To be 80/10/10 or not...

Have you ever seen something that you know is really good and would provide wonderful benefits but when you looked at it some more you wonder whether it’s the best fit for you…

I’m starting to feel that way about the 80/10/10 diet. Actually, I feel funny when I write the word “diet” because this feels more like a lifestyle than a diet. While listening to the Raw Healing Patch radio show on Blog Talk Radio, I also heard them mention the word “lifestyle” as well in relation to “80/10/10”, so I’m not alone.

I’m not playing with this way of eating to lose weight as I’m slightly underweight and while some people who might be following the 80/10/10 diet aspire to be or are super-fit athletes, I don’t fit into that category either. I’ve just had a fascination with food for some time now.

What concerns me most is the amount of fruit that I need to buy to sustain this lifestyle option, and also the amount of fruit/vegetable waste going out through the general rubbish bin.

I’m eating 1.5 to 2 kgs of fruit a day along with a significant quantity of greens where I’ll blend a whole cos lettuce or some silverbeet leaves with other ingredients to make up a green juice. I’m buying extra fruit every second day if not daily just to keep myself going.

I’ve completely stymied my worm farm by feeding them way too much fruit and vegetable scraps that are taking them longer than a week to get through, so now I’m putting out my general rubbish bin much more often.

But on the positive side, I do feel really good when I am predominantly 80/10/10. Over the weekend I planted out 4 punnets of lettuce seedlings and then went back to get the same number of celery seedlings and didn’t have a problem with getting them out onto my patio in one day even though I needed to wash out 4 trays and the accompanying perlite pebbles. And then I weeded part of my backyard as well. I was a bit surprised at how much energy I had on the day.

It’s not that I can’t handle the way the diet works. I’ve always liked numbers so it’s no surprise that three weeks after I started dabbling with the 80/10/10 diet, I’m still logging my progress on the Nutridiary website.

Seven days out of the past ten, I’ve met the 80/10/10 requirement and on those days have been 79% raw or better. The remaining three days were weekend days when I was with family or friends, so perhaps this was no surprise also.

While I’m considering whether/how I’ll continue with the 80/10/10 diet, I’ve started reading another book. What feels like many years ago, I read about Food Combining and found the concept very interesting. I even had a food combining chart on my wall that my sister had given to me. But I never really took the principles on board.

Since the 80/10/10 book recommends following the food combining rules, I’ve borrowed the book “Food Combining for Health: Get Fit with Foods that Don't Fight” from the library and all of a sudden I’m starting to understand what it’s telling me, particularly since I’m going through it. This book helps to explain what happens when I break the rules, which I tend to do.

I really thought that I had given the chart away but I’ve just checked in my store room and it’s still there! This is great news as I suspect that I’ll end up with what I consider are the best bits of the 80/10/10 diet along with some concepts from the China Study book while ensuring that I follow food combining rules. This feels like I’m making it a little complex right now but I’m sure I’ll end up with something that suits me and my worm farm while being able to minimise how often my general rubbish bin goes out. I can’t wait!