even though the weight is gone, my right knee has lost all the natural shock absorbers God designed in the body. It’s bone on bone.That damage won’t go away.

But while the inevitable surgery I’ll need is still some time off, there’s now a spring to my step. I noticed – after dropping the bags of dirt in the garden – hoe much easier it was to walk, to go up and down stairs.

That’s the new me. Those bags today reminded me how blessed I am to be a new, SuperHealthyMe.

And for those who are carrying their own excess weight in fat like I used to, just imagine how it will feel to move once you lose that fat.

You can do it, too.

Super Healthy Me - What happens if you only eat food that is good for you?

Ah, what’s a couple of pounds?

Ever heard that voice? I did this morning when I noticed that my weight has gone up two pounds. It used to be that I would shrug off the creepage and figure it was due to water retention or too much humidity or muscle gain or poor food digestion or… whatever. If you’ve struggled with weight, you know how easy it is to rationalize or pretend the gain is nothing to worry about.

But it is.

I weigh myself every single day. The supposed and always self-described experts say I shouldn’t, that it’s week to week scale results, or the way clothes fit, or inches lost that I should pay attention to. But now that I’m living my SuperHealthyMe lifestyle, I have realized the only expert abut my weight is me.

And two pounds over a week is a lot. I weigh myself every morning. I don;t ant any weight gain getting by without notice. True, there can be a lot of fluctuation. But, if, after a couple of days, the gain seems to be holding, I know there’s an issue.

Today, I know there’s an issue.

I know why. I’ve been eating out a lot this week. I made some bad restaurant choices. I only worked out three times this week. I had more sugar than I need. Not enough protein. Too many carbs. I didn’t go terribly overboard on any of the transgressions. But collectively, they add up.  To two pounds.

I also know what to do about it. Lose it. Make better decisions. Put my health and workouts ahead of, gasp, work. Yes, I am not going to sacrifice this plan for work. Work, after all, is just a job. My health is my life.

So, in that sense, with SuperHealthyMe resolve, two pounds is no big deal. I will get rid of it fast and ruthlessly adhere to my lifestyle.

I will.

Super Healthy Me - What happens if you only eat food that is good for you?

It’s time for drastic action: A deer fence.

Over the years, I’ve tried repellents, planting flowers like marigolds that deer find offensive, detergent and all sorts of natural anti-deer approaches. They don’t work. My raised bed vegetable garden is annually decimated by foraging herds of suburban deer. They even eat the tomato plant leaves, which are supposed to be mildly toxic. And after taking out my plantings of green beans, cucumbers, squash, peas, strawberries and peppers, they go on to mow down our shrubs and flowers out front.

I’ll leave my wife to do battle with the landscape-destroying deer.

But as for me and my veggies, a deer fence is in order.

There’s only one problem: I am the most unhandy handyman in the world. Bar none.

I haven’t a clue how to make a deer fence.

The accompanying picture is what I’d like it to look like. It would be about 30 feet long and 12 feet wide, with some sort of gate opening for me to get inside at both ends. And it needs to be six to eight feet high. These deer can jump!

I’ve seen green metal stakes at Home Depot that would probably work. I think the also sell a metal mesh a bit thicker than chicken wire that would work. The fence would need some reinforcement to keep from sagging. I think they also sell supports for that. And I will need an electric post hole digger to get those metal stakes down deep as the ground outside my planting beds is like concrete.

But how do I make the gates? I’m pretty stymied. I suppose there are small companies that do such work. But who, and for how much?

All I know is that it’s time. It’s almost planting time in my part of Michigan and I know the whitetails are just smacking their little deer lips waiting for my seeds to sprout.

Since I am committed to organically growing as many of my own veggies as I can this year, I would welcome your suggestions. I need a fence. I need help.

Super Healthy Me - What happens if you only eat food that is good for you?

At our most recent SuperHealthyMe MeetUp, Jim Ciotti, the head trainer and general manager of the Rochester Athletic Club, says Sugar is toxic – bad food, dangerous, in fact, linked to runaway obesity, heart disease and even cancer.

Jim referred us to the 60 Minutes segment linked here, reported by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who notes that the average American eats nearly a third of a pound of sugar EVERY DAY, or 130 pounds a year.

I urge you to wacth the entire 14 minute clip. Reports CBS:

As a result of these findings, an anti-sugar campaign has sprung up, led by Dr. Robert Lustig, a California endocrinologist, who believes the consumption of added sugars has plunged America into a public health crisis.

How much should we have? The American Heart Association report recommends men should consume no more than 150 calories of added sugars a day. And women, just 100 calories. That’s less than the amount in just one can of soda.

Super Healthy Me - What happens if you only eat food that is good for you?

It’s getting close to gardening time and I’ve been having a lot of fun planning how to best plant my organic garden this spring.

As the weather begins to warm up, surveys show an estimated three out of every four Americans will be planting their own flowers, fruits, and vegetables. With that much interest, it’s no wonder more people are turning to smartphones or tablet apps to help them grow their gardens just right.

I did my NBC-TV segment this week on the apps I’ve found.

Here’s the apps I liked the most:

The Gardinate app for Android and iPhone smartphones is a gardening database that helps anyone cultivate a green thumb as they grow flowers and veggies. Based on your climate and growing zone, it tells you when and how to plant just about anything, and when it will be ready for harvest. Cost is $1.99.

For Android Users, My Plant Diary is a free and handy app that lets you note, graph and track the growth of your plants, even documenting it with a photo. For the iPhone, iVeggiegarden is a similar, much more elegant but, at $9.99, much more expensive app.

For drawing up a garden plan, try Garden Tracker for the iPhone. This 99-cent app lets you design your own gardens, decide what goes in what row, track the progress and even fight the pests that are also after your veggies.

I’m ordering seeds: Lettuce, green beans, broccoli (look at my picture above), squash, peppers, tomatoes (which I’ll buy as plants in small pots).

I’m making compost and will be freshening up the raised beds I’ll use. But the first step till be a deer fence. I want to harvest these veggies and if I don’t keep the whitetails out, there will be nothing for us to eat.

Super Healthy Me - What happens if you only eat food that is good for you?

I have a lot of friends who drink diet soda. One guy, as a matter of fact, drinks a can every meeting I attend with him. On some days, we’ve attended four meetings together and I’ve watched him drink four cans of diet Mountain Dew. My boss drinks diet Pepsi all day long. And my best friend will down two diet cokes during dinner.

I’ve given up telling them it’s bad for them. Among other things, chemicals in diet sodas have been linked to short term memory loss. Come to think of it, maybe I should keep telling them because maybe they forgot my earlier warnings?

A study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine offers more evidence. Drinking a single can of diet soda each day can increase your risk of having a heart attack or stroke, it says after studying 2,500 people. Those who were drinking diet drinks on a daily basis were 43 percent more likely to experience a heart attack or vascular event than those who did not drink diet soda.

“This study suggests that diet soda is not an optimal substitute for sugar-sweetened beverages, and may be associated with a greater risk of stroke,” said researcher Hannah Gardener of the University of Miami.

Super Healthy Me - What happens if you only eat food that is good for you?

Like a lot of people, I’m on vacation this week. The challenge is to stay reasonably on track, food wise and exercise wise.

I brought my bike and did a fast hour long bike ride this morning. I plan to repeat that every day. And walks on the beach will keep me moving during the day.

But food and eating right is always the hardest part of a vacation. The first step is to realize this is a vacation. Some over indulgence is okay. They key word here is “some.” I’m planning healthy, light breakfasts – steel cut oatmeal – and lunches – salads whenever possible – so I can have nice dinners, taking advantage of the fresh Florida seafood.

But since this is  lifestyle change and not a diet, I realize that some poundage creep is pretty much inevitable after a week away. That means the week I return, it’s pedal to the metal healthy living. Whatever I gain on vacation, must be lost within a week on return.

But right now, I’m enjoying the weight loss, the new clothes and the way I feel so much better. Nothing is worth sabotaging that, including a vacation.

Super Healthy Me - What happens if you only eat food that is good for you?

Meet my new addition: A gently used 2006 Roadtrek Adventurous motor home. I plan to take it to a lot of places, with bikes in the back (first extra I bought was a bike rack), hiking shoes inside and plans to do lots of outdoor activities. My wife and I have been shopping for a used and very well cared, low milage one of these for over a year and found the perfect one this week.

(Since I share most passions about my life online, I naturally have a blog for my RV plans. Check out http://roadtreking.com if that sort of thing interests you.)

Meanwhile. I’m pretty optimistic about the healing progress for my knee. I snuck in a short 15-mile bike ride Saturday and did an hour long spinning class Monday. Got a scare Monday night when the knee started to hurt but a good night’s sleep saw me wake with no issues. Even though I added no significant resistance to the spinning bike during class, an hour was probably too much. I did nothing but walk the dog yesterday and will take it easy for a couple days,

I’m planning on taking my bike to Florida for a long planned family vacation this week. The question is, do I take the new RV? That may be too ambitious for the first outing.

But whether we take the RV or the regular vehicle, the many outdoor workouts, bike rides and walks on the beach I’m planning will go a long way towards helping me cope with the frustration of the healing process.

Super Healthy Me - What happens if you only eat food that is good for you?