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| Slow cooked beef brisket |
Did you know U.S. News & World Report does an annual Best Diet Rankings?
For those of you looking to try a new diet, it provides a list of different ways people have come up with to restrict their diet.
For two weeks, I've been on a sort of diet. It started off for three and a half days with what I call a detox:
- No wheat
- No meat, fish or eggs
- No salt
- No oil
- No sugar
- No caffeine or alcohol (I don't normally anyway)
- No processed food
- Almost no dairy ( I had yoghurt for two mornings)
I've had a few meat, fish or egg meals since then, but nowhere near the levels I'm used to. I've also had only a minimal amount of wheat, salt, oil, sugar and dairy throughout this period. Most meals I still don't have any of them. I've had zero processed food.
The closest diet I can find to what I'm doing is the Flexitarian diet ie. a part-time vegetarian. The flexitarian was tied for 2nd place in the U.S. News & World Report 2021 Best Diet Rankings.
It's been challenging but not difficult to do expert level flexitarian. I've flirted with meat free meals and days over the last year. I've also done detoxes once or twice annually for a few years.
The flexitarian two weeks has been a huge reduction in calories and I feel healthier. I might need to buy some new clothes. All my trousers are way too loose - yay!
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| Tofu and cauliflower |
I've tried to balance out meals. Some are meat free, some are grain free, some are oil free or a combination of these. Some meals I'm trying for the trifecta, which is easiest for breakfast. I base my decision on what I have in the fridge, use by dates and my exercise needs.
For example, I had salmon and beef brisket. Two meals in the last 7 days were salmon and another two meals were beef. For these meals, I didn't have any grains. I also tried to mix it up, meat free lunch one day then meat free dinner the next. Each day I was having two meals meat free.
Just after my three and a half day detox, I had two meals of sardines and four meals of turkey breast.
I've started doing Hiit which is a harder workout so the beef recently has been great. By the way, did you know different cuts of beef vary significantly in terms of fat content? Brisket is fairly low compared to the highest at about 8g per 100g. I also tried to avoid eating the fat and skimmed it away after each cooling session from the slow cooker.
The brisket is the cow's chest. I am curious about food more when I'm on a diet.
Incidentally, a prime rib and beef rib has 33.7 and 28.1 grams per 100gs respecticely. I'm definitely being more careful in my beef choices in the future.
My fridge is nearly empty so I have to be more creative before my next online grocery delivery.
This is the healthy eating I'm thinking of:
Today:
- Kiwi banana yoghurt oats seeds & nuts
- Carrot smoothie and a grapefruit for lunch
- Nuts, yoghurt and banana as snacks
- Tom yum vegetarian soup for dinner
Tomorrow:
- Carrot smoothie
- Baked potato with homemade hummus (I'm making hummus today)
- Spelt and vegetables with tom yum soup
- Nuts, citrus and banana to snack on
- Mango with nuts, seeds and chia
- Roasted potatoes w boiled egg
- Carrot soup
The next few days are more calorie restricted since I've just had beef and salmon for a few days.
I am thinking about whether to add a run into my workout, which would mean a pasta meal to fuel me. I'm not sure about carrot smoothie and grapefruit for lunch today. I might add a potato salad into the mix. I'm just going to see what happens.
It's felt very healthy with a flexitarian type diet. I am hungry more, but I'm not starving. A bit of hunger is good for us every once in awhile.
I'll try to do a blog post on how the next few days of dieting goes.
Here are some sites you might be interested in:
You might also be interested in some of my earlier blogs:
Happy dieting! Make sure you seek medical advice if you're not sure as diets are not suitable for everyone.
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