What exactly is a diet?The word diet has two meanings, as a noun (Your diet is the type and variety of food that you regularly eat. It's never too late to improve your diet.) and a verb (If you are dieting, you eat special kinds of food or you eat less food than usual because you are trying to lose weight. I've been dieting ever since the birth of my fourth child.). Collins English Dictionary I want to focus on the noun. I don't want to be ON a diet anymore but I want my diet to be a part of my lifestyle. So, what diet am I going to make part of my lifestyle? Anti-Inflammatory?Back in 2012, I was seeing a chiropractor after having lower back spasms for fifteen consecutive days. After a few visits, he suggested I try an anti-inflammatory diet. I had never heard of it and he explained that it as easy, just cut out all grains, sugars and dairy. Maybe because dairy was the last thing that I heard, the first thing that came into my mind was CHEESE! I told him that I didn't think I could LIVE without cheese. He said that if I cut out grains, sugars and most dairy only allowing myself a little cheese, that I would still see a difference and feel much better. I wanted to feel better. Then I remembered how much I love bread! And who doesn't love sugar? Looking back, I remember standing in the grocery store trying to figure out what to put in my cart. I did figure it out and and I was in much less pain. I did pretty good for several years until I got sick in 2015. I got a cold that developed into bronchitis that turned into Pneumonia. I was hospitalized in December with congestive heart failure. I had fluid in my lungs, my blood pressure was 231/157 and I had gained about 30 pounds over the course of several months. I was sent home with instructions to follow a DASH (Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension) diet. The information that I was provided was dated 2008 and highly contradicted the Anti-Inflammatory diet that I had been following. I struggled to incorporate the two, eventually almost completely abandoning Anti-Inflammatory. I only lost about 20 pounds and I was having joint pain again. But on the DASH diet you can have grains, it's actually recommended. In March of 2017 I decided that I had to do something different. Everywhere I looked, I kept seeing information about the Whole30 diet... Whole30?I spent several weeks studying the Whole30 website. I read blogs by people eating the Whole30 diet. I took notes. I decided to start on April first. Kind of the opposite of April Fools, no joke! And, there are thirty days in April! You can read all about my Whole30 experience starting here. Aside from the fact that I forgot to go grocery shopping, I was pretty successful, or so I thought. According to the Whole30 rules, if you eat ANY amount of sugar, dairy, or grains you're supposed to restart your thirty days! I totally get it, I mean, you're supposed to be cleansing your system of these things. Well, day one, I ate homemade pulled pork bbq that had 2 TBSP of brown sugar in it. Granted, that's a whole 2 TBSP in a recipe with 5 POUNDS of pork but it is still sugar. I ate some Larabars that are not compliant, although I didn't realize it until I was attempting to try another whole30 in August. I also ate waffle fries from Chick-fil-a several times. However, come April 30th and I had more energy, I was more active, my blood pressure was down and I lost over 13 pounds. All of that's pretty successful in my book! I knew I wasn't going to do another whole30 in May but intended to follow their guidelines with a bit of leniency. I lost a little over 4 pounds. In June, I went on a ten day trip with my best friend and her kids and although I followed the guidelines, we were on vacation; we had ice cream for dinner one night and went to an amusement park another day and sweets were eaten. I lost 1 pound that month. In July my family went to the beach with my husband's family. They eat fairly healthy so it was easy to follow the whole30 guidelines while still enjoying an occasional treat. I lost 3 pounds. I was told that I didn't actually complete a whole whole30 because I should have restarted from the date of my error and therefore I didn't fully cleanse for thirty days. So when I prepared to do another whole30 in August, I wanted to be sure to follow ALL of the rules this time. After several errors and having to start over, I quit. I felt like a failure. I just couldn't do it anymore. Paleo?I've never done a Paleo diet and was seriously considering this one, but according to my research, Paleo is very similar to the Whole30 & Anti-inflammatory diets. I really couldn't find much difference. Sooooo... I would basically be doing the same thing, just a different name. Which diet?I'm going to come up with some "Food Rules" but in the meantime, I'm going to follow what I've learned from my Anti-Inflammatory & Whole30 experiences. However, if I mess up, tomorrow is a new day! I'm also going to pray. What does God want me to eat? This is important to me. Had to add...As I finished this post, I prayed for God to help me to make decisions to be healthier. I got up from the computer and walked past our bookshelf and this book just stood out to me. This is totally a God thing because this book has been on this shelf for YEARS! I bought it when Borders was closing, skimmed through it, watched the included DVD and put the book on the shelf. Although the DVD was not in the book, I was able to find it! You read one chapter each day which includes the following sections: Having Faith with examples of Un-Faith-Full Thoughts, Walking for Other Reasons with a bible verse, Activities to try that day, Fit Facts where she shares good information about being healthy, and a daily Journal with an affirmation and space to record your progress and notes. I'm going to do this. I have to do this! (I'm going to keep my Journal pages in a separate little notebook instead of writing in my book.) I have to do this because my health is that important. I have high blood pressure and suffer from chronic pain. The biggest thing that I learned this past year is that when I eat better, I feel better! I lost 21 pounds, and although I gained 15 of those pounds back, I'm still 6 pounds smaller than I was last April. I'm definitely going to pray and ask God to help me come up with some good but realistic food rules. What kind of diet or food rules do you follow?
2 Comments
temirah
1/25/2019 11:58:21 pm
I like the idea of Clean eating & Earth diet. Living it in truth and being 100% vegetarian.
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Catrina
1/26/2019 09:36:02 am
Temirah, Thank you for sharing your philosophy. Eleven months after this post and I'm sad to say that not only have I not blogged at all this past year, I also haven't committed to any specific diet.
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My name is Catrina and I'd like to welcome you to iheartgoofy. I put this blog together to chronicle my journey through this thing called life.
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