Change of diet update

Last week, after watching Food, Inc (about how our food chain has disintegrated to our health detriment thanks to giant megacompanies who have taken over the food industry) I had no choice but to change how I eat. 

My focus was in three areas. 

1. My meat will only be grass-fed, drug-free, free-range beef and poultry (and eggs) will be  free-range no hormone, antibiotics, veg-fed.
2. My vegetables will be local farmer-produced or organic (if from the store) to minimize the amount of pesticide in the vegetables and artificial ripening as well as travel carbon offsets
3. No more processed foods — i.e. staying away from corn and soy by-products that are used as filler and preservatives in almost EVERY processed food I looked at.  A hunk of cheddar?  Fine.  No preservatives.  Shredded cheese in a bag? Yup — soy preservatives. 

So this past week was pretty radical.  I love food, so it took a lot of work.  I made my own chicken stock from the free-range chicken I had cooked and froze it for soup later this week.  I baked 2 batches of cookies because we need our sweets — just not with soy or corn in it. I’m limiting soy consumption to reduce the amount of isoflavines I’m ingesting (we shouldn’t have more than 10 – 35 mg a day and most Americans are ingesting over 100 mg just from the soy fillers in processed food!!).

I enjoyed every meal, even though it took a heck of lot more time.  Dollar for dollar I only spent about 10% more than my normal shopping because I didn’t buy a single item with filler.  No cookies, no chips, no granola bars…nothing.  I feel fantastic already, in just a few short days.  Not hungry at ALL (I’m usually a late night muncher) because of all the nutrient-rich food I’m taking in.  (If any of you are interested in some of the delish meals I’m making, let me know and I’ll post a few of them.)  Actually, the food tastes like I remember growing up.  I thought it was just memories — but, in fact, it seems to be food quality.

And, guess what?  Without having changed a single other thing — with my walking regimen the same (I use a device called MyTrak to monitor all my daily activity) — I lost 2 pounds this week.  My mother lost 5.  And believe me…we’ve eaten our fill of rice, pasta, cookies, pie, in addition to a lot of  excellent vegetables,other grains, fruit and meat.  My experiment is to see with just eliminating the soy and corn fillers if that will have a radical effect on my belly fat.  I’ll definitely keep you posted.