Welcome, Collards

Ok, I lost another whole pound this morning. So collard greens, move on over to the ‘friendly’ column.


Just to be clear, I chopped them and sauteed them in a vegetable soup. Preparing them the traditional way, boiling them with a hamhock, would certainly require a separate test. Not only have I not tested pork yet, but I know that there is more likelihood of reactivity from slow-cooked, high-sodium meats. The truth is, I almost never cook them that way anyway, so this test was quite appropriate for my lifestyle.

Since I enjoyed a weight-loss day, I’m free to test another food today. 



This morning, I had a bowl of quinoa for breakfast. I had made it last night, so it was already cooked this morning. I dropped a tablespoon of butter in a sauce pan and heated up the quinoa in it. Then I cut up half of an apple, sprinkled that with cinnamon and put that at the bottom of a bowl. I spooned the hot quinoa over that and then drizzled coconut milk on the top. It was delicious!

The rest of the day I will only eat known friendly foods. If I have gained weight in the morning, I’ll know that quinoa makes me react and I’ll avoid eating it. I’m hoping this one is a pass. I really like quinoa’s nutty flavor and how quick and easy it is to prepare. I’ve already passed brown rice, but I hate taking the time to make it, so I hardly ever eat it.

One of the surprising joys of this program is how many different, creative and delicious ways I can eat the same small selection of foods. And now that my friendly arsenal is growing, it’s getting so much easier to rotate the foods so that I’m still choosing from my friendly list, but I’m not forced to be monotonous about it. For example, I now have a choice of four things I can have for breakfast. (After today, possibly five)

And I also know that at any time I can have pancakes or cookies or whatever I want. But I have not fully embraced this reality yet because I’m so fascinated by the testing concept. I intellectually know that I could have lasagna tonight without gaining weight, as long as I quickly went back to this central diet. After a party, or if I had gone to a restaurant and indulged, is the most important day to return to the central friendly diet. 

I’m theoretically envisioning a lifestyle that allows for weight loss while enjoying any sinful indulgence every other day. The key to that lifestyle, of course, would be in following the structure of the friendly eating plan and testing preparedness protocol and having those sinful indulgences be just that, occasional indulgences no more than once every two days. A lifestyle that allows daily sinful indulgence is what leads to weight gain. If the lifestyle is more balanced toward the friendly plan, the indulgences are the minority and don’t have the same detrimental effect.

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