Dr. Lindsay's Blog: Wellness Mama’s Mini Challenge #1

Cut out the grains, sugars, potatoes, beans and all processed foods from your diet and focus on getting maximum nutrition from meats, vegetables, healthy fats (coconut, olives, coconut oil, olive oil, tallow, lard, butter, unprocessed cream, etc) and some fruits.

If weight loss is a serious goal, this will mean that that morning bowl of oatmeal or potato salad at lunch is out. To keep it simple, just get your carbs from vegetables (minus potatoes) and you’ll be fine!

So what do you eat for breakfast? Popular breakfast choices are often things like cereal, bagels, donuts, croissants, toast, cereal, pop tarts, etc. Sure, these things are fast and easy to prepare, but have you ever read the ingredients. If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, getting enough protein and fat is even more important!

Here’s your answer: A mixture of proteins, good fats and *gasp* vegetables! This is especially vital for children, whose developing brains need adequate proteins and fats to function.

Note: Some people experience a "carb flu" as their body adjusts to not having a constantly available stream of glucose. This is temporary, but can be uncomfortable for the first couple of weeks.

WOW! Nothing like getting to the heart of it on the first day. No grains! This will be a tough one for us. Here are our thoughts, especially for school lunches.

Breakfast- we live off of oatmeal. We will now be making a scramble out of our leftovers. I think that will be an easier way to eat them then trying to convince the teenagers heated leftovers taste great. I remember going through that phase J.

Scrambles mean that we will need eggs. My mission- find a place to buy pastured eggs. Why pastured?

Grass-fed/pastured hens are raised on pasture, as opposed to being kept in confinement and fed primarily grains. Eggs from pastured hens contain up to 20 times more healthy omega-3 fatty acids than those their less fortunate cousins, factory hens.

Pastured hens' diets are naturally complemented with bugs, earthworms, and other such critters that give their eggs a huge nutritious oomph. Although not necessarily organic, pastured hens are usually much healthier and happier than their space-restricted and antibiotic-pumped industrial cousins.

Thank you Wellness Mama!

Our breakfast cereals have all been thrown out or given away. Even healthy and organic breakfast cereals must be processed in some way to reach cereal form, and virtually all of them have added sweeteners.

For more breakfast ideas check out Wellness Mama’s wellnessmama.com/1694/seven-kid-approved-healthy-breakfast-ideas. You’ll even find grain free waffles. Nice!

Lunch- Boat sandwiches that use lettuce instead of bread.

Meat wraps- co-op sells lunch meat free of nitrates. Slice carrots, celery and peppers, mush avocado and dollop of hummus. Wrap with meat.

Dinner- Easy! Meat and veggies. My mission- find out where to buy organic grass-fed meat in Calgary.

If buying at stores that carry these options, look for labels like “organic,” “exclusively grass fed,” and “free-range pastured.” Beware of labels like “all-natural,” “hormone and antibiotic free,” and simply “free-range,” which carry no real weight and are not monitored.

Look for labels like “wild-caught” on fish. Avoid fish that doesn’t specifically say it is wild caught, and avoid like the plague any fish that boasts that it is “farm-raised.”

Good proteins:

Grassfed beef and beef organ meats
Wild game like deer, elk, turkey, etc
Free-range pastured chickens and eggs
Wild-caught salmon and other fish
Wild-caught shrimp and lobster
Chunk-light (not albacore) tuna or sardines (in water, not vegetable or soybean oil!)
Raw, organic nuts and seeds (soaked overnight and dried) and their butters
Whole, full-fat, organic plain yogurts