She doesn't even go here!

Today I’m starting a new diet.  I know - I’m like Mindy freaking Kaling with all my diets.  This one isn’t so much about losing weight but about improving my general health.  (Although, if those last ten stubborn pounds went away, I wouldn’t hate it.)  I was considering starting a weight loss/health blog, but I figured I post so much about food on here anyway that it wasn’t worth the trouble.  Not to mention the fact that I could NEVER do what you weight loss bloggers do. I couldn’t put myself out there like that.

That being said, I know a lot of you don’t care about what I eat.  So I’m gonna post about it, but whenever I do, I’ll put it under a cut.  Deal?  Deal.  Glad we had this talk.

The base diet I’m using is The Belly Fat Cure, which works on a low-sugar/low-glycemic index idea.  You get 15 grams of sugar and 6 servings of carbohydrates a day, with each serving of carbohydrates being about 20 grams.  Veggies and protein are obviously fine, and the recommended carbs are all naturally low in sugar and high in healthy carbs.  Jorge recommends Ezekiel bread, Goldfish crackers, and multigrain hot cereals, which I already love.  The hardest part for me is going to be cutting out most fruit - he only really recommends berries because they’re mostly water - and Diet Coke.  We’ll see how long the Diet Coke ban lasts.  I bought some Truvia, so maybe I can get by with tea.  Maybe.

(I think I’ll allow myself Diet Coke until Wednesday and then give up soda for Lent.  I’m a bad Catholic but I still give stuff up for Lent.  I have no idea why.)

I have an aunt and a bunch of friends who have tried this “lifestyle” and love it.  They don’t follow it all the time but every time they gain a little weight they immediately go to counting and are back on track.  And I have no problem with the 15/6 counting.  I’ve wanted to purge sugar from my life for a while, because as I age it really, REALLY affects me.  I go through sugar crashes and headaches and I find my workout less effective if I eat too much of it.  It’s nuts.  So peace out sugar.

However, I was disappointed when I read through the book and saw a lot of the same tenets that I hate about Atkins.  Oh, so it’s cool if I smother that rice cake with cream cheese because it has one carbohydrate gram?  No.  Sorry.  I’m not gonna live on bacon and sausage.  It’s terrible for you.  So I’m still gonna stick to lean proteins and low-fat dairy, and I’m gonna integrate in a lot of the Paleo tricks that I’ve seen on the internet the past few weeks so I can stick to real food with real health benefits.

Ro reminded me of my favorite health quote of all time: “Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.”  I think if I get back there, I’ll be golden.

TL;DR I’m not eating sugar anymore.  Wish me luck.