Let the fun begin!

Okay, so "fun" may not be the right word. Let the test of willpower and dedication begin!

Today I start my Ultra Metabolism prescription. The title sounds gimmicky, but it's really pretty simple and not full of hooey. Essentially, it's getting back to a real foods diet and getting rid of all the fake crap that our bodies don't know how to process. So why do I need an eating plan to do that? Well, the elimination of fake foods is only part of it. Lots of people have undiagnosed food allergies to things like gluten, eggs, dairy, etc and the plan gives you a way to do an at-home check for those sensitivities.

Today I began week 1, which is a prep week for the plan. Last night I made sure to do it up right and eat a bunch of stuff I won't be able to have for a few weeks. :)

Things I can't eat in week 1:

• Caffeine - Shouldn't be too bad as I don't really drink it often anyway.
• Processed and refined carbs (white or wheat flour) and sugar - I eat mostly whole wheat stuff when possible so this will just mean I need to be more diligent about that. The sugar thing will be tough tho. It's amazing how many things have added sugar in them! My freaking cranberries for my salad have extra sugar for crying out loud! I'm going to do my best to eliminate it completely for as long as I'm told, but I have no doubts a bit will slip in there despite my best efforts.
• High-fructose corn syrup - No problem. Despite this shit being in nearly everything we buy I've managed to avoid it for the most part. I found I had very little purging to do in my fridge and pantry due to my earlier efforts to avoid buying stuff with HFCS.
• Hydrogenated fats and oils - Same as HFCS. I've done a pretty good job of avoiding it up to now, but there are a few items still lingering in my house with these in them. Mostly related to baking. I'll just not do that for a while.
• Processed and packaged foods - This all depends on the types of processed and packaged foods. The goal is to get as close to the natural form of the food as possible. Often the packaged stuff has bonus badness added to the ingredient list so that is what I intend to avoid. By shopping at Trader Joe's I should be able to still get some processed and packaged stuff without an extra negative ingredients. Of course, another reason to avoid it is that your body has to work harder to break down food in its whole form so processed stuff is burned faster. For this reason I will try to stick with as much whole stuff as possible, but give myself a bit of leeway by buying good stuff from Trader Joe's. I wish I could find the rumored three page, single spaced, list of ingredients that Trader Joe's won't allow in food with the TJ's label but my searches have been futile. I'll post the link if I ever find it!
• Alcohol - I don't drink very often, but as soon as I'm told I can't (antibiotics, this plan...) I want a glass of wine. I especially enjoy wine with a nice dinner so this may be tough. Oh, and during days when I'm snowed in which I may be this evening. *sigh* At least I get to reintroduce that in week 5 as long as I don't determine I have a sensitivity to it!

Last night I tried to prepare by putting things together for my lunch way ahead of time instead of the morning of. This is when I discovered that my champagne vinaigrette dressing and dried cranberries for my salad even had added sugar. Grr. I figured the amount was mostly negligible so I used it anyway. I also made some baked oatmeal with dried apricots (no added sugar!) and pecans that I could reheat in the morning. And then this morning I prepared some wild Alaskan salmon for my lunch and for upcoming dinners. I portioned a 1lb frozen package into 4 individual servings. Not bad for ~$8 worth of good salmon! I think I'm doing pretty well so far for my plan for today.

Breakfast: Baked oatmeal with dried apricots and pecans. Protein shake.

Snack: Trader Joe's Fiberful Fruit Leather (all real ingredients!).

Lunch: Salmon fillet and a mixed green salad with champagne vinaigrette dressing, dried Cranberries and walnuts inspired by the magical salads at Proof and Flour here in Des Moines. I dream of those salads for real.

I'm not sure what I'll do for dinner tonight yet, maybe more of that delicious salmon I prepared this morning. We'll see! I plan to keep lots of almonds and other nuts around for snacking throughout the day as well.

Wish me luck!