Week Two

At the beginning of this week I weighed 158 lbs, which is 3 pounds lost. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel less “swollen”. I am amazed at how quickly this Zone Diet strategy is working. Although I may not have all the correct foods just yet, simply getting the proportions dialed in has made a huge difference. I have cut out a lot of grains and added many vegetables. I will say though it takes a lot of vegetables to get the carbs I need so often I’ve cut the grains to a half cup and added as many veggies as possible. In addition to the body change and huge amount of energy I have after two weeks, I feel like I can breathe and smell better. When I opened up a can of macedemia nuts the other day, I sat there and smelled it for a while strangely enjoying it more than I would normally. This week I also took on the job of shopping for some more food variety. I came home with broccoli, cauliflower, kale, avocado, tofu, asparagus, macedemia nuts and a mango. Next week I’d like to get some “seeds” but I’m not sure what seeds to get besides sunflower. Also note I had some cheats spread out over a few days (a hamburger, 3 beers (not all at once) and some pie samplers). Three days were also non-logging days where I just followed the basic plan of getting the proportions mentioned in week one. It was pretty easy after two weeks of really learning about and recording what I was eating.

On the way to and from work this week, my commuter friend Sam and I listened to “The Zone” by Dr. Barry Sears. I was really impressed by the way he explained the use of food as the most powerful drug in the world. His focus isn’t so much about calories and losing weight, that comes naturally. He speaks more about how the foods you eat and the proportions within each meal regulate your body’s physiology. The way he described the effects of food on insulin levels and all that proceeds from that really hit me and I think, makes this book well worth the read. I enjoyed listening to it first and now intend to buy the book in order to create a nice journal page of notes. I would like to be able to explain to people why I am eating this way and the benefits it can offer towards athletic performance, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and cancer. This may take a while. Four weeks ago I was hopped up on Thanksgiving sweets and a solid two candy bars a day.

Clearly my focus has been on food both in thought and action. On the gym front things went very well and I have stayed on Cross Fit main page schedule 100%, scaling as needed.

I’m not so sure what I did about spirit this week. One lecture that Q gave me talked about choice and how it can have such a profound effect on everything we approach. I can’t tell if I have really made the choice each day to really get this going or if I’m being driven by other forces unknown to me.

If anyone is interested I could use a meal planning buddy.