I am ‘Life is short, stay awake for it’ kind of girl. Yup that meant guzzling multiple cups of coffee with extra shots to keep me going. But this (Ultra simple Diet) diet made me realized that I don’t need tumblers of caffeine to keep me awake. And also that when my body needs rest, I should allow it to rest and not push it against a wall till it collapses, which is my usual style of living.
Trust me, I have had my share of fad diets, but for past few years I had mostly resorted to eating healthy and balanced meals with little portions of just about everything, there was no forbidden food. And I did lose all my baby weight in due course just by monitoring the quantity of food and working out but recently I struggled to find the optimum balance and so when my friend recommended this diet, I got a copy of the book from the library. I was skeptical first but what encouraged me to try it was my bad skin allergic reaction from earlier this summer. All my doctor could prescribe was steroids to keep allergic reaction down and Benadryl to sleep when the steroid made me all wired up. Of course, I didn’t follow the entire medication course and started experimenting with food, wine and caffeine and soap & lotions. It was tough to figure out what caused it since the allergen made me photo sensitive (which I realized later) and so as long as I minimized the exposure to sun the reaction was somewhat under control. I studied the above mentioned diet book for almost 3 weeks before I committed to it.
Anyways, long story short, I thought if there are any toxins or allergens in my diet that is causing inflammation and adding to the toxicity levels, I should be able to figure it out. This diet recommends a self-assessment of the body toxicity levels based on a score of questions as a gauge for improvement while on the diet. My toxicity levels were not alarming at all but I decided to go on the diet anyways.
In short, this diet teaches you to eat sensibly with more thought to what you are eating and since we all run short on time to actually think about our food, let alone plan it a week in advance it was a good exercise.
Highlights:
It warranted no use of alcohol or caffeine, along with no dairy to reduce the toxins and inflammation causing agents.
It focuses on eating good quantity of vegetables, two cups at each meal time along with vegetable broth to curb hunger pangs.
It included proteins, 4 oz of beans/fish/chicken breasts for lunch and dinner along with protein powder in the breakfast shakes.
The diet recommends good fats through olive oil for cooking and nuts for snacks and also flaxseeds and borage oil.
The carbs came from beans, fruits (berries in particular that are low glycemic index), vegetables and half cup of brown rice at each meal time.
My customizations (and cravings):
The diet calls for only certain vegetables but because summer is short in these parts of the world, I ate everything that was available fresh in the famers market including tomatoes, cucumber and eggplants.
I used a lot of spices including cloves, cinnamon, ginger, garlic etc to keep my food flavorful despite the repetitive menu.
The diet calls only for Rice Protein powder but I occasional used soy and whey protein powder too.
Although I stayed off caffeine and alcohol, DH continued with his morning coffee and occasional glass of wine and the diet still worked (controlled sugar levels) for him.
I missed not eating dark chocolate, cereal milk and yogurt terribly. I did eat Soy yogurt but it’s not the same thing.
The diet claims that you stop missing the sweets after the first couple days of initial body adjustment but I continued to miss it throughout my diet.
My energy levels weren’t as high as the book and my friend claimed it to be, I crashed at about 4:00pm every single day and I found myself quieter than usual on this diet.
The diet calls for moderate exercise but with my body type, I need to sweat to burn fat and so I noticed that the weighing scale registered weight loss only on days when I worked out.
It called for 2- 20 minute yoga sessions, a 20 minute bath at the end of the day and a good 8 hour sleep; well there were days when I had to choose between activities to decide how I’d spent my precious 20 minutes. But I did rediscover lavender baths/ shower and the importance of yoga in my life.
All in all, I like this diet and would very much go on it again and more importantly I gained a new perspective and even though I am not on a diet anymore, I don’t eat more than 4oz protein in a meal, because now I know I don’t need more. Like I said it was a good exercise to gauge what your body truly needs and what is just greed. And inspired by my newly gained healthy perspective I have challenged myself to run a total of 100 miles before my birthday. (I guess I did say that out loud, may be that’ll make me more accountable, just may be…)
And just because a post without pictures makes it boring, here's two from our visit to the local Arboretum
Trust me, I have had my share of fad diets, but for past few years I had mostly resorted to eating healthy and balanced meals with little portions of just about everything, there was no forbidden food. And I did lose all my baby weight in due course just by monitoring the quantity of food and working out but recently I struggled to find the optimum balance and so when my friend recommended this diet, I got a copy of the book from the library. I was skeptical first but what encouraged me to try it was my bad skin allergic reaction from earlier this summer. All my doctor could prescribe was steroids to keep allergic reaction down and Benadryl to sleep when the steroid made me all wired up. Of course, I didn’t follow the entire medication course and started experimenting with food, wine and caffeine and soap & lotions. It was tough to figure out what caused it since the allergen made me photo sensitive (which I realized later) and so as long as I minimized the exposure to sun the reaction was somewhat under control. I studied the above mentioned diet book for almost 3 weeks before I committed to it.
Anyways, long story short, I thought if there are any toxins or allergens in my diet that is causing inflammation and adding to the toxicity levels, I should be able to figure it out. This diet recommends a self-assessment of the body toxicity levels based on a score of questions as a gauge for improvement while on the diet. My toxicity levels were not alarming at all but I decided to go on the diet anyways.
In short, this diet teaches you to eat sensibly with more thought to what you are eating and since we all run short on time to actually think about our food, let alone plan it a week in advance it was a good exercise.
Highlights:
It warranted no use of alcohol or caffeine, along with no dairy to reduce the toxins and inflammation causing agents.
It focuses on eating good quantity of vegetables, two cups at each meal time along with vegetable broth to curb hunger pangs.
It included proteins, 4 oz of beans/fish/chicken breasts for lunch and dinner along with protein powder in the breakfast shakes.
The diet recommends good fats through olive oil for cooking and nuts for snacks and also flaxseeds and borage oil.
The carbs came from beans, fruits (berries in particular that are low glycemic index), vegetables and half cup of brown rice at each meal time.
My customizations (and cravings):
The diet calls for only certain vegetables but because summer is short in these parts of the world, I ate everything that was available fresh in the famers market including tomatoes, cucumber and eggplants.
I used a lot of spices including cloves, cinnamon, ginger, garlic etc to keep my food flavorful despite the repetitive menu.
The diet calls only for Rice Protein powder but I occasional used soy and whey protein powder too.
Although I stayed off caffeine and alcohol, DH continued with his morning coffee and occasional glass of wine and the diet still worked (controlled sugar levels) for him.
I missed not eating dark chocolate, cereal milk and yogurt terribly. I did eat Soy yogurt but it’s not the same thing.
The diet claims that you stop missing the sweets after the first couple days of initial body adjustment but I continued to miss it throughout my diet.
My energy levels weren’t as high as the book and my friend claimed it to be, I crashed at about 4:00pm every single day and I found myself quieter than usual on this diet.
The diet calls for moderate exercise but with my body type, I need to sweat to burn fat and so I noticed that the weighing scale registered weight loss only on days when I worked out.
It called for 2- 20 minute yoga sessions, a 20 minute bath at the end of the day and a good 8 hour sleep; well there were days when I had to choose between activities to decide how I’d spent my precious 20 minutes. But I did rediscover lavender baths/ shower and the importance of yoga in my life.
All in all, I like this diet and would very much go on it again and more importantly I gained a new perspective and even though I am not on a diet anymore, I don’t eat more than 4oz protein in a meal, because now I know I don’t need more. Like I said it was a good exercise to gauge what your body truly needs and what is just greed. And inspired by my newly gained healthy perspective I have challenged myself to run a total of 100 miles before my birthday. (I guess I did say that out loud, may be that’ll make me more accountable, just may be…)
And just because a post without pictures makes it boring, here's two from our visit to the local Arboretum
 |
| Kids at the fountain |
 |
| Picnic under the Magnolia tree |
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