Here is your Beginners Guide to survive the one month of ThinkFood30 and it’s probably going to change your life for good:
Chuck it. Buy it. Cook it. Walk n sleep.
Chuck it
Self discipline is an honourable trait, but not to be tested here. Chuck the bread, rice, pasta, oats, sodas, chips, snickers, cookies, soy sauce, ketchup, baking mixes, cans and soup concentrates. And don’t forget about the ice cream in the freezer. Desperate times call for desperate measures and you will remember the long forgotten ice cream when the time comes. Sorry. Gone.
Buy it
Since you can’t farm it, you’ll have to buy it. And now that you’ve got ample space, cram it full of
Protein
Meat of free ranging and pasture raised animals. Not in a warm fluffy overcoat wrapped in ‘mammas pies’ wrap but bare and naked.
Land
Pig, Beef, Lamb, Game
Water
Salmon, Trout, Mackerel, Sardines, Crab and Crayfish… all the smelly stuff.
Air
Chicken, Duck, Ostrich, Turkey, Eggs
otherwise canned tuna in olive oil will do for a quickie on the road.
Vegetables
If your neighbour grows organic veggies… otherwise the supermarket will have plenty. Get as much organic as you can. An ‘inorganic’ avo has about one third of the nutritionally valuable content left compared to the organic. No, organic is not all just a marketing ploy and overpriced. It takes hard work to produce good food. In spite of that, you will probably be surprised that your weekly shopping bill will not add up to more than usual. What veggies?
Rainbow colours for the rainbow nation. As varied as you can get and bear to eat. I hate peas.
Fruit
This is where it gets a bit ‘unconventional’ if it hasn’t already. Eat fruit more sparingly than you are used to, especially if you are wanting to lose weight. Fructose isn’t a good player for all, in fact, not at all good for most. If need be, keep to melon, berries, citrus fruits, good old apples – hands off pink ladies. Depending on how far they needed to travel to arrive on your table, their nutritional value will be. Bananas will make you smile, but leave them to the sporty folk for now or start running.
Fats
Olive, coconut, palm oil, gee and lard, avocados and avocado oil, macadamia nuts and oil, almonds, walnuts… BUT if you’re standing on the scale every morning or you are chronically inflamed, take it slow on the nuts. Do the nutcracker version, you won’t eat as many.
Spices
You won’t believe how much more you taste with decent amounts of oil in the preparation, so all those braaivleis mixed spices will kill your taste buds. Chuck it. Keep the basil, coriander, oregano, thyme, maiorane, rosemary, onions, garlic, chives, parsley, sage, lemongrass, dill, aniseed, cumin, celery, lavender, licorice, curry, piri piri, chili, curcumin, cinnamon, 3 differently coloured pepper corns, sesame seed and oil, ginger, juniper, lime leafs and what not. Who said salad was boring?
Drinks
WATER, bubbly, non-bubbly, flat, bubbly, bubbly and non-bubbly. At mealtimes, yes, you may have ONE tea with your meals, isn’t that great? Hey, you can choose which one: herbal chamomile, mint, rooibos or green tea… inbetween meals the tap is your best friend and you might want to add some mint leaves, lemon slices, cucumber slices or strawberries for flavouring (NO, NOT FOR EATING). As you might have guessed by now, alcohol and coffee is not a good idea during the ThinkFood00 protocol. Not good at all. Not even a drop.
Cooking
What’s that? Easy. Don’t despair. Even I discovered I can cook. It’s quicker than waiting at the McDonald’s Drive Inn. Pan. Heat. Oil. Quick fry. Salt&Pepper. Dish. Knife. Fork. Eat.
One handful of protein(100-200g)
Two to four handfuls (an abundance!) of vegetables – raw, steamed (it gets better) or fried! The final touch is a dash of truffle oil, olive oil, and avocado or a (small hands only and no stacking!) hand full of unsalted nuts.
Short and Sweet:
- Protein: 1 hand
- Vegetables& salad (not pasta, rice or mielie salads) 2-4 hands full
- Fruit: one portion a day, preferably not in the evening
- Nuts: small hand per day
- WATER. Tea with meals, not sweeteners, none at all not even the ‘natural stevia’!
Exercise
Everyone can walk, even if you don’t want to. You don’t have to run on the treadmill or kill yourself on the circuit, take a walk in beautiful Cape Town: Table Mountain, Mouillie Point, Sea Point, V&A, Long Street, Government Gardens, Kirstenbosch, Camps Bay beach, Clifton, Noordhoek, Rhodes Memorial… need I carry on? Take it easy. If you are not used to training, take it slowly and if in doubt, consult a fitness coach. The first 1-3 weeks are different for everyone. Your metabolism readjusts itself and some people suffer from fatigue, others from headaches or haziness, while others excel and feel better than ever. Listen to your body and what it tells you.
Sleep
No artificial light sources in the room please. Yes, that does include the TV. And the computer. And the iPhone. Switch it off. Put it somewhere else. Get used to a natural dark-light rhythm and fall asleep without the TV on. The last email gets checked an hour before bedtime. No compromises. No Tweets. 8-9 hours would be great and waking up on time without feeling like annihilating the alarm clock is even better.
Questions? Confused or exceptional case?
I suggest you read our links before you ask anything or decide anything. A prerequisite to successful treatment is not a programme or an analysis, but your will to wanting to make it better and understanding why you have to do what you are being told. There is no half-way or exception in this case. It will not work and we will be wasting our time. So if you’re good and serious we’re here and waiting. And we will try all in our might and to the best of our knowledge to advise and assess condition-relatedly.
Conventional quick fixes and symptomatic treatments are one thing. Think Food is the other.
Payback
Sorry. No buy one and get twos. But we would love to get feedback from you. Recipes, questions, corrections, queries, experiences, problems, successes… without you we would not have gotten this far and we direly need your input to help others and update our profiles. Please tell us your story on our Testimonial page. Thank you.
