A New Food Plan - Part I

It’s been a while since I made any real changes to my diet. Back in April of 2005, I tried a 2 month stint of focusing on whole grains and good fats. From what I remember, it was the social implications that were the kicker, as I had a hard time finding things to eat when I was outside the house, and thus the diet limited my social life. Since then, I’ve started stocking my house with 90% healthy food, and then eating whatever when I go out. This has had mixed results, because when there is poor food in the house, I tend to eat it all, and when I’m out, I eat a ton. And I’m out fairly often. In addition, when I say ‘healthy food’ in the house, it basically meant less junk food… it didn’t guarantee a balanced diet, and it certainly didn’t mean I’ve been getting enough vegetables and fruit. My diet at home has consisted of mostly carbs. I also eat a healthy amount of Clif-Bars, nuts, dried fruit, and peanut butter. A number of factors have come together to push me toward a healthier diet. Last year’s Ironman training taught me how to identify how I felt with what I put in my mouth. While a healthy diet would have been optimal, I was struggling to get enough calories, and was eating just about everything in site (to the tune of 7000-9000 calories a day) and still losing weight. During training I could feel distinctly how a lack of salt or lack of carbs had an impact on my performance. After traveling this winter, I had 2.5 months where I’ve had almost no ability to control my diet. I ate what was served and was available. Mostly, it was great, tasty food, but it was usually heavy, and in India, they eat three fairly large meals a day. I found that my sleeping patterns changed and were much more variable than usual, depending on how much and what time I ate. (Dinner with my family was routinely close to midnight.) Finally, the biggest influence has been the recommendation of the book “The Omnivores Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. This book traces four meals back to their origins, and in doing so unveils a lot about the American food industry. In short, it’s been just plain shocking. I like the way Pollan puts it in his NY Times article. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” So I basically started with a complete revamp of my diet when I returned to Seattle in late January. Now, almost 6 weeks later, I’ve gone less hardcore (and therefore it’s more socially viable long-term) but have still continued with major changes to my diet. I’ll write out the gory details in Part II.