Love & Hate Food: Week 1

As most of my friends and family know, I have a love hate relationship with food.  I love food, but food however does not treat me as kindly as I would like.  Throughout my childhood, I had a difficult time with food.  I was always the fat kid, so my parents tried to put me on a restrictive diet.  This didn't mean that I wasn't allowed to eat certain foods, but rather, I had to ask for permission to eat food.  This was their way of monitoring what I ate and hoping that I would look 'normal' like all those other skinny kids out there.  This led to lots of sneaking of food which didn't help me lose any weight at all.  What I did get used to was having to ask "Can I eat this?".

Throughout my life I've tried many diets.  I've even been bribed by an aunt and uncle with money to lose weight.  They told me that If I lost 5lbs they would give me $5.  I've tried this diet from some cardiac institute before.  Lost 20lbs back then, but also caused me to black out twice and walk into the wall once and the microwave once. 

Recently a friend of mine mentioned she went to an info session held by a naturopathic doctor by the name of Dr. Natasha Turner for info on a diet.  I thought she was nuts by wasting time going to some doctor advice when she clearly didn't need to lose any weight.  Anyways, she tried a few of the recipes in the book, and that was about it.  So she offered the book to me to read.  The name of the book is The Supercharged Hormone Diet.  I read through the book and found it pretty interesting.  This diet is all about re-balencing your hormones so you can lose weight.  I looked at the recipes and they looked way better than what I was able to eat when I followed the cardiac institute diet.  So I decided to give it a shot.  Worst case is I eat healthy but I don't lose weight.

To do a quick summary of the diet.  In total there are 4 phases, each phase lasting 1 week long.  Throughout each of the phases you will need to drink 2 detox shakes each day.  Exercise is 4 days of light cardio 30 minutes at a time and 2 days of yoga (they suggest ashtanga, anusara or hatha).  There is also a suggestion of taking quite a few supplements.  I didn't follow all of them, the only additional supplements I took in addition to my normal barrage of vitamins is vitamin D3 and a probiotic. 

Meal Schedule: 7am-8am breakfast, 10am detox shake, 12pm-1pm lunch, 3pm detox shake, 6pm-7pm dinner.  And no eating 3 hrs before going to bed.

The so called detox shake that I am required to drink twice a day is a mixture of 100% whey protein isolate mixed wth water, almond butter and a hypoallergenic fibre source.  There is another option for the detox shake and that has berries, water, chia or flax seeds.  But the second option requires a blender and I'm too lazy to have to wash it after.  So i just put mixture 1 into a cup with a lid and shake it.

Week 1 is a detox week (grain and potato free).  This first week you are to cut out all grains and potatos, corn, citrus and processed fruits, peanuts, red meats, cow dairy, alcohol and caffine, sugar (honey is ok), store bought condiments.  The only oils and fats you should be taking in is canola oil, butter, flaxseed oil, hemp oil and extra virgin olive oil.  I found this first week to be super heavy on the protein.  In my normal meals I probably don't even eat half the amount of protein put in front of me.  But so far so good, after week 1, i'm down 6.5lbs :)  Most of which i'm assuming is water weight....but we'll see.

Week 1 Day 1:


Easy Egg White Goat Cheese Omelette

 

Protein Topped Feta & Peach Salad



Tomato Turkey Delight



For the Protein Topped Feta & Peach Salad, I subbed the peaches for blueberries, since peaches are so expensive this time of the year.

For the Tomato Turkey Delight, I subbed turkey for chicken.  And instead of serving on top of green beans (hate green beans) I served on top of left over boiled Shanghai bok choy.

Day 2: I keep forgetting to take pictures of the morning breakfast smoothies :(

Goat Cheese, Pear and Pine Nut salad



Chicken Souvlaki with Salad



Day 3:

Quick Berry Delight with Goat Yogurt

Roasted Beet, Orange, Walnut & Baby Arugula Salad

Tilapia with Fresh Tropical Salsa

For the Roasted Beet, Orange, Walnut & Baby Arugula Salad, I subsituted the orange with strawberries since citrus is off limits this week and also subsituted spring mix for arugula since it's cheaper.

For the Tilapia with Fresh Tropical Salsa, the salsa not so tropical since our pineapple wasn't ripe enough.  Served with sauteed beet tops instead of squash since the hubby doesn't like squash.  And since I don't eat fish and had yoga after dinner, I made myself a blueberry avocado smoothie for dinner instead.

Day 4:

Mediterranean Omelette with Fresh Berries



Pureed Squash & Apple Soup





Roasted Chicken Breasts with Cauliflower Mash

The omlette again did not turn out, and ended up being scrambled egg whites again.

Pureed Squash & Apple Soup is the worst recipe so far.  It's disgusting!  I will never make this recipe again.

Day 5:

Power Protein Scramble



Japanese Spinach Salad







 

 



Almond Crusted Chicken Breasts with Steamed Asparagus & Rapini & Beets



For dinner we added half a beet because we had some left over sitting in the fridge and I didn't want it to go bad.

Day 6:

Summer Raspberry Salad

Pesto Chicken with Rapini & Cauliflower Mash

Day 7:

Roasted Vegetable Soup



Grilled Vegetables & Sea Scallop Kebabs

 

Overall, I found the meals pretty satisfying and at times even too much food for me!  Some of the nights my stomach felt like it was going to explode!  I will update on Week 2 when it's complete. :)