Trying to get started but I don't know how to put the food together. I'm also very intimidated because there is so much food to eat. Can people post their daily menus to give me some good appetizing ideas? I looked in her book but they were not things I would normally eat (ex. breakfast is vegetable egg frittata). Thanks!

Breakfast: cottage cheese, blackberries and sometimes cream, baby carrots
Lunch: quesadilla with chicken, cheese, vegetables, herbal iced tea
Dinner: grilled steak on the BBQ, salad with dressing, smashed potatoes
Snack: ak mak crackers, peanut butter or celery and peanut butter

Another sample menu:

Breakfast: flax meal and cream with cinnamon, (found this recipe somewhere on the board) carrots
Lunch: chicken salad with dressing
Dinner: chicken enchildas (encludes corn tortillas, chopped chicken, montery cheese, salsa baked, chopped peppers and topped with sour cream)
Snack: mock danish, vegetables

I try to keep a plate of chopped vegetables in the refrigerator so they are easy to grab.

Check out Wanda's journal and see the yummy meals she comes up with. Look around at the posts on favorite meals and breakfast ideas, WARNING - it may make you hungry!

Pianobeiner

Cinmin, good for you for trying...don't get too discouraged too fast. At first it does seem like a lot to take in and it seems a bit hard to process, just go slowand you will find it will suddenly start clicking...first you need to decide are you a volume person or a particular taste person...I say this jokingly as Ihave decided I am a volume person...I would rather have a ton of strawberries with cream then 8 french fries...so now that I have figured that out I am better at planning my meals....I typically have some sort of meat for breakfast, something left over from dinner the night before...say lamb or a bit of pot roast or I have some cheese..plus I have a roma tomato or two depending on size...maybe some bell pepper or some zucinni strips, raw...with that I add some kind of berry ( fresh or frozen) with my cream and I am a happy woman...lunch might look really similiar and dinner might be some new kind of meat ( something I cooked during the day or that inspired me at the new butcher I have found) and then some green beans, radiccho ( spelling) greens with olive oil, cucumber and then of course my berries or maybe a few peaches...maybe my meals are too similiar but I find they are working for me...in the beginning I thought I would never eat eggs...they always made me ill...but now I realize it was all the other crud I ate with them they made me ill....I now keep a few hard boiled just so they are easy and on hand...I keep several veggies cut up and plenty of tomatoes, tuna and string cheese around for those quick- I have- to -go occasions....also I have found one slice of ezekeil bread is heavenly...plus I am constantly drinking water...my nutrionist told me a year or so ago about Stevia and lemon in water...it tastes like lmonade with the pulp...that helps too with initial sugar cravings...I have now gone on forever but check the journals and find out what people have found works for them...don't be afraid to stop by and post in the journals if you have a question about someone's food...most everyone will tell you how they cooked something or whatever...good luck...

I think I am a volume person too but then again volume scares the crap out of me. What is ezekeil bread and can you buy that in a regular grocery store? I'm trying to stick with the kind of foods I eat already but eat more of it. So when people post that they have cottage cheese (I don't like that) and flax meal with cream, it confuses me. To me, personally, that is not something I would normally eat.

I understand wanting to stay with your "normal" foods, but were they working for you? I love the opportunity to research new foods and branch out. If I had to eat my childhood vegatables five times a day I'd go nuts! (broccoli, green beans, plus peas and corn which don't even count. I have eaten raw snap peas, diakon radish (really good!) and made a new eggplant recipie. I tried some strange Incan grain that was in the cookbook. (not sure yet about that one) Today I made an omlet with pesto, spinach and sun-dried tomato Havarti cheese. Delicious, though my dh thought I was nuts! Try to think "outside the box". It makes things so much more interesting!

Yesterday
two breakfasts:
the dreaded cottage cheese, cantalope
then sprouted wheat toast with PB and eggplant leftover (about 11:30)

Lunch: (birthday dinner with Mom) steak, green beans, summer squash and strawberries with cream

Snack: cheese, whole wheat cracker, diakon and snap peas

Dinner: chicken and leftover eggplant (I obviously made too much) roasted potato

Hi Cinmin:

You are welcome to visit my journal. I list my foods every day so it might give you some ideas. Just click the "journal" link at the bottom of my post. I switched from Atkins on May 3rd, so all my menus from that day on are SPII menus. But be forewarned, I'm on the Insulin Sensitive/Adrenal Burnout program. I think you mentioned you are Insulin Sensitive with Healthy Adrenal Glands, which puts your carbs higher.

Visiting journals will probably give you the best assortment of food ideas. I'm with ImMusicMom about the variety. I used to eat the same things everyday. Boring. Then I started to branch out and try different things. I'm a pretty conservative eater, but that doesn't mean I have to eat the same foods all the time. For instance, I try to get one different color veggie each day (yellow, orange, white, green, purple and red) to make sure I maximize my nutrient intake. I also try to rotate my starchy carbs by having a grain, a starchy veggie and a fruit each day. These are rough outlines for me that help create variety.

Guess what? I've always hated cottage cheese, spinach and brussel sprouts. Since changing my diet, I love them now. You'll be surprised how much your taste in food will change when your taste buds aren't dulled by sugar.

Ezekeil bread is normally found in the health food store in the freezer.

--edit--
also, if you start a journal and list your foods, we can help you out by making suggestions if you are looking for help. Journals are great tools for giving and receiving help.
Good luck,
Wanda

The more you do this, the easier it will become!!

This morning for breakfast I had a 2 egg omelet with sauteed onions, spinach, olives and feta cheese and 1/2 cup plain yogurt with 6 cherries.

Morning snack was 2 corn tortillias with tomato and queso fresco cheese (but other cheese is OK too).

Lunch will be chicken sausage, roasted asparagus and green beans, 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce and the dreaded cottage cheese.

Afternoon snack will be 1/2 cup blueberries with 1/4 cup of soy nuts, but other nuts will work as well.

Dinner will probably be salmon or chicken with more roasted asparagus and green beans and probably a little pasta salad made from lentil pasta, but another whole grain pasta would work too, such as whole wheat or brown rice pasta.

I can relate to wanting to eat things that are not quite as exotic as found in TSP cookbook (I own one and have tried a few of the more down-to earth recipes - yummy). I'm going to try some of the low carb recipes on meals.com. Many of the recipes seem easy and use ingredients that I can find at my very small town grocery store. Anything that requires somewhat fancier ingredients requires a trip of about 35 miles to a mega-grocery store - of course, on a tight budget, I have to keep things pretty simple. Hope this helps.

I'm posting menus regularly in my journal again, and I'm adding the carb counts this month. I eat a lot of pretty basic food (after eating lots of exotic food when I was a high-carb vegetarian) so maybe you can get some ideas. A typical dinner for me is a meat, salad, vegetable and maybe a fruit.

Jen

One more thing, EZEKIEL BREAD IS DISGUSTING!!! Arg. I paid close to $5 for the frozen loaf and had to toss it - and I can choke down just about anything, especially if it is "good for me" and I paid too much.

AND, one more more thing, the frittas are just easy, non-folded omeletts - the ones in her cookbook are wonderful. I made the avocado cream cheese one for a couple of guests and we devoured it. Very, very simple to make, too.

J-Oh!

I am having trouble with understanding the books : i mean I have a very basic knowledge, but mostly don't have a deep understandin g of her rationale for this way of life. How can I feel that I am doing justice to the diet if I don't understand the whys . I suppose I can blindly follow her steps , but that doesn't make me put my whole consciosness behind it...am I making myself underestood? Also I don't know if i have burnt out adrenals. Is there any way of finding this out? My skin is bad at the moment too. She does say that this can happen in the beginning. One good thing , is my craving for carbs. has become less pronounced. I haven't started taking the basic supplements she advises. I take prescription meds. ie. lipitor for cholesterol, metformin for diabetes. If I understand her correctly..these drugs should not be taken.

SPII lists out steps of following her plan(s). Step one is diet and supplements. All you need to understand at first is that you are trying to balance all the hormones in your body by eating as much unprocessed, whole food, no sugar, no chemical food as possible. The idea behind this being the first step is to nourish your body enough to take on the other steps, which takes time.

I think most folks start this plan with their heads in a really bad place and trying to comprehend everything at once may lead to MORE EXHAUSTION. Part of the process is ALLOWING YOURSELF TO MOVE MORE SLOWLY. That includes comprehension of the nuances of physiology - WE aren't endocronolgists, so we can't expect to 'get' this stuff in a day or two. She went to medical school and still didnt' understand the principles that she has now come to profess.

My advice, which I'm trying to take myself, is to lighten up, work on the few points you do understand, then take in a few more as you read along. All of the diets will work better for you, whatever your type, than how most of us have been eating (and living).

SPII lists the ailments that accompany burned out adrenals and insulin resistance - that's the guide I'm using because I am not going to be tested immediately.

Peace!,
Jinx-o-beiny Heiny