Happy New Year!

It is a auspicious day to start a diet for weight loss purposes per the Farmer's Almanac - 2024.

“Diet” and “menu plans” may have got a bad name due to standardized medically prescribed diets. Patients would be given a list of foods they could no longer have and a list of those they were allowed to have.

A daily plan for how much of different types of foods might be given too - diet exchanges for the diabetic diet. Those food group serving equivalents can also be handy for weight loss purposes or just to become more familiar with the nutrients found in common foods.

To break through any negative mindsets around ‘diets’ or ‘meal planning’ it might be helpful to think about your larger health goals. What motivates? More energy, easier movement, easier to fit in clothes? Greater strength or immune resilience? Better mood? Less tension or bottled up anger?

What we eat and do each day does affect us throughout the day and into the next. Meal planning can help with time and money management as well as working on nutrient or calorie content of a daily or weekly menu. Feast days aren’t everyday because it is too much work for the cook and dishwasher - if you are the kitchen staff. Having money to buy convenience foods saves time but it is losing quality and might run into feast levels of excess.

Any overly large meal is putting a larger strain on the liver and causing the body to focus on storing extra calories instead of other growth, repair or clean-up jobs like removing amyloid protein tangles from the brain before dementia damage occurs. Alzheimer’s seems to be an excess of glucose in the brain with poor utilization of it for energy needs.

Learning about the micro and macronutrients that make up typical servings of foods can help with choosing mixed meals and snacks that don’t raise blood sugar levels as much as foods that are high in refined starches and sugar. Having protein, fat, or fiber with carbohydrates helps slow down digestion and the rate that sugar reaches the blood stream. A slow trickle of nutrients gives us energy without causing a hyperactive high followed by low blood sugar crash.

Some people read cookbooks for ideas or just to learn about other cultures. Recipes can be tinkered with if basic methods and ratios are known. Baked goods and sauces are a little more particular in needing exact ratios and therefore fairly exact measurements or a familiarity with the consistency of the desired batter or dough. Soups, stews, stir-fry’s and salads are more forgiving in the mix of ingredients that can be used.

This menu plan (Dropbox) is for a New Year 21 Day Meal-Prep Challenge, by The Clean Life, it has 3 weeks of menus with shopping lists and simple recipes to follow - sometimes very simple. The goal may be to help people ease into using whole foods for meals instead of using processed or take-out foods. Weight loss is not specified as the goal but the portions listed are fairly small. I would want more food.

Time is saved writing the menu and recipes, and for preparing the meals, by having the same thing four days in a row. That can get boring. Creative menu planning has you cook base items that then might be seasoned or used in different ways so the exact same meal isn’t being served four days in a row. The plan might have some helpful ideas for people who pack a lunch regularly, as boxed meals are used in a few ways - prepping several meals at once that are easy to grab and go later.

Sprinkling on different spices or adding different veggies could be a way to vary the Cook once, eat four times meal. If weight loss or better blood sugar control is desired, adding citrus peel as a seasoning would help as long as histamine excess isn’t a problem. The chicken, broccoli and carrot dish in the menu plan would be good with citrus peel as an accent, about one to two teaspoons of the zest layer minced, add at the end of cooking or at the table as we see in Middle Eastern cuisine.

The New Year 21 Day Meal Prep Challenge is written for one person. If cooking for two or four people, you would need to double or quadruple, and then there would be too many little boxes in the fridge. Cooking and meal planning has to be flexible for a person’s needs and tastes and family size.

Probably not a coincidence, but I am a person who likes to read cookbooks just for ideas or cultural or historical interest.

If weight gain is a New Year goal, then the Farmer’s Almanac suggests starting on January 13, 14, 22, 23, or 24. If weight loss is a goal but just not today, then Farmer’s Almanac has you covered - your auspicious dates are to start on January 7, 8, 25, 26, 27, 28, or 29 - okay? Plenty of choices…Ready, set, go! The last post had a week of menus with a focus on increasing trace mineral intake: (Substack) And this recent post had a useful handout about organizing your kitchen pantry for healthy meals: (Substack)

Photo by Prophsee Journals on Unsplash

Food Group Equivalents or Exchanges - seen in Diabetic meal planning.

Here is one more tool to help with learning typical food group serving equivalents - one slice of bread is roughly similar in protein, carbohydrates and fat grams as one third cup of rice or oatmeal or a half an English muffin or half of a not-giant bagel or six Saltines/low fat crackers. The Better Nutrition Plan (my Dropbox) stresses balance in protein, fat and carbohydrates within meals and snacks and that is what helps with better blood sugar control and feeling satisfied after a meal.

Balance in macronutrients in meals and snacks helps keep blood sugar levels stable.

Meals and snacks that are too high in carbohydrates tend to leave us wanting more food and likely more carbohydrates. Protein and fat within a meal or snack helps tell the brain ‘We had enough, stop eating now.’ A range of total servings per day is provided but if you were being seen individually by a Registered Dietitian, then I would also be providing you with a more specific number of servings to use per day or per meal or snack - along with the general guide about food group equivalents. The number of servings of each food group would be based on your weight loss/gain/maintenance goals and other health needs or personal preferences. Planning can work around food dislikes or intolerances by trying to swap in acceptable foods that have similar nutrients, or a targeted supplement could be used.

I have been considering setting up a virtual clinic for seeing individual clients or doing groups. Let me know in the comments or an email if you would be interested in that possibility. I am not sure if time allows, but not starting takes so much longer. Email: jen@effectivecare.info

Adequate protein also is likely helping the body prevent Alzheimer’s damage. We need protein to make the proteins that make other proteins that help do the growth and repair and detox, and build new cells or DNA and everything else that we produce for ourselves. Pomegranate can help with brain protection too.

• This post has more information on both topics and links to pomegranate prep posts or webpages: Protein inadequacy likely a risk factor for dementia; Garlic mustard; Pomegranate Ellagitannins video. Building a better brain is a daily task, throughout life, not just something for a pregnant person to think about. Protein, other nutrients & polyphenols helps. (Substack) *Garlic mustard is a salicylate source, but also is fairly cold hardy making it a green veggie that you might be able to forage during winter thaws or early spring.

Citrus or pomegranate peel can be very helpful for weight and blood sugar goals.

Hesperidin as a supplement or from citrus peel may help with weight loss and improve metabolism. Pomegranate peel is also beneficial for weight maintenance or weight loss purposes and also helps with blood sugar control. The high dose niacin protocol and other mitochondrial support nutrients also can help with weight loss or weight maintenance.

Weight gain a need? Endocannabinoid deficiency can be an underlying cause.

If weight gain is a chronic problem, throughout youth and body build seems kind of skeletal, lanky, with little muscle mass, then a genetic need for cannabinoids may be present. Or in a breastfed baby, the mother may need more cannabinoids in her diet. Adequate cannabinoids help stimulate the baby to suckle and helps prevent failure to thrive. Chocolate is a source but not a very rich one compared to medical marijuana products. Cardamom is also a source.

• More about food sources of cannabinoids and symptoms of clinical endocannabinoid deficiency is in this post: Clinical Endocannabinoid Deficiency, (CED), and phospholipids. (Substack).

• Hypersensitivity to noise, even when you know the noise will be happening again, can be a symptom. See this post: Endocannabinoid deficiency and the neuropathic pain of noise hyper-sensitivity. Ototoxicity vs CNS over-activity. Also: Post-Translational modification (PTM) of proteins. Pomegranate, CoQ10, mitochondrial support nutrients and cannabinoids may help. (Substack).

Disclaimer: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health care guidance.