Food Rant.

I'm beginning to come to the realization that I cannot just eat whatever I want anymore without gaining a pound.  And a sad, sad realization it is indeed. I am the third week into a twelve week diet that I am doing called Body For Life. In this diet you do not consume, sugar, and you can only have complex carbs, fat free dairy, and lean meats.. and of course as much fruits and vegetables as you want. I have done it once before and I lost 13 lbs. This time I would like to lose more.
I have been feeling really good though. I just came to the realization that whatever I eat today is going to mean nothing to me tomorrow. So do I want to eat whatever i crave and be left with the feelings of guilt and general grossness, or do I want to eat healthy even though it feels like suffering in the moment, I end up feeling proud of myself and good of course because I am consuming nutrients that my body can actually use!
I just bought this book, In Defense Of Food: An Eaters Manifesto. It came in on Saturday and I finished reading it on Tuesday. I don't usually have the attention span to read books that quickly unless I am really into whatever they are about. It was sooo good! It talked about how back in the day people didn't have to read on a package to know what they should eat or not. They bought bread, eggs, cheese, fruits, vegetables, etc. No bells and whistles, just plain old FOOD!  And by bread I mean flour, yeast, salt, water.  Not the wonder bread you find now with a novel of ingredients on the label. What happened was, when they first discovered ways to refine starches so that they were as snow white and pleasurable to eat as possible, what they were actually doing was stripping away all the nutrition from the grain. They didn't realize this until the people they were feeding it to actually started to get sick from various deficiencies. So they starting adding the things to the bread and whatnot that they found to be missing, so that by their standards they were actually giving you something that was as, if not more, nutritious than the original whole food in the first place. The scientists that study food can only do something I think it is called Isolated Science, where  they isolate individual nutrients in food and study them.. rather than for instance the carrot, as a whole. But of course, they can't do that because the carrot as a whole is far more complex than our science. You're probably thinking, how is it that we can figure out how to grow a baby in a test tube, land someone on the moon, etc, and we can't figure out what all is in a carrot?? Well, it's just the truth. Maybe if the food industry wasn't spending so much of their efforts on finding reasons why fruit loops are good for you and how to make virtually everything we eat out of corn or soy, then maybe they could be conducting some more useful studies. Anyways, what the book was saying is that you probably shouldn't be eating things that aren't REAL food! If laws that were in place back in the day still stood you wouldn't even be able to call Wonder Bread "bread"!
Even after I am done with this diet I am going to try and make some serious changes in my diet. Not only for my health, but also because every time you buy something at the store you are casting a vote of what you want the food industry to keep supplying you with. I am going to try to set a few goals for myself and see how I do. Then as I conquer those ones, I can add more to my list. So here are a few:

1. No margarine! EVER!
2. Try when I can to choose complex, non refined starches.
3. Soda no more than once per week.

Wish me luck!