Lent: Days 20 and 21

It has been quite a day of bombshells. From the “surprise” winter snowstorm this morning dumping about 4 inches on my daffodils about to bloom to the shocking announcement from Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin that they are separating. It feels like I have been sharing my meals every day for the last 20 days with the Martin family– reading about their apple trees and admiring the pictures of their beautiful children. I am very sad for their split and wish them all the best in this difficult time.

As for me, the clean eating diet continues. I am getting very close to the halfway point (Lent is technically 46 days long) and while I do look forward to the taste of chocolate on Easter, it has not been that hard to stay on the diet as yet.

Day 20

Day 21

I am starting to learn to eat just 3 meals and 2 snacks and not more. I think it does help that I am not allowed to eat anything unless it comes out of the cookbook. It prevents having to make little decisions like (would a handful of cashews be ok? How about some dates?) I am also starting to get better at recognizing when I am eating just out of boredom or stress.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP newsletter recently gave out some tips for doing a spring juice cleanse. I would link to it but her website seems hammered at the moment from all the turmoil in her personal life. Mostly she suggested various places you can buy juice cleanses from (including one in Charlottesville, Virginia).

In my random web browsing, I came across this 3-day juice cleanse from Joe Cross on Dr. Oz’s website. I loved the organization put into this post. They give you a shopping list, a visual diagram of the juices to drink and when as well as full recipes. It doesn’t get easier to follow than that! I had great results from my GOOP winter cleanse so I may consider doing the juice cleanse as well. It is really not that much different from what I am doing already.

Two other pieces of nutritional knowledge I came across recently challenged the gluten-free and dairy-free concepts of healthy eating. First, Dr. Sandra Cabot’s website had this to say about gluten-free bread:

“Most bread has a fairly high glycemic index; that means it raises your blood sugar fairly high fairly quickly. . . . Gluten free bread isn’t much better because it’s typically made from grains and starches that also have an extremely high glycemic index; these include corn, rice, tapioca and potato. You are best off minimizing bread in your diet and sticking with vegetables, salads, protein and healthy fats. . . ”

–Dr. Sandra Cabot, “My top 5 tips for looking after your heart.”

While I have been avoiding bread during my healthy eating diet, I bought some gluten-free bread to make sandwiches for my children and husband. Nobody cares for it. They think the texture is too weird and refuse to eat it!

Also, recent research from Denmark suggests that for some people (likely those of Scandinavian heritage), dietary calcium has an important role to play in body weight regulation.

So, as with all medical questions, there is not one “best” diet for everyone but there is a right answer for each body.