My eating plan is still evolving and changing, but I have come to a point where it is working better than it ever has. It is an ongoing journey that motivates a lot of my food related projects. But, it is a project in it’s own right!
Motivations
I notice when I eat certain foods, I have low energy. At a very young age, I found that drinking soft drinks caused me to have very low energy, I realized it was related to sugar but didn’t know how to fix it.
As a teenager I began to suffer from headaches. This became an ongoing struggle to figure out what caused my headaches. I ignored them until I got older when I began to whittle away at the causes which mostly turned out to be food sensitivities.
Vanity is a big motivator, of course, I always want to look slim and healthy! Over exercising and under eating contributed to problems though.
What I am doing now, that is working
I use MyFitnessPal to keep track of my calories. I used to think that I need to get to place where I can instinctively know when and what to eat through paying attention to my hunger signals. This works, mostly, but with me, boredom, sleeplessness and stress seem very much like hunger, so knowing that I have gotten enough calories and nutrients, by tracking them really helps!
These are the macro nutrients I try for every day: 20-25% protein, 20% net carbs and 50% fat. If I have more exercise or more stress, I eat more carbs. I set the app at 1500 calories and often go over that to maintain my weight.
Through my research and trial and error, which you can read about below, this is the kinds of foods that make up my day to day.
Protein mostly, grass fed beef, roast chicken, salmon, tofu, cheese and eggs.
Carbs mostly, vegetables, blueberries, sweet potatoes, and occasional gluten free flour recipes.
Fats mostly, avocado, butter, cream, cheese, grape seed oil, olive oil.
I am currently working on getting my vegetables up to 9 cups a day! That is hard, but when I do it I feel great.
Where I found Solutions
- Sulfites! The first big breakthrough was discovering that I was sensitive to foods with sulfites in them. I love beer and wine which both have a naturally occurring sulfite. Fruit juices and shell fish are also infused with sulfites along with some vegetables such as in salad bars. Dried fruits are also treated with sulfites to keep them looking colorful and fresh. Eliminating those got rid of a lot of headaches.
- Hydrate! I discovered the need to be hydrated more. Drinking more water helped a lot.
- Eat Fat! I had been eating low fat and low protein for some time, and bought into the mainstream ideas that low fat was the best way to eat to stay the most healthy. But I always felt really hungry on a low fat diet and still was plagued with what felt like hunger headaches.
Main References
- South Beach Diet (first attempt at very low carb)
- Bulletproof Diet (started intermittent fasting)
- Phil Maffetone’s Two Week Test (great way to eat, and really worked for me)
- Dr. Terry Wahl (the exciting benefits of having a Lot of Vegetables)
Thanks for letting me share my eating project. Do you have one? What is it like!
Whole Bunch of Projects 