What a title right? Are you referring to bad things that may happen if you focus on healthy food options?
Well, I want to share another step in my journey towards losing my body fat – a step that happened today and did NOT leave me a happy camper for the remainder of the day.
I’ve been doing fairly well [not perfect] at trying to follow the nutritionist created Diet Solution Program. I’d say I’m about 80% compliant now in any given week – focusing more on lean meat, a lot more fruits and vegetables, buying free range, organic fed chickens as well as eggs, seeking out and trying to buy grass fed beef – all good things.
However, let me tell you how things can go wrong if you think you know the science behind the diet and stray from some of the recommended meal plans and portions throughout the day.
So spinach is on the diet plan [as you would expect] as an excellent addition to my weekly diet. I buy organic whenever possible [sometimes what they have available at Whole Foods or Sprouts looks almost spoiled, so on those weeks I may buy the normal pesticide laden kind unfortunately.
This week before work I popped into a Safeway store and stocked up on some items for my lunches at work - I tend to eat at my desk every day as meetings invariably leave no time to leave the office. Sound familiar? So right before work on Tuesday morning I bought a bag of organic red apples, a good size package of organic spinach [supposedly prewashed and all of that good stuff], almonds, and a bag of those little peeled baby organic carrots.
Everything went well Wednesday – I had a little meat from dinner the prior night, 2 apples, a banana, and some almonds for lunch. I felt full, and it was a healthy meal.
Fast forward to Wednesday – I was on a conference call all through lunch, so right before the call started I grabbed the “plastic bin” of spinach and the carrots from the cafe fridge and jumped on my call. During the call I managed to eat probably 3/4 of the entire spinach container, about 15 baby carrots, as well as a few almonds.
After the call ended I looked at how much spinach I had eaten – I felt full but not like I had eaten too much. However, apparently there were like 6 services of spinach in this container, and I think I ate 5 of them. At this point I’m feeling like “wow – my healthy eating options are working great, and I just ate more of a really good thing. My body must be loving me at this point”.
WRONG.
Why? Well, about 2 hours after eating I started to balloon out like something out of Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory – apparently spinach can create intestinal gas, and too much spinach can, well, produce too much gas. From about 3pm until I went to bed tonight I’ve had major gas cramps, horrible gas, and my wife told me I looked like I was expecting twins.
I was MISERABLE! And all from doing a good thing!
The problem is I assumed the rule “everything in moderation” didn’t apply to good things like organic spinach. Boy was I wrong.
So lesson learned. The portions and allocations on the Diet Solution Program are there for a reason! Isabel knows from her training, certifications, and extensive experience in the field of nutrition what you should be eating – and now much of each item at a time. While she doesn’t come out and mention what can go wrong [like blowing up like a balloon], I’m sure that was one of many factors that she incorporated into her approach around meal components and relative portions!
I learned my lesson. Not sure I will have to worry about getting distracted on a future lunch and eat 10 organic apples – who knows what that side effect would be!
So – morale of the story: Trust the nutritionist, try not to stray too far from the program as designed, and don’t eat too much spinach in one sitting
My guess is also that people following and trusting weight watchers would have told me I didn’t have enough points for all of that Spinach!
As always, best of luck on your weight loss and eating healthier [to burn body fat of course] journey!
Russell
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