Saturday, June 14, 2008

Meat and Eggs

So, this week I've been following the meat & eggs (m&e) plan. Yes, that's right, just eating meat and eggs for an entire week. No veggie, no cheese, no wine, noshin' else. I've been irritated with the rate of weight loss these past couple months. Only netting a 2-3 pound loss per month. I wanted to jump-start things a bit. And jump-start it did! I've lost an amazing 7 pounds!!!! I know!
"But how can that be healthy?" you might ask? Well, let's think about what paleolithic man did. He was primarily a carnivore. Hunting as needed for fresh meat and substituting his remaining diet with berries, nuts, seeds, and tubers....and if he was really lucky, some honey. Meat was abundant. Although, he might have gone a few days, in between kills, without eating at all, meat was usually plentiful as opposed to berries, nuts, seeds, tubers and honey which were often seasonal and/or hard to find. I can easily imagine paleo man, in the dead of winter, going weeks on meat alone. So, do I think a meat & eggs only diet is healthy? Well, I don't think it's unhealthy to do temporarily. Of course, we still need our veggies (tubers) to supply extra nutrition. And adding veggies (as well as low-carb dairy, nuts and some honey) make this diet easy to stick to forever. It adds variety. (Note: Yes, I know that paleo man generally did not consume dairy but that's why my diet principles are an Atkins/paleo combo.)
The m&e experiment tended to be monotonous. Consequently, I ate less than I usually do. It essentially killed my appetite. And I have to admit, I did daydream about chocolate and key lime pie but after I ate a hamburger patty and felt fine.
Here was my typical day on m&e:
Breakfast
2 eggs
3 bacon
4 sausage
1 chai tea with 1 T heavy cream (o.k., you caught me, not m&e, but it was only a little bit)
Lunch
2 nitrate-free hot dogs
1 beef hamburger patty
2 T mayo & mustard (I dunno if condiments are allowed on m&e but I ate them anyway)
Dinner
1 steak or 1 pork chop or 1 chicken breast

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