Eat To Live

The Diet:

There are entire books about this diet, of which I reviewed only one. The primary focus is to eat foods high in 'micro-nutrients' and to eliminate foods which are low in them (or are high in 'macro-nutrients').

This basically means you want unprocessed foods. 30-50% of your food should come from fruits and vegetables. 10-30% should come from legumes and beans. 10-20% should come from whole grains. Twice a week you are allowed one serving of daily, fish, or pultry. At least initially you should avoid red meat and fatty foods.

For this week I decided to cook a very large pot of vegan chili. It contained:

• Green chili peppers
• Red bell peppers
• Green bell peppers
• Tomatoes (peeled and crushed)
• Celery
• Onion
• Black beans
• Garbanzo beans
• Pinto beans
• Chili powder
• Garlic
• Vegan hamburger "meat"

I made enough that I had it for two meals a day until Saturday afternoon.

Also, for the first time ever, I took a multivitamin at the beginning of each day. Men's Active One-a-Day Multivitamin.

The Experience:

Looking at the things I was to be eating I expected to lose weight. I've had a lot of success in the past with high vegetable and fruit diets and an elimination of meat.

The original chili recipe I used called for jalapenos and more than twice as much chili powder as I used. Fortunately I read the comments before just blinding making the chili and I saw that most people said it was unbearably spicy. I took out those things and it was still rather spicy, but tolerable.

I cooked the chili Monday night, I had it for lunch on Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday. I also had it for dinner Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Thursday for lunch I had forgotten to bring chili, so I had a greek salad instead. Thursday evening I made some whole wheat corn bread. It came out as little more than a yellowish brick in my pan.

They say losing and gaining weight can have a lot to do with your emotional state. For some reason I was feeling pretty down this week. As a result I was always hungry, and I found myself wanting to eat things even after I had just had a huge bowl of chili. To try and combat this I bought some all natural little energy balls of fruit paste which a coworker is selling. These things are supposed to give you a little energy boost when you start to feel tired and take the edge off of your hungry. They didn't really do that for me, but again I think it was mental instead of physical.

I exercised less than I hoped to this week. I did weightlifting and jogging Monday and Wednesday evening. Tuesday evening I participated in Aikido, and Friday I taught my Aikido class. By the time I got to Friday night I was so tired I didn't attend my regular Aikido class. Saturday I did no exercise.

Saturday night I attended a murder mystery party with friends. We had chicken, baked beans, potato, and rolls. I also had some peach cobbler, a scoop of ice cream, and some candy.

The Result:

I ended up gaining 3 pounds this week. While I was tracking my weight over the week I saw that it was increasing a little bit each day. I was hoping by some miracle that it would swing back down and at least leave me at the same place. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.