I am a huge advocate of listening to my body and knowing its signals. Every year this seems to happen: though I love my meat-based diet, when spring comes I start craving the bounty of beautiful vegetables and leafy greens and fresh herbs and, occasionally, a little fruit. Through the winter I crave animal-based, and that returns in the fall.
If you follow my What I Eat page, you can see that pattern. I’m not strictly carnivore by any means, but definitely animal-based for the most part, most of the year. Even in the summer I still have plenty of animal-based foods. I just incorporate more plant-based foods.
At any rate, as my beautiful garden is taking off for another year of bountiful food, my tastes are once again changing; there are a lot more [k] days than [c] days this last week! And my body is agreeing: “It’s TIME!”
I still avoid the things that I have learned increase my inflammation (mostly processed sugar, and grains); I still eat minimal nuts and seeds, but I will be enjoying them a little more frequently; I don’t have much of a sweet tooth at any time, so my fruit consumption is almost non-existent but in the summer I tend to love a hunk o’ juicy cantaloupe, or some berries in my yogurt. And lastly, I will pay more attention to NET carbs than TOTAL carbs – I don’t know why, it’s just how it goes when my diet has changed seasonally in the past – and paying attention, as opposed to tracking, is the key. Because I still consume a lot of meat, though, I mainly just try to keep carbs from going too high (typically staying in the 25-40g/day range).
I am not locked into a box, and that I am not eating for weight loss (though that’s been a side effect) but rather for inflammation control, gives me freedoms that eating for weight loss 20 years ago didn’t. And one of those freedoms is not ignoring my body’s signals and preferences as the seasons change. I’m not talking about “my body” telling me it wants 3 pieces of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving here! Just following the ebb and flow of the seasons, what is available and plentiful, and what it needs.
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