The Diet

I’ve been on my doctor-recommended diet now for a week and a half.  I wanted to wait until I fully understood how I might manage this thing before I wrote about it.

It’s not impossible to keep on the diet but it requires a change in lifestyle organized around 5-7 meals a day with very specific foods to provide correct caloric content with a proper distribution of lean protein, fat and the right kind of carbs.  There is no room for prepared foods and limited items that one could get eating out.  Some days menus are more portable than others so travelling will take either tremendous organization and planning or a hybrid diet sticking to as reasonable foods as possible or just dropping the diet for a period and accepting the consequences.

The menu contains lots of fish, chicken and turkey jerky along with Whey protein shakes to provide lots of lean protein.  Fat and carbs comes from various beans, vegetables, fruits and whole grain rice or oatmeal.

The first couple of days on the diet Penny and I were overwhelmed.  Between buying the food, preparing it, eating it and cleaning up it seemed that all we could do all day, everyday was work on all things diet.  Penny formally resigned from the diet on day 4 but now helps me out with meal prep.  She is remaining on the diet for the most part.  She is just more comfortable not feeling all the responsibility for making meals on a rigid timetable.  She now helps when she is comfortable (which is a lot ).

Last week we skipped our usual Waffle House breakfast.  This week we didn’t.  I can eat pretty close to the diet’s requirement for breakfast out.  So we will still be doing Famous Amos in Jax.

A month ago I couldn’t envision myself eating things like kale, bok choy and adzuki beans.  All 3 of those are in today’s menu.

This diet is supposed to provide the calories you need when you need them. The volume of food is huge but the calories are low.I’m not going hungry, in fact, many meals it is difficult to eat everything.  For the most part the food is tasty.  The kale is cooked in a spicy soup for example.  There are a couple of bland items but nothing is really yucky-except for artichoke hearts which we are not eating.

I’ll try to stick with the diet (read as Lifestyle) as reasonably as I can and see if it has the desired results.  I weighed myself after week 1 and I was down 5 lbs.  I would like to see at least that much come off each month so even if the 5 lbs in a week is a fluke I won’t be disappointed as long as the trend is in the correct direction.

Yes, there is exercise involved also.  So far mine has only been walking.  I plan to add more over time since I don’t have any pain issues to use as an excuse any more.