Diet Advice
It seems that just about everyone has dieting advice, often unsolicited.
They even get rebranded to seem more complicated. Case in point: Keto. Until someone explains to me the finer nuances of how this differs from the high-protein no-carb Atkins diet, I remain steadfast that they’re the same fucking thing.
Some can get pretty weird. I have a friend that runs a bodega, who swears by the Egg Diet. Apparently, eating nothing but eggs will make you lose weight. Just eggs though. Nothing added. Not eggs with cheese or even eggs with hot sauce.
Just. Fucking. Plain. Eggs. Every. Meal.
I bring this up because I’m trying to eat better. Better, though, can vary considerably by audience. I’ve got a friend who is trying to get me to go vegan, despite the fact that I was born in the Midwest and raised on beef. Or if not vegan, more mushrooms. There are mushrooms for everything- one even mimics that taste and consistency of chicken (fittingly, the mushroom itself is called chicken).
The one piece of advice that sticks with me is the avoidance of processed food. If it comes in a sealed package, with the exception of something like a bag of salad, it’s probably not the best thing for you. Fine. Except, everything comes a package these days. Or has cheese. Or a fuckload of salt.
So that means that you likely need to prepare your own food, which is a pain in the ass. It also means that you’ll be making frequent trips to the grocery store, as fresh food (like vegetables or other plant matter) spoils fast. My brief stint with Noom taught me that there is no restriction on the recommended quantity of fruit or vegetable intake per day. So, try to eat more of those.
Also, water. Water will make you feel full and will do so while it helps you digest whatever it is you did eat.
Welcome to your new life of burden.
I HATE going to the grocery store. Which is why I bought packaged food in the first place: stockpiling. Think Costco. And there, as someone long ago who may or may not have been Shakespeare because I am too lazy to check, once said: therein lies the rub.
I haven’t yet figured out how to fully avoid the grocery store- maybe delivery. But then I need a list, and I’m screwed if the eggs show up broken.
I may have found a good time to cut up vegetables to have on hand though, and that is when I do laundry. Hear me out. Laundry is another thing I hate. So while I’m already doing something I hate, I might as well add something I don’t want to do, like cutting up sweet potatoes into sticks. That also will provoke me to clean the kitchen, because efficiency! Bundle the bad things together, rather than spread them out.
When you have to do one thing you hate, do more stuff you don’t want to do and everybody wins!
Anyhow, what is the marginally useful takeaway I dare to offer here? It’s actually three things:
Try to find food without ingredients you can’t pronounce.
Eat more plants.
Drink more water.