Time to Shop

Well today is the first day I will be grocery shopping for this new diet. I usually just head to Wal-mart, push through the crowds and grab all the usual low fat frozen meal for lunches, some vegetables and fruits, whole wheat bagels, soy milk and skim milk. I find I usually buy the same things over and over- I guess you just get into eating ruts and I am able to get out of the store faster...I mean have you ever been to Wal-mart? It's a whole different world in there...

Today I am planning on doing a little research on where to shop. Wal-mart's produce is standard at best and doesn't carry necessary local or organic produce. I recently heard about this little grocery store, Pogue's Run Grocer that just opened up on 10th street here on the East side of Indianapolis.

I found this information on Pogue's Run Grocer website, http://www.indyfoodcoop.org/

 The mission of the Indy Food Cooperative, Inc. is to provide public education about health and nutrition, to create neighborhood economic opportunities through direct job creation and sourcing from local producers, and to provide access to healthy food choices for low to moderate income residents on the Near East side of Indy. The means to these ends is the operation of Pogue’s Run Grocer at 10th and Rural Streets, featuring budget cooking and nutrition classes, living wage jobs, and affordable, local, fresh, and healthy food options.

I'm interested on how expensive things are and how big the store is. I am going to go dig into The Perfect 10 Diet book to try to plan out our meals for the week. This is going to be tricky because the convenience of frozen meals, eating a bowl of cereal or grabbing quick processed foods is the fast approach to eating we are used to. We will be making all our food instead. I will also have to shop at more than one store because I will still need to get laundry detergent and toothpaste and those kinds of thinks.

I'm sitting here actually a bit anxious about starting this diet tomorrow. Eating is one the best part of the day.  What if I dread eating this way and am always hungry? I guess we will find out.

To clarify I am not going on this diet to lose weight, I see this diet to be a processed food and chemical detox and I will probably just feel a lot better and hopefully stop craving sugar all the time. My husband is hoping to lose 15 pounds over the next 7-8 weeks and I think he will find he will have a lot more energy too. When I was reading this book it dawned on me that I may have single handedly helped my husband gain his 20 pounds when we got married and started living together. When I talk to Chad about his eating habits when he was a bachelor he monitored his fat intact but not by eating low fat he instead ate a lot of grilled chicken, pasta, some vegetables and protein shakes. I on the other hand don't eat a lot of meat and so my diet unfortunately is made up of a lot of carbohydrates. I think I was maintaining a consistent weight by eating in moderation but Chad is 80 pounds heavier that I am so the intake of carbohydrates he began to consume increased greatly when we moved in together, his protein intake decreased and our low fat diet never left him full or satisfied.

Here's some information that I thought was interesting  in The Perfect 10 Diet book:

Do you have no control over your appetite? You may have a Leptin problem. Leptin is secreted by the fat cells, and not a endocrine gland. Leptin manages how much fat is stored around the organs and under the skin. When the fast cells are filled with an abundance of food, more leptin is secreted, and the leptin enters the brain to curb your appetite. As a result, you feel full and satisfied. Initially, scientists believed that if you gave leptin to overweight peole, it would stimulate fat burning. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. Overweight people were not leptin deficient; in fact, they produced too much leptin. It turns out that excessive levels of leptin often go hand in hand with high sugar and elevated insulin levels. You see, food without nutritional value, such as refine carbohydrates, low-fat products, foods containing high -fructose corn syrup and trans-fats, and other fake foods, sends erroneous signals to the brain. The body interprets those signals as starvation, which makes the body burn fewer calories and store fat even in the presence of high leptin levels. When Leptin is high because of all the fake food you eat, you satiety switch becomes broken. As a result, you gain weight, because you will be as hungry as a wolf and will have no control over your appetite (pg 63 The Perfect 10 Diet).

Foods that help balance leptin include: vegetables, fruits, whole grains, foods containing natural fats, and fish.

Interesting stuff, right? As I read this book I want to dive into other resources to see what other research supports Dr. Aziz's information I am reading.

I will post my grocery list once I make it! Signing off.