Hi Yogi,
Do you know how many diet books there are on the market? Me either, but there must be a TON of them. Only the short stack is on my bookshelf, but none of them ever really touched that place in my soul that could get a handle on this weight problem. Most of them had some common sense (portion control) and practical tools (calorie counters), but it all seemed to take a daunting amount of attention. The food diaries and calorie counts, well, who has time for that?
So a few years back, I joined a famed diet group, you know the one with the initials WW? There was a chapter at work and we met weekly during the lunch break. I thought the financial investment would spur me on to success. After six weeks of talking about food, examining food, measuring and weighing food, banning certain foods, I had gained a pound.
My sense was, there's got to be a something going on chemically in the body, but unsure what it could be. Why am I always hungry? Stress? Yes, I work a high stress, full-time job. But I always balance that with prayer, meditation, play, exercise (especially yoga). Lately, there's a lot of chatter about sleep patterns affecting the diet. I haven't been able to sleep more than six hours a night for a couple of years now. Could that be causing all the hunger? Certainly all the wonderful, tempting and entertaining cooking shows now on television couldn't contribute, or could it? I've heard it referred to as "food porn".
Being an Oza-holic, I faithfully DVR the Dr. Oz program. A couple of weeks ago, his guest was Dr. Chris Kresser, who wrote the book, "Your Personal Paleo Code". It's not a true weight-loss, diet book, but reportedly, some people who follow the plan have lost weight. Dr. Kresser spent years working on a personal health issue, so this book was the result of years of nutritional study.
Paleo, me? I was a vegetarian for years, and still a vegetarian at heart. The only reason I went back to eating meat was at the suggestion of a nutritionist as the easiest way to fight borderline anemia. But the idea of reducing all the processed grains and sugars had been on my mind anyway, so I bought the book. I'm only on page 100 (of 400+), but Dr. Kresser has already laid out some interesting guidelines to start a new way of life. I decided, for Lent, to give this nutrition program a try and to be accountable to all of you by blogging the results.
The first phase is the reset, or what I like to think of as detox. Meats, non-starchy vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds are a go. Root vegetables are permitted, well, with the exception of white potatoes, and some oils are OK too, including coconut oil (my favorite) and olive oil. No counting calories, no measuring or weighing.
What to avoid? Sugar. All of it. No honey, agave, maple syrup or artificial sweeteners of any kind. No dairy. (Oh, how I will miss Greek yogurt). No beans. What? I always thought they were extremely healthy, what with the fiber and phytonutrients. They were the staple of my vegetarian diet. No industrial seed oils. No peanuts or peanut butter, arghhhhh. You'll have to read the book to get all the science behind these rules, but needless to say, there's gonna be some weeping and gnashing of teeth around Bergman Street later this week, but hopefully not the whole 40 days.
Today, it's oatmeal with raisins for breakfast, pancetta pizza for lunch, and definitely some soon to be forbidden starchy carb for dinner. Of course, along with my five daily servings of veggies, as usual. Grapes with plain Greek yogurt, sprinkled with cinnamon and sunflower seeds will serve as a delectable dessert.
Stay tuned...
No comments:
Post a Comment