Real Food

It has been three weeks since I have started the PATH program featuring the Mediterranean diet.  This diet consists of replacing all of the “faux food” in your diet with real, unprocessed foods as well as changing the way you eat.  

The food part is really not my problem.  I don’t go in for sodas and highly processed foods to begin with, so cutting out all the fake stuff was not a problem for me.  The only thing that was processed was the artificial sweeteners, and I had cut that out of my coffee a while ago.   I was drinking Crystal Light, which is loaded with Nutra Sweet, but have stopped since starting this plan.  That was kind of hard as it is left out a key thing that I enjoy drinking.  However, I have replaced it with naturally flavored mineral water which suits me fine. 

The hard part of this plan is changing the way I eat.  I am a fast and an unconscious eater.  I tend to shovel the food in and not pay any attention to the food as I am eating it other that the immediate feel that food is in my mouth.  This plan forces you to take smaller bites, put your fork down between bites, and savor those bites.  That is the most challenging thing for me, and I can’t decide why.  On one hand I don’t like eating hot food warm and I don’t like to waste food. So, I have to visualize smaller portions to put on my plate so I don’t leave food.  That is not easy.  Also eating half a bagel, for example, is a challenge because that other half represents waste.  But I did it this morning until I realized I was hungry later on and took another bite of the second half which turned out to be enough.  It is better than normal though when I would have scarfed down the whole bagel right away and then gone on to get something else when I realized I was hungry again two hours later.  I suppose anything that is good for you is not easy.