In 2006, I did two nutritional posts titled Cleaning Up My Diet 1 and Cleaning Up My Diet 2. Boy did I get some things wrong. Not quite a nutritional mullet, but close. Usually I attack others, such as the current Surgeon General, but for this post I will attack the 2006 version of myself.
Part 1 wasn’t too bad.
On closer look Im getting too many starchy carbs and not enough protein.
After eating one piece of fish, I’d still be hungry so I’d grab another serving of rice. Starchy carbs are fine when you return from exercise. However they should be minimized on rest days. Starting last night I doubled up on the fish and cut back on the carb grams.
Cutting the carbs was correct, however the hunger issue was caused by lack of fat. Doubling up on a super lean protein like fish did little to curb my hunger. The result was periodic carb binges and I never leaned out for long on this strategy.
Part 2 is embarrassing.
Monday I swapped my Mayonnaise for Nayonaise Original. Tastes fine to me. Its got 1/3 the calories and fat of the real stuff. They offer a fat-free version as well, which I may try in the future.
At Costco they sell cases of egg whites. Just pour and cook. No need to do that egg white dance anymore.
In p1 I covered removing excess starchy carbs and in this part I got rid of the bad fats.
I was so wrong. Swapping egg based mayo for a highly processed soy based mayo is nutritional stupidity. Soy is to be avoided, not egg yolks. Egg yolks are highly nutritious. But the biggest error in this post was my goal of lowering the calorie content in my diet by reducing fat. Less fat = more hunger.
Today I follow a high-fat, low carbohydrate diet. I am no longer a slave to strong hunger signals. My jeans were once tight at 36 baggy and I even had one pair of Dockers that had a 38 waist. Today, my jean size is now a 33 normal, which was my size during my freshman year…of high school. I exercise far less now. My cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure are all in the optimal range.
MAS in the 10th Grade. I’m leaner today and no longer sport a mullet. 😉
I’m glad that I admitted what I knew to be true in 2006 wasn’t. Once I got comfortable with not knowing, it gave me the freedom to start researching again and open myself up to new ideas. Those new ideas have had a profound and positive effect on my health.
UPDATE February 2015:Â Five years later and now I can see flaws in this post. I likely leaned out from intermittent fasting and higher protein levels, not higher fat or reduced carbs. Who knows?