Most participants had some difficulty for one reason or another excluding all required elements from their diet during the week, and several who did exclude most or all of the items commented about experiencing cravings. I attempted to engage in the de-tox myself but also had limited success. I was not properly prepared for moments of hunger and experienced cravings because the foods on which I normally rely for satiety and which I consider good foods were not part of the program.
My evaluation of this short experiment is that while a de-tox is definitely a worthwhile project as the first step in an effort to determine specific food items that may be interfering with one's health and/or ability to lose weight, it can also be a detriment as one attempts to forge a lifelong plan for a healthy, sustainable eating style.
I shared with the group an earlier experience I had with a partial "elimination diet" in which I found no reaction to wheat but did discover that dairy products caused some congestion, which cleared quickly when I refrained from eating them. Yoghurt and Labne (fermented milk products) do not seem to have the same effect on me. For those who are interested in experimenting more with a detox or an elimination diet, I suggest Dr. Michael Hyman's book, UltraSimple Diet, or several books, including a recipe book, available on Amazon .com with a search on "elimination diet."
We considered briefly one of the primary potential allergens and inflammatory agents which is generating a lot of discussion right now: wheat. I shared material from Dr. William Davis, cardiologist, who wrote the book Wheat Belly, in which he cites modern wheat as the cause of many of our modern diseases of aging beginning with diabetes. We did not take time to review arguments against Dr. Davis' presentation, but I promised to include one in these notes: Analysis of Wheat Belly Hypothesis. My conclusion: my goal with our group is to find a sustainable healthy eating style. From my perspective, it doesn't make sense to exclude whole grain bread from our diet unless there is a demonstrable reaction to wheat or other grains. This can be determined by using the elimination diet technique. I prefer a diet with fewer exclusions and a focus on real food.
Additional resources on the Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load requested by participants are available via links from my website: www.expresslyleslie.com/resources. Among other things, we can see in this list that while whole grain breads may be as high as white bread in the Index, they are lower in glycemic load due to their fiber. Similarly the carrot soup we enjoyed -- carrots are high in the Index but have a low glycemic load due to their fiber.
In conclusion, a diet of real foods, high in fiber and low in sugar with high quality protein and good fats (including saturated fats in moderation) is the best lifelong diet. During our next session, we will spend some time label reading to sort out meaningful from meaningless information and we'll take a look at some non-extremist "rules" going forward. Assignment: browse labels in your pantry - or the products you removed from your kitchens three weeks ago.
Our dinner included our usual salad of mixed greens, which participants dressed themselves at the table with Extra Virgin Olive Oil, a squeeze of Fresh Lemon, Salt and Pepper. Lemon lowers the Glycemic Index of any meal. A good goal is to strive for an eating style which results in an average below 55 on the GI and below 10 on GL.
We enjoyed Carrot Soup as our next course. The main meal was Kidney Bean Jambalaya, an example of taking two basic ingredients (kidney beans and rice) which can be prepared at the beginning of the week and made into something different each evening of the week. For a video of seven different ways to prepare Kidney Beans and Rice, go to my youtube page, www.youtube.com/expresslyleslie.
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