Part 2 - It's not a diet - It's a modified food intake plan

As promised… Part 2

For those of you who didn't make it through Part 1, or found it a bit much… don't worry. We are all different. Some understanding of that stuff really helped me, but that doesn't mean it's for everyone.

Also bear in mind that all our bodies… and our body issues are different. What works for me may not work at all for you, some of you may have allergy issues or food intolerances which may preclude this from working for you.

However, I think the general principals are good, and even if you lean somewhat toward the healthier eating plan as it works for you I'm sure it will do you good. Just as leaning someway into an exercise plan will do you good.

What I'm saying is, it's not all or nothing. Don't despair if it all feels a bit much or feels just too darn hard. Take something on board and work with that.

What I began to call 'bad carbs' but are really just 'sometime carbs'. 
(3 serves of 15g of Carbohydrate) 

This is the area that I found the most challenging. My previous meal plan included a lot of bread, pasta, rice, and potato, peas and corn, and all these items fitted into this list. So when the dietitian's advice was to limit my intake from this group to 3 serves per day I knew I was going to have to vastly modify my food intake plan.

These foods are not necessarily unhealthy. I thought they were good foods cause they weren't high in fat or 'sugar'.  What I didn't understand was their carbohydrate content. And as my dietitian pointed out, as carbohydrate breaks down to its basic elements, its pretty much sugar as far as the body dealing with it is concerned.

This list also included breakfast cereals, crackers and crisp breads, potato chips, that sort of thing which weren't so much a big part of my daily food, though they floated around the periphery.

I had no particular love for pasta, rice, peas and corn, or potato. But I love my bread.  1 slice (not a fat slice) of bread equals 1 serve. So I resolved to basically eliminate pasta, rice, peas and corn, and potato, so that I could use those three serves for bread.

If it were you choosing, the resulting choices would more than likely be different.

The shocking inclusion of fruit. (3 serves of 15g of Carbohydrate)

I pretty much never ate fruit. Fruit is sugar, after all, and sugar is bad for you… or at least that was my thinking. But my dietitian allowed three serves of fruit. This felt revolutionary to me. Apparently fruit contains a lot of good stuff, and as far as sugar goes fruit is the good option.

One serve being one Apple, or Orange, or Pear, or Peach, or small Banana, or Nectarine, or 2 Apricots, or 2 Kiwi Fruit, or 2 Mandarins, or 2 small Plums, or 90 grams of Grapes, or 150grams of Strawberries,  or 1/4 small rockmellon, or one of my personal favourites to save me from Christmas temptation... 20 Cherries,

(these serves are approximately 15grams of carbohydrate so with a little research you could find out what 1 serve is for your particular fruit preference)

I loved having the freedom to eat three serves of fruit per day. I loved having 'permission' to eat it. I eat my three pieces of fruit most days. Its a pre packaged easy snack and its yummy.

And then there's all that fattening Dairy. (3 serves of 10g of carbohydrate)

I had been thinking of dairy as fat. And we all know that fat is the big bad bogey man in our diet. So I rarely had any dairy…. except for cheese. I loved my cheese (a bit like my bread) so I had pretty much been sacrificing all other dairy options…. and all this for many years.

When I was allowed three serves of dairy (each containing 10grams of Carbohydrate) I was quite shocked that I was being given permission to eat dairy.

Of course I had been eating far more than my allowance of three serves per day. This meant that I actually struggled with cutting back on the hard cheese. However at the same time I did enjoy eating some yoghurt, some fetta, and some hard cheese (portion appropriate) without feeling guilty all the time.

It would seem that whilst too much fat is not the best, its not so bad that we should strip it from everything and to make up for the lack of taste, substitute sugar, or worse… artificial sugar, in its place.

Ricotta and Cottage Cheese are also good options to include in your three serves of dairy. I have also discovered frozen yoghurt is a nice substitute for ice-cream.

Whatever your dairy preferences are, check your labels and find a happy balance between fat content and carbohydrate content. My dietitian suggested that if the product contained more than 10% fat, it was probably a good one to skip or put in the below 'fat' category.

The fat food group had its own category. (5 portions - minimal carbs)

This group under 'fat' included
       butter and oil - 1 teaspoon
       margarine and peanut paste - 2 teaspoons
       mayonnaise, dressings, avocado - 1 tablespoon
       …. and olives (three in a serve)

You will have to make your own choices here. I use a bit of oil in my cooking, and occasionally with lemon and salt and pepper for salad dressing. I've also learned to like a little avocado spread on my toast or cracker under my cheese and tomato. You might like yours as butter and mayonnaise/dressing. And I love my olives.

Protien foods limited to 6 serves  (not counted as carbohydrates)

Protien is like free food but limited none the less. From a diabetic point of view I figured this was a good place to cheat a little. But too much meat is not a good option either. So as part of an overall healthy eating plan the serves for me were initially limited to 6.

1 egg is one serve of protein
A 30g portion of lean meat (lamb, beef, pork, chicken, turkey, duck)
(a modest piece of steak is about 90g - quite sufficient)
30g salmon, herring, sardines, kippers
60g white fish, tuna, crab, crayfish or 5 small oysters
Cold meat such as ham, Silverside etc
30g cooked liver or kidney

Then there is my favourite ….  a whole group that you can eat as much as you like ….  the 'anytime vegetable group' ... no limits, no carb counting.

These foods are not necessarily carbohydrate free, but it seems the good things in them were worth any carbs they might represent. And remember… this is not a 'no carb' eating plan.

This group consists of pretty much every veg not already mentioned.
Pumpkin, carrot, parsnip, turnip, beetroot, cabbage, lettuce, leafy greens, broccoli, spinach, cucumber, capsicum, sweet potato, zucchini, tomato, spring onion, onion, leek, celery, asparagus, bean sprouts, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, eggplant, leafy greens and lettuce, radish, sauerkraut,  etc etc etc

You can do a lot with that collection to well and truly fill any gaps left in your 'food intake' by the restrictions of all the previous groups.

So that's the guts of it (pardon the pun). I feel like I've said too much and yet there is so much more to say. Perhaps a 'Part 3' covering actually converting this collection into a workable routine. For me it was about working out what I could live without, working out what I couldn't live without and creating some kind of balance in-between. And that is a very personal thing.