My two weeks of eating macrobiotically (mostly) are over tonight. It was an eye-opening experience and one that I’m really glad I took on. I’ll keep this simple. There are some things I’m leaving out, but I think this is a good summary 🙂 Check out my summary at the end of last week for more of my thoughts.
I’m not going to continue to be strictly macrobiotic. It’s just too limiting for me. But eating macrobiotically is all about eating healthy, local, unprocessed food, enjoying it, and eating mindfully. . I WILL continue to do these things, just without the macrobiotic title and a little more flexibility.
Discoveries:
- Unsweetened Ketchup (not truly macrobiotic, but delicious)
- Brown Rice Syrup
- Miso soup with breakfast
- Oat bran
Physical changes:
- My skin. I haven’t gotten a pimple in over a week. My skin hasn’t glowed like this since middle school. (And I went off of my prescription creams at the beginning of the two weeks.)
- My sugar cravings have diminished.
- My stomach is much less bloaty/annoying all the time.
- I have more energy in the mornings, and I don’t crash in the afternoons.
- I’m more hungry in the morning (so I can eat a good breakfast), and less hungry/snacky at night (but this is still an ongoing struggle).
Thoughts:
- I’ve learned to appreciate where my food comes from. Processed foods have so much unnecessary crap. I would rather eat a fresh organic apple with some natural peanut butter than crack open a granola bar (but that’s just me, and I’m obsessed with apples).
- Fruit may not be as “sugary” as candy, but eating 7 pieces a day is not that good. I’m pretty sure this is why my skin cleared up. (Thoughts on this?)
- I miss yogurt!
- Dairy/sugar are in so many things. Sugar especially – breads, cereal, nut butters, some potato chips – just to name a few.
What I’m going to keep doing:
- Try to avoid dairy/eggs. This honestly wasn’t the hard part (yes, I missed yogurt, but it wasn’t so bad). I will probably have these occasionally, but I’ll make sure they are organic/hormone-free. I’ll definitely be loving some soy frozen yogurt from Fraiche (pictured above).
- No more fake sweeteners (gum, light yogurt, diet soda). This will be hard to keep up in the long run – I did drink a fair amount of diet soda before this experiment, and I was a big gum-chewer (stopped cold turkey a week ago).
- Avoid most sugar. Use brown rice syrup instead. Keep skin clear 🙂
- Try to limit fruits to 2 per day. (Whoops, I’m at 3 today already – but that’s better than before!)
- Keep a normal/consistent sleep schedule. It’s so much easier to get up early and be productive when I have enough sleep. (Duh.)
- Keep a normal/consistent eating schedule. Snacking late at night is usually what makes me not want to eat in the mornings. But I like being hungry when I wake up!
- Don’t do anything else while eating… maybe. I would love to keep doing this, but I’ll be honest -I wasn’t able to do this that much during the experiment, and I don’t think I’ll be able to keep it up afterwards.
So that’s the plan. Thanks for following me the past two weeks, and PLEASE don’t hesitate to contact me or ask ANY QUESTION you’d like about my experiences. My email is magpie707 (at) gmail (dot) com. My challenge for you now is this – think before you eat, and enjoy yourself.
Will you challenge yourself in some way this coming week? Let me know!
Upcoming:
- PB2 Review
- PB&Co. Review (Mighty Maple and Dark Chocolate Dreams)
- Yummy healthy crackers (by Ener-G)
- New yoga wear
- Open requests – what do you want to see here?
yay you did it! i want to do something like that when i’m ready. haha hopefully soon. i’m glad you benefited from it!
Wow, your results are really impressive! I think even incorporating several of the ideas you had would make a huge difference i.e. avoiding art. sugars, etc! I would love to know where you found a lot of your recipes for the macrobiotic diet!
FoodsThatFit -a lot of them i made up (basically variations on things that weren’t macrobiotic), but meg wolff’s book “becoming whole” had a wonderful recipes section – http://www.megwolff.com/bookstore.html I would also recommend her blog – http://becomingwhole.typepad.com/ – she posts recipes there quite often too. her book is what made me do this experiment (she’s a bone and breast cancer survivor). her story is very cool. i tend to go for asian meals, and most asian meals are macrobiotic to begin with (or easily made so). i think macrobiotics is based on the traditional japanese and chinese diets, with a focus on whole grains. have a good night 🙂
Way to stick it out, Maggie (no gum pun intended).
I’m really working on trying to eat intuitively, with portion sizes, meal timing and just what I feel like putting in my mouth. We’ll see how it goes 😉
I agree with you about apples. They are the best. I don’t know if I could give up dairy completely. Yogurt is so yummy and I like milk with my oatmeal. Congrats on completing two weeks. I like your goals. I am trying to cut down on sugars as well.
You did it!!!! two weeks of restricting yourself is not easy (I know) but you made it and followed most the rules! so congratulations!!
I don’t think I could never follow any diet anymore because the only fact that i’m on diet put me on my nerves (I used to diet a lot, 7-8 yrs ago) and I don’t need this extra stress right now. But I do began to adopt a diet style (from my chinese book readings) which has some element of macrobiotic like eat local, eat fresh (I guess these are in all kind of healthy diet) and other things like not eat cold food in general and more warm food. And finally, try to incorporate some healthy treats in my daily food like black rice porridge and GYG (I know I still owe you on that ^_^)
well…… this novel-long comment ends here.
But, summing up: I’m so glad that you made through this challenge.
You said it–dairy is in everything, and I have to avoid it. As for that cake recipe you asked about, the egg? I dunno, but I wonder if the the soy yogurt I like would be a good substitute? I use it sometimes, or silken tofu.
Funny how little food changes can change your health or life so much, AND it seems like you can eat your fill and remain trim.
You should seriously publish an article or even a book on this topic – your information and experiences are fabulous!!
Congratulations! I would not have survived the week that’s for sure. I love me some cheese! That was an interesting idea about the fruit though. I eat about 5 servings a day but I’m wondering what would happen if I cut back. Do you really think it makes that difference? If I could make one change in my diet which would you recommend?
Way to go on your experiement–and I think it’s great that you’ve taken away some key ideas to apply to your everyday diet. I think we should all be trying to eat more locally grown foods, and this has been a good reminder. Dairy is hard to phase out, I am not sure I can ever give up yogurt, but being aware of intake is good, too 🙂 It’s been really interesting following your journey.
How cool that you successfully completed the 2 weeks!! Eating macrobiotic here in Chicago would be ridiculously difficult in the winter, but is fairly easy in the summer. I’m very impressed!
This is such a great post, I’m really inspired to try this diet out. I’ve always had problem skin and I’m guessing it’s from the high amounts of sugar I eat from the fruit. I’ve actually started eating 1-2 pieces of fruit per day and am noticing a difference so thanks for these ideas and recommendations. I think I’ll try this soon, maybe over spring break when I have more time to plan out my meals.
YAY for no pimples. I hate those nasty things. haha
sounds like you kind of enjoyed the new eating habbits!! Your plan sounds so healthy too – except I could never give up dairy :\
Wow- interesting! I know that dairy makes me feel like crap too, but I never thought about the effect of too much fruit… this was enlightening, thank you!
This is a really interesting post. I’m working on becoming vegan, and I’m loving it. I don’t know about macrobiotic though, I guess I would really need to do so much research into it…
NAOmni
Congrats on making it these two weeks!! I always wonder why there needs to be SO MUCH sugar is everything! Can’t wait to read your reviews 🙂
Have a lovely Sunday!!
I’ve so enjoyed reading about your macrobiotic journey Maggie! I’m also inspired to give up my gum chewing. Not proud of the fact that I am constantly chewing on aspartame laden rubber (as my husband likes to call it).
I’m also trying to avoid calorie free sweeteners, even trying to use less Stevia. When I’m out of my agave and maple syrup, I’m going to buy some brown rice syrup. I used it once before and really liked it.
I’m seriously on the grain band wagon these days, and it’s mostly because of some of the reading I did on a macrobiotic diet…I feared grains for so long, but I’ve been eating them a lot more lately, and I feel great! I’ve also not been buying flavored nut butters. There are usually at least 2 jars of flavored almond or peanut butter in our cabinet, but I’ve stuck with the natural stuff these past 2 weeks. In fact, I’ve gotten so used to them that I about gagged on a spoonful of PB2 last night – so salty!!!! Definitely going to stick with the all natural unsalted stuff from now on…don’t even crave my beloved Barney Butter anymore.
Thanks for sharing your experiment with us – I learned a lot!
Really appreciate you sharing with us. And I’m definitely going to look into brown rice syrup. Thanks so much maggie!
I’m glad that you had great results with the macrobiotic eating experiment! I think your decision to stick with some aspects of it are great – mix and match what suits you! 🙂
congrats on making it two weeks! its really encouraging for me to see how much you have benefited from eating whole foods – a big problem of mine is eating a lot of fruit – it really is a lot of sugar, but I love it way too much!
i really enjoyed reading about your macriobiotic experiment. like you, i tend to eat a lot of fruit during the day, so this is really interesting to me. i’d like to try macriobiotic, but it all seems very overwhelming! do you have any advice on where to start researching how to make the change? (i do think i’d miss my yogurt, though…!)
Hi Maggie!
This comment has been a long time in coming. I wanted to let you know that even though I’ve been MIA, I’ve been reading along and following your macrobiotic journey, and have found your summaries to be truly inspiring. Over the past few months, I have been getting a lot more pimples, bloating, etc. than I ever have before. At first I thought the acne was probably just because it’s so dry and wintery out there, but I’m starting to think the problem is with what I’m putting into my mouth. I’ve been keeping track of my sugar intake, etc. these past few weeks, and it truly is astronomical! I just want to thank you for sharing your experience. I am definitely going to look into an “experiment” of my own now 🙂
TGIF!
Thanks for sharing your macrobiotic journey, Maggie.
I’ve just started up my own blog, but have been reading yours as well as many others for quite some time.
I have been eating mostly macrobiotically for the past year, and I must say–when I was eating very strictly macrobiotically last summer, I felt the best I have in my whole life!
I am definitely with you on the fruit issue–I could easily down 10 pieces of fruit a day, and cutting back on fruit is constantly my biggest challenge, but my bloaty tummy definitely thanks me when I cut back.
Anyways, it is nice to see another blogger try out macrobiotics. It is quite a challenge to eat this way, but it definitely provides some benefits!
You have such a lovely blog–it is always wonderful to read!