For some time I have been wanting to diet, or just stop eating crap as I do a lot of. I have gone through a dieting/self control anti-fressing stages before and they have worked well. The last time I decided to change my eating habits, I stopped eating bread and pasta and lost 25 pounds in 3 weeks. Please remember that I am an extremely active person who cycles at least 100 miles a week and hikes as well, so for normal people that may not be shayich.
I have always had a small stomach, my buddy Yoel jokes that I am the most out of shape/in shape guy he knows. The only one who can hike 25 miles in a day and ride 80 miles on a bike, not be tired and still look chubby. My arms and legs never get it, just my face and stomach.
I crashed a wedding last week at Ateres Chynka (I only mention the name because the name itself is funny and I am waiting for the ACLU to complain) and a bunch of old buddies said I looked like I was gaining weight, so I went to the scale and almost had a heart attack when I saw 205 pounds.
Ever since I moved to New York I have been quite transient, I don’t actually stay anywhere longer than 2 nights at a time and have no kitchen, I also discovered Carlos and Gabbys and have since been eating out and eating loads of pizza and fast food. Then throw in shabbos and I have really been eating unhealthy, though I could have told you I was gaining weight by how tight I adjust my belt it didn’t hit home until last week.
So I right away went to Heshy’s special diet, which includes no more eating out, no foods with high fructose corn syrup and trying to limit my carb intake to hippie foods, like kashi and quinoa. First thing to notice the change is my wallet, now instead of 7 dollar lunches and 12-15 dollar dinners, I have a huge lunch and rarely eat dinner.
I am not one to believe in diets, for one, I feel that orthodox Judaism doesn’t flow with diets. Diets to me seem restrictive and seem like something people do for a while, quit and then gain the weight back. I am for general lifestyle changes like not eating out and trying to eat unprocessed foods, because I can still eat what I love, but by limiting fast food I really take out a lot of the crap.
Here is what I have been eating a lot of. Bananas, Apples, Raw unsalted almonds and walnuts (Trader Joes sells packages with small one serving bags) Lots of spinach, toamtoes, Tofurkey (Tofu sausage with 29g of protien and 8g of fiber per serving) Cheese – I never really eat cheese, but its high in protien and gives me some good taste, been sampling the gourmet stuff at Pomegranate. I also eat tuna, canned chilli, and other soy products as well. For cycling I stick to energy bars like balance, luna, cliff, lara and gnu bars. For dressing I use olive oil and various vinegars.
I dicovered flas seeds last night which have ridiculous amount of protien and fiber – the two essentials that I want to make my diet high in.
This diet if I may call it that is definitely working wonders for my self control. For instance at this shiur I went to last night they served subsational and I limited myself to one pastrami eggroll, a major feat if you know how I feel about Subsational.
Then this past shabbos, I refrained from white challah and only took whole wheat a mighty hard feat as well. I also limited my kugel intake and my cholent intake. I also ate slower, I was almost a mench, although I wont say I was because that would be selling out my fellow fressers.
But the good news it that I went down in 1 belt loop and all of my pants are loose on me again, 1 week and I am down 7 pounds.