Well, folks, we have officially crossed the halfway mark on my radical January austerity program. There are a couple of observations that I've noted on the transition from the juice-only diet (days one through ten) to the return to solid food and the reintroduction of caffeine. First, I assumed that weight loss would level off, and it has. I neither had the weight to lose nearly a pound a day for very long, nor is it especially healthy in the long term from what I understand. It can cause the body to produce hormones causing food cravings while storing fat more efficiently. This is, obviously, the opposite of what most people on diets are looking for, and the last thing that I wanted to do. My goal was to have a second phase of diet change. The first has already occurred in the last several years when I eliminated pork and beef altogether and asked (with exceptions here and there) that we only eat poultry that was humanely raised, and eggs from the same. Nevertheless, a lot of cheese and eggs were still around as a result of this, and that's something I'm looking to severely curtail in this second round of modified eating.
Second, I realized that use of black tea as a cheap and effective stimulant is something that I can completely live with. Even when we are well-rested, the natural circadian rhythms of the body provide natural lulls during the day, and I've found that I'm remarkably unproductive during those periods. Caffeine in reasonable doses helps considerably with this, and is about 1,000 times better for you (okay, that may be an unscientific assessment) than Red Bull or those bottled Starbucks drinks that either have 300 calories or toxic levels of artificial sweetener. The trick with caffeine, of course, is not to use it as a substitute for proper rest.
As a third note, should I make it until sunup tomorrow, this will be the longest I have gone without a drink of alcohol in over ten years. I have no plans at present to give it up permanently (or even to give up drinking in large quantities when the occasion strikes me), but this has been a fun experiment in seeing if the one-day-at-a-time stuff that AA has popularized works: it does. One needn't envision never doing something again, so long as one can envision simply delaying it until tomorrow. This nifty psychological ploy allows one to build success and goals retrospectively rather than going forward. Thinking that one can go without something that has been a constant companion (be it booze, cigarettes, drugs, or whatever your demon of choice) seems impossible when we envision going cold turkey and as yet have no experience of successful abstinence. Imagining going 20 days, however, when one already has 16 seems perfectly reasonable.
As is any successful program of change, it's important to look at change as a concurrent opportunity for gain rather than simply a sacrifice. Otherwise, we're likely to be glum about the entire experience and sour on it quickly. As such, seeking to integrate many more fresh fruits and vegetables into my diet has spurred new methods for shopping for them so that the food bills don't skyrocket. Vegetables are typically not expensive, but the added quantities required to provide calories as well as their generally poor shelf stability can make them compare unfavorably with various dried and canned foods.
So to address the cost issue, we found a small local produce shop that buys the less-attractive food off the truck and then turns it over at prices below those at the supermarket. They will also sell us whole boxes of blemished items such as peppers or tomatoes at a huge discount, to be immediately washed and sorted at home or turned into a batch of soup.
The issue of variety has simply involved the inclusion of things that I hadn't thought to eat before: parsnips, cranberries, kiwi, different types of lettuce, locally raised cabbage and greens, etc. In its own strange way, learning to know the history of the food that you eat can be empowering, and watching the 80-year-old who runs the radiator shop down the street pick greens from his garden and hand them to me is a fun experience for a lifelong city kid.
Anyway, on to the show...
1:30 pm: I boil some tomato skins and shredded collards left over from juicing a couple of days ago, add a few mushrooms, a carrot, and some spinach, add cumin, freshly ground black pepper, salt, and have at it. It comes out a sickly brown color, but tastes pretty good. This one's not for guests, I suppose. I have two small pieces of rye toast (the heels) with some sriracha sauce as a side.
No cardio for me today, as my legs are ridiculously sore and need a day off. I go stand for two hours watching the MLK parade, which begins a block from my house. It's the closest we're getting to walking anywhere. I intermittently do sets of free weights throughout the day in an attempt to compensate.
9:30 pm: Rachel makes an incredible tomato soup with the puree from the box of ripe tomatoes I brought home on Friday. I have two small bowls, the second with dry-roasted edamame for added texture and flavor. It's a good trick, and one that I'll use again.
Totals: days, 16; miles, holding at 171.
Labels: diet, health
