SAD no more: My ever-improving diet

All through college, I lived on fast food, pop, coffee, Snicker's bars and peanut M&Ms. Worse than the standard American diet -- SADder! I pooed once or twice a week. Seriously. When I had to drop out of college the first time (no money, no study) I moved in with my grandparents to save up. Like most old people, they were obsessed with healthy bowel movements for themselves and nearly fell off their lazy boys when they learned my plight. 

I joined them nightly in warm prune juice elixirs and grandpa's morning oatmeal. Things started moving again. It was nice. My journey to better health had begun.

In 1991, I graduated from college. I was so used to burning the candle on both ends w/work and school that when school was no longer taking up my time, I had to find a way to fill the hours around 9-5. So, I hit the library; started reading books about diet and health -- a subject that had always fascinated me. 

The books that most interested me were Fit for Life (I started food combining) and The Beverly Hills Diet (I started to pay attention to the enzymes in food and how food works in our systems). On both these plans, I lost weight. I was hungry to learn more and loved refocusing my diet for optimum health. When I moved out and had to shop and cook for myself, I started to experiment. 

1/1/91 -- I gave up red meat, pork and "black" pop. I regularly guzzled Dr. Pepper so that had to go. I justified in my mind that "white" pop was healthier so, I allowed myself 7-up from time to time till I no longer craved pop at all.

1/1/92 -- I gave up chicken. I adjusted my coffee -- stopped adding 10 tsp of sugar, eventually weaning myself completely. After that, I cut half and half to milk to 2% to 1%. I also gave up chocolate (because I was eating so much of it) for the next 3 years.

You can definitely reset your taste buds. Looking back now, I can't believe I ever craved -- and ate -- all that junk. I could never go back. Disgusting!

Over the past 20+ years, I've cut way down on processed foods and most junk. To the best of my understanding, I adopted a "healthy" diet according to the "latest research." Poached eggs for breakfast with two cups of coffee. Salmon for dinner with red wine (for resveratrol, of course). I also read Atkins and was very careful about carbs.

1/1/12 -- I went vegan. 

In October '11, I read The China Study and started to rethink everything. Americans are getting too much animal protein (I can believe it), but me too? I just eat eggs and fish! Actually, I eat salmon almost every night. Sometimes, just salmon no sides. Looks extremely healthy to me. But according to this research, I am in fact eating too much of it.

Next

Coffee and wine. Not sure what to do about it. Brendan Brazier says to cut coffee out because we don't want to rely on caffeine for our energy. I don't drink it for that reason. I'm bubbly enough already. So I went to decaf. However, Kris Carr is telling me that even decaf creates an acidic environment in your body and the goal here is to skew more alkaline. I already know all this deep down, but I think it means I'm going to start to move away from coffee. And my other vice. Wine.

I drink a lot of red wine. About a bottle a day. I started buying the big bottles so they last me a little longer (2-3 days). Probably better if I don't have it in the house, but I'm not ready to give it up. It's not like I NEED it. I just don't drink anything else. Perhaps if I can find a perfect nightcap and/or meal companion, my preference for wine will disappear on its own. Probably better to enjoy it socially than every night on my own.

Now

What I can say for sure is that now that I don't eat eggs or salmon, two of my main meals for the day have changed for the better. Enter lots more fruits, veg, seeds and grains than ever before. I think I'll be levitating in good health by this time next year. 

I'm been eating this way since Thanksgiving. Immediately, I noticed the weight start to come off, the coating on my tongue go away - I still use tongue scraper, but not much to see -- and my skin take on a new glow. Pretty exciting. Can't wait to learn and experiment more.