The Harvard Healthy Eating Plan on the Road to Reduction

When it comes to the Harvard Healthy Eating Plan and the Road to Reduction, there's some good news and some bad news, but the main thing that I keep in mind is that at the end of the day what is most important is the calories eaten, because if I don't lose the weight then good health is a mirage.

Good News

For the most part, I believe I have the red meat and refined carbohydrates under control. I rarely have any meat at home, and the times I order a nice steak out are becoming fewer and fewer. And we long ago gave up white bread, white pasta and white rice here at home. Does it mean that I won't eat them in restaurants, of course not, but restaurant meals are not a significant part of our diet. As the last step in getting with the program, I'm making the switch to wheat bagels and sweet potatoes, and dumping the grits.

Fish, poultry, legumes and nuts are not much of a problem either, though I may have to get a better idea of exactly how many servings I have every day - it is likely I have too many now.

I would say I am perfect on fruit! Two to three servings a day is exactly how much fruit I feel comfotable eating, and I will work to improve variety. I added a small orange daily because of its position in the"the top 12 phytonutrient rich foods".

Dairy is also not a problem. I have already cut back my consumption of nonfat dry milk, and those horrible nonfat "american cheese" slices. I am also giving nonfat cheddar cheese another chance. If it doesn't work out, then I guess I will just reduce the cheese in my cooking. I still like creamy pasta sauces, and my only solution may be to learn how to make my own.

Bad News

Eggs: I think eggs are one of the best foods on the planet, I eat at least two every single day, and I have absolutely no intention of changing that.

I will also not give up pizzas - so I will probably never completely cut out the refined carbohydrates, trans fats, and cheese - but hey, they're veggie pizzas! That must count for something.

So that leaves these problems:

• Veggies, I don't eat enough of them.
• Oils - I pretty much cut them out to save calories.
• Refined carbohydrates: my diet "wheat" bread is really white bread in disguise.

The diet bread is an interesting situation. It is VERY low calorie, only 35 calories a slice, and I allow myself to eat a lot of sandwiches because of the low calories. Yet, there are many days I tell my wife: "Today was just one of those days that I could never fill up, and I just kept eating all day long." If I look at my food log for those days, guess what - those are days when I eat the most sandwiches - egg sandwiches, sardines, veggie burgers, salmon - whatever, one right after the other.

So let's suppose that the bread in each one of those sandwiches causes a little glucose rush, an insulin spike and a mini glucose crash - just like HSPH describes. Is it possible that by eating each diet bread sandwich, I make myself just hungry enough to want ANOTHER sandwich?

Cutting out the diet bread, on the face of it, is difficult to do - each slice of my wife's 100% wheat bread is 100 calories, nearly 3 times a slice of my diet bread. But I found that by trimming the crusts, I can cut each slice to 68 calories (by weight).

So today, I tried my usual egg sandwich on the trimmed down whole wheat, and surprise, surprise, I wasn't hungry until lunch. At lunch, I ate leftovers [first time I EVER had leftovers from a meal I cooked] from last nights veggie, brown rice and legume dinner, and surprise again, I wasn't hungry until dinner tonight. End result, today I only ate 2204 calories and I feel comfortably full... [My target is 3030 calories/day.]

Well one day doesn't make a trend, but it sure is hopeful. I've learned that I can use the high calorie whole wheat bread and maybe cut way down on the total number of sandwiches I eat.

And I learned something about veggies too. I was worried about how to work more of them into my diet, because, let's face it, veggies aren't necessarily "comfort food". But with my lunch today I realized that by sauteing the veggies in a little oil and adding some rice I could turn them into comfort food at an acceptable calorie expense.

All in all, it does appear that I can bring my diet into alignment with the Harvard Healthy Eating Plan - after a couple of weeks I'll bring up this subject again and report how it all worked out.