I’m just passing the two week threshold on my new “diet”. The protocol is as follows:
1) Don’t eat anything that includes any form of added carbohydrate within the first three listed ingredients.
I may break this rule only when it comes to training nutrition, such as having Clif Bloks during a long run.
Compliance to these guidelines have gone very well. I’ve messed up accidentally a few times:
I bought some chocolate milk and it didn’t even cross my mind to check if HFCS was the 2nd or 3rd ingredient! I do only drink a glass of that post workout though, so I could consider it an exception to rule #1.
We had a few items in the house that did not follow rule #1, but wanted to finish these off. These included a couple items like ketchup, jelly, and perhaps a few other items that I cannot think of at this moment.
I am thinking off allowing myself 1 day a month to disregard these guidelines and have a cheat day, so to say. I don’t plan on going crazy, but maybe having a piece of apple pie tonight at dinner and maybe a sugar cookie is not out of the question!
This dietary protocol is something I’ve wanted to try for a while. The reason I’m doing the first 3 ingredients is because items like bread or tortillas may have a little added CHO down the list, but starting at the 4th ingredient and going down, there’s very very little of those items within product. The main goal is to avoid the larger amounts of added sugar.
I’ve not been able to locate any jelly that I can purchase, and ketchup was a challenge, but I finally found this:
It barely made the cut with sugar being the 4th ingredient!
Why am I doing this?
I’ve read plenty of articles from people who have done such a diet for extended periods of time and really enjoyed it.
Also, it’s not a huge change at all. Just, don’t eat items with added CHO within the first three ingredients. It’s not that hard, and like the ketchup shows, there’s always alternatives…and healthier alternatives at that!
Doing this will clearly cut a few calories here and there out of my diet, which isn’t a bad thing either. Especially when they’re stupid calories like sugar added to ketchup, for god’s sake!