I’m still trying to sort it out, but if I look at my food journals and the timing of large, sudden weight gains, a pattern emerges. I think that [...]]]> I don’t think I can call the Dr. Gundry plan a success as I have gained three pounds in a little over a week.

I’m still trying to sort it out, but if I look at my food journals and the timing of large, sudden weight gains, a pattern emerges. I think that broccoli causes me to bloat like mad, retain water and therefore gain weight. The morning after the days I was *out* of broccoli, I had weight losses, so I feel like there’s some confirmation there. I’m sure some people would love to say that they have “broccoli intolerance”, but I recently re-discovered that I like it. It’s not something I’ve eaten much in the last few years; maybe a couple of bits off a veggie platter at a party, and that’s all. Back in my single (and broke) days, I used to eat pasta mixed with carrots, broccoli, onions and parmesan for many dinners. If I was super broke, the pasta was ramen, but the basic ingredients were the same. I never ate broccoli on Atkins either – I had cauliflower fairly often, but again, I haven’t eaten that for a long time either.

As a correction, I’m only eating animal products today. In particular, I want my system to recover from the ridiculous amount of fiber this plan entails due to the ad libitum consumption of green vegetables and the large-ish quantity of nuts. Since the protein is pretty limited and the fruit allowed is only two servings per day, I’ve really been loading up on the green vegetables. I don’t think the fruit is an issue for me at all as there’s no pattern with that and weight gain. I also don’t have a problem with the sugar. I can, for instance, eat a banana all by itself, and my blood glucose is 83 an hour later. I do equally well with apples.

But what animal products do *not* contain is fiber. I’ve generally found that fat, not fiber, is required for proper digestion. I’m not the only one who thinks fiber isn’t really important – fiber gets its bowel-moving reputation by creating mucous that is an response to *irritation* in the digestive system. There’s an entire (very informative) chapter on fiber in Good Calories, Bad Calories that explains how it came to be worshipped by the food nannies as desperately important.

I’m just glad I gained the weight and had the problems when I was completely out of cabbage. I love cabbage, though only cooked, fermented (sauerkraut) or in vinegar and oil slaw (dressing is dumped on when very hot, so it’s a little cooked). In fact, I don’t care for most cruciferous veggies raw (watercress and arugula are the exceptions), so all the broccoli I ate was well cooked. Hopefully, kale is not a problem, but when I try it again, I’ll make sure I have only known-good veggies that day. At this point, the only green vegetable I’m willing to try right away is lettuce, and what I eat tomorrow really depends on whether my plan today causes me to shed some of this bloat.

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I wrote that last night. I lost 1.8 pounds after doing my all animal products day. I’ll probably add back in some plants today. Probably.