About nine months ago my doctor told me I was headed for diabetes, heart disease and the chance of a stroke if I didn’t change my lifestyle. I had something called “metabolic syndrome,” which includes a trifecta of symptoms including high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high triglycerides.
Wait a minute. I ate a healthy diet of mostly organic foods, drank the requisite daily red wine and exercised, more or less. All right, I had put on a little extra around the middle but still thought of myself as very fit and healthy. Eating well has always been an important part of my life and I rarely eat junk food, except for maybe pommes frites with aioli, which is a high-class kind of junk food that ends up having the same effect on the body. The idea of going on a diet seemed ridiculous. I knew that diets don’t work in the long run as people drift back into their bad habits. What exactly were my bad habits?
One of my worst offenses was that I liked too much of a good thing. It was all good food but in amounts more suitable for an athlete. Everybody knows that your metabolism slows down as you age, but apparently your appetite stays the same. So the choices were, either train like an Olympic runner, or eat less. But if I ate less, I would be hungry and miserable all the time. That’s not necessarily true.
One of my other bad habits is one that seems to be common in our times — skipping breakfast and waiting until I was really hungry and had desperately low blood sugar, and then eating some pastry made with white flour and sugar and washing it down with a latté. The refined carbohydrate in the pastry is immediately converted into a spike of blood sugar, which prompts the body to produce insulin to try and balance out your blood chemistry.
The next meal was a huge lunch that I attacked like a starving wolf. The same scene was repeated in the late afternoon, except with chips or crackers, but the results were the same. By the time I sat down to dinner, I was famished and devoured my second feast of the day. All good, healthy food, but the way I was eating was clearly not working.
How many times have we heard it said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? I believe it now, because it has changed the way I eat. I now start the day off with a healthy breakfast that includes plenty of protein and complex carbohydrates that are metabolized more slowly. It could be scrambled eggs with avocado and tomato with whole-wheat toast or steel-cut oats with yogurt, blueberries and nuts. I skip anything that has a high glycemic index like potatoes, white bread or pancakes made with white flour.
I was hungry for lunch, but not like before when my body was screaming for food. I again avoided simple carbohydrates and ate a hearty lunch that was filled with protein, whole grains, and vegetables with fresh fruit for dessert.
If I felt hungry between meals, I would eat whole almonds or cheese and apple, but avoided the temptation of the simple carbohydrates. For dinner, it could be fish on a bed of mashed cauliflower with chard, asparagus and a big salad.
I wasn’t starving myself. If I wanted a piece of dark chocolate, I would have it after dinner instead of on an empty stomach. If I wanted some bread, I would eat it with food.
Something strange was happening. Without even trying, I began to eat less because I got full quicker. I stuck to my three meals a day and gradually replaced most of those simple carbs with whole-wheat flours and grains and increased the amount of fiber, mostly in the form of vegetables and fruits. Now, nine months later, I’m 20 pounds lighter and my latest blood tests are normal. I’ll still have the occasional pommes frites with aioli, but never on an empty stomach.
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