Angela: In/Not In

My goals for the next 30 days are:

1. Lose a few inches around the middle, butt and thighs: lean out. I'm finally getting muscles from CrossFit and I wanna see 'em!
2. Get stronger and have more energy¹

To achieve these two (admittedly fuzzy) goals, here's my In/Not In (INI) list:

IN:

• Meat, including beef, chicken, pork, venison, lamb/mutton, moose, rabbit, turkey... pretty much anything other than human and dog. Probably won't eat cats, either, come to think of it. Realistically--anything that is sold in the grocery store.²
• Fish, including... well, see above.
• Eggs. See Footnote #2, below.
• Vegetables: green leafy things, cucumbers, brassicas in small amounts (I have a negative internal reaction to most brassica family plants), onions, chives, garlic... the usual victims.
• Nightshades in limited amount: this includes potatoes and tomatoes, which I'm including for a few reasons; one, I agree with Richard Nikoley's take on them (see here), two, it will make cooking in my household INFINITELY easier, and three, I like them.
• Tubers: yams, sweet potatoes.
• Fruit: to achieve goal #1, I'm going to restrict total intake of these. But berries are in, apples/pears in small quantities, and because we just bought & dehydrated a bunch of it, pineapple. It's candy, and will be treated as such :P 
• Nuts: almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts. Almond butter. Tasty Coconut!
• Oils: Extra Virgin Cold-Pressed Olive Oil, coconut oil, small amounts of butter (mainly for scrambled eggs),
• Coffee: Organic, fair trade, shade grown from Creekmore's Coffee (a local roastery). 
• Misc: olives as tasty salty treats.
• Heavy/Whipping Cream: for my coffee. I'm sorry, I like black metal but I can't drink black coffee!

OUT:

• Grains: of all sorts, including but not limited to wheat, corn, rice, barley, oats, sorghum, quinoa, rye, blah blah blah. NONE.
• Soy: for many reasons, most notably the fact that it contains quantities of phytoestrogens and my body is out of whack enough in that regard. Also, soy is processed. Heavily. And I don't like it, except in the form of soy sauce. No soy whatsoever for the next 30 days.
• Dairy, except for the above two exceptions. Store-bought dairy is heavily processed, pasteurized and industrialized. It is also implicated in cases where people can't lose weight on an otherwise clean diet (I will provide links to anecdotes for this if necessary).
• Refined sugar in all forms: HFCS, "glucose/fructose", cane sugar/syrup, corn syrup, sugar, etc. Honey and maple syrup to be used in extreme moderation.
• Peanuts: because I haven't heard anything good about them. Admittedly unscientific. Send me references if you think I really ought to be including these. I will take any data under advisement.

There you have it. I'm not sure what macronutrient balance I should be aiming for, so I don't think I'll bother with daily calculations. At the end of the 30 days, it would be interesting to do some analyses based on these food logs, though, as Meagan pointed out today ;)



Footnotes:

1. I suffer from chronically low energy, in my opinion. I have difficulty going to CrossFit two times a week and biking the 10K round trip to work five days per week. I end up bedridden if I go above CFx2 + biking x2. Something isn't right, because I used to hit the gym 4x per week, and bike EVERYWHERE as a poor student. I'm hoping a stricter, cleaner diet will help, and will look at options with my doctor in the next week or so. 
2. We currently buy all our meat, eggs, and fish from the local grocery store. I am checking out a local source of free-range pastured hens this week, so hopefully we will have tasty eggs from happy hens soon. I have also (courtesy of Sarah P on Facebook) found a possible source of local, grass fed & finished beef. Pending tasting approval by MC, I'd like to quit buying beef from the store, as we eat mostly beef as our meat.