D-Day
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. We are now on Day One of The Elimination Diet. Detox Day.
We are basically eliminating everything from our diet. No meat, no problem – it’s been nearly five years now since I’ve enjoyed that. But no dairy, no grains, no gluten, no nuts, no coffee, no alcohol! Basically, nothing fun. We will eat fast on only vegetable and fruit smoothies and soups for two days. Then for a few weeks we will be eating a very limited diet keeping track of what we eat, when, and how we feel.
Why? The wife needs to rule out any specific foods as contributing to her high blood pressure. We’ll do that by eliminating everything from our diet then introducing foods back one at a time and judging any reactions.
But why am I doing it? Good question. Because I support everything she does and want her to succeed with this thing, which would be difficult if I’m still drinking cocktails, chomping on nuts and and eating cheese, eggs, fish, mmmm…
I’ll also use this as a way to identify any foods that might be adversely affecting me. Most importantly, I plan to use this program as a way to adapt new portion control for all my meals. After speaking with some super seniors, and asking them about their diets, one common thread was portion control. I like to eat, a lot, and we have a tendency to load up our plates enjoying a big meal. After basically not eating for a month, it should be no problem adjusting the amount of food we eat to feel satisfied.
What can we eat?
There are long lists of yes and no foods for each phase of the elimination. Thank god detox is only two days. I’m leaving the meal planning to the wife, but we have already discovered some favorite foods – sweet potato kale tacos, tropical green smoothies, homemade gluten free tortillas…can’t wait to discover more! Really.
I clearly remember the last meat meal I made myself before going veg. I prepared sweet and sour pork with homemade sauce. The night before this first detox phase, I found myself going through the cabinets eliminating everything we won’t be eating for a while, if ever again. I stood dipping store-bought croutons in the remaining ranch dressing. The next morning, we discovered we started a week early. We had seven more days to ween off all the bad goodness. Good thing, since we received a package from my sister filled with Christmas cookies. Once again, we scoured the house for anything left that might tempt us.
We drank every last drop of alcohol. We ate all the pasta, packed away any grains, and started preparing foods from the Yes list. Getting rid of everything on the No side. This head start has helped. The transition has pretty easy, considering we haven’t had any eggs or cheese for a couple weeks now. Mmmm…cheese.
So far so good. Only 42± more hours in phase one.
