I Reserve the Right to Eat Bacon

To ring in the new year, I became a baconarian aka a vegetarian who eats bacon (copyright ME).

Why?

Because bacon is delicious! I think bacon may be my all time favorite food and I'm not giving it up. Besides the bacon, I try to eat a plant-based diet.

I've read a ton of the diet books and for my money, the best ones are by Dr. Mark Hyman. I especially like his Ultra Simple Diet. Dr. Hyman specializes in functional medicine, or treating the body as a whole, instead of individual symptoms. It's not Paleo, or South Beach, or Atkins, or any of the other hundreds of diet plans out there. It's really just common sense.

If your great-great grandmother would not recognize it as food, don't eat it!

If you can't pronounce the ingredients, or the ingredient list is more than a few items long, don't eat it!

Or, at least, don't eat very much of it.

This basically means lots of fruits and vegetables. I shop at our local outdoor market and the prices are ridiculously cheap. I love it! I stock up on kilos of carrots and cucumbers for juicing, fruits for snacks, and vegetables for dinner or salads. My fridge is stuffed and it cost less than $20.

That leaves me extra money to spend on high quality protein. I buy local, organic, free-range eggs and locally made Greek yogurt straight from the cow without any sugar added. I live on a lake so I have access to fish and seafood but I rarely eat any besides salmon.

A typical day's meals for me are ;

- Breakfast: hot water with ginger and lemon essential oil (maybe a green juice or a smoothie too but I am not much of a morning eater.) This ginger lemon tea is supposed to combat swelling and support weight loss. You can read more here. It is also in line with Ayurveda, which recommends drinking a similar tea each morning.

- Lunch:  Either Greek yogurt with honey, chia seeds, and fresh fruit OR a salad OR scrambled eggs with veggies

- Dinner: Roasted veggies with fish OR salad and soup OR beans and rice OR quesadillas if I'm wanting a treat.

I try not to snack often and when I do, I try to chose fruit or nuts. But sometimes I need Doritos.

Of course, I don't stick to this diet every single day, but I do my best. When I eat out, I splurge and let myself get whatever I want. I only let myself buy quesadilla ingredients and bacon about once a month. I usually buy a couple pieces of candy and hide them in the freezer. But besides those little treats, I do my best to make my home meat-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, and processed food-free (I am also caffeine and alcohol free. I know, soooo lame.)

Just real, whole foods that grow in the ground or on trees and you have to prepare to eat. The way nature intended. It's working well for me. I have no idea how much weight I have actually lost because I refuse to weigh myself, but my clothes are fitting better, my body looks better, and I feel better about myself.

Now if only I could delete the food delivery places from my phone. It's far too tempting after a long day to order a pizza instead of making a salad! I read once that you should shoot to eat well 90 percent of the time and let yourself splurge the other 10. That's what I'm aiming for. I think I'm closer to 70/30 now though! It seems like every social interaction involves food around here and I find myself eating out at least once a week.

Besides eating well, I supplement with lots of vitamins. Check back tomorrow for my full list of pills per day! I think I'm up to at least 15.

Love,

an Addison alien