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This Week in Food

Back in March, I watched an online lecture on sugar and how our bodies process it. Since then I have been reading articles and studies about various health topics, mostly sugar related. After watching that video, I have completely stopped drinking soda and have been slowly cutting out the excess sugar I consume. When I say, "slowly", I mean it. For whatever reason, dropping soda was easier than I thought (I stopped cold turkey), but there are quite a few more choice foods that are much harder for me to cut back on, as you'll see from week to week if you follow my food calendar.

Aug. 22-28 Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Amanda and I switched markets. We used to buy everything from Stater Bros. and now we shop at Henry's Farmers Market.
• I normally eat out four to five times a week for lunch while working, but not this week. This week I ate out twice. Not only was it a cheaper week, it was healthy.
• Dinners were great this week. No eating out during the week (Sun-Thu). Our fridge is pretty much empty, and will be restocked tomorrow. Meats & veggies are typical for our dinners. Again, healthy.

Cons:

• Too much sugar was consumed. Ice cream and chocolate chip croissants are horrible dessert choices, but are extremely tasty.
• Too many carbs. The chocolate chip croissants are a double whammy. Eating 4 of them in one sitting can basically be referred to as gorging. Same goes for the 6 slices of pizza.
• Too much beer. Is there such a thing? Yep. I limit myself to one beer in one day under normal circumstances, and try to limit myself to no more than 2 beers in a week. I overshot that mark quite a bit; 5 beers in 7 days. This should be easy to rectify though. Next week should be much better.
• Not enough veggies. Although the calendar shows broccoli, salad, and asparagus, the portions were not as big as I think they should be. But to those of you who know me, you're probably thinking, "Kurtis eats vegetables!?!?!?!? Since when?".

Rating: C

Before I started writing this post, I would have rated the week a solid B+, but after listing the cons, the rating dropped. This was a decent week, but had too many negatives. Next week will hopefully have less sugar, less beer, and more veggie consumption.

Disclaimer:
I am not a health professional. I am not a doctor. Don't take my advice on any of my health related posts. Do your own research and make up your own mind. My knowledge comes from research of online health studies, articles, lectures, videos, and from friends who have researched online health studies, articles, lectures, videos. Healthy, in my opinion, is somewhat of a reversal of the typical food pyramid, (from bottom to top: Meats/Poultry, Veggies/Fruits, Nuts/Berries) and aligns itself with the Paleolithic food pyramid. Here is a 4 minute video summarizing a Paleo diet.

Food Calendar

In an effort to keep myself honest and track my food consumption, I have started a Google Calendar documenting my food/beverage intake. I'm not really trying to track calories, since a calorie is not just a calorie, but rather the types of food. By doing this, I can hopefully cut back even more of the sugar/carb intake and maybe give ideas to those who follow my calendar. I'm slowly, fairly slowly, moving toward a paleolithic dietary lifestyle. I don't plan on following it 100% (beer, pizza, and ice cream are all too good to give up), but it's definitely a road map. If you're looking for further information, here are some references to get your feet wet. I have yet to go through all these references; they were shamelessly copied from a friend's paleo reference page.