The Bacon Manifesto

Hello Friends & Family!

I hope everyone is enjoying the warmer weather, longer days, and all the slushy, sunny goodness that is Spring!  In my ongoing march (<- pun intended?) through my monthly resolutions, I decided to take a plunge into the ultra-difficult commitment to healthy living.  Simply put, I decided to embrace the mantra “Treat Your Body Like A Temple.”

Those of you who know me, know I am willing to commit to some odd dietary ideas.  There was the month in North Carolina where I tried to eat a bag of spinach a day (like the spinach leaves were chips).  There were the two juice 3-day juice cleanses I completed, and by completed – I mean I drank juice while I stayed home and watched Netflix for 3 days. And let’s not forget the time I foolishly allowed a co-worker to convince me that “food is just energy and taste shouldn’t be a factor” – which is stupid.  So with history of dabbling in an interesting repertoire of healthy lifestyle choices, I had to up the ante.

 

March Resolution… “Treat Your Body Like A Temple”

For a while I have wondered if I could actually live for one month of clean healthy living. In essence, treating my body like a temple – eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, cut out the bad habits. My personal journey, similar to all great sojourners was fraught with peril and self-doubt. In a way, I am a bit like a modern day Food-Conscientious Lewis & Clark or possibly, a Culinary Christopher Columbus.

 

So here I am, one week after the most caloric and sugary two days of my year diving into a healthy living.  On Sunday evening, I wrote the basic guidelines for the month:

• Eat – only fruits, vegetables, meat. Which cuts out processed sugar, grains, and alcohol (which is just grains + sugar).  If you are craving more details, I am basically following the Whole30 plan.
• Sleep – 8 hours+ / day
• Play – Move 60 minutes a day; if little kids can do this, I feel like I should be able to ..

These guidelines seemed so simple, so easy to achieve, so … stupid.  It was difficult to explain the nuance of this journey without a little help from a graphic, please see chart below to understand the tumultuous emotional journey that is not eating sugar.

 

 

1. Day 1: Life is good, the birds are chirping, things are right in the world. Like all dieters, Day 1 is awesome – what could go wrong?
2. Day 2: 24 Hours without sugar. I start to feel a bit like Tom Hanks in Castaway.  I am mumbling to myself, I am constantly searching for something sweet, and even have started to have odd hallucinations about involving sugar.  Today, while getting coffee, I drifted off for a 30 seconds and had a vivid fantasy about ripping open a Splenda packet and devouring its artificial sweetener.  Safe to say, sugar addiction – confirmed.

…Here begins the bacon saga…

 

3. Day 3: I learn that bacon is an approved food for this diet. My heart leaps, I can’t stop smiling, and bacon becomes a staple in my meals (read more about transformation from a sugar addict to a b bacon addict below).  Life is good, 27 days suddenly seems very do-able.
4. Day 4 – 10:13 AM: A kind co-worker questions the veracity of my bacon claim. I do research and discover Whole 30 does not condone bacon, in fact they strongly discourage it.  A single tear rolls down my cheek.
5. Day 4 – 10:18 AM: Salvation! There is one small exception to the previous bacon restriction.  Paleo bacon! Bacon is back on the menu!
6. Day 4 – 6:05 PM: I have purchased my paleo bacon at Whole Foods (at the reasonable rate of $12.00 / lb), returned home and eaten the bacon. It is awful, life is back to not worth living.
7. Day 4 – 7:10 PM: I uncurl from the fetal position and resolve to continue to eat bacon no matter what! I will not be deterred by trace amounts of organic sugar that constitute less than 2% of ingredients.  I return to Whole Foods for non-nitrate, non-sulfate, uncured, organic bacon!

 … Here ends the bacon saga…

 

8. Day 10 – My body starts to detox from 30+ years of eating sugar. It is tough describe how terrible I felt from day 10-12, but the closest sensation I can think of is: imagine your three or four closest friends fill socks with quarters and then beat you with these make shift weapons for an entire day.  I felt terrible – I had strange aches, I got headaches by early afternoon and had to leave work to go lay down.  Thankfully, when I Googled “Whole30 body ache” – I got 8,090 results, so I knew I wasn’t alone.
9. Day 12+ – Things start to feel normal. I have yet to experience the “Tiger Blood-like energy” or an “eagerness to jump out of bed in the morning”, but I am no longer craving sugar constantly.  My body and mind feel mentally alert without any stimulation beyond some coffee and an apple.
10. Today – My body continues to have minor schizophrenic reactions. Mostly, because I have run out of new, interesting food to eat. I want basically want anything for breakfast other than eggs and bacon.  And while I have moved away from spinach and chicken for launch, steamed veggies and bacon has run its course as well.  I find myself going back to the same question over and over again  how people can lead a condiment-less life?

 

 

 

BaConfusion (get it?  it’s ‘bacon’ and ‘confusion’ combined)

I also, have started to wonder if I really understand the parameters outlined.  The website says don’t worry about calories or tracking weight, just eat natural food.  This seems fine in principle, but I am wondering if I will really be better off if I replace sweets with bacon.  Which, I can assure you is starting to happen.

Watching TV, can’t have chips? Eat bacon.

Want a snack for the BART ride, can’t have M&Ms? Eat bacon.

Want a peanut butter sandwich? Eat bacon.

I am not saying bacon has been the solution to _ALL_ my problems, but I am not sure it couldn’t solve some major world issues…

Want countries to reduce or eliminate nuclear programs? Eat bacon.

Worried about climate change? Eat bacon.

 

Dating & Dieting

 

Healthy Eating Takeaways & Thoughts

People have asked me about the experience and my overall thoughts so let me summarize. I imagine, some of these people will already know or have experienced themselves.

• I think about food … a lot! But not, the fun thinking of looking up interesting restaurants on Yelp or pinning new recipes online; instead, my thinking is in the vein of hunter/gather-thinking.  I almost always thinking about where to get food, how to make food, or eating food.  Note: when I say hunter/gather, it has a modern twist… I hunt down deals at WholeFoods and gather things off the shelf.
• Shopping – Twice as much, twice as long
  • Twice as long – Shopping takes me twice as long for two main reasons.  First, I usually walk through and select all of the things I normally buy.  I get to the register, realize I can have almost none of it and have to walk back, replacing everything and finding items that fit the restrictions.  Two, I have to read all of the ingredients and usually have to Google more than one thing to figure out if it is okay.
  • Twice as much – Not volume, price.  I know this isn’t shocking to anyone, but really, eating healthy vs processed/fast/etc is significantly more expensive.  I would say that this cost 2-3x what I normally spend on meals.  Lauren Wilkerson-Hall suggested this diet, thus I plan on invoicing a bill to help cover the additional cost.
• Sugar is in everything – On one hand, I expected this.  On the other, HOLY CRAP IT IS IN EVERYTHING!  I had a reasonable expectation that it would be in many things – desserts, peanut butter, alcohol – but it is core ingredient everywhere.  It is added to some salt brands (which I assume is at the atom-level structure, it is in apple sauce (cause, fruit isn’t sweet enough), it is even in bacon (I don’t know where exactly)!
• Condiment-less Living – Is not really living.  Sugar is in almost every condiment and when I tried to make my DIY version, it tasted awful.  Trust me, homemade, sugarless ketchup sucks … leave it to Heinz, they know what they are doing.

 

Dieting & Dating

While you would think that one restricts the other, there has been an interesting and statistically significant change in behavior.  The only “no sugar” exception I allowed myself was that I could have a drink if I was on a date (to avoid it being weird and all).  With just a slight incentive, I basically turned into a dating machine.

I am not saying they were all the best dates, but with the right incentive anything is possible.