Inspired by the very public diets of Toronto's Ford brothers -- Mayor Rob and brother Doug -- a HuffPost contributor has decided to take up their Cut the Waist challenge, and shed 30 pounds by June 18. Our contributor will weigh-in at the beginning of every week (you can read his previous entries here) with his progress, including a photograph of his bathroom scales that morning. He would like to be less public, however, about his identity.
Thanks to several commenters, I've been seriously pondering the Paleo thang. I mentioned it to Mrs. Fat Diaries and could immediately sense her apprehension due to thoughts of it being a cult diet. Soon she's imagining delivery trucks in front of the house with pallets of kale, seaweed, and 50-pound bags of acacia seeds.
But the more I look into it, it doesn't sound so wacky Hollywood pineapple diet-y. There is a lot to read. Take this one thread on the subject of grains and oatmeal. Read all the comments. I learned so much! Too much! I'm so exhausted by the time I finish the thread I feel like having a piping hot bowl of oatmeal. Wait, oatmeal bad. Cave man say ugg to oatmeal.
I love oatmeal, but some say it spikes your blood sugar. I asked Doc about oatmeal and he says what he always says: measure your sugars before and 90 minutes after. If the sugars don't rise, oatmeal good. Sugars rise, oatmeal bad. But maybe I'm not eating the right kind of oatmeal. Trader Joe's steel-cut oats instead of Quaker Original? Did you know there are gluten-free oats? And then there's the matter of what I put into the oatmeal.
So here's the question I ask myself: How much investigative journalism do I need to do in order to figure out whether I should eat oatmeal or not? Because I'm a busy guy. I'm no different than you. We're all busy. I business travel about three days a week, sometimes taking flights that are impossibly early or late. I try to plan my food the best I can but sometimes my pickings are slim. That's why instant oatmeal (yes, it was I who mampy-pampy'd it just last week) is great for business travel. Except Paleo says ixnay to meal-oat-ay.
So I arrive at the airport at 6:00 a.m. for a cross-country flight and because I'm diabetic I don't want to go too long without food. I envision myself standing inside the terminal, frozen. I could go there to eat that but no, that's clearly off the plan. How about that place? Nope, nothing there either. I'll assume Mickey D's is as far away from caveman as you can get. You can already anticipate where my mischievous id is driving me to next: He says "Well, you've exhausted all outlets. But you have to eat *something.*" (That's how he tries to seem helpful, looking out for my best interests, you see.) "That only leaves one place -- Cinnabon. "
The fact is, Joe's Grass-Fed Meats and Biff's Farm-Fresh Salmon are not restaurants at my local airport. I just don't know if this Paleo thing is going to work for me.
Reason decides to step in and reminds me that I don't need to go from zero-to-Paleo starting on the first day. All Paleo is trying to do is modify the standard food pyramid in order to emphasize meats and fish, fruits and vegetables, and de-emphasize breads, cereals, rice, and pasta. You can see an example here.
OK, so I can work with that. Meat and fish, fruits and vegetables, nuts and berries. When choosing any of these foods keep in mind their glycemic index. Tilapia over salmon, blueberries over apples. And if the fish wasn't caught five minutes ago, so be it. But I can still choose fresh over frozen. Lean meats over fatty ones.
OK, so that's my resolve for the next couple of weeks. Try to do Paleo as much as I can. Now, does anybody know where I can buy a 50-pound bag of blueberries?