Month 1: no dairy experiment
Soooze
Posts: 122 Member
Hi,
A few weeks ago, I challenged myself to go 1 month dairy free. No milk, no cheese (including cottage cheese), no yogourt.
I have had a few of my MFP friends ask me if it helped with my weight loss so i decided to share my findings for all to see.
I decided to try this challenge after reading a book on nutrition that basically said that babies grow into toddlers by pretty much drinking milk (breast milk is milk) alone! I had never thought of it that way! Also, my favorite go-to snack is/was cheese, cottage cheese and yogourt. So, I decided to cut it out, see what happens.
I would like to add that i wasn't going to die if i had dairy, so some may have accidently slipped in here & there.
At restaurants or dinner at friends house. I didn't refuse any food unless it was covered in cheese!
1- I had a hard time reaching my daily calorie goals without dairy.
Replacing a dairy snack with something nutritious was a challenge. For me, it's easy to not eat enough (below 1200cals/day) . I find it tough to eat around 1500-1600 calories of good healthy foods without dairy!
2- I quickly realized that a lot of food have cheese or dairy in it! Especially good food!
Most recipes call for milk or cheese. The majority of menu items in a restaurant include cheese.
I don't like to be 'mean' in a restaurant by sending a plate back but if the plate description didn't have cheese listed, i sent
it back (happened 3 times). Even salad most often than not comes with cheese!
3- I hardly craved any cookies or sweets. A cookie isn't as good if not dipped in milk
I replaced milk with (chocolate) almond milk and used that with cereal (and, this is evil... a few cookies)
This is one aspect of the challenge I decided to keep.. no milk, only almond milk.
4- After about 3 weeks of no cheese, I had a little nibblet of my daughter's cheddar cheese piece and spit it right out! It tasted like a chunk of salt! Gross. To this day, about 1.5 months later, I still haven't had any cheese. I don't crave it either (and believe me, I had cheese about 1-2 per day)
5- I added yogourt & cottage cheese back in my diet about 1 week ago. Funny coincidence.. I got a cold. isn't this stuff full of probiotics supposed to be good for us? hmm. Either way, I eat yogourt & cottage cheese now. one serving/day only.
6- I didn't lose weight and didn't gain either. same old boring weight for a month.
So, that was my dairy experiment. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
My current experiment: zigzagging calories. So far so good, 4lbs lost in 1 month. I think this is a keeper!
My next experiment: veggies & meat only after 2pm
A few weeks ago, I challenged myself to go 1 month dairy free. No milk, no cheese (including cottage cheese), no yogourt.
I have had a few of my MFP friends ask me if it helped with my weight loss so i decided to share my findings for all to see.
I decided to try this challenge after reading a book on nutrition that basically said that babies grow into toddlers by pretty much drinking milk (breast milk is milk) alone! I had never thought of it that way! Also, my favorite go-to snack is/was cheese, cottage cheese and yogourt. So, I decided to cut it out, see what happens.
I would like to add that i wasn't going to die if i had dairy, so some may have accidently slipped in here & there.
At restaurants or dinner at friends house. I didn't refuse any food unless it was covered in cheese!
1- I had a hard time reaching my daily calorie goals without dairy.
Replacing a dairy snack with something nutritious was a challenge. For me, it's easy to not eat enough (below 1200cals/day) . I find it tough to eat around 1500-1600 calories of good healthy foods without dairy!
2- I quickly realized that a lot of food have cheese or dairy in it! Especially good food!
Most recipes call for milk or cheese. The majority of menu items in a restaurant include cheese.
I don't like to be 'mean' in a restaurant by sending a plate back but if the plate description didn't have cheese listed, i sent
it back (happened 3 times). Even salad most often than not comes with cheese!
3- I hardly craved any cookies or sweets. A cookie isn't as good if not dipped in milk
I replaced milk with (chocolate) almond milk and used that with cereal (and, this is evil... a few cookies)
This is one aspect of the challenge I decided to keep.. no milk, only almond milk.
4- After about 3 weeks of no cheese, I had a little nibblet of my daughter's cheddar cheese piece and spit it right out! It tasted like a chunk of salt! Gross. To this day, about 1.5 months later, I still haven't had any cheese. I don't crave it either (and believe me, I had cheese about 1-2 per day)
5- I added yogourt & cottage cheese back in my diet about 1 week ago. Funny coincidence.. I got a cold. isn't this stuff full of probiotics supposed to be good for us? hmm. Either way, I eat yogourt & cottage cheese now. one serving/day only.
6- I didn't lose weight and didn't gain either. same old boring weight for a month.
So, that was my dairy experiment. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
My current experiment: zigzagging calories. So far so good, 4lbs lost in 1 month. I think this is a keeper!
My next experiment: veggies & meat only after 2pm
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Replies
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wow! I'm feeling the love!0
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I'm sure there's a lot of evidence suggesting now that low fat dairy AIDS weight loss, so I'd stick with the cottage cheese, 0% Greek yogurt, etc.0
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Man, that would be hard! Milk & cheese really is in everything. I'm impressed!
I'm with you on the almond milk - definitely the best of the alternative milks (soy, rice etc) I've never been a fan of cows milk. :sick: I blame my parents for forcing me to drink it as a child!0 -
I've been thinking of trying this myself because I read that dairy can make seasonal allergies worse. Do you have allergies and if so did you notice if you felt better? Supposedly dairy increases 'mucous' (hate that word.,...) maybe that's why you got a cold? Thanks for sharing your experiment!0
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Are you saying that somehow implies that milk makes you fat? To me all it says is that milk is nutritious.I decided to try this challenge after reading a book on nutrition that basically said that babies grow into toddlers by pretty much drinking milk (breast milk is milk) alone! I had never thought of it that way!0 -
a few years ago I also stopped all dairy (involuntarily, I developed an allergy after my son was born and had huge hives all over my body!) I was completely dairy free for almost 6 months. I did not gain nor did I loose any weight. I have eczema, it did not clear up nor did it get any worse. I did feel less bloated after about 2 months which I wasn't expecting. And when I gained enough courage to actually try dairy again I didn't feel worse than when I wasn't eating it. I found that it has cut down on my dairy consumption, I don't drink milk much if at all anymore and almost no yogurt and cheese, but I do take calcium and vitamin D now. (I found out this past year that my lack of dairy coupled with my geographical location has made my vit D levels very low and I now have to take 2000 IU/day to try and get my levels back up to normal, I was told it could take 2 yrs to get them to a healthy level!)
Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say in a rambling way (sorry!) is that I don't know if cutting all dairy is a good idea without talking to a doctor or nutritionist first to make sure you are doing it in a healthy way. I myself now worry about possibly developing MS in the future as low vit D and MS have been linked in some studies (don't have any links etc, this is something I read in our newspaper. We have lots of health articles about MS because the Canadian West is an area with a high incidence of MS on a per population basis-according to the newspaper)
And I guess looking at the original posters experiment, it doesn't seem to make a difference in weight loss or gain, so I will keep as much dairy as I am able to manage, which isn't as much as it should be, but I do my best :-)0 -
This is incredibly interesting, but to say that your getting a cold had to do with your bringing some dairy back into your diet is not clear causation. I highly doubt one had anything to do with the other. I know you're sort of like, "Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not," but I just want to point that out for others.0
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My current experiment: zigzagging calories. So far so good, 4lbs lost in 1 month. I think this is a keeper!
What do you mean by zigzagging calories???0
This discussion has been closed.
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