The last couple days have been especially hectic and I'm just now getting a second to post. My draft has been sitting, just waiting for attention...sigh. Before going any farther with my thoughts on the plan, I must say one very important thing. First and foremost, I have no medical training-- a fondness for learning, but no real training in nutrition or a health-related field. If you are interested in starting this plan, please check with your physician first. While I believe the plan is totally balanced for the average person, those with chronic disease may need to adjust. My husband needed adjustments, as in more snacks,but he's always been a difficult one. HA!
Now that I've got that boring little speech over with, I will go over some of the basics of the plan. This plan basically cuts out all gluten, dairy, simple carbs and sugars, especially on the first part of the plan, the fast. Caffeine is also very limited, although one to two glasses of coffee are allowed daily. I know y'all are thinking "hold the phone!" It is difficult and does take some adjustment. The idea is this: by eliminating these factors from our diet, we can see if food allergies are driving our health issues. We've all heard of people who are lactose intolerant and allergic to wheat, right? Some poor souls are allergic to both or even have mild allergies that haven't been diagnosed. The plan offers checklists to record all health-related issues before and after the cleanse. This would be a good list to take to a physician for more thorough testing or just something to keep in mind in the future. Weight loss has been a wonderful benefit of this plan, but this plan is not meant to be a DIET, it is meant to promote a healthy lifestyle/spiritual life...a life that has balance. What's the difference? It is meant to improve current health and provide balanced nutrition while highlighting what GOD says about our bodies, obedience and outlook.
My first step was getting my hands of The Daniel Plan book. This book can be bought at Lifeway, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. The book should be less than $20.00 or you may even find it at your local library. Numerous different resources are available for this plan and you may be interested in them, but I've specifically used this book only. Recipes are provided for the fast and maintenance part of the plan, an easy-peasy meal schedule, and plan for exercise is included for convenience. I've challenged myself to recreate recipes for the plan (yes, I'm a dork), if this doesn't enthuse you, you may also be interested in the cookbook.
Some of the ingredients needed to prepare recipes were new to me. I'm not going to say any ingredients are outlandish, but many I didn't have and yes, they can be expensive. I'm not a wait a see kind of girl, I tend to go in full-force once I get my answer on something. So, I had a 350.00 week at Kroger and Whole Foods before starting. My suggestion would be to prepare over a couple, may even three weeks.
A few ideas that helped me:
*Buying the very best quality products I could afford. On this plan, I've eaten lots of apples and peanut butter for snacks. Going to Bennett's Orchard and getting crisp, juicy apples really kept me on track at first. Likewise for olive oils, balsamic vinegars, tomatoes, etc. When you completely change up your routine, you don't want to be eating mushy, tough .99 per lb. roma tomatoe. Sam's Club has Campari tomatoes and they are delish! Try them.
*Make sure you have a good, easy-to-clean blender or other product for making smoothies. Smoothies are filling and so easy. Some of these recipes are time consuming. You will want some cheater recipes.
*I took one day a week when I had the most time (ha, go ahead and laugh momma's), and created several dishes at one time. For instance, I would prep a huge salad, make a cucumber, tomato and onion salad, make balsamic vinaigrette, cut up fresh fruit for smoothies, put overnight oatmeal in the crockpot, etc. Thirty minutes of prep time saved my rear end during the week. Promise.
*When starting the plan, my Vera Bradley purses had to work overtime. I always carry fresh fruit, water and whole nuts with me in case I get somewhere with no food options OR I decided I'm so ravenously hungry I can't wait till I get home to eat.
*Perhaps the thing that helped me the most: reading through the book slowly. I poured over the meal plan until I had the basics, but only read 2 to 3 pages of the book per night. For me, it was a daily dose of encouragement...the included scriptures always seemed timely and spoke to me. As I continued to read about the benefits of taking care of my health, even on my most discouraging days, I felt renewed to my commitment.
This plan specifically mentions that those with allergies, diabetes, and inflammation will benefit. I've mentioned inflammation a few times, and will go into a bit more depth on my next post. Inflammation is what has driven my health problems and many don't understand the connection between this process and what we eat. Also, look for a sample recipe so you can see what you may be getting yourself into!
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