THE SKIN HEALING DIET

I feel so much better knowing that the pressure to lose a considerable amount of weight in a short time is off me. I'm so much happier and more relaxed and will introduce more (lean and clean) foods that I enjoy back into my regular diet. I want to eat in a way that can be maintained in the long term - make it a lifestyle - yet in a way that gets me lean and more importantly - KEEPS ME LEAN.

I've decided to make some dietary changes in order to help heal a skin condition that I've had previously and which has recently returned. Its a form of psoriasis and when I had a bad bout of it about 5 years ago, my Naturopath gave me an excellent topical cream and suggested some diet modifications. They were: cut out: red meat, dairy, white flour and alcohol (although we compromised on this by me reducing my alcohol intake as I really love a wine or two, once or twice a week). I was also to increase my intake of fatty fish. So I did this and sure enough the psoriasis cleared without me having to resort to many of the things the dermatologist had advised. I was a happy camper then and I'm expecting the same result now.

Mind you I'm a dairy lover as I regularly eat low fat cottage cheese, diet yogurt and have skim milk in my cappuccinos. I dont mind a soy cappuccino but wont go near soy yogurt anymore and will miss the cottage cheese. Oh and I love kangaroo meat, a good steak and just about anything made from mince :-( White flour isnt that appealing so I'm OK chucking that. Just a few more diet challenges to overcome.

Here's what I ate today:

5.05am: 1/2 serve WPI (pre-training)
6.00am: 1 serve WPI + small pear (post training)
7.00am: 2.5 egg whites + .5 whole egg with spinach and zucchini
10.00am: green salad with smoke flavoured tuna
11.00am: 55g salted peanuts (was really hungry and resorted to the charity box of treats)
1.00pm: Subway honey and oat 6 inch sub with ham, swiss cheese (oops should have skipped that) and tons of salad + lite mayo (I forgot to take my lunch today in the morning rush to get ready and out of the house. I dont normally buy my lunch and was out of the metro area then).
2.00pm 2-3 jelly snakes/babies (put out at the meeting I was attending. (At least I stopped at that small amount!)
No afternoon tea as I was travelling back to work and running late.
6.00pm: steamed green veg with chicken breast lightly flavoured with sugar and salt free cajun sprinkle.
8.00pm: Chai tea with vanilla and a splash of lite soy milk.
I drank close to my 3.5litre quota of water/green tea.

So not a BAD day but there's room for improvement.

Today I did an (almost) full body weights circuit which I just loved. It actually had an aerobic training effect too as my rest periods were short and I chose challenging exercises and weights. I've been quite slack with my weight training lately so this was a good step in the right direction AND it left me feeling really good too. Here's what I did:

DB Squats (quite deep) x 15r
BB Chest Press x 12r
Stiff Legged Deadlifts x 15r
DB Upright Rows x 10r
Walking Lunges x 20r
Dips (from bench) x 20r

I repeated it 4 times and all up it took about 40 minutes. Just perfect in the time I have available in the mornings.

Well its late so I'll be toddling off for my precious sleep. Cheers all

Magda