Let’s say you have been eating a standard diet for years, similar to what most people eat. If it is a European/American diet, it would probably be a 3-course meal consisting of:
- A starter, which could be anything like an artisan bread & a dipping oil platter, cured meat platter or a simple salad.
- A main course meal consisting of any kind of meat/fish, possibly pasta, possibly served with some seasonal vegetables.
- Any kind of dessert.
Now, ignoring the specific foods I listed as an example, do you notice that it makes sense to have them in this specific order and separated from each other? I bet you would not want to have a sweet dessert first then a main meal, finished with a starter?
There are reasons why restaurants have menus and combinations of menu items and why meals are being served in a specific order. No predefined menu means chaos, uncertainty, whereas a well defined menu in the same way as a well defined diet plan makes you more confident, relaxed and willing to follow a new diet.
Every new diet needs to be simple and systematic
Simple-to-follow diet is the key if you want to be following it for a long time. Every time you try a new diet you hope that this particular one is going to be the one you can sustain being on for years. When you have too many things to choose from in terms of what to eat on a daily basis, or when you do not have a food menu specifically made for that diet, it can get hard not to quit after a while.
I understand this very well – I had been struggling myself in terms of finding suitable foods which would cause me more good than harm. To solve all the issues mentioned above, I made a simple menu, which you could rotate on a daily basis and make choices based on what you prefer at a specific point in time.
The goal here is not to overwhelm yourself, not to overthink, especially in the beginning. The saying “perfect is the enemy of good” fits dieting very well. If you are trying to perfect every little detail, you are subjecting yourself to making a crucial mistake.
There is no need to be perfect, being good is enough. Consistency on a daily basis is much more important.
Slow and simple transition to a liquid diet menu
Again, I will repeat that it is much more important to be consistent with your diet plan than to try and chase non-existing perfection.
Liquid diet menu options
If you would like to see in more details what you usually eat on this menu, be sure to check full liquid diet foods. Now that we are done with the theoretical part, we can finally see the menu.
Breakfast
My favourite breakfast choice is a fruit smoothie. It is very simple to mix and try different combinations. These are some of them (portions are for 2-3 people):
- 5 oranges, 1 whole pineapple, juice of 4 lemons or limes, coconut water (optionally some grapes or peaches or both).
- 5 oranges, juice of 3 lemons, 1-2 bananas, some pineapple, coconut water.
- 5 oranges, juice of 2 lemons, some berries, chopped mangoes.
- Any other juicy fruit + pineapple, grapes, apples or whatever else your imagination tells you.
As you can see, it is quite simple to mix. Ideally I would not recommend mixing sweet fruits with citrus fruits, however this is an entirely different topic.
I usually drink about 1 litre of the 1st smoothie option, but it obviously depends entirely on how much your body is asking for. There is no need to limit your smoothie consumption, when you are full you will not want it anymore. You cannot get fat from drinking too much smoothie.
I politely insist that you use a straw to drink your smoothie, especially if you are using citrus fruits (which are one of the best to use), to avoid direct contact of a citrus juice with your teeth.
Lunch
For lunch I would have a similar smoothie as for breakfast, plus I would have some soup.
Here are some soup examples:
Lentil soup – a smooth soup made of mainly lentils with some fresh herbs, blended or cooked in a soup cooker until it reaches a smooth consistency.
Pea soup, similar to lentil soup but with peas instead.
Pumpkin soup, same here, however I personally found this one to be too starchy.
Mainly water with a mix of vegetables and herbs added, cooked and blended until it reaches a homogenous mass.
One bowl of this soup consumed after about 30 mins of you finishing your smoothie is meant to balance out the sweetness with some savoury flavour. Warm soups are very nice to have when the weather gets colder.
Ready-to-eat soups are also widely sold in supermarkets today. It is convenient to just buy them and warm them up, however I would recommend making your own soup. The main reason is that commercially prepared soups contain lots of preservatives and cheap, often low-quality ingredients. Also if you cook at home, you can choose the best quality water and sea salt, which is important. Again, supermarket chains often save money on using the cheapest table salt and most likely regular tap water which is far from being the purest water you can get.
Dinner
Although I like the proverb “Eat your breakfast yourself, share your lunch with a friend, and give your dinner to your enemy”, I totally understand that not all people can skip their dinner, especially in the beginning. It is hard to get fat on this diet, so do not worry about eating as much as you want.
My recommendation for dinner is to have some sort of a soup too, it can be the same one you had for lunch. In this case you save time cooking. You are free to skip on smoothies, which is what we usually do. I personally do not like eating smoothies in the evening, unless it is a small amount.
Irregular eating and meal skipping
Again, it is not good to put too much pressure on yourself to follow everything mentioned in this book precisely. Especially in the beginning, you might want to eat more or less of the foods mentioned.
You may want to skip breakfast, lunch or dinner, you may want to eat in between meals or have a late-night smoothie. It is all fine, nobody blames you for doing this and you should not feel bad about that. Every diet change requires adaptation time, especially if you are switching from something completely different.
Meal skipping serves as a form of intermittent fasting. Basically you are giving your body a chance to relax and recuperate from the hard work of digestion.
Summary
In this article I tried to give you helpful information regarding what foods you can eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. While I just touched the surface, I strongly believe that a good diet must be simple.
Even simple foods provide an abundance of nutrition – the simpler the better. Yeah, I know that the agricultural and pharmaceutical businesses are trying to make money and they want us to consume as much of everything as possible. Do not be fooled by anyone, your body knows better what you need. If you do not feel hungry it does not mean you still need to religiously have your meal on time.
I am not here to convince you to stop believing in all the scientific research, but I can tell you that there are plenty of people of older age on an extremely simple menu for years. They do not consume any dietary supplements – all natural and simple. This is something to think about. You can read about it if you search the web for the so-called “blue zones”.