An Experiment in Eating

For those of you who know me, you know that food and my body are not always friends.  While I love to eat, cook and think about food, food and my digestive system don't always agree.  For the last 2 1/2 years, I've made significant strides in improving this relationship with the help of a fabulous nutritionist and friend, Tina Shiver.   She thankfully diagnosed my wheat and gluten intolerance and that in itself has changed my life dramatically.  But we continue to try and fine tune my diet, not only to allow me to get to a healthy "race weight" but predominantly to get my system back to "normal" and healthy functioning.

Recently, I been reading up on endurance athletes and other high level athletes who switch from a normal diet to a plant based diet -- i.e. a vegan diet.  Hillary Biscay,  Rich Roll,  Brendan Brazier, Martina Navratilova and Carl Lewis to name a few.  All espouse to have found new energy and fitness with a plant based diet.  Coupled with this, I just finished reading Omnivore's Dilemma.  If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it!  Pollen doesn't draw conclusions for you but explores the food industry in a very straightforward, openminded way.   And, I suppose the third factor may be that despite my already fairly restricted diet, my stomach and energy levels haven't been great.

So, I've decided to do a little experiment in eating.  My goal for now is to gradually begin to switch my diet to a predominantly plant based diet.  What does that mean?  It means that fish -- wild caught and local to the extent possible- or the occasional pastured, grass-fed lean meat -- will be the source of protein for only one of my meals during the day.   And, if I don't know where it is from or how it was raised, I'll stick to plants.  For my other meals, it will be veggies, fruit, beans, nuts and non-gluten grains.   Lunch in particular is a big green leafy salad with lots of veggies and beans.  Milk products are out for now too -- they've been causing havoc lately for me anyway.   Smoothies (with rice/hemp protein powder) will likely also be a standard staple.

I'm curious to see how I feel and how my body reacts to these changes.  In the meantime, I'll be trying lots of new recipes and spending more time at our local farmer's market.    Last night was sea bass fish tacos (baked sea bass wrapped in cabbage leaves with homemade guac, salsa) and quinoa.   Yummy!