The Menu: Tool for Diet Control

One of my earliest goals when I started exercising was losing weight. Following the advice in No Meat Athlete, I wasn't counting calories or anything - just striving to eat healthy foods, including lots of fruits and veggies and whole grains, and to avoid processed foods. Then, more recently, I learned I had severe food allergies to nuts, and a moderate allergy to wheat.  Nuts I could give up, although they occur as ingredients in many a thing, from peanut butter, to marzipan, to almond soap and massage oil. Wheat is much harder to let go off.  We tend to eat wheat at almost every meal, and it enters many processed snack foods like cookies and crackers. I did some trials and found out I get less congested and can breathe and feel much better if I avoided those foods. However, given wheat's preponderance, I decided to cut down rather than eliminate it completely.

To do this, I refined the two-step process I have relied on for the past few years. First, is the shopping list, which controls the foods I have at my disposal. Whenever I shop, I try to stick as much as I can to a prepared shopping list that has mostly healthy foods. To cut down on an ingredient like wheat, I simply buy less per week, one loaf instead of two, for instance. The CSA farm membership makes it even easier in summer and fall months: my portion of produce is pre-determined for me, obviating the need for a shopping list.

As soon as I come back with my weekly produce, I create a menu for the week. I mentally portion out the food I have into healthy meals and snacks, sometimes assigning them to specific days of the week if needed (for example, to use up perishable ingredients first). I also list all available fruits. The menu represents the list of allowed foods for the week and all I have to do is follow it. If I'm wondering what to cook for dinner, I pick something from the menu. If I'm hungry for a late night snack, again I pick an item from the menu. That way, it's more difficult for unhealthy items like processed foods to creep into my diet.

Having a rigid menu enables me to better control the allergies. For example, I can increase the proportion of rice dishes relative to the number of bread and pasta-based meals. I can also explicitly list wheat substitutes like spaghetti squash instead of pasta, or corn tortillas instead of bread.