On track

After much procrastination and gearing up (otherwise known too as procrastination), I managed to give up the tea and chocolate and start sticking to my menu plan. 

Actually, the motivation came from reading http://jackkruse.com/. Jack is a neurosugeon, who was massively overweight at 160kg.  He stood up one day and tore the minuscus in his knee.  Being a doctor, he thought this doesn't make sense and started researching being healthy.  His website sets out what he has found.  It can get quite heavy on the medical jargon, but is work reading, just keep wikipedia handy for the medical definitions.

Dr Kruse talks about doing a "leptin reset", which is basically just following a strict, low-carb (ie, along with usual Paleo restrictions add no potatoes or fruit), Paleo diet for 6 - 8 weeks.  Leptin is a hormone that "regulates all aspects of energy metabolism, hormonal status, fecundity, and eventual cellular generation."  When I saw the words "hormonal status" I decided to jump on the bandwagon and do an experiment on myself to see whether this leptin reset could sort out my thyroid.

I'm onto Day 10 and so far the worse thing I've eaten is about half a cup of rice when having a banquet at a chinese restaurant and finding that most of the courses were off limits.  I was thinking I would go 8 weeks, but there's another two weeks after that until my next blood test, so I'm thinking I'll go six weeks and then introduce fruit and stick to the diet for another four weeks to the blood test.

Setting this up as an experiment to see what will happen certainly makes it easier to stick to:
1. I want to see whether it works
2. Knowing it has an end date means you can tell yourself that you can eat that creme brulee on 22 June 2012.  

Clearly my memory needs improvement

Discipline may be remembering what you want, but clearly I need some reminding given it's nearly five months since my last post (where does the time go).

Anyway, I said I would develop a meal plan and now I have.  I used the ideas in The Primal Blueprint to come up with the following, which is provides 1,300 calories, 73 grams of carbs, 62 grams of fat, and 85 grams of protein.

Breakfast:
2 boiled eggs

Snack
1 apple
40g cashews

Lunch
1 cup spinach
1 cup lettuce
half a carrot
half a cup celery
half a cup cucumber slices
100g chicken

Snack
45g fruit & nut mix

Dinner
200g steak
1/5 cup onions
half cup broccoli
half cup cauliflower
tablespoon rice bran oil

Dessert
tablespoon cashew butter

*This post does not constitute a recommendation on how you should eat.