A day in the life
As health practitioners, we are always talking to patients about ways of cleaning up their life to make healing easier. Making dietary changes is one of the big topics that comes up in most consultations. The main things we're talking to patients about is cutting down or cutting out booze, coffee, sugar, processed foods. Sometimes when patients are showing signs they may be a candidate for metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes we suggest a month of resensitising themselves to insulin - by cutting out grains, fruit and sugar for a month. For people who have muesli or cereal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, pasta for dinner - a diet without grains would seem impossible.
Well for me, it's the daily standard. I have gluten intolerance, and a slightly unhappy thyroid gland, which makes me a prime candidate for a very low grain diet. I eat plenty of vegetables and get my carbohydrates from veggies and small amount of fruit. If you want some ideas about what you can do if you're not eating a wheat based product - check out what my typical day of food looks like.
As much as it may be tough to have someone tell you to cut out on x,y,z from your diet, make sure it's something they have done themselves so they know what they're talking about. Some may hate me for it, but yes in my case I do walk the walk as well as talk the talk!! It is indeed possible to live a happy and full life without caffeine, alcohol, sugar or bread.
So what did I actually eat last Tuesday?
Tuesdays are a busy day for me, and one of the worst nutritional days of the week for me for this reason. It's my one day at clinic that I finish late, so I like to give myself a bit of a sleep in. I wake up around 8am, do my morning yoga, make breakfast and get ready for work. I always have a cooked breakfast, I find it sustains me really well throughout the morning and into the early afternoon. On this particular day, I ate an egg, some bacon, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, a roasted artichoke and some cucumber - all cooked in extra virgin coconut oil NOT olive oil. A pot of liquorice tea helps to support my adrenal function, and you can see my other powdered supplements there that I take each day - a magnesium drink and a zinc+vit c combo.
Then I head into work for the day, starting around 11am. On this particular day however I left my lunch behind, so emergency lunch it was. I popped over to the local supermarket and picked up some salad, some smoked salmon and a yummy mustard/balsamic dressing. Out of the 10s of brands on the shelf, it was the only one that was sugar free - it's such an eye opener to read your labels before purchasing food items. If you're not already a label reader, you should start, so that you can become a conscious consumer.
I found 30 minutes between patients to eat my lunch, to sit down and just quietly chew. Then back to work, with patients through until 7:30pm. I find a get a bit peckish throughout the afternoon - so there's always something on hand to tide us through. Today it was a little pile of macadamias, some dates and some blueberries.
Berries are just so magnificent at this time of year, so I make the most of it and happily snack on them whilst they're in season.
Finally I finish work at 7:45pm and head home. I'm home by 8:10pm, a quick whip up in the pan of some kebabs, and a plate of salad and I'm sitting down to dinner by 8:20pm. Organic chicken kebabs cooked in coconut oil, salad with olive oil and balsamic dressing. I overcatered, and couldn't finish my kebabs so tomorrow's breakfast here we come! An hour or so of winding down on the couch, then I head off to bed.
Total food preparation time for the day: 15 mins
Added sugar = None
Could have done better? - Normally I eat more veggies, it's hard to get enough when eating salad because there's so much air and not a lot of bulk, but all in all it's not a bad nutritional day.
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