DIET IS A DIRTY WORD

What exactly is a diet? To me, it is an eating regimen in which people try to program themselves to eat specific foods, not because they taste good but because someone else has decided they should eat them. Is it any wonder diets fail? I hate the word "regimen" anyway, whether it pertains to exercise or eating, because the word implies a rigid compliance, which almost always turns out to be a recipe for failure. The only reason to eat or do anything is because you want to. Simple enough, but a truism nonetheless. So in a "diet", where does this motivation come from? Guess number one would be taste, and that's always a factor, but it doesn't have to be number one. Otherwise, we would all eat hot fudge sundaes until we were sick of them and then move on to our next vice on which we have not yet satiated, like butter pecan ice cream (Okay, so ignore this alternative and add your favorite indulgence).

To me, it comes down to two things: taste and how your body feels as a result. Given the "diet" prescribed above and my two criteria, anyone would soon stop eating hot fudge sundaes based on how the body felt afterwards ("logey", overstuffed, tired). So here's what I eat. In the morning, a eat a whole grain cereal. If you don't know what a whole grain cereal is, read the ingredients on the box. That'll tell you. And if you're too lazy to do that, I can tell you Raisin Bran, Cheerios and Shredded Wheat are three examples of whole grain cereals. Later in the day (I don't eat a traditional lunch), I juice. My favorite, which I may have already told you, is Granny Smith apple, beets (leaves as well as roots), and carrots. Drinking this juice usually makes me thirsty, so I follow it with a tall glass of water. Later, I'll have a small dish of no-fat yogurt that has blueberries mixed into it. For the evening meal, I try to eat at least 4 to 6 ounces of protein, which amounts to a serving of tuna, meat or beans the size of the palm of my hand. I eat these things because it tastes good to me, because there is flexibility and variety in it, and because of the way my body feels afterwards. Occasionally I break my routine because my wife does not follow the same routine I do, and she can cook some great meals, but I still don't make too much of a break in my routine, and the next day, I'm back to my "old standards": whole grain cereal, juicing and 4 to 6 ounces of protein for the day.

Another break I take occasionally is to have a beer, or two. Maximum. I used to drink more indiscriminately, having between 4 and 6 beers in a 2 to 4 hour period, although I didn’t drink that often. That, to me, was what drinking was all about. Then I learned that one to two beers a day was healthy. More than that was excess. So sometimes after I exercise (like today) I'll have a beer or two, or sometimes on a "day off" (I take a day off from exercising once every week), I'll have a beer. The funny thing is, drinking two beers, max., has taken beer drinking from the realm of indulgence into the realm of nutrition. Oh, well.
So what's your routine like?

AND......stay tuned for the next exciting episode of THE JUICED AVENGER!!!