I’ve read the book and tried the diet, short-term (just for a week). It’s a lot of food but pretty cheap, because there is no meat and very little premade food. I haven’t tried it while employed, and I think taking that much food to work on a daily basis would be a little weird. However, I do know that a few hours after eating a freakin’ huge salad, I’m still not hungry.
Yeah, the quantities of food are enormous. I felt stuffed after the cauliflower soup, hummus in half a whole wheat pita, and strawberries.
I’ve been following this plan for a couple of weeks and wanted to report on some interesting things for anyone who might be curious/interested.
I’ve not had any dairy except for about a tablespoon of cheese dip at a birthday party. I did have about 3 oz of meat at that party, too. But other than that, veggies out the wazoo. In the middle of last week, I ate a cup of frozen yogurt and within an hour felt the familiar “thickening” in my lower lip that presages a swelling. It never did swell up, but that feeling persisted for a good 24 hours. Had no reaction to the tiny amount of cheese dip. I’ve been using almond milk in coffee and have gotten soy-mochas at Starbucks (I do subscribe to belief in the dangers of too much soy, but choices at Starbucks are limited).
I find that I’m not hungry between meals and have NO desire to snack AT ALL. This is very strange and not like me. I’m not saying that if I ate a handful of Hanover Honey Mustard Pretzel Bits I wouldn’t just go ahead and eat the whole bag (same with Ruffles Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips). I don’t have anything in the house at the moment that falls into the junk food category. I live in the country far from grocery/convenience stores, which is a good thing.
For breakfast I make one of the Fuhrman recipes, which is about three tablespoons of old-fashioned oats moistened with pomegranate juice, blueberries, currants, almonds and sunflower seeds and half a banana, microwaved for three minutes. Insanely delicious. (And would be DEE-VINE drowned in vanilla ice cream.)
My lunch has been half a pita stuffed with hummus and a couple of the following: peperocini (the peppers, not the sausage), baby spinach, nuts, tomatoes, arugula. Takes me five minutes to assemble and wrap in foil and put in my purse.
Dinner is roasted veggies: cauliflower florets, brussels sprouts, last night: eggplant slices. And some fruit like canteloupe.
The odd thing is that this is actually satisfying and doesn’t leave me craving more. I don’t wander into the kitchen later looking to graze. The fact that there is nothing to graze on is part of the explanation, but yesterday, I stood in front of the pastry counter at Whole Foods and gave myself permission to have anything there, and nothing looked good! AAgghh! What have you done with ThelmaLou???
My blood sugar has been very good, hanging out around 90-115 and only going up to about 150 (post-prandial) and coming back down afterwards. Fasting blood sugar (FBG) is still ~140-ish, but I expect that to improve.
So that’s the way it is. I’m taking it one day at a time, buying lots of veggies and enjoying very much the feeling that I’m taking as good care of myself as I did for my husband (of blessed memory).