The D Word

I HATE the word diet.

and I have found that many people tend to have strong negative associations to this word. I think the reason for this is that most diets are really just horrible. Too restrictive, too boring, too hard. And I know personally when I'm told "you can't eat this, you can't eat that" I immediately start drooling, intensely craving and suffering with obsessive thoughts about how much I want that very thing my mouth (unless of course that thing happens to be something like brussel sprouts). So I avoid using the "diet" word at all costs. Instead I tell people I'm on a "nutrition plan" focused on healthy eating. And the responses I get are much more positive.

And besides I'm not trying to lose weight. I'm trying to lose fat, gain muscle, and use food as fuel so that my body is running at optimal performance. I'm not depriving myself of the foods I love and I'm not busy counting calories. Instead I am planning healthy, well balanced meals, focusing on getting enough lean protein, and consuming less simple sugars.

So I'm following a carb cycling plan. It's a pretty simple concept (I knew I would never stick with something where I had to religiously count calories. Because it's too much work. And I hate math.) It's broken down into 3 days: day one you take your weight and that equals the grams of carbs you can eat in that 24 hr period. So to make the math easy let's say you weigh 100 lbs that means you can eat 100 grams of carbs. This is your "high carb" day. Day two you divide that number in half and that is the amount of carbs you can eat. (from our example on day two your total carbs for the day would be 50 grams).  Day three is the "low carb" day where you divide the number from day two in half to equal the amount of carbs allowed. (from our example it would be 25 grams).            

I decided to modify this plan a little bit for my lifestyle. So monday, wednesday, friday are low carb days, tuesday and saturday are medium, thursday and sunday are high. This way I can eat more carbs on the weekend and not be the sad girl passing up cupcakes in favor of raw cauliflower at the dinner party.

The thing I love about this is I don't have to deprive myself of my favorite foods. I can still enjoy bread (Dave's Killer Bread - the powerseed kind is my fave!) chocolate (I buy the Dove dark chocolate promises to satisfy my chocolate cravings on high carb days) , I can even have cream in my coffee. I can eat whatever as long as I'm mindful of my total carb intake.

So I can have my cake and eat it too! Only now it's just a smaller piece :)