About a month ago I decided to see what would happen if I stopped eating foods that contained a significant amount of white flour or white sugar. I was influenced in this by reading Deirdre Barrett's Waistland, in which she states that we are programmed to eat sugary and fatty foods as a survival mechanism. In a hunter-gatherer society these foods were harder to come by, so you stocked up when you could. In our modern society, this kind of food is everywhere, and the admonition "your body knows what to eat" is a lie. I had already pretty much given up fried foods and foods with artificial sweeteners or trans-fat, so this was just another step.
I've dieted for years, with the usual result of diets. Part of my last diet was writing down everything I ate and I started to notice that when I ate foods with white flour or white sugar it seemed to trigger an over-eating response and also, afterwards, I sometimes felt "hungover".
When I started the experiment the whole idea seemed a little radical.
I haven't losr a lot of weight, but I have to say that I feel a lot better since starting the experiment. The biggest problem sometimes is finding something to eat. I have to read labels carefully. Who would have thought that so many processed foods have sugar in them - like the "wasabi rice cakes"at my local health food store?
This is not a low-carb or no-carb diet. I still eat a lot of complex carbohydrates, I'm not perfect.
Surprisingly, the things that I have given up - cake, candy, cookies, etc..I don't miss so much. I thought it would be harder.
I will check back in a few months on this.
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