Your eating plan for your new life!

As we have discussed we can trace the increase of disease and obesity in our societies to the introduction of flour, sugar and processed foods in to our diets!  Consequently to reverse this damaging trend we need to significantly restrict or reduce our intake of these foods and for some of thus that can be very difficult!

So in an attempt to ease the process I have adapted various healthy eating policies from the New Atkins Diet, Mark Sissons, Gary Taubes and Chris Kresser to name a few and have hopefully come up with an incredible simple and easy to follow 3 step programme!  Like a computer that occasionally needs to be rebooted using Ctrl/Alt/Del our bodies also need a reset from time to time and so our first phase is the Reset Phase.  Essentially this phase will last between 2 to 4 weeks but depending upon how you feel and how much weight you want to or need to lose, it can last much longer!

Again I stress for any healthy eating policy to work it needs to be simple!  Otherwise at the first sign of difficulty we bail and revert to our old habits!  So I have split our food in to 3 groups:

a) Foods that we can eat liberally
b) Foods that we can eat in moderation, and
c) Foods that we must avoid!

So a) Foods that we can eat liberally:

• MEAT & POULTRY – ORGANIC AND FREE RANGE IF POSSIBLE
• ORGAN MEATS – LIVER, KIDNEY
• BONE BROTH SOUPS E.G. CHICKEN STOCK
• FISH – FRESH
• EGGS – FREE RANGE
• NON – STARCHY VEGETABLES – SALAD & COOKED
• TRADITIONAL FATS – COCONUT OIL, LARD, EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL, BUTTER
• OLIVES, AVACADOS, TOMATOES & COCONUTSSEA SALT & SPICES

b) Foods that we can eat in moderation:

• Processed meat – sausages, bacon, ham, salami
• Green beans, sugar snap peas, mangetout
• Coffee and tea – with cream or coconut milk
• Cheese
• Vinegar – cider vinegar, balsamic, red wine

AVOID COMPLETELY

• Grains – wheat, rice, cereal, oats i.e. No bread, no pasta, cereal or pizza
• Nuts & Seeds – almonds, brazil nuts, cashew nuts, macadamia nuts, pecan nuts, pine nuts, walnuts and pistachio nuts. Also chia and flax.
• Whole fruit (see below)
• bFizzy drinks & Fruit juices
• Industrial seed and vegetable oils – soya, corn
• Dairy – yoghurt, milk,
• Pulses/Legumes – lentils, chickpeas, red kidney beans – contain PHYTATES
• Chocolate even 75%+ cocoa content!
• Processed food – if it comes in a box don’t eat it
• Alcohol
• Starchy veg – carrots, parsnips, potatoes  (sweet potatoes are better but wait)
• Anything with “DIET” in it
• FAST FOOD

RULE OF THUMB THOUGH, IF IN DOUBT LEAVE IT OUT!

As you can see these lists are pretty self explanatory!  However the chances are that a few of you will be very surprised to see Whole fruits listed in the Avoid group!  Are we not told to eat our 5 portions of fruit a day?  Now whilst fruits may well be outstanding sources of fibre, vitamins, minerals and anti oxidants, they do contain huge quantities of sugar (fructose) which as we have discussed at length is the major reason for our obesity and health crises! Furthermore when you consider the year round availability and modern day growing techniques with an over reliance on harmful chemicals and poisonous sprays the benefits of fruits are vastly reduced!  In fact there is really nothing beneficial in fruit that you cannot obtain from vegetables!  That said if you do exercise a lot then fruits are a very good, easy and accessible source of energy!  But considering how sedentary the majority of us are I would certainly wait until after the reset phase before reintroducing fruits in to your diets!

Dairy is another area of confusion and misinformation – aren’t we told that dairy is essential as a source of calcium?  Well whilst that may be true calcium can be found in plentiful supply in other foods such as salmon, kale, almonds, broccoli and spinach!  Now dairy is essentially a baby animal food designed to ensure that growing animals have all they need nutritionally.  However milk contains high levels of lactose which is a sugar and a slow digesting protein called casein.  And unfortunately we lose the ability to properly digest lactose after the age of 4 and casein is very similar to gluten which causes inflammation!  Furthermore because dairy promotes cell growth there are links with its consumption and various types of cancer! Unless, of course, you use RAW milk and cream (unpasteurised) which contain CLA, a chemical that inhibits this cell growth. Whilst on the topic of pasteurisation it is worth mentioning other important factors.  Pasteurization of milk was started primarily to destroy certain diseases such as TB but also to prevent the milk from souring!  Unfortunately not only the bad bacteria are killed but also all the good bacteria including lactic acid bacilli which helps to break the milk down and lactoferrin which helps to destroy bad bacteria!  The heat treatment also destroys vitamin c and iodine and ironically makes the calcium insoluble!    So if you have to have dairy products then opt for the raw option!  Or use real cream rather than milk!  Cream is virtually all fat and therefore contains less lactose and less casein!

Okay back to the RESET phase: important things to note – do not go more than 6 hours without eating.  In other words eat 3 regular sized meals with a small snack in between or 4-5 smaller meals.  For this reset phase to work it is critical that you do not starve yourself or skip meals!  Because a high carbohydrate diet causes you to retain a lot of water when you switch to a low carb diet you will find that initially you will lose a lot of water.  This means that sodium will inevitably be flushed from your body so if you find that you are suffering from fatigue, dizziness, weakness, constipation, headaches or leg cramps, simply supplement with a teaspoon of salt per day.  If you get cramps I would also recommend supplementing with potassium.  Associated with this you also need to ensure that you are drinking adequate water, with 8 glasses or 2 litres per day!  I would also encourage you to take a good quality fish oil supplement and a good multivitamin.  Initially you may also want to supplement with magnesium as well especially if you previously used a lot of dairy as calcium hinders our absorption of magnesium.  One final important note is to keep a food diary and record not just what you have really eaten (don’t lie as you are only kidding yourself) but also keep a note as to how you are feeling, what sort of mood are you in, how much energy, your sleep pattern etc.  This diary can be a great asset if you run into problems or your weight loss stalls!