Thursday, February 2, 2012

my diet.

Well, it's about time I go on a diet. I'm feeling a little... plump.

Kidding. hahaha.

But I suppose diet is the appropriate word, but not in the sense of weight loss as it is often used. I'm trying out an elimination diet. An elimination diet is when you cease to consume certain things for at least a month and then slowly introduce things back, one at a time, to see what the effects may be on your body.

Before I explain exactly what I'm doing I want to stress how important what we consume is to our bodies. I have felt this for a while and the more I learn the more, shall I say passionate, I become. Food is important. We put food into our bodies multiple times a day every day of our lives. If there is anything that we focus energy and money on in our lives I feel it should be food. But unfortunately most people use food as a place to cut back in times of financial stress or when too busy but that should be our opposite reaction. Sure, our bodies take in a lot of things, we breathe air, we see things, we smell things... but we can't control all of those things completely. We can control, so easily, what we eat.

Tyler, Olive, and I eat pretty well. The quality of our food is important to me. My weekly shopping trips are spent primarily in the produce section and bulk section of our local co-op. I buy very few canned or packaged products. Nothing with dyes. I read labels. Much of our produce is organic. We don't eat out too often and when we do I make good choices for Olive and myself.

Despite eating well I still feel off sometimes. My mood can fluctuate. My ankles are very stiff every morning. I get aches in my knees. Before having Olive I was constantly stricken with headaches.. luckily that isn't as frequent now but I still do get them. Sometimes I'm gassy. I get dizzy. I have eczema. Nothing life threatening here but my quality of life would surely be better if these things didn't plague me.

Recently I learned that sugar is an inflammatory agent. It seems I should have known this... but I didn't. So... arthritis is inflammation. Sugar causes inflammation. Whoops, I like sugar. So that's one thing I'm cutting out. No sugar. I'm a huge fan of sweet things though so I bought some xylitol for things like coffee. I'm really not a fan of stevia. Ew.

Also, I was completely unaware that nightshades often cause people with arthritis discomfort. What are nightshades? Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers (sweet and hot), and eggplant. That's quite unfortunate as tomatoes and potatoes are in a lot of what we cook. But I'm cutting those out as well for at least a month.

I'm also avoiding gluten. I know that's somewhat trendy right now but it does seem like people with adverse reactions to gluten are popping up everywhere. Some things, my mood, headaches, tummy stuff.. may be related to gluten.. but maybe not.

I'm taking a somewhat paleo spin on things as well which means lots of vegetables, some meat, no processed dairy, no processed grains, no rice, and no legumes. Processed dairy such as butter is still going to happen. I love butter. We drink almond milk rather than cow's milk. Sometimes we have cheese and yogurt but not frequently. And we don't eat very much meat. No rice because it's not very nutritionally beneficial.. it's more of a filler. And no beans because, again, they sometimes bother people with inflammatory problems but also because they inhibit absorption of nutrients. What?! Totally true. So.. all of those people in Uganda and millions of other places eating rice and beans for nearly every meal... yeah. :( I was shocked to learn that.. here's a quick blurb I found on a blog with a little more info if you don't believe me. :)

So thats it. I started on January 31st, 2011.
No sugar
No nightshades
No gluten
No legumes

I'll still do a little meat, a little dairy, and a little rice.

What does that leave me to eat?

Lots of vegetables (which we eat a ton of already)! Nuts! Things I bake with the almond flour I make! Um... I'm totally open to suggestions. :) But so far, for the past two days, it's gone well. :)

Wish me luck!

Are you on a diet? Do you have any questions or comments about my diet plan?

I'll be posting some photos and simple recipes along the way.

2 comments:

  1. Wow that is so cool that you have made your own almond flour!! We also buy most all of our food fresh or frozen. I don't buy prepackaged food and very rarely buy anything canned.

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  2. [...] in line with my elimination diet and because no one really needs sugar, I decided to make Olive a sugar free birthday cake. Even [...]

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