1/26/04 11:01 AM

First I want to thank those of you who have dropped me a note of support and encouragement. It really means a lot to me. There are only two things of which I am sure about this whole process: I will reach and maintain my goal weight (and feel wonderful in the process) and that I am not alone in my struggles. Your letters reaffirm these points, and are SO appreciated.

It seems like ages since I have blogged. The weekend has been a crazy one. I have so much stuff to do, but I really wanted to get my thoughts down.

First, I just ate breakfast, and I wanted to post it here because it has some changes. I had 2 eggs over easy, 2 pieces of Ezekiel toast with Earth Balance margarine and a big pile of sautéed fresh spinach. Of course, there was the always consumed multiple glasses of water (with me, that is a given).

The change is that I realized that the “no starch, no sugar” method was not working for me. It was, in fact, ruining my attempts to follow the program.

I did Diet Center several times, and the first two times that I did it, I lost 60 pounds each time. Of course, each time, I gained it back. Partly this was because I was also taking diet pills (ephedra based), but also because, as soon as I had reached my goal weight I wanted to start eating again. It was a VERY low carb diet, and it worked, but it drove me nuts.

I started to feel that way again. It just isn’t working. In some ways, no amount of protein can substitute starches. What I was starting to do was to eat more and more nuts and nut butters to satiate that craving. Although there is nothing wrong with the nut fat, there is no way that, even I - who can consume a LOT of calories and still lose weight – can lose weight eating that many nuts. No, I am aware of the fact that there needs to be a change.

So, what I have done is to go thoroughly through the D’Adamo books and to look very carefully at the recommended portions. The way that it plays out is as follows:

The HIGH END of the D’Adamo recommendations for protein are as follows:

6 portions of red meat

3 portions of chicken

5 portions of seafood

6 portions of eggs

This is 20 portions of protein. I eat 21 meals in a week plus snacks. This means that I should consume meat (eggs, fish, poultry) at every meal I eat each week except for 1 (and I am assuming that, if I need to eat meat at that meal it should be a bennie).

In my mind, that is very, very do-able. What I just realized is, I should have had 1 egg at breakfast. Duh. That would have also saved me a starch – more on that below. Note to self – 1 egg is a portion.

Next: The D’Adamo recommendations for starches are as follows:

Up to 3 portions of beans (1 cup dry)

Up to 6 portions of bread (2 slices)/ grains or pasta (1/2c dry)

Now, I am a bit concerned about the fact that the beans, grains and pasta are calculated as “dry”. I know for a fact that ½ cup dry pasta is about 1-¼ cups cooked. 1 cup of dry beans is about 2 ½ cups cooked. So if I convert that to a standard serving size of ½ cup for each this is what we get for starches per week:

7 cups of cooked beans per week = 14 ½ cup portions

12 slices of bread OR 15 ½ cup portions of pasta or grains (mix and match the bread, pasta, grain portions)

That is A LOT of starch. I am going to check with Dr. D’Adamo about the portions. This means that a person could, in fact, easily have a starch with each meal. In fact, if we were to eat ALL of the beans (because there are some bennies there) and all of the bread (Ezekiel or Essene only) we would have 26 portions of starch each week.

(I do want to note that eating the Ezekiel with breakfast 2 hours ago has now made me sleepy and lethargic feeling).

I need to check with Dr. D’Adamo regarding the dairy thing, so until I do, I won’t go into it here. There are no bennie dairies, and I’m not sure what he means by 2 servings of yogurt and 1 of milk. Cheese is easy – I just use that at a condiment when it is around, so I’m not building that into my program

(btw, I just went and worked out – the best part is that I don’t feel hungry at all. I still feel like napping, but that could be just having a busy weekend.)

Veggies are next:

He puts in that you can have 5 servings of raw and 5 servings of fresh. I eat a lot more veggies than that, and since they are low in calories and filling, I’m going to assume that that is OK. Again, it is something that I will ask him.

Fruit:

5 servings. I normally eat some fruit each day, so I’ll need to check on his thoughts about that. I am sure that I could give up 2 servings a week.

The rest, nuts and oils are pretty easy:

8 servings of oil and 5 servings of nuts.

So, that is where I am going:

According to what I have read in the ER4YT books, and O can have the following - keeping in mind that these are the UPPER limits as described by the books:

Each day, up to:

3 portions of meat, poultry, fish or eggs with the emphasis on meat.

3 portions of starch, with a few extra each week available.

1 portion of cooked veggies but skipping cooked veggies 2 days per week

1 portion of raw veggies, but skipping raw veggies 2 days per week

1 fruit, but skipping fruit 2 days per week

Again, I am going to check on this

A handful of nuts or some nut butter, but skipping nuts or nut butter 2 days per week

1 oil each day with 1 extra available each week

1 cheese one time per week. I am going to check on the rest of the dairy.

I think that I am going to make myself sort of a deal a meal type thing as well as a chart and see how it goes.

I feel good about this and I will tell you this – it is now 3:00 PM and I ate breakfast somewhere around 10 AM. I am just now getting hungry. The starch really helped that.

I’m going to go get something to eat, and I’ll write more later!