Whole foods plant-based diet experiment.

"aiooo.. look at this stupid belly and idiotic love handles, they just don't want to leave me", said I to J for the 10th time this week.

"give it time, you are working out it has to go" came the reply.

Ah? thats the point, I am working out so shouldn't they be gone already? I lost 2lbs and thats it, the number on the scale has not changed at all. I have not lost lbs or inches. Then few days ago I watched the documentary "Forks over knives". It was about two doctors who proved that with a whole foods plant-based diet (WFPD) one can overcome high cholesterol, diabetes and other ailments (in addition to losing weight). You can get all the information about the movie here- http://www.forksoverknives.com/about/synopsis/ http://www.nomeatathlete.com/forks-over-knives-review/

Ah? I do not eat meat so what is it with me and belly fat? Then I looked at my kitchen counter,

- Veggie chips are not mine (I hate American snacks, I find them too bland) it belongs to J (and like you, I am also wondering why he picked up that huge bag from Costco). Those fried peanuts and channa chor are mine. Coated with besan and spices then deep fried yummm...

-The chocolates belong to J, that doesn't stop me from popping 1 or 2 or 3 during the day.

-Biscuits, are bought for my kiddo (who does not like them) he eats may be 1/4 of it and puts the rest in my mouth.

- Also not there in the picture is a huge bowl of gulab jamun I made last weekend. They call out to me every morning and night "eat me, eat me" they say and how can I say 'nay"?

I think I know now why belly fat wants to be my BFF. So I have decided to make myself the guinea pig for this experiment, where I will eliminate the following food items for 4 weeks.

- dairy: milk, ghee, butter, cheese EXCEPT yogurt. I am a South Indian I cannot do without my curd rice. However I am going to limit myself to only 1/2 c of yogurt.

- sugar: (I want to die right now sniff..) I intend to use Agave/honey instead again very moderately.

- all processed food like all purpose flour, white bread etc.

In the movie they eliminated even oil (even olive oil because it was refined/processed product) I have no clue how to do a tadka or saute onions without oil. So I plan on use oil but less than 1Tb.

How long is this torture, I mean experiment going to last?

4 weeks. Starting from Monday Jan 16th till Feb 13th. Why Monday and not today? I have to stock up on fruits and non-dairy milk and also make some sweets for Sankaranti.

Workout plans?

I absolutely hate walking/jogging. It bores me to death. I need something intense, something that will make me sweat like a pig, pant like a dog and the workout should just fly by and not give my brain a chance to get bored. So I will be doing Chalene Johnson's Turbo Fire and Jillian Micheals' Ripped in 30 (its not new I have been doing them so I will just continue with those workouts).

This is going to be easy and hard. Easy because I don't like cheese/ghee/butter, hard because I love me some cakes/ice creams/shakes/juice/fried items. I usually don't do such drastic diet changes, the only time I did such a thing was going on a stupid no-carb diet with a friend for 1 week. It was SO horrible, I was still in school at that time, I just couldn't focus and was hungry all the time ( I mean what can a vegetarian eat on a no-carb diet?! and what the hell was I thinking going on that diet!),this seems hard but very much doable. And I do expect very drastic results by drastic I mean like 4 inches off my waist that kind of thing.

I know what some of you might be thinking, 'why are you putting this up on the blog?'

1) this blog is almost dead wait it is already dead. I don't go out, we have no social life whatsoever so there is not much that I can write about. I seriously considered closing down this site, because I don't like things to be in limbo (like this site write 1 post and disappear for 2 months) and I don't want to write crap just for the sake of writing because I am a severe OCD case, I don't like half-assed jobs. I mean if a recipe says roll the cookie dough to 8' by 13' I will get a measuring tape and measure my dough, I am that anal (or nut loose, no wonder I love Alton Brown). So this WFPD experiment will give me something to write or maybe even some recipes to share.

2) I also thought about making a private blog and writing about my WFPD experiment (I have to document it because I want my mom and sister to read about it) but there might be people who have the belly fat-BFF thing going on so it might help/motivate someone.

Get ready for Sunday cos I am going to be posting pictures (who doesn't like before and after photos?!) and all the measurements. It is going to get ugly.

These are really good to watch,

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/diet-changes-lower-disease-risk-pt-1

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/diet-changes-lower-disease-risk-pt-2

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/5-Foods-That-Cut-Cancer-Risk-Pt-1

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/5-Foods-That-Cut-Cancer-Risk-Pt-2