The Virgin Diet (18 page)

REINTRODUCTION RECIPES

I’ve provided healthy soy, gluten, egg and dairy recipes for Cycle 2 in
Chapter 12
.

Q: Will I still lose weight on Cycle 2?

A: If you don’t react to any of the four rechallenges, then yes, you should. Consuming a food that you can’t tolerate will stall your weight loss, and this is exactly what we need to find out in Cycle 2: which foods will stall your weight loss. Once you are eating only the foods that you can tolerate, your weight loss should return to its optimal rate.

Q: On Cycle 2, can I just start eating the foods I dropped on Cycle 1?

A: No way. I’ve created a very specific plan for how to reintroduce each food, and I’ve given you recipes and a meal plan to help you conduct this “science experiment” in exactly the right way. You need to follow the plan to find out exactly how these high-FI foods affect you.

Q: How will I know if I can tolerate a food or not?

A: Don’t worry, you’ll know! Usually, if people react badly, their symptoms are through the roof almost immediately, and as a result, they don’t even
want
the food any more. However, the symptoms are sometimes more delayed or more subtle. That’s why I want you to track your symptoms every day.

Q: What happens if I react badly to a food on Cycle 2?

A: You might decide to let that food go for life, or you might repeat Cycle 2 in 3, 6 or 12 months. Possibly, foods that you can’t tolerate now will become easier to handle once your system has further healed.

Q: Once I know I can tolerate a food, can I just keep it in my diet?

A: Not yet. Even if you find out during week 1 that you can tolerate gluten, for example, I want you to stay gluten-free for the rest of the month. I don’t want you to introduce soy, dairy or eggs while you are also eating gluten. I want to keep your diet as low-FI as possible while you are introducing each new high-FI food.

Q: What about
after
Cycle 2? If I can tolerate a food, can I just keep it in my diet?

A: That depends. If you notice a symptom in the first day, then that’s not a food that you should be eating. You can rechallenge it again in 3 months if you want. If you notice a symptom by the fourth day, you can put that food into your diet every fourth day—not any more often, or you might start reacting more intensely. If you don’t notice any symptoms, then sure, enjoy! I still don’t want you to eat eggs or dairy every day because you could start to build up an immune response that will lead to reactivity, but every other day should be fine. And of course, no matter what happens, I don’t want you building a meal around soy or gluten. We are only testing those to find out whether they stay out 100 percent or 95 percent.

As I told Taylor, for each of the four rechallenge weeks, you want the healthiest versions of each food that you can find. For gluten, you want to choose whole grains only, so go for whole-wheat pasta and whole-grain pita when the recipes call for that. And long term, seek out grains that
have been sprouted. Sprouting grains reduces the phytic acid, which is an antinutrient that interferes with the absorption of minerals. If you sprout your grains, you might even discover that you can handle them just fine. However, during this time, I want you to challenge with more common food choices.

Likewise, when you add soy, you want the healthiest version you can find, so I want you to seek out organic soy. I am allowing a little miso, along with tofu and veggie burgers. If you find that you don’t react to soy, then ideally limit your intake long term to organic, fermented choices and, again, keep this to 5 percent of your overall diet.

During your egg week, go for the organic eggs only. If you can get into a farmer’s cooperative or collective, that would be much better because then you can be sure that your eggs came from healthy chickens.

Dairy week is all about the healthy choices. We’re having Greek yogurt, mozzarella or cottage cheese—not ice cream, whipped cream or other foods that aren’t good for us for other reasons. Also, be sure to choose organic and preferably the low-fat version. Stay away from the nonfat versions, though, because these often have other additives to make up for the lost fat. If you can’t find low-fat, then I would prefer that you go for full fat. Stick with cow’s milk here because you might handle sheep’s or goat’s milk products differently. If you’re okay with cow’s milk, then sheep’s and goat’s milk products should be fine. If you’re not okay with cow’s milk, do a separate challenge with sheep’s and goat’s milk because you might be able to handle those. (For more on sheep’s and goat’s milk, see
Chapter 5
.)

If you decide to add eggs and dairy back into your diet, stick with the healthy choices, please! Otherwise, you’re just giving yourself permission to eat bad foods that will set you up for symptoms and put back on the weight you worked so hard to lose. And if eating healthy versions of eggs and dairy causes you to start craving the unhealthy versions, you might consider pulling them out completely.

After the first few days of Cycle 1, you should feel remarkably better. If you don’t, I want you to dig deeper. Don’t assume that this program doesn’t work.

First, check to make sure that you pulled out all the high-FI foods 100 percent. Remember my story about the tacks? It’s not enough to remove three of the four tacks. Your butt is still going to hurt when you sit down.

Next, consider the possibility that you’re intolerant to some other foods. We’ve started with the top 7 high-FI foods—the ones most likely to provoke sensitivities or create inflammatory responses—but you might also have trouble with the second tier: shellfish, tree nuts, citrus and strawberries. So you might give yourself a 3-week period to drop those completely from your diet and see what happens.

Finally, you might be one of those outliers who have unique responses to a particular food. If you’re still having symptoms or struggling with losing weight, find a functional medical practitioner and get yourself tested for IgG food sensitivities. It’s a very simple test: they take one tiny drop of your blood and send it off to a lab. In about 10 days, you’ll get a complete reading on your degree of sensitivity to a whole panel of foods. (See the Resources section on my website for suggestions on how to find such a practitioner.)

Remember, though, IgG food sensitivities only show one type of reaction to food, so they won’t tell you the whole story. The best test of all is to pull out the most common foods and gauge how you feel. Only use a lab test as a follow-up if you haven’t made the progress you should have or if you are still struggling with symptoms.

What if your test shows that you don’t have any IgG sensitivities, but you still have symptoms? Then you might have some other gastrointestinal issues that need to be addressed. You may have problems with your
biofilm,
the organisms that might have taken up residence on your intestinal lining.

• Small intestine bacterial overgrowth.
  If you still have gas and bloating that gets worse throughout the day, consider this condition, in which the bad bacteria in your intestines has gotten out of control. You’re always going to have some bad bacteria in your system, but your goal is to have more of the good bacteria in there. If the balance tips the wrong way, that bad bacteria extracts more calories from the food you eat and stores it as fat. It can push things out of control. Find a functional medical practitioner or naturopath to help you fix this problem.
  
• Yeast overgrowth.
  This is a similar problem to small intestine bacterial overgrowth—yeast that grows throughout your gastrointestinal tract. Yeast overgrowth can set up sugar cravings that feel nearly uncontrollable, so you might want to check this out as well.
  
• Parasites.
  These can cause a lot of trouble. If you’ve traveled to Latin America, Asia or Africa or recently gone camping, your chances of picking up parasites is greater than normal. See a doctor who can help you detect and eliminate them.
  
• Poor digestion.
  Eating too fast or eating while stressed can harm your digestion even if you don’t have specific food intolerances. You might also be lacking digestive enzymes or be low in stomach acid. Try taking a comprehensive digestive enzyme or work with a specialist to diagnose and solve the problem.
  

Your gut determines so much of your health. It all starts there. When you feel gassy and bloated, it ruins every bit of your day. So please, if you still feel that way, consider your gut biofilm. What we did over the last couple weeks was a great start toward a healthier biofilm. We took out the things that would feed yeast and bad bacteria. But if you are still having problems, you might want to consider working with a practitioner who can suggest supplements to help you with any area in which you have an issue. (See the Resources section on my website.)

Your gut determines so much of your health.

I know it can be tough discovering that your favorite foods are not good for you. Sometimes the truth hurts. But in the end, it’s always better to know.

Believe me, I’ve been there. I can rotate dairy into my diet, but I get mucous right away and acne 2 days later. It never fails. I always think,
Do I want a zit or not? Is it worth it or not?
Greek-style yogurt is one of my most favorite things on the planet, and I used to love that inch of foamy milk on my cafè Americano. It’s the same with eggs. If I eat eggs that are clean, I can handle them every once in a while. If they’re not, they
hurt me. I get gassy and bloated, and my stomach aches like you wouldn’t believe. Gluten tends to swell my fingers. If I eat it at dinner, the next day I wake up and can feel it when I bend my fingers. I can’t tolerate gluten, and I’ve learned to live with it.

Your experiences with these high-FI foods might be just like mine, or they might be completely different. The only way to know is to go through Cycle 2. Once you know the truth, you can act on it. You’ll be amazed at how powerful that makes you feel.

I was only 5'1", but I weighed in at 190 pounds. I was under lots of stress as a caregiver for my mom and as a manager in corporate America, and I just couldn’t take the weight off. I tried low-calorie, low-fat, eating grapefruits before a meal and drinking glasses and glasses of water. Nothing worked until I started working with JJ and gave up sugar and gluten.

All of a sudden, my scale went down by a half pound each day, plus once a week, I would drop another 2 pounds overnight. I came out of my brain fog and moodiness and had tons of energy. That was the energy I needed to begin to exercise to tone and build muscle. Now, at age 45, I am more healthy and vibrant than I was in my 20s.

First of all, congratulations! You have completed Cycles 1 and 2 of the Virgin Diet, which in my opinion is a
huge
achievement. Look around you. So many people are not taking care of themselves. They are eating all the wrong foods, gaining weight and feeling sick. But that is not you! You cared enough about yourself and the people who love you to complete the first 7 weeks of the Virgin Diet, and now you are reaping the rewards.

I know it hasn’t always been easy, but you have so much to be proud of! So, for your very first action in Cycle 3, I want you to go out and give yourself a huge reward, something that matches the big achievement that you have just accomplished.

You have so much to be proud of!

Now, I don’t want that reward to be a food reward. Part of Cycle 3—which is basically the rest of your life—is going to involve building in other kinds of rewards to keep you happy with your new body, glowing with your new health and motivated to keep up this healthy new way of eating for life.

I can hear some of you thinking,
Hmmmm. A nonfood reward. What might that be?

I know where you’re coming from. We can get so focused on using food as our reward system that we forget all the other fabulous ways to give ourselves special treats. But you know what? If you don’t start
building a system of nonfood rewards into your regular life—not just on holidays or vacations, but as part of your daily and weekly routine—you are not going to make it on the Virgin Diet. If the only sweetness in your day comes from sugar, and the primary pleasure in your life comes from chocolate, there is just no way that you are going to avoid sugar and stick to 2 ounces of dark chocolate (which you
are
allowed!).

Most diets focus on what you have to take out. That’s why most of them don’t work so well. So let’s start focusing on what you are going to put in. Here are some ideas for your very first Virgin Diet reward.

• A manicure or a pedicure at your favorite salon.
  If you don’t have a favorite salon, find one! For an extra reward, ask for the 15-minute leg massage that most salons offer with the spa pedicure. Mmmmm…
  
• A facial.
  These are great when you’ve been doing the Virgin Diet because your skin is already in such good shape. Guys, you know you can have one, too, right?
  
• A massage.
  If you are missing quality time with your significant other, you might even splurge on a couples’ massage.
  
• Some lingerie or a great new outfit that shows off your fabulous new body.
  Don’t make the mistake of waiting until you’ve hit your ideal weight to start dressing for the new you. If you can’t enjoy your improvements along the way, how are you going to stay motivated to keep getting better?
  
• A long, fragrant bath with some new foaming bubble bath, silky bath oil or exotic bath gel.
  Get yourself a new loofah or
  a fresh plastic scrubber so you can exfoliate in style. Maybe throw in a new flavor of body butter or moisturizer to celebrate your glowing skin after the bath.
  
• An adventure.
  Visit a part of your city that you’ve never seen, take a drive to a new part of your county or hop on a bus or train to a neighboring town. Wander through some new streets or stroll through some new countryside. Go solo or take a friend or loved one who you’ve been meaning to spend quality time with.
  
• A time-out.
  Find a quiet spot that brings you peace—in your home, a neighborhood coffee shop, a local park or any other place that you enjoy—and just zone out for a little while. Take a book or a magazine, put on some headphones with your favorite music, sip a cup of herbal tea or fresh-brewed coffee and give yourself a minivacation from all the demands of your life.
  

Does this list give you some more ideas for rewards, treats and other pleasures? That’s terrific! I want you to start keeping a list, right now, of nonfood rewards and pleasures. Start to build those into your weekly and monthly routine. In this chapter, we’ll also look at exercise, stress release and ways to stay motivated because studies have shown that the techniques that help you
maintain
a healthy weight are actually quite different from the approach you need to
lose
weight. If you still have more weight to lose to reach your ideal body composition, we will address this as well. So basically, in this chapter, I’ll make sure your motivational maintenance tool kit is fully stocked. I’ll tell you everything you need to know about eating healthy and maintaining the Virgin Diet for the rest of your life.

MAINTAINING THE VIRGIN DIET FOR LIFE IN CYCLE 3

• Continue assembling meals as before, using the Virgin Diet Plate and focusing on clean, lean protein; healthy fats; high-fiber, low-glycemic carbs; and nonstarchy vegetables.
  
• At least 95 percent of the time, avoid sugar, artificial sweeteners, gluten, corn, soy and peanuts.
  
• If you can tolerate them, include healthy forms of eggs and dairy based on how you did in Cycle 2: If you had no reaction, you can eat them every other day. If you had a reaction by the fourth day, you can eat them every 4 days. If you reacted immediately, leave them out for at least 3 months.
  
• Follow the Golden Rules of Meal Timing (see pages 172–173).
  
• Substitute 1 meal each day with a Virgin Diet Shake (see page 170).
  
• Stay hydrated.
  
• Move more and do real exercise (see pages 225–235).
  
• Get 7 to 9 hours of high-quality sleep each night.
  
• Devote at least 15 minutes per day to your own personal bliss.
  

Have you ever heard the old saying “When you fail to plan, you plan to fail”? In my experience, that is true in every area of your life—and nowhere more than when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight. The rates of weight regain after a typical diet are anywhere from 50 to
95 percent depending on the research being cited.
29
,
30
And friends, we will not be part of those statistics, deal?

Let’s face it, when you’re starting a new diet, even a challenging one, you have lots of motivation to follow the program. On the Virgin Diet, you might have had trouble pulling out some of your standby foods or subbing in healthy choices for unhealthy ones, but there’s something about the newness of it all that can keep you going. It’s like dating an exciting new person: you don’t necessarily know where things are going, but you’re willing to put in that extra effort to dress nicely, stay groomed and figure out fun things to do together.

Then, you get into a steady relationship or even get married, and suddenly, all of that effort goes out the window. Now you don’t always bother to shave, dress up or plan romantic evenings. Now you’re just hanging out in your sweats in front of the TV. Then you wonder where the magic has gone.

It’s the same thing with the Virgin Diet. As we just saw, you need to plan in some rewards to keep things new and fresh. But you also need to plan for the daily stuff because this is something that you’re going to be doing for life. So let’s figure out how.

• Are you bringing food to work each day so you can eat healthy and avoid the vending machine or coffee bar?
  How do you build in time to get that food together every single day so you’re never tempted to skip when you’re running late? Maybe there’s a way you can get everything together Sunday night, or maybe you can combine watching a favorite TV program with putting together the next day’s food. Think about it. Build it in.
  
• What about shopping? When have you built that into your schedule?
  How can you make sure to never run out of the things
  you need to stay on the program? If you’ve got to drive across town to find the coconut milk, how do you make sure to allow that time so you don’t end up just throwing in some regular milk from the convenience store? Is there a way that you can order some things you need online? Is there a friend or neighbor or someone at work who is also doing the Virgin Diet who can take turns with you in getting some of the hard-to-find items? Get creative. There are always new ways to solve problems once you’re open to finding them.
  
• Are there particular pitfalls that you
  know
  are going to be tough for you: Sunday family dinners, holiday parties or a day at the amusement park with your kids?
  These kinds of things are never total surprises—you pretty much know they’re going to happen sometime. What can you do now to get ready for them when they do? One of my clients keeps a stash of turkey jerky, raw nuts and apples on hand. If she finds out that she’s going to be away from home all day, she throws some of her high-protein snacks into some zip-lock plastic bags and grabs an apple. Now she’s set, no matter what happens that day. Because she plans ahead and keeps everything well stocked at home, she never has to worry about missing a meal or eating the wrong foods on the road.
  

I am a huge fan of replacing 1 meal per day with a Virgin Diet Shake—and when you’re traveling, rushed or have just found yourself slipping, I am happy to see you replace 2 meals with shakes.

Why? Because multiple studies have shown that people who replace 1 meal per day with a shake lose more weight and keep it off. And still more studies have shown that people who incorporate protein into their diets throughout the day also maintain their weight more easily. Virgin Diet Shakes are part of the balanced approach that keeps you feeling full and nourished all day.

When you get to Cycle 3, you can enjoy a glass of red wine, even every day if you would like. I know you’ve heard that alcohol can help reduce your risk of heart disease. It can, but only in the right amounts: one glass max for women and two for men. In fact, studies have shown that people who drink a glass of red wine each day are thinner than people who don’t. I think it’s probably because it helps them reduce stress. Also, they are probably not having dessert. They are having wine.

Pinot noir has the highest resveratrol content. Resveratrol is an amazing antioxidant and is also anti-inflammatory. It’s also been found to switch on the gene that helps slow down the aging process. Drink it with my blessing in Cycle 3—in the right quantity.

Because red wine is full of antioxidants and other healthy ingredients, I prefer it over white. But white wine and even champagne are also okay in moderation.

As for beer, they don’t call it a beer belly for nothing. I wonder if the reason beer does this so much is because it contains gluten. You can buy gluten-free beer now, and when you reach Cycle 3, you might be able to tolerate a little gluten. Avoid all types of beer in Cycles 1 and 2 and perhaps treat yourself to one gluten-free beer per week in Cycle 3.
If you have beer, choose dark beers. They are rich in
Saccharomyces boulardii,
which helps reduce bacterial overgrowth; raises secretory IgA, which drives your major gut immune system; and may help prevent yeast overgrowth. Dark beer is a great probiotic, too.

Mixed drinks are where you can get in trouble because they are often full of sugar and easy to suck down. In general, I’d like you to stay away from them, although a bloody Mary is fine. Tequila is another exception, which you can also have every week or so. But only one shot and not in a sugary mix, which is what you’ll get in most margaritas. Drink it straight or try the delicious mixture that I invented myself and got a Chicago barman to mix up for me (see page 291 for the recipe).

Of course, if you aren’t currently an imbiber, I don’t recommend starting! Women’s risk of breast cancer increases with alcohol intake, so be careful. One glass of wine is fine. More than that is a problem.

One of the great joys of Cycle 3 is that you get to splurge on forbidden foods 5 percent of the time, and yes, that does include dessert. So if you are looking forward to a few bites of birthday cake or a taste of your sister-in-law’s famous cornbread stuffing, you will get your chance! But I don’t want you taking advantage of this rule, or pretty soon you’ll have undone all the good work you just spent the last 7 weeks on. The safest way to indulge in Cycle 3 is to follow the three-bite rule: once or twice a week, you can have
three
bites of something you otherwise wouldn’t eat as long as it isn’t something to which you react badly. If you’re having more than three bites more than twice a week, you’ve passed the 5 percent mark. And remember, if you had an extreme reaction to one
of the challenge foods in Cycle 2, you will not want to take even three bites of it.

Now, when I say three bites, I don’t mean truck driver bites! I mean three polite bites, the kind you’d have if you were eating in front of an audience on national TV.

Let’s say you are out somewhere. They have something amazing. It is not something that you react to. Here are the rules:

1. Make sure it’s really, really worth it. Why waste your indulgence on fat-free angel food cake or a kid’s sugary ice cream confection? Save this for something fabulous!
   
2. If possible, share with someone who has a faster fork. If I’m going to have dessert, I have it with my mother, who can plow through something sweet faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. The only ones who rival her are my kids!
   
3. If you’re going solo, pull out the three bites before you start eating and then get rid of the rest. Put ketchup on top of it. Have the waiter take it away. Don’t just throw it in the trash. We all saw what happened on that
   Seinfeld
   episode: you can still dig it out! Set yourself up for success by getting rid of the extra food
   before
   you take your first bite.
   
4. The whole reason for this rule is to give yourself a guilt-free treat. Give yourself permission to enjoy this, and then don’t beat yourself up.
   Do not
   use this as a reason to go on a guilt-fueled binge. You haven’t done anything wrong!
   
5. If you need to put closure on the incident, have a mint or brush your teeth.