I was a little bit better prepared today than I was yesterday.  Maybe that was because I was tired of being tired and hungry, or it was because I actually had several dreams last night about “accidentally” eating the wrong food at restaurants.  Despite my best planning I was still ending the day hungry, so a second dinner and some light snacking made up some of the difference.

To say that the preponderance of available foods at the store and food establishments have the 7 food groups I’m avoiding would be an understatement.  I’d say they all do, but that would be a stretch too, just not as bad.  That unfortunately makes recovering from lack of being prepared pretty difficult, especially three days in.

Day 2 of the Virgin Diet was the first real world test case for me.  The previous times I’ve tried it I’ve either been doing a little trial run or was home-bound.  The real world test proved to be a bit more difficult, especially with no means of just “skipping” it for a moment and then going back to it again.  During each of the diet experiment phases I’m going to try to have zero slip ups.  I am not planning for cheat days, cheat meals or whatever.  A slip up is bound to happen, but those should be accidents not on-purposes.  With that in mind I was able to navigate the landscape but it definitely wasn’t completely carefree or pleasant.

The first day of the elimination diet is now in the record books.  I was never concerned about being able to get through the first day, and there were no real surprised except for the need to really plan ahead for the next week’s food.

Today is the first day of the N=1 experiment, which is starting off with the JJ Virgin Elimination diet.  Elimination diets are basically removing foods that may potentially be causing problems for you from your eating lifestyle.  Over time you can “challenge” these foods to see how your body reacts to them.  JJ Virgin, a nutritionist with some media history that has been making her way around the podcast universe the past few months, has put together just such a diet that I think creates a relatively simple plan to follow.

Yesterday was the last day before the grand diet experiment begins.  I made some conscious decisions in terms of practicing for the big shift, but I still granted myself some last minute indulgences while I still had the chance.

This has come across my attention a few times this week, and the more I see it the more frustrating this topic becomes.  Here is the punchline: a severely obese sedentary person goes on a 2000 calorie a day eating regiment, adds 45 minutes of walking exercise to his daily lifestyle which leads to him losing 37 pounds and improving his cholesterol.  That doesn’t sound radical does it?  The punchline we see however is, “Man Loses 35 Pounds Eating McDonalds” as some big FU saying McDonald’s food is now healthy for you.  Is it?  Let’s find out.

With only two days left to go I decided to finish up cleaning out the house.  I hate wasting food, which means I’m a really good left-overs saver.  I know lots of people can’t stand the idea of putting food they made away in the freezer to be thawed out, reheated and eaten later. Sure, it’s not as good as the day you bought it.  Consider though that most of the prepared food you buy and reheat from the grocery store went through the exact same process, it just did it on an industrial scale and with god knows what (along with excess salt and sugar) added to it.  Since several of the foods in the house were going to be verboten for the better part of a year, I started eating my way through them.  I was able to do it in a mostly responsible way.

As a big fan of the Howard Stern Show, I’ve always enjoyed the rapport and interactions that the cast have had with Robin Quivers.  She can be the voice of reason in some circumstances and a window into the latest experiments she’s doing with hobbies and her health lifestyle.   It was my enjoyment of her Vegucating Robin YouTube series and website that made me excited when I heard she was coming out with a book on the same topic.  I figured it would be a terrific book to add to the collection with some good recipes.  From that perspective, I think we have a winner. It also provides some great insight into her own personal health challenges and the evolution of her diet over time from a standard American diet that was literally killing her to her now vegan diet.