My Personal Diet

 

One thing I had to learn by experimentation was diet. What are you supposed to eat, when should you eat it, and how much should you have. Today I’ll take you through my diet journey.

Before I start the journey, I must explain something. This is not a diet that will solve all your problems. There is no such thing as the ‘perfect diet’. When someone claims this, they are either lying, of being ignorant. Everybody is different. We all react differently to what we eat. Some handle sugars well, others don’t. Some need a few big meals, others need to graze all day. My hope is not to make people eat as I do, not even Tessera. We try and synchronize our meals, but sometimes I’ll eat a curry at 17.00 and she’ll have a spinach sauce pasta at 19.00. My hope is that after reading this people can be encouraged to research and experiment to find their diet, the one that best suits them.

When I was young I had a problem. I struggled to gain weight. As I entered the 20s I weighed 50kg. My eating habits were not great. Most days I skipped breakfast and lunch. I would feel queasy if I ate breakfast. And I never took the time to eat lunch. There were some days I’d eat a kind of lunch, but then it would be leftovers from the night before. And in the evening, well, let’s just say I went for it. I could eat 2 whole plates of food. And still snack later in the night.

Then I got a job carrying heavy boxes. I started building muscle and managed to gain kilos that way. Then after I married I got my first IT job. My eating never changed, but I stopped the heavy lifting. And then I started gaining belly fat.

At first I shrugged it off. I never needed to worry about being too heavy before. But as the years went by, I still gained weight. I also started eating breakfast and lunch. But never lowered my supper intake.

In 2013 I decided to take measures. Tessera usually eats fruits during the morning, and she gets enough energy out of them, and eats bread later in the day. I decided to follow the fruit idea, so I started eating fruits for breakfast and lunch. During this time experiment of about 6 month I gained 8kg. I promptly stopped.

In June of 2014 Time magazine came out with an article on “Ending the war on fat”. And this started me on a research of fat. What I found out is that while fat was being limited, people were still becoming obese, and the culprit was sugar.

As I was looking at this I also found out that there are 2 energy sources for us. One is indeed sugar. In the form of fructose in fruits its healthy. And as carbohydrates it can be the primary source of energy for people. Tessera is such as person. She eats fruits, and bread and doesn’t gain weight, and gets enough energy.  But others, like myself, store these sugars up as fat.

The other source of energy is fat. And I mean animal fats. When I say animal fats, don’t go drinking pig lard. That’s just bad for you. What I mean is that research has been done that shows it’s healthier to fry things in butter than margarine. Olive oil is also a good option, but not sunflower oil. Another research shows that whole milk is healthier that low fat milk. This applies for all dairy products. Why? When you remove the fat from dairy all you are left with is a sugar drink. And for people who get the energy primarily from fats, this is bad. Remember that the problem fats are processed fats and trans fats. Fresh meat is better that canned meat because of the processing.

To explain what I mean, when I stopped eating fruits (I eat at most 1 a day) and started eating eggs for breakfast, cut out all carbohydrates (my only source of carbohydrates is Basmati rice), and went over to primarily a meat and vegetable diet I stopped gaining weight. If I exercise as well I lose weight. And in weeks were I also cut out my rice, I also lose weight.

Another thing I learned is that there are 2 ways of consuming meals. Tessera eats 2 or 3 normal meals a day. This works fine for her. No matter how much I eat I get hungry after 2 or 3 hours. I started eating 4 or 5 small meals a day. And this has also helped me to not over eat (2 huge plates at night) and kept my weight stable.

Here is an example of the meals I eat:

Example 1	Meal 1 – 7:00	Meal 2 – 11:00	Meal 3 – 14:00	Meal 4 – 17:00	Meal 5 – 20:00
	2 eggs 2-4 slices of grilled chicken sausage	Wrap with tuna, tomato and lettuce	Wrap tuna, tomato and lettuce	Roasted chicken and vegetables	Roasted chicken and vegetables (smaller than meal 4)

 

Example 2	Meal 1 – 9:00	Meal 2 – 12:00	Meal 3 – 16:00	Meal 4 – 19:00
	Small bowl of curry and rice	Small bowl of curry and rice	Small bowl of curry and rice	Small bowl of curry and rice

This one is usually because I’ll have made a lot of curry. When you add the 5 bowls together, its about what I used to eat when I had 2 plates for supper. Basically I spread my one meal across the whole day

Example 1	Meal 1 – 9:00	Meal 2 – 11:00	Meal 3 – 15:00	Meal 4 – 19:00
	Yogurt	Fish filet and salad	Beef sausages and salad or vegetables	Beef sausages and salad or vegetables

One thing to note. I don’t follow this diet as a religious rule. If Tessera and I are out, and we want to get something from a fast food place, I do. Just not every week. And we do make hotdogs and hamburgers at home, with bread. Just not weekly. And I enjoy some chips every now and then. Just not every week. The idea is not a strict diet, but a lifestyle that is not a form of punishment.

One more note. This diet is very specific to me. I do not recommend anyone follow it. What I do recommend is that everyone take time to analyse and experiment to find the diet that best suits them.