Eat To Live: Part 3

The Eat to Live diet is a nutrient dense diet.  Meaning you try and eat the foods with the most nutrients. Dr. Fuhrman gives different foods a rating from 0-100.  Spinach is packed with fiber, protein, calcium, and other nutrients so it gets a score of 100.  Other 100 foods include, mustard greens, Romain lettuce, and kale.  Other veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, and tomatoes get a lower score, 90 (if I remember right) because they are not quite as nutrient dense.  Berries and other fruits get a score of 80.  (Since I don't have the book with me right now I am not going to go through all the foods, but I think you get the idea.)
Our stomachs hold about a quart of food.  A 100 calories of spinach is a LOT of spinach and would fill you up! Compare to 100 calories of dairy is once small glass and will not leave you feeling nearly as full.
The 6 week challenge is basically completely living off of fruits and veggies!  He recommends a goal of 1 pound of leafy green veggies a day and 1 pound of other veggies a day.  You can eat all the fruit you want too!  You can eat an entire cantaloupe for only 400 calories!  I can honestly say you are never hungry.  I was amazed!  I ate a lot of salads, fresh fruit, and soup.  The hardest part is not eating meat, dairy, salt, oil, and sugar!  It is in everything!
I felt like I was put on a mechanical soft diet (some of you will know what that means).  After 2 weeks I started craving something hard and crunchy.  I tried to eat a cracker and about died!  The sodium about made me sick.
For my birthday I had a little piece of cake, which was delicious, but about 30 minutes later I had the worst head ache ever!  Some people have told me I am crazy for doing this diet, including my own husband,  but let me tell you how amazing I feel!
I have since added back meat on occasion and some dairy, no cheese though, and have been able to maintain my weight.  My motto is "the vegetable is the main course" and I live by it.  I have struggled a little because I am the only one in the house doing this diet.  I think it would be so much easier to have a friend or family member to help encourage each other.
If the full diet scares or intimidates you Dr. Fuhrman believes American's rate of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity would drastically improve if everyone would replace one meal a day with a large veggie salad (not saturated with dressing obviously) and reduce the amount of animal products consumed (meat and dairy).