Superfan Spotlight: Craig
Our friend Craig Greene, featured on Forks Over Knives blog, gave Protein Bar his exclusive wellness story. Check out how Craig changed his life and why he is one of our biggest SUPERFANS!
Who are you, share your story My name is Craig Greene and I am a CPA by training but specialize in forensic accounting as a founding partner in the CPA firm of McGovern & Greene LLP with offices in Chicago and Las Vegas. My practice specializes in investigative accounting primarily focusing on fraud examination for a diverse clientele base. In addition, I testify as an expert witness in matters involving business disputes, partner/shareholder disputes, accounting malpractice claims, and other accounting related dispute matters.
I began my career in public accounting over 40 years ago as a bookkeeper for a small Chicago suburban CPA firm while attending DePaul University. I received my bachelor’s degree in accounting from Aurora University and have a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice from Boston University that I received when I was 54.
I will turn 61 in less than two weeks and live part time in Park Ridge, IL., as well as, Henderson, NV, a suburb of Las Vegas with my wife, Joanne and our two standard poodles, Sasha and Luci. I am a grandfather several times over and have a daughter, Theresa and son in law, Kevin, that live in Des Plaines, IL.
For most of my life I have had the good fortune of traveling extensively for work and pleasure both nationally and internationally. As a well-known fraud examiner and forensic accountant within the industry I have probably given over 1,000 presentations on investigative and forensic accounting throughout the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe. I have logged in excess of 3 million miles on various airlines.
For many years I consulted with most of the major steel companies, as well as, numerous other publicly traded manufacturers, wholesalers and retail companies and traveled extensively for that part of my business as well. Needless to say, as a traveling businessman, I have enjoyed many fine restaurants, as well as, fast food franchises. Unfortunately for me, along with the good life came an ever increasing waist line that topped out at 42” as I approached 60.. What inspired you to change your life and get healthy? Like most overweight Americans I suffered the typical western diet diseases from years of the supersized diet including coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, hiatal hernia and a bout with cancer. Fortunately, my wife insisted that I see the doctors annually and all my ailments were diagnosed in the early stages and were treated with medications or surgery in the case of the cancer. Since I had so many magic pills it didn’t seem that there was really a need to change my way as they all were controlled. Though the cardiologist would note that I had gained more weight with each 6 month visit
Though health concerns should have been the primary motivator for changing my life and getting healthy I really think that my issue was one of vanity. Needless to say, I heard the ribbing comments from the family about my beach ball belly and the need to keep buying bigger clothes. Finally, I took a good hard look at myself, after seeing the cardiologist in December 2012, in the mirror after taking a shower and was totally disgusted at what looked back at me. Like most Americans I made the typical resolution on January 1, 2013 to lose weight and improve my appearance.
I had a small workout room built in my basement in Park Ridge with obvious good intentions. Contained in the room was a treadmill, a weight bench and an assortment of free weights. I then began on 1/1/2014 to try and exercise at least 45 minutes each morning. After a week or two, I took a picture of myself shirtless with my beach ball belly as a motivation to reduce weight. In the beginning it wasn’t easy but I resolved to do it, kept looking at my beach ball belly picture and slowly began to drop the pounds.
Naturally, at the same time I was trying to be more conscious of what I ate as well as trying to increase my protein intake. One of my employees told me about the Protein Bar on Franklin and I began going on occasion to have a bowl or a salad for lunch or a protein drink in the morning . To keep motivated I bought a new flat screen TV for the weight room and began looking for motivational shows on Netflix. I watched numerous self-help, yoga, exercise documentaries and the like. Since I was now paying more attention to my weight and the food I ate, I took more interest in what Joanne was preparing for the evening meal. For years she complained that she often got sick after eating a lot of meat and I told her that it would help me as well if we would downsize the proportions of meat or change the types of meat in our diet.
As I continued to work out I dropped down from 244 pounds to about 228 pounds just prior to my 60th birthday in May 2013. My morning exercise routines video watching turned to documentaries about food and ultimately to a Vegas lifestyle. In July 2013 I watched the one movie that would change my life “Forks over Knives”. Unlike many of the other documentaries I watched this movie presented credible medical and nutritional experts that presented compelling evidence that a Whole Foods Plant Based (WFPB) diet could halt or even reverse the progression of the typical western diet diseases I was afflicted with. I knew that it would be nearly impossible to convince Joanne or my other family members that I could actually adopt this lifestyle. Therefore, I started by changing my breakfast and lunch to a WFPB diet. I bought some oatmeal, blueberries, vegan protein powder, chia seeds and ground flax seed and began to eat this concoction every morning. My dilemma was what to eat for lunch? I had worked in downtown Chicago on and off for over 35 years and the thought of trying to find a WFPB lunch I thought would be really tough. Then I realized that the Protein Bar had numerous selections that would work. I then began eating at the Protein Bar nearly every day for lunch.
Adapting to my new lifestyle for lunch I knew that I needed to convince Joanne that I now needed to eat a WFPB menu. I have to tell you I thought we were probably going to get a divorce following the announcement. I had her watch Forks Over Knives, gave her a copy of Dr. Esselstyn’s book “How to Reverse and Prevent Heart Disease” which is based on the WFPB diet and told her that I wasn’t asking her to give up meat rather that for health reasons I had to. In the beginning we started to experiment with recipes and slowly we found those that we liked. Though I tried to adhere to the WFPB lifestyle I still would indulge in fish, chicken and bison from time to time.
Later in early autumn I was driving my poodles back to my home in Henderson when I stopped one early morning at a McDonald’s in Nebraska to purchase a cup of coffee and let the girls have a walk. A few moments after returning with coffee in hand, an old pickup truck driven by a tall and lean 50 something cowboy right out of Hollywood central casting appeared. We began to chat and after about 5 minutes he asked me: “You didn’t eat anything in that restaurant, did you?” I replied no that I had just bought a coffee. He then replied: “Good… because you don’t even want to know what is in that meat.” He then explained that he worked at a large feedlot located several miles up the Interstate and what he had seen both in their feed, how they were treated and processed were not for human consumption. Although he was not espousing a plant based lifestyle, I saw him as a God sent messenger telling me to stay with the WFPB lifestyle. I then resolved to go WFPB for all my meals and the rest of my life.
Once I totally adopted the WFPB lifestyle and ramped up my exercise routine the pounds just began to fall off. As of this morning I weighed 191 pounds which is a net weight loss of 53 pounds since January 2013. In addition I have added pounds upon pounds of lean muscle mass. Despite my good intentions I did cheat twice since meeting the Nebraska cowboy. I ate some crab legs and shrimp late in 2013, the next day I thought I had food poisoning and has been the only time I have been sick since I adopted my WFPB lifestyle. This past Easter, I took a small piece of lamb and after a couple of chews spit it out… my palate obviously has changed and what I once relished now was totally disgusting to me. What are your favorite healthy snacks? I am a great fan of hummus, I purchase individual serving packets of Wild Garden traditional hummus and put it on whole grain chips, bread, tortillas, etc. I generally take two servings with me to the Chicago office and put it on the Kale or whole grain chips that I buy from the Protein Bar. I also enjoy Dole’s Dippers which are frozen banana slices coated in dark chocolate and frozen. When I feel like a really decadent treat, I spread organic chunky peanut butter on apples making my own style of a carmel apple. Finally, I am addicted to dark chocolate and have a couple of pieces of Lindt’s or Ghiradelli’s 72% Cacao or higher a day. What is your favorite way to workout? For sometime now, I have become a real gym rat and practice an insane workout for anyone that is a not an athletic competitor let alone a guy approaching 61. First, I have to do my workouts early in the morning, which means I generally get up at 5 AM. In Henderson, I go to an athletic facility with all the latest equipment, while in Park Ridge I use my own room. I generally do 10-15 minutes of warm ups and a bit of stretching, followed by 45-60 minutes of cardio exercises, I prefer an elliptical trainer where I increase the intensity every 5 minutes until about half way done and then reducing every 5 minutes while watching my favorite series, currently Breaking Bad. In Park Ridge I use the treadmill but do the same method of increasing and reducing intensity.
I then do 45 – 60 mins of weight training alternating upper and lower body each day. I follow a method I learned while reading Body for Life by Bill Phillips. I do 5 sets of repetitions starting at 12 reps increasing the weights and doing 10 reps, increase and do 8 reps; increase and do 6 reps then return to 12 reps of the original weight. In Henderson I use machines consisting of 7 machines for upper body and 5 machines for lower body. In Park Ridge I do free weights consisting of 6 sets for upper body and 4 for lower body. I also try and incorporate core and ab training in all my workouts consisting of planks, crunches, leg pull ups etc, In total I probably spend 2 ½ - 3 hours working out 5 – 6 days a week. What do you eat when you are trying to eat healthy on-the-go? While on the go in Chicago the Protein Bar is definitely my go to place. While in Henderson, I often eat at a small chain called Greens and Proteins that has numerous Vegan items and a similar emphasis as the Protein Bar though a definitely different menu. I also eat a lot whole grain pasta with veggies, many times you will find restaurants with have vegan items though not always on the menu; Veggie sushi rolls with brown rice, spinach salads sans bacon, dressing, eggs, etc and squeeze lemon on top. Often I use an App called “Happy Cow” that lists vegan and vegetarian offerings. I have found a lot of restaurants have a vegan burger and will have those from time to time as well. Finally often Asian restaurants will have vegan items just need to really read the menu and work with your server. What is your favorite Protein Bar Eat? Frankly I love the Vegan Original Bar-rito with chips and that is mostly what I eat as I find it really satiates my appetite. I bought a bottle of my own hot sauce for the office and dash some on the bar-rito after each bite. As I previously wrote I add Wild Garden hummus to the whole grain chips you sell. I also really like the Vegan Quinoa Chili and will order the Fruit Loop’d protein drink with soy milk some mornings. Protein Bar’s salads are awesome as well and occasionally I will have one of those for lunch. I also buy the raw Kale chips and will have the vegetarian chili as a side.