[gja1000]

I followed Joshi's Holistic Detox. It is a liver detox program. I wasn't worried about my liver, but read that it helped with cravings. It is pretty restrictive for 3 weeks, but then after that you gradually add back in all foods. There is nothing scientific about the diet - so I'm not sure that it really works, but something helped me to stop eating wildly out of control. Here are the 21 days rules:

No red meat, no pork
No dairy (except plain yogurt with live cultures)
no fruit except bananas
no wheat, gluten, yeast so nothing with wheat flour
no alcohol
no sugar, except a little honey
no coffee, not even decaf (can have herbal tea)
no chocolate or sweets
no artificial sweeteners
no ketchup, vinegar, mustard

You can have chicken and fish and you can have the non-starchy vegetables. You can have all kinds of beans.

I ate lots of beans, fixed in different ways. I ate lots of grilled chicken and fish. You can use lemon for flavor and you can use olive oil. So I did salads with olive oil and lemon. I made a bean soup with carrots, onions, and beans in chicken broth with lemon - it was really good. I also ate a lot of hummas on corn tortillas. For some reason, corn is OK on the diet.

After the 3 weeks of eating this way, I was very much in control of my diet and was no longer having wild cravings, and out of control over eating. I stopped the day before Christmas because I wanted to enjoy Christmas dinner with everyone. I did fine with that dinnner, but then we went out of town and had to eat out mostly for 6 days. when I got home, I was not as bad as before, but I was over eating and craving things.

So, I went back on a modified version of the diet, not nearly so restrictive as above. I never eat dairy anyway and I can stay away from sugar. I'm focusing on no wheat/gluten and I really think that contributes to my cravings. Yesterday, I went out to breakfast with Gary. I had one scrambled egg, one slice of bacon and one dreaded piece of wheat toast with a little jelly. Later in the day, hubby wanted to stop at our fave Mexican restaurant for nachos. The kind we eat is just corn chips, beans, cheese, salsa, and jalapenos - all things (except cheese) that I can eat. They tasted great and I only ate 2 1/2 (each is the size of 1/2 of a corn tortilla) and I felt good. But only about an hour later, I was snacking on some black eyed pea salad and I could not stop eating it. I didn't overeat very much, but did eat way more than I had all week. I'm attributing it to the one piece of wheat toast and jelly. Maybe not, but I am going to keep avoiding wheat beccause it seems when I do, my eating is much more in control.

That's what I think is the key, finding out your triggers, and avoiding them. I have a freind who keeps foods she can't eat in her house and it helps her to avoid them. Not me, I will eat them all. I really have to be careful what I buy and keep in the house.

I think Amazon.com has Joshi's book for about $10. Again, it is not scientific and it is not for everyone, but it did help me, I think!