Tangent: Nutrition (Human)

Completely non-horsey post topic, only related to riding in the most tangent of connections.

Nutrition.

A few weeks ago I signed up with a health coach. My goal is to lose weight and improve my physique. I've been working on this my whole life, with some successes and setbacks, but I've been at a real plateau for over 6 months so it was time to try something new.

My new dairy-free, soy-free creamer

And that something new turns out to be a 21 day elimination challenge. For 3 weeks, starting this past Sunday, I'm eating a diet free from:

• gluten (wheat & soy)
• dairy
• corn
• peanuts
• sugar & artificial sweeteners
• manufactured oils 

The above list is practically a "paleo" diet, with the exception that paleo also omits beans and legumes.

The idea is that (a) many people have sensitivities to these items and don't even know it, and (b) these foods can hinder weight loss due to their interference/reaction in metabolic processes. Getting rid of these leaves room for more nutritious foods such as additional vegetables and fruits, and lets your body work more effectively at losing weight.

Once the challenge is over, you add the "whole foods" version of some of these back. For example, instead of margarine or an oil/margarine combination spread or spray, you add back whole-fat butter from grass-fed cows. Theoretically this leaves you much more satisfied than their low-sugar, low-fat, low-carb, low-whatever counterparts.

So far it actually hasn't been super hard. The health coach's main approach seems to revolve around the idea of whole foods, meaning nutritious wholesome produce and products, with minimal "processing". Organic, grass-fed, free-range, hormone-free, local, etc, etc.  And for items that do come in jars or boxes, instead of looking at carbs and saturated fat on the nutrition labels, I'm looking at the ingredients. I better know what all of them are and they better be free of additives and sweeteners.

A Whole Foods just opened one exit from me. Dangerous place. Picture source here.

This is a very intriguing approach to nutrition that I haven't tried before, so I'm interested to see how it goes. I'd love to know if anyone else has or is doing a paleo or whole foods or similar type nutritional lifestyle. If so, please tell me your secrets to success!