How this Fast Diet Lifestyle works: Eat these meals tomorrow, for a calorie total of less than 600. On another day this week, eat the meals from a different post, another day of eating 600 calories or less. Eat sensibly the other days five of the week. That’s it. Simple way to lose weight and be healthier.

If you watched television adverts [especially for the evening news] during the past several decades, you might think that there had been a sudden plague of constipation — unlike anything seen before. In truth, many of the remedies described in ancient herbals were for the promotion of bowel movements. Two major causes of this condition are: increasing age [the micro-biota are not working as well] and poor diet. By poor diet, I mean a diet low in fiber, high in simple carbs — like the S.A.D. [Standard American Diet]. Poor diet decreases the health of the micro-biota that help us to digest our food. To help yourself to stay regular, you need to pay attention to fiber. By varying our diet and adding fiber, we improve the micro-biota, which helps us to be healthy and to maintain a healthy weight. How much fiber do you need? Around 30 grams per day.* Eat more vegetables, more fruit, more whole grains — there’s a good plan! *DO NOT jump to that level all at once. Build up to it gradually over several days to give the micro-biota a chance to accommodate to it.

In our family, we ‘keep the trains running’ by having an emulsion of dark green leafy vegetables every day. In plain speech, a vegetable smoothie at lunch. Yes, even on a Fast Day. As Maintainers [our weight is where we want it to be and it is stable], we can allow ourselves the extra calories, especially since it is for a good purpose. The micro-biota just love to digest pureed greens. My Primary Care Physician was giddy about the ingredients of the Green Milk, and how it provides greens, fruit, and Calcium.

Green Milk: 145 calories 0.6 g fat 3 g fiber 10 g protein 25 g carbs 340 mg Calcium  PB GF I drink this for lunch daily because it tastes really yummy.  HINT: When I have fresh greens, I make up kits [everything but the milk] in 1-cup jars and freeze them.

8 oz skimmed milk ½ oz dates, cut into 4 pieces [deglet noor have fewer calories than medjool] 1 oz spinach/Swiss chard, fresh or frozen

Put everything in the blender/VitaMix/container suitable for using with an immersion blender. Whirl on low speed at first, to break up the ingredients, then at the speed that will pulverize everything to a lovely shade of green. Makes 1.5 cups.

Sludgie: 169 calories 0.2 g fat 5.7 g fiber 2.7 g protein 26.6 g carbs 78 mg Calcium  PB GF From the name, you would think it was just awful – a real ‘hold your nose and drink’ sort of thing. The name is an affectionate nod to the unlovely color and the slow-pouring viscosity. As part of lunch, this is really quite palatable.  HINT: This makes 3 cups. Serve one cup/day.

2 oz kale/spinach/Swiss chard, fresh or frozen 2 oz bananas 2 oz figs or prunes or a mixture, each cut into 4 pieces 2-½ c tomato juice

Put everything into a Vita-Mix [or use the immersion blender] and blend it until it is smooth and uniform in color. HINT: When I get fresh greens, I make up as many one-quart kits as I can and freeze what I don’t need that day or the next. Handy.

Ingredients for next week: Breakfast, single portion for Monday ………………………….. single portion for Thursday:

1 two-oz egg + strawberries	1.5 two-oz eggs
salt cod + herb savory	zucchini + peach
mashed potatoes or potato flakes	mixed fresh herbs
Cheddar or ADL cheese	Jarlsberg cheese
Optional smoothie	optional smoothie
optional hot beverage	optional hot beverage

Dinner, single portion for Monday: ……………………………….. single portion for Thursday:

ground bison meat + blueberries	zucchini + feta cheese
coleslaw + Worcestershire	egg + dill weed + parsley
garlic powder + Dijon mustard	white whole wheat flour + self-rising flour
Martin’s potato slider buns + egg white	tomato + plain yogurt + shrimp
Sparkling water	Sparkling water