The book "The 5 Day Miracle Diet" has lots of encouraging stories and explains the diet in much more detail than I can on this page.
What this author, Adele Puhn, says is that weight gain is primarily due to a blood sugar problem. She claims that our weight problem is 75% physiological (body) caused by a roller coaster of high and low blood sugar and 25% mental (what she calls "fathead" thinking"....
I feel like I have so much more energy already! It is amazing. The basics of her diet are these:
Within 30 minutes of waking up eat breakfast... First take a multivitamin.
Breakfast: 1 grain (like a one piece toast, two rice cakes or one
portion unsweetened cereal)
1 protein (like non-fat cottage cheese or tofu or
turkey)
Hard Chew Snack: 2 hours after beginning of breakfast -- like 10 baby
carrots or apple
(2nd hard chew snack 2 hours later even if right before lunch)
Then eat lunch by 12 or 1 at latest....
Lunch: 1 protein
veggies -- (3/4 of meal)
optional grain (especially if you have a vegetarian protein)
another hard chew
Soft Chew Snack 3 hours after beginning of lunch. like orange, cantaloupe, strawberries...etc.
Another snack 3 hours later ... could be hard chew or soft chew...unless you have dinner 3 hours later...
Dinner: 1 protein
veggies (3/4 of meal)
grain every other day for women pasta once a week only
Eat nothing after dinner...unless you have an urgent need and she has a list of mini snacks (like a bit of cantaloupe) to tide you over.
Foods you might think are OK but are not to eat on this diet: Bananas, Bagels, Low Fat stuff (fat is usually replaced in those products with sugar -- read labels. Instead of fat free salad dressing, use flavored vinegar or other sugar free product.
Stay away from the -oses...fructose, dextrose etc. with sugar -- read the label and look for those -ose's , non fat yogurt... etc. There are more in the book.
Drink at least 8 glasses of water. And herbal tea. These are the only drinks she recommends, others like coffee are permitted she says if you must.
Exercise (but not the first week)
Work on figuring out and defeating your "fathead"
Take calcium supplement at bedtime, this will fill your calcium need and have a side benefit of helping you sleep. I take it with a cup of herbal tea.... instead of the milk and bedtime snack I'd gotten in the habit of having because of some medicine I take at bedtime. Avoid dairy products on the diet. They have lactOSE.
Eat up to 3 teaspoons of oil a day. For me this means I can put a little "real salad dressing" on my lunch salad.
Twice a week have a food you adore that is not on the diet. But only eat as much as you need. So this could be anything from a hot fudge sundae to a glass of wine. Just be aware that if it is sugar based like these two examples that you will have to work to get back into GBS. Good Blood Sugar.
The book is available online from amazon.com see my links below -- I got the paperback version..you may also find it in a local bookstore or library. It was published in 1996. She also has a "companion workbook" that use as a food journal. It has many recipe suggestions. She has tapes and even a video too.
Have fun with it...I am!" - Jody
jncline@continet.com
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