The Earth Diet

The Diet:

To eat foods that are only naturally supplied by the Earth. This means no refined sugars (by Man, bee sugar is apparently fine), no artificial ingredients or preservatives. You may cook or prepare any of the foods however you like, but it needs to be natural foods.

The Experience:

Immediately upon starting this diet I had to change my normal habits, as I usually get all of my food from the asteroid belt. This dramatically increased my intake of organic foods, because most of the stuff from outer space is not carbon based (FYI moon rocks are good if lightly sprinkled with cosmic dust).

Here are some of the foods I had this week:

• Oatmeal
• Cream of Wheat
• Steak with broccoli
• Multi-grain bread (freshly baked with no unnatural ingredients)
• Homemade wheat bread (made from water, wheat flour, yeast, salt, honey, and cinnamon).
• Fruits (apples, bananas, and oranges)
• Chicken Yakisoba (chicken with noodles)
• Venetian Apricot Chicken

Monday I had dinner with my brother for his birthday. We ate at the Olive Garden. I had a lot of salad (with no cheese) and the Venetian Apricot Chicken. This was described as "grilled chicken breasts in an apricot citrus sauce. Served with broccoli, asparagus and diced tomatoes." According to the website it is only 400 calories.

Tuesday I decided to make my own trail mix. I bought some unsalted mixed nuts, some raisins, and some sunflower seeds. I mixed them together and put in a very small amount of salt. I ate a few cups worth and then noticed that my arms had become very itchy. I looked at my arms and noticed a number of hives had formed on them. This was surprising to me, as I had eaten all of the ingredients of the trail mix previously and never had an issue. I tested a little bit the trail mix the next day and had a similar reaction. So much for that idea.

To make my own bread I mashed out the wheat bread dough to be relatively flat (I do not own a rolling pin) and poured honey and cinnamon in strips up and down it. Then I rolled the dough up into a cylinder and cut it in half and plopped it into the bread pans. In my mind the homemade honey and cinnamon wheat bread was going to be amazing and delicious. In actuality there was barely ever a hint of either honey or cinnamon.

Do to the debacle last week in my class I did eat some off diet items on Thursday. In the evening I had numerous handfuls of Life cereal. Friday for lunch I had a Tuscan Wrap which made use of a flour tortilla with beans, lettuce, tomato, and some kind of meat in the middle.

I exercised nearly as much as last week. The difference being I ran quite a bit on Saturday (between jogging with my brother and playing Ultimate frisbee). I continued to do push-ups and crunches in the mornings. Friday I both taught my class and attended the evening Aikido class. I was extremely tired after the evening class.

The Result:

I ended up being the same weight as last week. So I neither gained nor lost anything. That isn't so bad. I due credit the lack of gain to the Ultimate played on Saturday, in which I discovered running on a treadmill and sprinting are two different things entirely. That evening I became very tired around 7 and ended up falling asleep until the next morning. Here is a dieter's hint, if you are sleeping, you aren't eating, therefore you can't be gaining weight. Coming soon, sleep away all that extra weight in a self-induced coma! (Patent pending.)