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Try It Tuesday: Making itTry It Tuesday: Making it Mediterranean
Time：2016-07-27 11:44:45
Source：Food Insight
What is it?
A Mediterranean diet is one that follows dietary patterns specific to the region. There is a lot more flexibility and it is posed as a sustainable pattern more so than a short-lived crash. It includes the following elements: highly unsaturated oils from fish, olives and nuts; an emphasis on fresh fruit and vegetables; and including phenol-rich foods like herbs and the occasional glass of red wine. Below is a pyramid shows common items in this diet.
My Entry Strategy
I typically spend approximately $50 on personal groceries, so the Mediterranean diet was quite the cost bump at $73.40. A diet rich in fresh fruit and vegetables, herbs, nuts, and fish is no joke for finances. Suddenly Greece’s recent financial crisis makes a little more sense. If I stuck to this diet for a longer term, I would definitely need to consider cost-saving methods such as starting my own herb garden – so trendy – and buying olive oil in bulk. For breakfast I had boring oatmeal. Lunch included fresh fruit, almonds, kefir and possibly dinner leftovers. I put the most emphasis on my dinners which was roasted eggplant with yogurt and dill, lamb chops with mint, and also caprese.
Mistake #1: I have little to no self-control
Day 1, 11 am – the entire staff is invited to lunch at a burger joint. It is not even lunch time and I already loathe my dietary lifestyle. Do I become that guy who politely but affirmatively reminds every one of my diet and orders a salad at a burger joint, or do I silently accept the defeat of eating a burger less than 6 hours into it? I act as if I even thought twice about it. “I’ll take the double cheeseburger and a glass for water.” First defeat in the books. But, maybe because my failure is so early on, I can just reset the clock on my diet.
Mistake #2: Aggressively modifying my diet and thinking my body will accept it
Ten hours into my miserable day one and it was time to make dinner. Roasted eggplant with yogurt and dill. I have consumed all of those ingredients before and enjoyed them. What is the worst that could happen if I make this recipe which combines them? Waiting over an hour for my eggplant to roast was slow torture. I was hangry (hungry + angry) by the time this dish was completed. First bite in and I am thinking I was crossing the finish line only to be greeted by a paste. All my work and time and I had made the most disgusting and slimy final product. The disappointment still cuts. It was late and I was still hungry. I went to bed defeated by this moderate lifestyle challenge.
Eggplant, Yogurt, and Dill
Mistake #3: Being a creature of habit
As the week rolled by, I slowly picked up all the habits I had momentarily dropped. The occasional trip to the office candy bowl, a celebratory piece of cake from a coworker’s birthday party, and a cold beer after a long day of work all occurred within days of “starting” my diet. I have no remorse for my actions. The only regret I have is thinking I was capable of changing my dietary habits with the same effort I turn a light on.
The Takeaway
Aggressive dieting is just not a part of my DNA. I generally eat well and do make small, sustainable changes to my diet over time. But, I also have an emotional connection with food. I am not good at depriving myself of something I want, upholding all millennial stereotypes. Some positive attributes I was capable of sustaining beyond my several days of failure: eating a lower calorie breakfast of oatmeal and swapping out fruit and vegetables for an entrée at lunch time. If I had to repeat this experiment, I would consider it more a longer term goal on how I view food and I would also opt for simpler meal preparation. There is a strange delusion around how dieting is often approached. I would consider it preposterous for just anyone to walk onto the field of a major league baseball team and hit one out of the park, but I essentially had similar expectations of myself when I believed I could change every component of my diet without a little practice going in.
