04/21/2008

The Caviar Diet 2008

THE PROBLEM
The caviar diet is a way of eating that gives your body a lot of essential nutrients you may be lacking. The biggest of these nutrients is omega-3, which fish and caviar have, especially wild Alaskan salmon caviar. In turn, you feel and look healthier.
For me personally, this diet solves a problem— I’m fat because I tend to eat too much, not exercise enough, and work too much. Entrepreneurship provides me plenty of excuses as to why I am not as healthy as I used to be, but I suspect I would be in the same state if I spent long hours raising a family instead of tending to my new business.
What I’ve found is a diet that is pretty easy and makes me feel really good. Anything more challenging would be impossible with my lifestyle. I am doing this to lose weight and improve my energy levels and overall health. Since starting business school in 2003, I’ve gained 45 pounds, largely from lack of exercise but also from eating a drastically worse “on-the-go” diet I was not used to. I happen to have an especially slow metabolism, so if I don’t watch what I eat and exercise, I get fat.
While I am using this diet to lose weight, I don’t have the energy to focus on eating things I don’t like. So I’ve designed a system around what I enjoy eating, and luckily I like fish and vegetables, which seems to be an important part of this system. But most pleasingly, I also eat A LOT of lasagna and macaroni and cheese.

The diet starts with one key rule:
1.Consume a lot of fish oil.
I do this for 4 reasons:
a)It’s good for me, and statistics show that both humans eat drastically less omega-3 today than they used to consume, and that populations that do eat a lot of omega-3 from fish live longer with a decreased incidence of sudden death.
b)It fills me up, so by taking 1-2 fish oil pills 2-3 times per day with meals, I can turn a light snack into something that feels satisfying.
c)It is easy for me to take fish oil pills at work and at home, by leaving a bottle next to my office phone and by my home kitchen phone. The theory I want to prove for Little Pearl is that I can eat an ounce of salmon caviar, blini, and crème fraîche instead of a snack bar and fish oil pill and be just as healthy inside and outside. However, even though it only takes one minute to prepare the blini and crème fraîche, I really work too much and often choose to eat my bar and fish oil pill while typing, just like now. I’m working at 4:00 AM on Boston’s Marathon Monday, so clearly I have some extreme time management issues. But I think most people can appreciate ease and convenience, and I honestly do feel a lot better now having taken a fish oil pill a few minutes ago than I did at 3:30 AM. I guess it’s the little things in life that make it worth living for.
d)It makes me happy, which I don’t understand and don’t like listening to when I hear radio ads for fish pills that talk about getting a “glow” from consuming cod liver oil. Ugh. But, despite my cynicism I feel substantially happier a few minutes after eating fish oil pills. I suspect this is because my body is smarter than my mind, and a genetic trigger is letting me know I have a deficiency or derive some physiological benefit from this behavior. I trust my genes.
e)The good fat tends to make my skin healthier and if I could actually see where the good fat collects on me vs. where the bad fat collects, I’ve read that the good fat looks sexy and the bad fat looks gross. Realistically, this is my least motivating reason for eating fat pills, which is why I marked it as letter “e.”


DAILY MEAL PLAN
Let’s look at a day in the life of the Caviar Diet to illuminate why this has worked so well thus far.
Breakfast -- 200-400 calories (one of the following with coffee and 1-2 Omacor fish oil pills, daily does is 4 pills):
•Special K protein bar or South Beach bar
•Eggbeaters, egg white, or 2 eggs
•Quaker oats instant oatmeal
•Caviar, blini, crème fraîche
•Yogurt, fruit, granola
If I’m dieting I try not and drink too much fruit juice, though normally I consume a lot. Whether dieting or not, I try and drink a lot of water and have water coolers (MA residents read: bubblers) at work and at home. Despite this, I often find myself dehydrated.


Lunch – 300-800 calories (one or two of the following with fish oil pill, sparkling water, water and/or coffee):
•Amy’s Meals Macaroni and Cheese
•Amy’s Meals Lasagna (usually I eat both mac and cheese and lasagna at the same time – this is why I’m excited by this diet. Occasionally, I substitute one of these for an Amy’s Pizza Pocket. On rare occasions I eat all three!)
•Mixed green salad with turkey, chicken, or smoked fish
•Turkey or smoked fish sandwich on hearty grain bread, dark leafy greens on it with real mayonnaise or benacol or avocado and tomato with salt and pepper. I would eat this at home or on vacation but couldn’t prepare this or the salad at work, which is why I rely heavily on microwave meals.

Dinner – 400-800 calories (both dished and another fish oil pill):
•Package of frozen vegetables (Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, spinach, broccoli, cheesy broccoli)
•Can substitute salad for frozen vegetables (again, I suggest as much cruciferous vegetables, spinach, and assorted lettuces as possible, but mix it up with a lot of other things like tomatoes, carrots, beans, etc.)
•Broiled fish (usually the Whole Foods frozen packaged ones: sockeye salmon, tuna, haddock, cod, halibut, flounder, scallops, mahi mahi.) I’ll season this with various condiments that I’ve collected over the years: ginger flavored sushi salad dressing, hoisin sauce, tomato sauce, soy sauce, paprika, Provence herb blend, Dijon, balsamic, salt and pepper, tobacco. Often I toss a package of mushrooms, a tomato, an onion, or garlic to roast or broil next to the fish. I like my fish crispy on the outside and moist and medium rare on the inside, so I find the broiler works well and is fast. Prior to boiling I defrost the fish in the microwave, though the better way to do this is out of its plastic package under cold running water.
Desert/snack (drink more water):
•Popcorn, 300 calorie bag, 94% fat free
•Dark chocolate
•½ avocado


This is not a terrible diet on paper, and it provides a lot of essential nutrients through healthy foods. Part of my goal is to get everything I need nutritionally from whole organic foods, but I also take a vitamin supplement which probably doubles up on everything I need each day.
Nutritionists might caution against so much coffee and eating the preservatives in the snack bars. A lot of my eating habits come from popular diets. So to give credit, I pulled most of these concepts from Dr. Ronald Hoffman’s Salmon and Salad Diet, The South Beach Diet, Atkins, The Sports Diet, and The Zone Diet.


POSSIBLE REASONS WHY this DIET MIGHT be WORKING
I am mostly eating natural foods that do not have a lot of chemicals or preservatives in them. This could improve my body’s overall health and metabolism. I am not eating a large amount of calories, and those calories are well proportioned across fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. I fill myself up with good fat from fish oil pills before I get starving and eat really bad foods. I eat a larger meal in the middle of the day and a lower carbohydrate meal at night, though I almost always have popcorn and a bite of chocolate before bed. I do not eat a lot of high glycemic carbs and many of those come earlier in the day. I have noticed much more weight loss the last two weeks since I stopped drinking to get in shape and give me extra time/energy. Any of these behaviors could have tipped the scales towards weight loss, but I think because they are all small steps, as a group they make a noticeable impact.


RESULTS and MAINTENANCE
The result seems to be weight loss of about 5 pounds per week. Even better, I like eating these things and have been able to maintain this for years in the past so long as I have the time to food shop. I do not think I will be busier than I am now, so if I can make this work while running a start-up company, I think I can make it work throughout my life.