Diet schmiet

Why are all the diets so different, and why are they all so confusing?

The Sonoma Diet would have me eat a ton of whole wheat (and other whole grains). So yesterday I bought some breakfast cereal that fitted in with the diet's requirements (must have at least 8 grams of fiber per serving, must be whole grain, etc), but as I was eating it this morning, it just seemed wrong to me. Apart from the fact that I am just not a breakfast cereal eater, that is, having given it up many years ago in favor of eggs, Ezekiel bread toast, oatmeal or fruit and yogurt, which are my normal breakfast selections. I mean, so many people say that wheat is bad for you, that even if you don't have celiac disease or any obvious sign of wheat intolerance, it can still be damaging your intestines. So why would I add more wheat to my diet? I mean, pasta is supposed to be evil, and I'm supposed to be drastically cutting down my pasta intake and only having it in wholewheat form. But then they want me to add more wheat for breakfast? Odd. To me, wheat should be a once-every-few-days kind of thing if we're talking eating healthily.

And cereals are just so sugary. Even the organic, super healthy, stuffed full of bran, high fiber stuff that I picked up. It was sweet. It had honey and other sweeteners in it. Somehow it all seems counterproductive. Why have all that healthy stuff and then make it so sugary? Sure, make it palatable, but it seemed far too sweet to me. Or is that just because I'm out of the habit of eating breakfast cereals? Maybe this one really isn't sugary, and my taste buds are just picking it up more than the average person? But then again, I've eaten an amount of ice cream lately that is approximately equal to the weight of a small cow, so you'd think I'd be used to sugary-ness.

Also, in the Sonoma Diet they want you to have only fat free milk for the first "Wave" of the diet, and only with your cereal. But milk is another thing I gave up, as it's supposed to be much harder to digest than yogurt or cheese. [OK, let's ignore the obvious ice cream and Starbucks iced chai aberrations here, I mean, when I am in my right mind and being healthy I don't eat any dairy other than yogurt or cheese.] So I had kefir on my cereal this morning instead of milk, flagrantly breaking the diet rules. But why would they want you to avoid yogurt to start with? Surely milk has more lactose, and therefore more sugar, which is what they really want you to stop eating on this diet. And yogurt has all those lovely bacteria which you are supposed to have every day. So why ban it in the first diet phase? All very confusing. I guess I'll finish the box of cereal that I bought, and then won't buy any more.

Somehow, I don't think me and this diet are going to have a very long relationship. At least, not in its pure form. I cooked a good Sonoma Diet meal yesterday for dinner, although I had a glass of wine with it, which you're not supposed to do until "Wave 2" of the diet. But hey, I've just had a failed IVF. I'm entitled to a glass of wine with dinner, damn it.

I think I'm going to have to go back to the old standby of the "Sarah makes it up as she goes along" diet. I think I need to trust my instincts as to what's healthy for my body, and I don't think eating whole wheat breakfast cereals is it. Or eating a ton of protein in the form of processed soy products, which the Sonoma Diet suggests if you don't want to get your protein in the form of meat or eggs. I don't think processed soy is good for my hormonal balance.

In TTC news, well, there is none. Starting to feel a bit depressed about all this, but I think that's normal. I think this cycle's failure is sinking in slowly, spread out over a week or so, rather than hitting me all at once. Somehow my brain knows that it needs to process this bit by bit as a protective measure, otherwise it will be too much to handle at one time, and I'll panic and go back to the ice cream badness. If it helps you laugh though, I did wonder this morning if I was really pregnant. I mean, I've had a negative blood test for Gawd's sake. But the nurse told me to call if I don't get my period in a week, and they've never said that before. Why do they care if I don't get my period quickly? So then I started wondering if I'd really had a very low positive beta, but they told me it was negative because they expected it to not be viable. And of course I was daydreaming of not getting my period and going in for another pregnancy test and having that one miraculously turn out to be positive. Hahahahaha. It seems that hope can't be completely squashed by good hard scientific evidence!