Rethinking My Diet

I mean "diet" in the true sense of the word: my regularly consumed food and drink; not in the sense of a restrictive regimen designed to lose weight. I want to change my eating habits for the better permanently - and my family's, too, whether they like it or not!

When I lost 60 pounds four years ago, I was following the South Beach Diet, which is an approach to low-carb dieting. It obviously worked - until I got pregnant and went back to my carb-bingeing ways. When I got back on track a year ago and decided to get the weight off again, I initially went back to South Beach. I had the plans memorized and knew that it worked. Then I discovered calorie counting. The general wisdom there is that as long as you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. That is true. However, I began budgeting things like pizza, french fries, donuts, and other things with refined flour and sugar into my calories for the day. On a typical day, I'd eat a low-calorie breakfast and lunch (Special K and Lean Cuisine were my friends) so that I would still have 1000 calories (sometimes more) available for dinner. I was happy I wasn't eating like someone on a diet. I was also setting myself up for failure.

I did calorie counting for almost a year. I finally came to the realization that it wasn't working. Yes, I was losing weight, at times rapidly, but there were long periods of time when nothing happened. I yo-yo'd with the same five pounds from Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day! Eating those unhealthy foods just caused me to crave them more, and overindulge more and more frequently. With what I was eating in the amounts I was eating it, you'd think I'd have started piling the weight back on, but I would alternate with calorie deficit days and exercise so much that it evened out. Running five miles or doing a Spinning class would burn 600-700 calories a pop. I would get really cranky on days I couldn't do a workout because I couldn't eat as much as I needed to truly feel full. I was also obviously not eating healthily, nor was I having a positive relationship with food. Something had to change. A lot of things, really.

My "Ausamerican" friend Haley (visit her blog here) had been posting some articles and information on Facebook that were making me question what I thought I knew about healthy eating. I asked her some questions and that led me to explore "real food". Real food is food that is as close as possible to its natural state. Guidelines for looking for real food include "not eating anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food" and "not eating anything with a logo on it". Fresh or minimally processed fruits and vegetables, meats, dairy, eggs, butter, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains. Using real food guidelines, I came up with my own healthy eating plan:

• I'm eating more fat. Eating healthy fat helps improve satiety and keeps food cravings at bay. I was surprised to learn that conventional wisdom about saturated fat no longer holds water. I started using real butter instead of I Can't Believe It's Not. I was disappointed to learn that the canola oil I'd been baking with and using in whole-grain pancakes and waffles was highly refined, bleached and deodorized. I ordered some coconut oil and am learning to use it. At least I was already regularly using one type of healthy fat: olive oil.
• I'm not eating anything with added sugar or artificial sweeteners. I will allow myself some honey or real maple syrup if needed. I used to think stevia was natural, but the process that makes the white powder found at the grocery store is anything but.
• I'm cutting out processed food. There are certain items in my kitchen, such as salad dressing, that I'm going to finish up because it would be wasteful to just toss it, but I'm planning to make the switch to homemade and real food versions of everything I can.
• I'm watching my carb intake again. I'm shooting for 75-100 grams of carbohydrates a day, maybe a bit more on run days. My Fitness Pal is still very helpful at tracking this for me. I even set my profile to my new carb ceiling.
• For two weeks, I am not eating any grains. That includes wheat, oats, rice, and corn. I am doing this to get cravings for problem carbs under control and to stabilize my blood sugar. I also want to see how my body reacts as they're (slowly) reintroduced.

It's been a week and a day since I've fully adopted and stuck to this new eating plan, including not eating grains. I have lost five pounds! I'm not sure if I was retaining a lot of water or what - all I know is that the scale is showing five pounds gone. My stomach has shrunk noticeably. My eating self control has improved by leaps and bounds. (I have even made waffles and muffins for my kids and not tasted a bite.) I'm not hungry all the time. It's hard to judge whether I've had more energy because I've been dealing with a sick toddler who hasn't been sleeping well, but I certainly don't have less energy than normal.

All of this is not set in stone. If I deviate from time to time, I'm not going to beat myself up (although I am going to be strict about the no-grain period). I think the 80/20 rule is good to follow - if you eat right 80% of the time, the other 20% of not-so-great eating will not affect you too much. Which is what I'm going to use to justify taking my kids to their school's McTeacher Night at McDonalds this evening.