Day-3 Virgin Diet: No snacks makes me tired and hungry boy

To say that the preponderance of available foods at the store and food establishments have the 7 food groups I’m avoiding would be an understatement.  I’d say they all do, but that would be a stretch too, just not as bad.  That unfortunately makes recovering from lack of being prepared pretty difficult, especially three days in.

The day started with the usual shake, but this time with all the ingredients in it.  I think that the chia seeds help keep it in a “shake like” consistency, because I had about a half hour delay before I drank it and it was still pretty solid.  Granted it was 11 degrees out so perhaps it had stayed colder in my car ride too.  I had hoped to do an early lunch but instead I got a bit of a late start on it.  With no snacks to speak of I just downed a bit more seltzer water and called it a day.  Lunch was another big salad, but with some slightly different ingredients: mixed greens, raw spinach, tomatoes, carrots, beets, olives, chicken breast, olive oil and vinegar.  Then it was the long haul through the afternoon.  I didn’t have access to any fresh fruits or vegetables and unfortunately all of the snack foods contained at least one, but usually more than one, of the 7 verboten food items.

By the time I got to the supermarket to pick up supplies and sushi for dinner it was six hours later and I was pretty famished.  That would explain the sushi binge at dinner.  Sushi may not sound very complaint with this diet, but as long as you don’t get the roll or sushi types with the egg, tofu or other such products it actually is.  The fall down on sushi is instead the soy sauce.  Obviously that’s going to trip up the “no soy” rule.  However there is a product out there called “coconut aminos” which serves as a pretty solid soy sauce replacement. It’s made with fermented coconut instead of fermented soy beans and they don’t use wheat in the manufacturing process (a lot of soy sauces do by the way).  That makes it a perfect replacement for those looking to avoid soy and wheat/gluten.  It has a bit of a sweet aftertaste that the soy sauce doesn’t, but as long as you expect it that’s not off-putting.  It’s still loaded with sodium, so don’t think you are getting a freebie on that topic, but it’s a good alternative.

After dinner I just crashed.  I had a bunch of stuff I had to do but I could barely keep my eyes open.  Actually, I didn’t keep my eyes open.  Unlike the last entry that was written the next day because I was too busy with work and what not, this one was written the next day because I got zonked out and slept for nearly ten hours.  I bring that up to say that my energy levels on this diet for the last few days have been pretty low.  Even though I’m getting the same amount of sleep I always have I’m just sapped of energy most of the day.  It’s not affecting my concentration level, but I just am constantly dragging ass.  If I hadn’t been off daily caffeine jolts for several months I’d say it was because I’m not drinking as much of that stuff.  I did drink a bit more caffeine than usual during the holidays, but it was really only for a few days last month and not something I was using to wire myself.

I therefore think it is one of two things: either it is the lower levels of calories, since I’m still not eating as much as I had planned to, or it’s the absence of refined sugar from everything that I’m consuming. I suppose a third option could be that my body is craving one of those seven things that is really not reacting well to it.   That is one of the things that JJ says happens.  Among the three, I’d put money on the drastically reduced sugar consumption since that was the one thing I really wasn’t able to dial in correctly over the past three months.