Day 28 weigh-in. Total weekly calories consumed: 15,070
Day 35 weigh-in. Total calories consumed this week: 14,952.
The effects of eating my way through Seattle was diminished by my bread diet. I’m back to feeling my normal self. This is the start of an incredibly sunny week in Portland so I might even run a little more. Just giving you a heads up that my increase in activity, supported by my bread eating diet, may affect my weigh-in next week.
Lose weight? Even if I’m eating carbs in the form of a pound of bread a day?
When I am running errands and people see me munching on my bag of bread, I get some strange looks. When I smile and tell them I am eating a loaf of bread a day for three months, they look at me like I am nuts and always make a comment about how fattening bread is and that I am going to gain so much weight. I invite them to subscribe to my blog to track my progress, and I seriously hope that I will prove them all wrong.
Maybe I will even lose weight! The calories in the food we eat are used to fuel our bodies at rest and in motion. What we eat is digested and converted into energy we can use. Catabolism involves the breaking down of molecules into smaller parts to be sent to our cells where they are converted into energy.
In contrast, anabolism uses energy to build simple molecules to create larger complex molecules, which allow the body to construct and maintain muscle cells and tissues.
To function properly, our bodies use more or less stable number of calories to run all their essential processes from keeping our heart beating and circulating blood to digestion. The rest of the calories are used to fuel our daily activities and physical exercise. If we consume more calories than what we burn each day, the excess is stored and eventually we gain weight.
If overall calorie intake remains the same, but the types of foods we are eating changes, our digestion will be affected.
We all know that there are foods that make us feel bloated and drowsy, and others that keep us feeling energetic for hours. We have all experienced increased bloating and gas from eating certain foods, and know that there are some foods that are more easily digested than others.
Bread, like any food made up of several ingredients, contains protein, vitamins, fat and carbohydrates. When you take a bite of a sandwich, digestion of the bread begins in the mouth when food is mixed with saliva. As it’s swallowed and continues to the stomach, the components are further broken down.
Each nutrient has a unique process for being digested and converted into energy. For example, lipid catabolism breaks down fats using lipases in cells, which are enzymes that break the fats down into glycerol and fatty acids to release energy. The type of bread we eat and its fiber content impact digestion and overall metabolism.
What I can say for sure is that I am eating constantly in order to finish a delicious loaf of bread a day. I am also drinking more water than usual to help my body with digestion. I am never hungry and the constant eating is keeping my metabolism revved up all day long. I would not be surprised if I end up losing weight. After all, fat burns in a carbohydrate flame means that your body simply cannot burn fat on its own.
I remembered running my first 5K seven years ago, after my third child was born. It was a horrid experience; I wanted to puke my guts out after the race. I found running to be extremely tedious and today it’s still my weakest leg in a triathlon. Why? Because I was never a runner. I swam extensively in high school, and my husband taught me how to ride 20 miles on the flat roads in Kansas. I’ve never done cross country, so running is all self-taught. I find the best way to kill time, is to have my friend, Diane, run with me. We’ve worked up to an easy 5K since we started running together last season. Now I challenge myself to run a 5K every other day to build my stamina for my next triathlon.
Why Triathlons? Because I can’t do marathons. I’m envious of people who can run half marathons but I just don’t have the capacity to do it. I’ve done six sprint triathlons between Ohio and Oregon. It gives me a good goal to train towards at the end of fall.
I can’t really explain the triathlon spirit, but every triathlete I’ve met on course has always been helpful and inspiring. Well, it’s not inspiring when a 30-year-old over takes you at running or biking (for those unaware, participants in triathlons have their ages written on their legs, so we can see each other’s age).
However, there is something to be said about running up to an 80-year-old woman, and encouraging her to keep going. Then hearing her story of how she has run 40 Triathlons starting in her 40s. True story! I’ve been in situations where I’m almost out of gas and triathletes would just slow down and encouraged me. These athletes are about the nicest people in the world.
Triathlons, as a sport is very inspiring and rewarding, and that is why I will keep doing it. However, for me to not crash and burn on race day, I have to keep doing my 5K every other day, and swim or bike once or twice a week.
What better way to fuel this activity than with a loaf of Good Seed Thins from Dave’s Killer Bread®! On checking its nutritional statement, I was pleasantly surprised that its protein was higher than its sugar content. This is good. All the nutritious grains and seeds that would meet my dietary needs for the day is in 16 slices of bread. I’ve also learned that it is a lower calorie version of one of their best-selling breads. Although it may be low-cal, it is still packed with whole grains, protein, fiber, and omega-3. So, I laid it all out below to show you what a day’s worth of consumption looks like.
My day’s worth of bread laid out.
I did leave two slices untouched, for dinner to accompany my home made spaghetti meat sauce.
I folded them onto a pile that sat next to my desk the whole day.
| Food | Portion | Calories |
| Dave’s Killer Bread® Good Seed | 16 slices (28g) | 1120 |
| Weight Watchers® Whipped Cream Cheese Spread | 2 Tbsp | 60 |
| Apricot Sugar-Free Jam | 2 Tbsp | 40 |
| Lox | 2oz | 120 |
| Artichoke Bruchetta spread | 2 Tbsp | 67 |
| Pine nuts | 0.5oz | 90 |
| Capers | 5 | |
| Nutella® | 2 tbsp | 200 |
| Apple | 1 pc | 95 |
| Skippy® Peanut Butter | 1 Tbsp | 95 |
| Orange | 1 pc | 45 |
| Ice cream | 1/2 Cup | 210 |
| Home made spaghetti meat sauce | 1 Cup | 350 |
| Run | -340 | |
| Total | 2157 |
Now that I’m adding a loaf of bread daily to my diet, the main comment has been something like, “OMG! You are gonna get soooo fat!” So, I have asked the experts in the health and nutrition fields to take a look at my diet and exercise plan and provide feedback. They all harp on the importance of exercise during the 90 days I am eating a loaf of bread.
Though this does not qualify as a high risk diet, I will be monitoring well beyond the 90 days should anything change with my health. The experts have recommended a regime of intense exercise in the evenings lasting a minimum of 30-40 minutes.
Since the ideal form of exercise is something you will actually do, I plan on running, swimming, cycling and walking. A recent study published on JAMA provides some encouragement. The researchers found that “weekend warriors and other leisure time physical activity patterns characterized by 1 or 2 sessions per week may be sufficient to reduce all-cause, CVD, and cancer mortality risks regardless of adherence to prevailing physical activity guidelines.” Because my calorie intake will be on the high side of recommended daily levels I will be a full-time exercise warrior!
My target calorie intake including 1 lb (11-13 slices) of bread every day with other foods from the vegetable, fruit and protein categories should equal 2,000 calories a day. I may have to make the occasional exception for my mom’s curry; she really is a bad influence!
With the 2000 calorie intake I have figured a basic exercise regimen to include:
My initial observations after a few days of my East Bread 90 diet have been positive. I am really happy with the diet. It is keeping me on track with exercise and I have lots of energy and drive. The bonus of eating so much bread is that I am not hungry at all!
I hope you all will follow my journey and join the conversation about the health benefits of eating bread!
The reason I started this journey is because I heard all this talk about how unhealthy bread is.
“Bread will make you fat.”
“I get bloated all the time after eating bread.”
“I heard bread is bad for you.”
“I’m on Paleo because carbs are bad for you.”
Bread has been painted as an all-around bad guy.
Even today, the people who come up to tell me that I am doing harm to myself and I need to check my blood work, have no idea about how harmless bread is. People are consistently inundated with information that put bread in the worst possible light.
A couple of people even compared my journey to the Super Size Me documentary. There is no comparison ladies and gentlemen. Bread is a much superior food compared to fast food. I don’t blame you though, the recent literature on bread has made bread look just as bad.
Therefore, I’m on this journey to convince you that bread is a very safe food to eat, and that I won’t be harmed from eating so much bread. You should feel safe eating a few slices of bread a day. It’s okay!
I did go to my Doctor to obtain pre-diet blood work. He looked at me all weird when I explained my diet to him. Before he waved me away, saying that I have nothing to worry about because this is not a high-risk diet, he told me to keep exercise as part of my lifestyle. I could see that he was irritated by me taking his time to ask for a simple blood work for a non-high risk diet. I had to listen to his lecture on exercise, as a respect for his time.
I need to share this with you because I believe it. He referred to exercise as sanding a door. If you sanded the door with the same force and tool for 60 seconds, vs. sanding it for five minutes over a period of 12 hours, you will find a deeper hole in the first scenario. Why? This is because of the heat generated from friction that makes the sanding more efficient over an extended period of time.
He then emphasized that I should be doing my exercise all at once during the day, and not spread out my exercise routine throughout the day. Got it, Doc!
All my vitals were normal (except that my sunshine vitamin was a little low – that’s Portland weather for you). He even gave me a smiley face.
Today, I continue my journey with Dave’s Killer Bread’s Power Seed. Among all the breads I’ve eaten so far, this must be the only loaf that has THE BEST nutritional profile. Not only is it packed with nutrition, it’s done so with lower amounts of sodium and sugar. I’ve been watching my sodium and sugar levels the last few days, so this loaf finally gave me a relief.
Dave’s Killer Bread’s Power Seed.
It is also very high in protein. Since my slices already gave me over 60g of protein (our daily intake should be no less than 53g), I didn’t feel the need to add anymore protein to my intake for the day. Lastly, because it is a multigrain bread packed with fiber, I felt extra satiated all the time! This is a wonderful bread to have in my diet, and I wished more bread were nutritionally comparable to the Power Seed.
| Food | Portion | Calories |
| Powerseed | 12 Slices (504g) | 1200 |
| Weight Watchers® Whipped Cream Cheese Spread | 1 Tbsp | 30 |
| Almond Breeze® Almond Milk | 1 Cup | 100 |
| Biscoff® Cookie Butter | 1 Tbsp | 85 |
| Barney® Almond butter Vanilla + Espresso | 1 Tbsp | 95 |
| World of Chia® Blackberry Fruit Spread | 1 Tbsp | 30 |
| Berry whipped cream | 2 Tbsp | 50 |
| Orange | 1 orange | 45 |
| Kale and Kelp soup | 1 C | 48 |
| Justin’s Nut Butter | 2 Tbsp | 190 |
| Total | 1873 |