Thursday, June 04, 2009

You Win Some, You Lose Some Diet Adventures

Today was an off-day from real workouts (but I still did my TT Reconstruction program - coming for all TT Members in July!).

After that, I got a new "vegetarian" grocery shipment in from my assistant Amy (she does my grocery shopping, what can I say, I'm lazy).

I told her all about the new Diet Reconstruction I'm doing for June, and told her to surprise me with some new types of bread, nut butters, beans, and more. It was quite a challenge, and as the title of this blog post hints, "We won one and lost one".

First, the winner..."Organic Oven" Multi-grain Rice Bread with Certified Organic Flax Meal & Quinoa Flakes (diary-free, egg-free, sugar-free, and gluten-free). Heck, you could just eat the name of this bread and you'd be full.

Anyways, I made 2 "cashew butter and blueberry sandwiches" with this bread, and it was a hit. So that was our winner.

Two hours later I tried another vegetarian diet experiment...and came out on the losing side. This time, I tried making some almond butter burritos (very similar to my infamouse "banana tacos").

I used 2 "gluten-free" Ivory Teff & Millet flour tortillas, 3 tablespoons of raw almond butter, 1 banana, and 1 pear. I spread out the almond butter on the tortillas, added the banana to one and the sliced up pear to the other...and disappointment ensued.

Up until today I've never met a bread-like carbohydrate I didn't like. I like bread as much as the next person...but these wraps...I just didn't like them.

Heck, I couldn't even FINISH them. Plus, because they were gluten-free, they had 3g less protein per serving than regular tortillas (gluten is a protein). So I'm out 6 grams of protein...which doesn't sound like much, but every gram of protein counts when you aren't eating meat or dairy or protein shakes of any kind. Fortunately, tonight's kidney beans will save me.

Anyways, good times were had by all and lessons learned.

Just another adventure on the Diet Reconstruction program,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

PS - I changed the name of this month's eating program from...

..."Diet Depletion" to "Diet Reconstruction" to fit the "Workout Reconstruction" theme that I have planned for next month's TT Workout of the Month program.

It's the first 5-day per week TT program, including 3 regular workouts and 2 off-day bodyweight reconstruction workouts (plus foam rolling and "tennis ball rolling") to help you build strength, recover from aches and pains and bad posture, and completely reconstruct your body while losing fat (and gaining muscle mass, if that's your goal).

You'll love it.

3 comments:

Mad Doc Mim said...

As someone who just found out that I have a gluten intolerance, I can say that good gluten-free bread products are hard to find and take time to make, so 50% good is not a bad place to be! However, if you find things made with bean flours (garbanzo is a popular one) you can typically get back the protein. I'll remember to avoid the ones you got, I usually replace tortillas with corn tortillas anyway!

Craig Ballantyne, CTT, Certified Turbulence Trainer said...

thanks for the tip Melissa!

Anonymous said...

Im on a complete vegetarian diet since a month now and my target is to lose 4kgs by end of july.

Yay! i guess i can make it up... doing a lot of weight training as well... concentrating more on protein drinks :P

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