Tabz’ Unofficial Idiot’s Guide to How to Start the Daniel Plan – Part 2

Read Part 1

Hunger Games fan art by Briarthorn

Once my family decided to go “all in” with the Daniel Plan we had a lot of education to catch up on. Hopefully, some of the stuff we went through will help others who want to start the Daniel Plan and it’ll make it easier for you!

If you’ve ever read the YA novel series “The Hunger Games“, you’ll know the importance of food in survival. If you haven’t read it yet, the main character’s, Katniss, entire existence revolves around food for survival. Hunting, gathering, understanding her food and knowing how food can heal. This is the way humankind lived for years – we were the hunter/gathers and we got our exercise and nutrition through this lifestyle. Now, our biggest hunting, gathering is walking along an aisle and pulling down anything that looks good. So I’m asking you to be a Katniss. Use your brain and make healthy choices. The biggest part of this is changing your brain because, as Dr. Amen and Dr. Hyman explained in the Kick Off Event, your brain has been hijacked by sugar, fats and salt. If you don’t want to give up your food you probably are an addict. So commit to giving up the bad for the amazingly good.

So spank your inner child (don’t worry, your inner child is actually an adult, so don’t get up in arms) and get ready to learn *a lot* about food.

Food – What to Get Rid Of…

Step 1: Consider Detoxing. First off you need to quit cold turkey the four big killers: white sugar, white flour, white rice and hydrogenated oils. But you may have food allergies and detoxification could help you discover those.
Read up about detoxification on the Daniel Plan site.

Step 2: Figure Out the Bad Stuff. Check out Dr. Hyman and Tana explaining what not to buy in the supermarket. There’s also a couple videos where Dr. Amen and his wife Tana raid someone’s fridge and pantry to explain what to get rid of.

Step 3: Get rid of it. This is going to be the hardest part, but it must be done. Anything unopened consider donating to a food bank or food pantry (if you’re at Saddleback you can donate at church for their food pantry that feeds hundreds and hundreds of families every week).

Step 4: Don’t Drink Your Calories. A big component to a lot of American’s diet is high-calorie drinks. The problem is your brain thinks you’re eating a lot when you drink sodas, specialty coffee drinks, flavored waters, juices but you’re not actually getting the nutrition factors to go along with those calories and so you’re hungrier. This was a hard one for me to give up, I was addicted to Mt. Dew, but it’s gone a long way in helping drop the weight. Even “whole juice” is loaded with sugar and not the fiber source that comes with the original fruit. It was intended to be eaten whole as a perfect part of nutrition and when you just drink juice you rob that wholeness and the value of eating the fruit.

Food – What to Eat
Step 1: Download (Print Off) the Good Food List. Keep this list on you, especially at the beginning. We have one on our fridge for when we make our shopping list. If it’s on this list you can eat it! Also watch Dr. Hyman & Tana find the foods you can eat in the grocery store.

Step 2: Eat 5 servings of veggies a day. This was hard one for me to incorporate, but it’s helped my diet immensely. The United States Department of Agriculture sets a serving size for fruit or vegetables to be equal to about one-half cup. Greens like spinach and lettuce have a serving size equal to one full cup. Try and eat less fruit than you do veggies, because they’re still a source of sugar. If you’re hungry though, load up on veggies. I really enjoy baby carrots and hummus.

Step 3: Learn new foods and how to cook them. Discover the produce section of your store and really read up on vegetables and fruits that have high potential for your body. Chinese mushrooms are an excellent anti-inflamatory (for example), beets may prevent cancer, etc. I’ve recently discovered fennel, which is a onion-like plant that tastes sweet. Great to cook with. Dr. Amen, Dr. Hyman, and Dr. Oz all have recipes on their websites (and in their books). Whole Foods and Simply Organic have some great apps for iPhone/iPad that can help making cooking these new foods a snap. Also google and check out “raw food recipes.” With any of these recipes make sure you know what the “good foods” are before you start. A lot of things that are marketed as “whole grain” or “good for you” aren’t, so make sure you know.

Step 4: Add these good foods into your life. This is NOT about total self-denial and forcing yourself to only eat rabbit food. No one is going to make you eat foods you don’t like, so find and experiment and be open to trying new things. Also, after the initial six weeks of eating 100% like this, try foods again – you’ll be surprised how much your taste buds change! You’ll start to crave good, whole, vegetables that you may have never loved. And find substitutes for foods you can’t live without. For example, I adore tortillas. I’ve replaced flour tortillas (white flour is a no-no) with Ezekiel Grain tortillas. We love milk at my house, but we’ve switched to Almond milk (sweeter and less calories, also very good for your brain). Instead of butter we’re using Earth Balance. Dad’s even enjoying soyrizo (charizo substitute). We’ve also loved making spaghetti squash LIKE spaghetti.

My awesome mom put together a list of the prices for some of the foods you’ll hear Dr. Amen, Tana, Dr. Oz and Dr. Hyman talk about in their videos on danielplan.com. You can download it as a PDF here. This is mostly helpful for folks in the Los Angeles/SoCal area, but it can help with prices/differences.

Step 5: Drink LOTS of water. Sometimes the difference between losing weight and having more energy is the amount of water you drink. Make sure it’s filtered (you can get a PUR filter for less than $20 at Walmart or Target), ditch the plastic bottles (that can contain toxins in the plastic). I picked up a Clear2Go water bottle instead with a filter. It’s helped immensely when I travel or am running around everyday.

Step 6: Make healthy choices when you’re out to eat. I found a great resource for finding organic, whole foods when you’re out on the town. Before you go out hit http://www.eatwellguide.org. You can map out great places to eat (or shop for healthy food)! Also helpful (at least in California) is that all bigger resturants are required to post their calorie count on their menus. Make good choices! Some good chains include Chipotle (skip the white rice though) which has organic veggies and meats.

Step 7: Know the “dirty dozen”. Buying organic can be expensive, but there are 12 foods you MUST buy organic. So the Environmental Working Group has a great guide that you can download, print out (we laminated it) with the 12 top offenders of veggies/fruits with pesticides and toxins (by amount found) and the 12 “clean” foods that you don’t need to buy organic. Just enter your email and download the guide at http://www.foodnews.org.

Step 8: Eat Every 3 Hours, but not 4 hours before bed. The wonderful thing about the Daniel Plan is I never feel hungry. You eat snacks (about the size of a fist) all day long. Nuts (almonds are high on the list), veggies, small amounts of protein, etc are all highly encouraged. Make sure if you get nuts that they’re raw (roasting, dry roasting, salting all removes the great parts of the nut that will help you the most). Peanuts are not a nut.

Step 9: Take your supplements. There’s a lot about supplements on the Daniel Plan website. You’ve probably heard a lot of contradicting info about taking vitamins and just trust the doctors when they say you should be taking supplements. Check out the Daniel Plan site for more info on Supplements -> http://www.saddleback.com/thedanielplan/healthyhabits/vitaminsupplements/

Step 10: Eat a healthy, protein-rich breakfast. It’ll help your concentration during the day, it will also keep you fuller longer. You won’t be starving by lunch if you eat a big breakfast. As the saying goes, “eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.” It’s been amazing to switch the amounts of food I eat around (I used to eat a heavy lunch). It really does make a difference. I usually have Omega-3 eggs or a soy protein shake (other protein shakes work well too — in fact, Whey is probably the best for you because your body digests that protein the best and absorbs it the best).

Hopefully this is helpful, there’s a lot more that I could write about food (because it’s such a big part of what I had to learn from the Daniel Plan). It’s hard giving up some of those foods you love (I still am sad about Mt. Dew and sour cream for instance), but in the long run you’ll be healthier, smarter and happier.

Last of all, if you make a mistake, don’t give up! This is so contrary popular culture right now, just dust yourself off and start again. It’s a marathon to be healthy for the rest of your time on earth and one mistake is not the end.

Popularity: 70% [?]