The Ultimate Diet that works for everyone

Guaranteed that title has been used by about 36 magazines this year and the reason I am confident in that number is because I read every single one of those articles…. And also learned nothing new.  I tend to follow the “JERF” diet - or the “Just Eat Real Food” diet because through trying every “Diet of the Month” over the years, whether it was strict paleo, keto, low fat, IIFYM (If it fits your macros), etc., this is always the rule I fall back on.  

I feel the best when I follow the “JERF” rule and also the guidelines of the paleo diet -  cut out gluten, limit dairy, moderate carb intake, and limit refined sugars. It took a lot of self experimentation to figure this out though.  I decided to pursue the self experimentation route after reading Robb Wolf’s book “Wired to Eat.” In this book, Robb advises doing a 7-day carb test in which you test your body’s reaction to different carbs.  The point of the test is to see how your body reacts to carbs and if there are certain carbs your body does not process as efficiently as it should.  I specifically tested oats, blueberries, sweet potatoes, green grapes, black beans, white potatoes, and beets.

The test is simple - you measure out 150g of effective carbs of the food you are testing.  You then eat that food and that food only - wait two hours and then test your blood sugar level to see if it has returned to the normal range. Some of the tests were hard to swallow… literally.  Try eating a huge bowl of oats with nothing on it, nothing, no salt, no cinnamon, not even a little agave.  That was my least favorite test.

 After all of my 7 tests, my blood sugar levels returned to normal levels.  From those test results, it would say my body can effectively process carbohydrates.  This is a good piece of information, because for so long, I was sure all the good carbs I was eating my body did not handle well.

Although the test results did show my body can process carbohydrates effectively, you will notice I only tested real foods.  I did not eat four chocolate chip cookies or an entire candy bar, I ate whole foods. But now that I am thinking of it, I think I do need to test how something like a cookie or candy bar would affect my blood sugar… Next test I suppose.