So I’m about a month now into the new diet. Things are getting pretty interesting.
Spinach has been introduced, and so have avocados. This is significant as it essentially means I’m covering all of my bases, nutritionally. I’m eating the absolute bare minimum in terms of food choices that I can eat and be healthy.
And it seems to be working. Reintroducing the spinach and avocado didn’t cause any bloating or discomfort, so I know I can tolerate these two at a minimum. My diet now is composed entirely of:
-Steak
-Chicken or turkey
-White rice
-Spinach
-Avocado
-Butter
-Olive oil
-Fermented pickles
It’s obviously not perfect, as there are a few things lacking. No calcium source, for one, and not much dietary vitamin D or E. The D thing doesn’t phase me as I’ve been using 8000iu a day since forever, and calcium is easy enough to supplement, but the E thing is vexing me slightly. I’ll give it a couple of weeks eating as I am now just to get my system used to how I’m eating (I don’t want to add too much too quickly) and then I’ll think about vitamin E. The highest source of vitamin E I have found is almonds, and I’d only need like 15g to get the recommended daily dose, so I’ll give that a try next. Probably not until January though.
I’m still doing the broth thing, but have since dropped the betaine hCL and probiotics. It wasn’t really a conscious decision; I just kinda forgot to keep taking the betaine and, to be honest, I never really noticed much from the probiotic anyway so when I finished the packet I didn’t bother buying more. I’ll trust the fermented pickles to be giving me enough healthy gut bacteria for now. I still plan to make the switch to sauerkraut a little further down the line, but I have always struggled with it when I’ve tried it in the past so I’m not in any rush to do that. The pickles are a bitching source of sodium too, which I can’t really discount. I dunno - maybe I’ll just stick with the pickles.
Still drinking the bone broth. The plan is now to eat this way for another month while still drinking the broth, then to drop the broth and see if I stay healthy. I would love to be able to just drink the broth every day from now on but I can’t sustain a £200 a month broth habit. So, best case scenario, I drop the broth but don’t notice any negative effects so I can keep eating this way.
The other cool thing is that my physique is changing. I’ve lost a notch on my belt, and I just feel way drier and tighter. I guess this is from not holding water from not constantly having an inflammation response. It’s pretty cool. I’m also sleeping way better which is, apparently, another benefit of removing a food to which you are intolerant (food intolerances increase stress hormones which obviously affect sleep).
I worked out what I eat in a day now and have found out I’m only eating about 2800 calories. That’d explain the fat loss, but the cool thing is my strength is still going up in the gym, so I can’t really complain. I’ll keep eating like this until strength starts to plateau and then I’ll add in some more calories. I’ve LOADS of room for manoeuvre just now in terms of calories. I could add 300 more cals to the meals I eat at work without even trying, and I’m still using what I consider to be pretty minimal fats so I could effectively double my fat intake if I wanted.
So the long-term plan is:
-Continue eating the above diet plus broth for a month.
-Eat above diet without broth for a month.
-Introduce another food choice to cover vitamin E.
-Eat that way for a month.
-Start pushing the calories up.
And that should take me up until summer of next year, where I’ll assess how I’m doing in terms of body composition and adjust accordingly. It’s quite exciting, as if I get this shit really locked down then I’ll be in a really good position to make some serious gains next year.