Blog Post 7: Following My Newly Designed Diet

This blog post entry details my experience with my new planned diet- it was a lot of fun once again documenting my diet for a day!

Breakfast

Breakfast Included a serving of oatmeal with tree nuts, raisins,
and a side of kiwi and espresso with soy milk

To help break my morning routine of toast with cheese, I decided to try instead oatmeal with various whole foods added.  Going forward, I believe I will call this breakfast 'pleasant surprise', since it was delicious.  I forgot how much I enjoy oatmeal! I used to eat it all the time in the US, however since moving to France we got stuck in a breakfast routine for convenience, and because ingredients we are used to in the US aren't readily available here. Regardless, it didn't take too long to prepare (only a few minutes than my normal prep time for breakfast).    I plan on incorporating this more often once again into my diet.  Additionally, the changes helped me reach my daily goals- the oatmeal adds useful fiber and complex carbs to my diet for a slow release of reduced sugars throughout my morning.  The walnuts, raisins, and almonds all offer phytonutrients to my diet.  And, the soy milk offers a cholesterol free plant based protein alternative to my traditional low fat milk.  The meal itself provided me with plenty of energy and left me feeling full throughout the morning.

Lunch

For lunch we prepared one of our classic fares, paella.  However, we switched to brown rice to provide additional dietary fiber to our meal, which again increased my intake of phytonutrients, and more complex fibers.  The seafood increased my intake of essential fatty acids and the rabbit adds variety to my diet.
 Again, the meal was delicious- I really love rabbit, and I want to incorporate it more into my diet (since it is a great alternative to red meat, and readily available locally).  I was lucky to eat lunch at home with my family, which of course made the meal much more enjoyable.



Snacks

To help curb my intake of saturated fats, I decided to forego my mid-afternoon espresso (with skim milk) and instead had a black tea.  The tea increased my intake of antioxidants, and I made sure to have it at a time when I wasn't taking in calcium (since we learned that tannins in tea can block uptake of calcium in the body).  Further, I had some melon as a snack to partially fulfill my fruit requirements for the day, which also provided me with more phytonutrients, as well as water.

I continued working while enjoying this snack, so in the future I will try to set aside time during my afternoon tea to take a break, which may help with stress.




Dinner

For dinner we altered our classic soup recipe we make to instead include more green leafy vegetables.  It is quite difficult (surprisingly) to find green leafy veggies in France. Back in the states, we used to incorporate this type of food more often (since Swiss Chard offers many nutritious options, such as magnesium, vitamin A pro-form, and vitamin C), now that we have recognized a gap in this food group, we have increased our effort to find them in the marketplace to include in our cooking.  After my more 'heavy' meals of breakfast and lunch, this meal was a relaxing and light end to the day.







Based on my experience of the day, and on the previously cited literature, I would assume that if I continue this altered diet going forward that I would be able to accept my hypothesis that this altered diet will reduce my risk of developing type II diabetes and/ or cardiovascular disease 




Note to nutrition students: we can't actually accept or reject our hypotheses yet, since it would take a lifetime of information (and a larger population size than our class) to actually accept or reject our hypotheses, but for the sake of the exercise, imagine you can accept or reject your hypothesis at this time.