Color Me A Diet

Every year, tens and thousands of people put on their new year's resolution list "this year I will lose weight" or "this is the year to get healthy." I don't know what percentage of that actually follow through and make the changes, but I know many don't.

Starting this past February, I started working with a trainer and within a month and a half, lost 15lbs and am on my way to leading a much healthier lifestyle. This isn't as easy as it sounds as I have had to change my way of eating and how I think about food completely. Is food the enemy here? Why can't food just be that satisfying product that goes into my mouth but does nothing else? I don't know those answers, but what I do know is to lose the weight and be much healthier, something had to change and change it did.

Fruits, Veggies, and Whole Grains have become my new companion and all the processed foods that taste so goods have been kicked out onto the streets. I feel bad, but they were just a bad influence to me and it needed to be done.

Each week, I am given a lesson on nutrition and what I should try to cut out of my current diet to help me progress further with my weight loss goals. This past week was more interesting and something I had considered once a long time ago, but now am looking into more seriously.

I was told to only eat foods with color. So if I think about that, foods with color would include all fruits and veggies. Whole Grains do not count as they are a bland color of brown and dairy will be eliminated as that is typically a bland color of white. Chicken is okay because it is yellow and eggs count because of the inner yolk being yellow. Of course I agreed to trying this for two weeks but seriously, what in the world? How could I give up my whole grains and my dairy? I don't get how anyone could do that but I let the idea fester within me for a day and decided that perhaps I should try to convert one meal each day to being part of a "color" diet and see how that worked out. I did own a few raw food recipe books and those I am sure would help me stay colorful.

So on Monday, I will be looking to color my diet with bright and beautiful colors and converting one meal a day into a raw food type meal. Easy, right? Then I thought, why not take this one step further and learn why you are eating what you are eating.

So each week, I am going to focus on a new fruit and vegetable and learn more about it. Along with that, I will use that particular vegetable for one recipe each day and try to create different meals with that produce (why do I see Iron Chef playing in my head?). I will also be working with finding foods at are in season for my area (i.e. Maryland), but may expand / branch out until it is warmer and more foods are in season here in Maryland.

Check back on Monday as I take this ride through a colorful selection of foods and perhaps find my way out of the land of the lost.