The Zen of Calories

Part Fifteen: What to Eat

Not A Cookbook

This is not a diet book, nor is it a cookbook. I will propose no new and amazing plans, no sure-fire meals guaranteed to lose you every pound you look to shed and then some.

Rather, and as I’ve mentioned, this is a book about what I have found to work. The Weight Loss Basics above worked for my friend as she lost well over fifty pounds in six months.

And when it comes what to eat, another thing I have found to work — and to pass the test of time — is my own food regimen.

The Accidental Vegan

First let me say, yes, I am a vegan, and I have been for over thirty years now. I also admit that I’ve cheated now and then, but never too seriously, and never for long, and then always in the direction of dairy. 99% of the time, I’m strictly vegan. No dairy. Just plants in one shape or another, only things from the earth.

I’m asked now and then what made me decide to take the vegan path. I’ve answered part of that in the foreword: I knew that my genes leaned in the “more-is-happiness” direction, and that there was very little room for food compromise for me. I knew I simply had to watch what I ate.

So, about forty years ago I began to cut down on the usual suspects: sugar, red meat, fat, alcohol (mainly beer), and carbohydrates in general. I read books like Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for A Small Planet, and I tried to be a good Earth citizen and to be as healthy as I could. Fish and white meat. More greens. That sort of thing.

Then, I believe it was Thanksgiving 1984, we didn’t finish our turkey. Just too darn big. So, a good part of it went into the garbage can. This was on a Sunday. Garbage pickup was Wednesday.

Monday morning saw the arrival of a late Indian summer along with heat that registered in the nineties.

My next trip to the garbage can was Wednesday morning, with whatever had accumulated in the kitchen and around the house since my last trip. Had to beat the truck, which I could hear at the end of the street

I opened the lid and froze. Literally. About to be sick.

Maggots. I had heard the word, but I had no idea that this was what I was now looking at. A shifting carpet of what must have been thousands of white little larvae covering every surface of what was left of that poor turkey. I gagged but didn’t throw up. Instead, I dumped whatever I had carried out on top of this repulsive spectacle, replace the lid firmly (to make sure none of these little monsters escaped) and returned inside, much troubled.

As I said, at that time I had no idea that maggots were fly eggs, and that these would have been laid by flies after I put the turkey in the trash can that Sunday. What I had heard about, however, was pork worm, which you can sometimes find in infested and undercooked pork. Groping around for an explanation of this sea of turkey-maggots I drew this (wrong, to be sure) conclusion:

All those white things had already been present — as microscopic eggs perhaps — in the turkey when we ate it. Baking the left-overs in the garbage can (which must have reached well over a hundred during the day) for two days had somehow hatched them.

Decision: I will never eat meat again!

Trust me, I meant that. It took eight or so years before even the tiniest scrap of meat crossed my lips after that, and if I say that I’ve eaten meat of any color perhaps twenty times since then, I’m likely exaggerating.

Some years ago, someone, I don’t remember who, enlightened me about where flies come from. Well, you can cut off my legs and call me Shorty. What do you know? By that time, though, it was way too late. Meat was completely out of my system.

Earth Alone

I eat by a regimen that I call Earth Alone.

I have not surveyed the topic, so I don’t really know how far off the beaten path I actually am, but I know I’m some ways off, for I eat the same thing every day. Except, that is, for days nine and ten (out of a ten-day cycle), when I rest the system by two fruit-only days.

I have had many a furrowed brow and quizzical looks face me wondering, What on earth? That can’t be healthy. What about variety? Surely, you don’t get enough variety.

My stock answer is this: I get more variety in a day than the average Westerner gets in a week.

Why Earth Alone? Well, for one thing I like naming things, and initially there was some logic to this. I only eat what the earth alone provides, I only eat what grows in and out of the earth. I could easily have called it Earth Food or Just Greens or something like that, but for some reason I settled on Earth Alone, and as with any name, once you’ve used it for a while it comes to mean precisely what you intend it to mean, and today it means precisely the foods that make up my daily regimen.

And when I say regimen I mean the list of foods that I have found to best fuel my body — while also keeping the cost down (frugality being one of my other quirks).

I view my body a little like you do a car. A car needs fuel. The car really doesn’t care what this fuel is as long as it provides the necessary nutrients and energy to run it well.

Earth Alone is what — based on now almost thirty years of trial and error — fuels my body the best. So much so these days, that I don’t think I could change or vary it even if I tried, the body would object.

So, are you ready?

Here, then, mapped against my daily schedule, is Earth Alone:

4am: Rise and Shine

4am-5am: Aerobics, Shave, Shower

5am-7am: Meditate

7am: Citrus (Orange of Grapefruit); Green Tea

8am: Banana (before a long walk)

9am: Apple (on return from walk)

10am: Green Salad — A finely chopped mix of:

· Kale

· Cabbage

· Carrots

· Bell Pepper

· Green Onion

· Cucumber

· Tomato

Seasoning:

· Olive Oil

· Flaxseed Meal

· Wheat Germ

· Salt

· Black Pepper

Also, a Multi-Vitamin Packet

Noon: Nut Mix — Consisting of:

· Raw Walnuts

· Raw Almonds

· Cashews

· Raisins

(Alternatively, for, yes, variety: Muesli)

Also, 1 gram of Vitamin C; Green Tea

2pm: Dahl/Rice (cold mix):

· Brown Rice

· Salt

· Olive Oil

· Lentils

· Garlic

· Ginger Root

· Black Pepper

1 gram of Vitamin C

3pm (or so): Afternoon walk

7pm-9pm: Meditate

9pm: Bedtime

Since the amount of calories you should consume varies from person to person based on basal metabolism and how much weight you want to (or need to) lose, I have not included quantities here. Should you be crazy enough to give this regimen a spin around the block, you’d have to work those out for yourself.

Also, consult Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s excellent book Eat to Live.

As for my walks, I walk 3.7 miles in the morning and 1.3 miles in the afternoon for a total of 5 miles a day. The open air does wonders, and I always return from these walks refreshed and extroverted.

I should also mention that where I live this regimen costs me no more than $200 a month, vitamins included.

I am actually completely honest when I say that, although I eat this eight days out of ten — the other two being fruit only days, I prefer these foods to just about anything I can think of. By now, my body regards it as excellent fuel and delights in, and never seems to tire of, the taste.

I have to confess that I think it a little odd that I don’t get tired of it, but I just don’t. At times when I’ve traveled and have not been able to stick to this regimen, I find myself longing for it.

I think it may come down to the fuel thing; the body — if you let it — will delight in what is good for it.

And, again, I don’t necessarily recommend this. I only share Earth Alone as something that has worked, and still does work, for me.

For a wealth of healthy recipes, see Dr. Fuhrman’s Eat to Live.

© Wolfstuff