Wow, I’m blown away by a new resource. It’s called, “The Plan” by Lyn-Genet Recitas. It came highly recommended to me by a patient who emailed saying, “I’m finally losing weight on ‘The Plan.'” She, like so many women, has been struggling with her weight for years.
I thought, “Oh great. What is the latest diet gimmick now? Only eat white foods? Or maybe only eat one meal a day?”
But I’m a curious cat and I popped into a bookstore and flipped through the pages. My opinion quickly changed.
Actually, it seemed pretty legit! I bought it, and stashed it in the pile of books to one day get to.
This patient happened to pop into the clinic a couple days later, and I didn’t recognize her. I did a double take. She looked amazing.
Her skin was glowing and she had a vitality about her. You know that eye sparkle? I hadn’t seen in her in a long time. So I bumped the book up to the top of the pile on my bedside table.
“The Plan” teaches you how to test and customize your food consumption to minimize reactivity in the body. This decreases inflammation, causes weight loss and can improve energy, fertility and reproductive concerns, skin issues, digestive health and calm stress and anxiety. Not to mention inflammation is linked to most if not all chronic diseases.
“The Plan” is actually “Your” Plan.
The theory is that a food is either friendly or reactive, and everybody’s chemistry is going to respond differently to different foods. Interestingly certain healthy foods such as salmon, turkey, asparagus, oatmeal and black beans are some of the most commonly reactive.
Reactivity equals inflammation.
Inflammation equals inability to lose weight, weight gain, and other symptoms I mentioned above.
The main tracking tool is a morning daily weighing, something I typically don’t recommend, because I’ve found it creates a slight obsession in my patients.
But she teaches that the number on the scale is just data, telling you how you responded to the food the day before. Weight loss of 0.5 pound or greater means all the foods you ate the day before were friendly ones. Less weight loss or weight gain indicates you consumed a food your system reacted to. Her experience shows that if you are eating only friendly foods you’ll drop 0.5 pounds per day until your body finds its happy weight place.
I love the idea that everyone will have a different response to food.
That is a core tenant of my work. I believe that everyone is a unique individual in the context of their unique environment.
I also love that the book teaches you how to listen to the signals and messages of your body, and make your own interpretations on how to course correct so you can have the healthy body and life you desire. This is another core component to my work.
To be clear, this is not about caloric restriction nor does it employ silly tactics such as only eating polka dotted foods.**
It is a sustainable food plan, using a variety of whole foods to optimize your biochemistry. (Tweet it!)
After reading about the core principles of the program, I dove in and started “The Plan” myself. I lost 7 pounds in the first 20 days, and also found out I’m currently reactive to chickpeas, tomatoes, rye, wheat, and cheese. Except the chick peas, these were foods I suspected were not good for my system, but never realized that weight gain or loss could be a structure to test them.
Lyn-Genet has systematized what I’ve been teaching my patients for years. She is also adamant about consuming foods that make you happy. So you test wine if you want to drink wine. You test your favorite resto to see how your body does. It’s all just data. And with that data you can make an adult choice about what you’re going to eat or how often you’re going to consume it.
“The Plan” is a great resource, and one I feel confident recommending. The daily chocolate is super duper. What? It’s totally part of my plan. And truth! Eating chocolate, and cheese on my plan has helped me lose another 10 pounds!
To your thriving, healthy, delightful life,
PS:** Um… if your food is polka-dotted, it might be moldy. I’d probably avoid that 😉
