The Millennium Diet
Guidelines for the May Diet Challenge
This time around our diet challenge has changed a bit. Our food list has changed a little and we have changed the way we are awarding winners. In this challenge we will not be requiring you to post a daily food entry or a daily workout entry; you’re on your own for this one. Your goal is to take this program and this food list and use it on a daily basis in an effort to come as close as you can to following this list. We realize that nobody is perfect and this will be very hard for some people, therefore we are not awarding or deducting points for sticking or not sticking to this guide, your scores will be determined by your results at the end of the month. We will have winners in each class and an overall winner. Winners will be based on a percentage of body mass (pounds) lost and body fat lost. We have also done quite a bit of research in the world of nutrition in the past six months since our last challenge and have found some pretty incredible information, studies and facts. We have therefore tweaked the previous version of The Millennium Diet to what you see now.
This diet is based on a few diets that we’ve pulled bits and pieces from to make our own. This diet is based on the Paleo Diet, the Zone Diet and the South Beach Diet and we have also borrowed some things from the “Clean Eating Method”.
We like that the Paleo Diet is insistent on using the freshest and best quality ingredients that you can find, foods that are unprocessed, as well as using a lot of local ingredients. We are, however, not a big fan of the way their food lists are set up. They categorize foods as either allowed or not. We think that’s too strict (No beans or peanuts? Seriously?).
The Paleo diet is based on theories of how mankind ate 10,000 years ago during the Paleolithic time period, which is pre-agriculture so the diet is what the hunter/gatherer ate. The Zone Diet is much more balanced, but they require you to measure each part of your plate (40% vegetable, 30% this and 30% that). There are no foods that are totally off limits on the Zone diet but each food has a block and you need so many blocks of protein and so many blocks of carbs and so many blocks of fat per day and you have to compute what food is worth how many blocks and no one has time for that. They do say to get most of your carbs from fresh vegetables or whole grains. We like that. We also like low fat and low sugar diets. We have though, changed our views slightly on fat and have allowed a bit more of it into our diet as we are going further into a gluten free and grain free lifestyle, thus training our bodies to fuel itself on fat instead of carbohydrates. The process of your body running on fat is called ketosis.
So, when you lump all of the good pieces together, you get the Millennium Diet! We hope that you can continue on this diet for the rest of your life and that you can spread this diet to your friends and family and they keep spreading it to people they know, so we can all eat right for the rest of our lives and for the next millennium.
We emphasize lean cuts of meat: chicken and turkey breast (white meat, boneless and skinless), a few cuts of beef, fish, shrimp and other seafood, a lot of fresh vegetables (cooked properly), fresh fruits (either cooked or raw). We believe that totally eliminating an entire food group is neither a good idea nor feasible and is not a diet that can be maintained for a lifetime. We have a belief that when you are making a change in your diet you need to ask yourself if you can live with that change for the rest of your life and that if you can’t, you will not be able to maintain that change forever and you will most likely gain back the wait you lost during the time period you made the change. This diet is not only about what you should be eating, but a lot of it involves what you should not be eating and why. A big problem we often see is that people know they should not be eating certain foods that are not good for you, but they don’t know what to eat instead so they end up eating the bad foods anyway.
Completely outlawing or removing an entire food group is not a good idea and is not realistic. Sugar is not good for you and will make you fat if you consume it often so we take it out of our diet, but if you did have some sugar a few times a year it wouldn’t kill you. Complex carbs give us serious fuel to get through tough workouts so we don’t think it’s right to ban all carbs or an entire source of meat or any other food substance as a whole. Any time you take out an entire type of food your diet instantly becomes very hard to sustain and the more things you take out the harder it gets (being vegetarian is one of the few exceptions to this theory). We also believe in the theory of curtailing your carbohydrate intake as the day goes on and to have the majority of your carbs come from vegetables.
The other goal of this diet is to give you foods that will properly nourish your body to give you energy to exercise and have a strong and healthy body. The goal here is not just to lose weight and be thin; it is to be healthy.
Some people ask us for very specific details such as “how much should I eat?” as in how many ounces of fish they should have for a serving or an exact number of calories they should be consuming and truthfully we are not dieticians so we aren’t suppose to give you information like that and honestly, you need to learn to listen to your body. Check out the section towards the end about “Eating Habits” to read about common causes of overeating, you may follow some of them and not even realize it. You really do need to listen to your body, you need to realize when you’ve had too much food and you need to figure out how often you should be eating.
Since November of last year when we did our last Diet Challenge, we have changed some of our views on some food items…most of those views have changed towards the stricter side though. If you compare this list to the one we used last year, some things have changed. The biggest thing that has changed has been the movement of whole wheat products (which contain gluten, a common food allergy that most people have and don’t realize) from the OK list to the not so good list. We have also moved a lot of the low or non-fat dairy items from the OK list to the not so good list. There are many reasons behind this and you can read all about it in our upcoming Millennium Diet Manual.
On the next few pages you will find our food lists. We are also providing recipes for all three meals a day as well as snack ideas via the Facebook page; simply go into the discussions section and you will see a whole bunch of recipes for different meals and snacks. If you have questions regarding the food lists, ask us, we may have forgotten some things!
We don’t fully expect you to be able to follow this to the letter from day one, it has taken us two years of trial and error and research and slowly cutting things out of our diet to bring us to where we are now. Your goal should be to stick to this as best as you can and eventually this will become part of your lifestyle. We believe this is where many other diet programs fail; they are so strict or complicated and people try to completely change their lifestyle in 24 hours and it is so hard to do that they quit and give up and revert back to their old lifestyle.
DO NOT QUIT! Even if you falter, you get up, get back on track and you keep going. Eventually you will become so accustomed to this lifestyle that it will no longer be a “diet”, it will just be the way you live.
Again, we want you to be able to make this diet your own and make it a part of your lifestyle, so ask questions and have some fun with this challenge!
Good Foods
- Lean pork (trimmed of visible fat and no more than twice per week)
- Pork loin (trimmed of visible fat and no more than twice per week)
- Pork chops (trimmed of visible fat and no more than twice per week)
- Any other lean cut
- Lean poultry (white meat, boneless and skinless)
- Chicken breast
- Turkey breast
- Game hen breasts
- Rabbit meat (any cut)
- Goat meat (any cut)
- Beef, lamb, pork, and chicken livers
- Beef, pork, and lamb tongues
- Beef, lamb, and pork marrow
- Alligator
- Bear
- Bison (buffalo)
- Caribou
- Elk
- Emu
- Goose
- Kangaroo
- New Zealand cervena deer
- Ostrich
- Pheasant
- Quail
- Rattlesnake
- Reindeer
- Squab
- Turtle
- Venison
- Wild boar
- Wild turkey (white breast meat only)
- Bass
- Bluefish
- Cod
- Drum
- Eel
- Flatfish
- Grouper
- Haddock
- Halibut
- Herring
- Mackerel
- Monkfish
- Mullet
- Northern pike
- Orange roughy
- Perch
- Red snapper
- Rockfish
- Salmon
- Scrod
- Shark
- Striped bass
- Sunfish
- Tilapia
- Trout
- Tuna
- Turbot
- Walleye
- Any other commercially available fish
- Abalone
- Clams
- Crab
- Crayfish
- Lobster
- Mussels
- Oysters
- Scallops
- Shrimp
- Fruit (including frozen fruit)
- Apple
- Apricot
- Avocado
- Banana
- Blackberries
- Blueberries
- Boysenberries
- Cantaloupe
- Carambola
- Cassava melon
- Cherimoya
- Cherries
- Cranberries
- Figs
- Gooseberries
- Grapefruit
- Grapes
- Guava
- Honeydew melon
- Kiwi
- Lemon
- Lime
- Lychee
- Mango
- Nectarine
- Orange
- Papaya
- Passion fruit
- Peaches
- Pears
- Persimmon
- Plums
- Pomegranate
- Raspberries
- Rhubarb
- Star fruit
- Strawberries
- Tangerine
- Watermelon
- Artichoke
- Asparagus
- Beet greens
- Beets
- Bell peppers
- Broccoli
- Brussels sprouts
- Cabbage
- Carrots
- Cauliflower
- Celery
- Collards
- Cucumber
- Dandelion
- Eggplant
- Endive
- Green onions
- Kale
- Kohlrabi
- Lettuce
- Mushrooms
- Mustard greens
- Onions
- Parsley
- Parsnip
- Peppers (all kinds)
- Pumpkin
- Purslane
- Radish
- Rutabaga
- Seaweed
- Spinach
- Squash (all kinds)
- Swiss chard
- Tomatillos
- Tomato (actually a fruit, but most people think of it as a vegetable)
- Turnip greens
- Turnips
- Watercress
- All other vegetables
- Lentils
- Almonds
- Brazil nuts
- Cashews
- Chestnuts
- Hazelnuts (filberts)
- Macadamia nuts
- Pecans
- Pine nuts
- Pistachios (unsalted)
- Pumpkin seeds
- Sesame seeds
- Sunflower seeds
- Walnuts
- This includes butters (peanut butter, almond butter, etc.)
- Eggs (chicken, quail, ostrich, duck, goose, no more than 4-5 per week)
- Dried fruits
- All beans
- All vegetables
- Seasonings (excludes salt)
- Crystal Light (or similar) drink mixes
- Coffee (black only, unless Stevia is used)
- Tea (plain)
- Almond milk
- Mustard (mustard is one of the few condiments that has very little or no fat)
- Stevia sweetener
OK Foods
These are foods that can be eaten in moderation.
- Lean Meats (These meats, mostly red meat, should not be eaten more than once a week. Eating even the leanest cut of beef more than once or twice per week is not good for your heart or arteries in our opinion.)
o Lean beef (trimmed of visible fat)
o Flank steak
o Top sirloin steak
o Extra-lean hamburger (no more than 7% fat, extra fat drained off)
o London broil
o Chuck steak
o Lean veal
- Salt (Yes, salt is on the “OK” list… IN MODERATION! The biggest causes of the terrible high sodium diet that at fault for so many health problems is eating out and eating packaged and processed foods, so if you cut those two things out of your life as much as possible you will cut down your sodium intake considerably. When using salt at home, use it very sparingly and only use sea salt. Iodized salt is made in a factory, sea salt comes from…well the sea of course. Sea salt is just more natural and tastes far better and you won’t need as much to get the flavor so use it in very small amounts.)
- Oils (Olive, peanut, canola, grapeseed, coconut and avocado are fine but in moderation so no more than 4 tablespoons per day.)
- Sweet potato
- Low sodium soy sauce
- Honey
- Whole grains and products made from whole wheat
- Brown rice
- Dark chocolate (IN VERY, VERY, VERY LIMITED QUANTITIES! The chocolate is good for you but any sugar that has been added is not!)
- Light salad dressings that are not cream based
Not so Good Foods
These are foods that you should avoid most of the time. If you eat something on this list a couple times a year, definitely not more than once a month, it’s not the end of the world. It’s ok if you do have these foods once a month or so but consider it an indulgence. You will notice a lot of dairy products on this list for variety of reasons but the biggest reason is that you simply are not suppose to be consuming milk and dairy products. Many athletes believe that the consumption of dairy products can make you slow and sluggish. Dairy products usually have a fairly high fat content, which is also what puts them on this list. The two most common food allergies are lactose (dairy) and wheat (gluten), yet a diet high in dairy products and whole wheat products are advertised, marketed and pushed onto the public and onto our children in schools. Celiac disease (allergy to wheat gluten) affects 1 in 105 people in the United States and lactose intolerance affects almost 75% of the World’s population to some degree. About 12% of European Americans, 75% of African Americans, 90% of Asian Americans, 53% of Hispanic Americans and 100% of Native American Indians are lactose intolerant. Fruit Juice (Because it has a ton of sugar in it and it does not contain the high fiber content that the fruit it came from has.)
- Whole grains and products made from whole wheat or anything with wheat gluten in it
- White, red or yellow potatoes
- Pineapple (the sugar content is just too high to be eaten on a regular basis)
- White rice
- Ketchup, Mayonaise, BBQ sauce and most other condiments
- Diet sodas (diet sodas usually have more sodium and may also contain artificial sweeteners that are not good for the blood stream or the brain)
- Cream or dairy based soups, dips and dressings
- Corn and anything made from corn (corn has a lot of sugar in it, think about it, it’s what they make high fructose corn syrup from)
Foods to Avoid
These are foods you should avoid at all costs. Again you will see quite a few dairy products on this list, these are the full fat dairy products that should, for the most part, never be consumed.
- Soda & soft drinks & most sports drinks & sweet tea
- Alcohol
- Candy
- Milk and white chocolate
- Most processed foods
- Processed foods containing dairy products
- Butter (Real butter. Butter is made from cream and fat from cow’s milk and does not contain a large amount of lactose, but enough to bother some people. It really makes this list due to it’s fat content. There is a legitimate argument that it is better for you than processed butter substitutes that have preservatives and additives in it. Some butter once in awhile is also good for people who, like myself, have removed so much fat from their diet that they need to put some fat back into it and this is a good place to start even though it is not the best kind of fat for you)
- Cheese
- Cream
- Dairy spreads (cream cheese or other cheese spreads)
- Frozen yogurt
- Low-fat milk (1% and 2%)
- Nonfat dairy creamer
- Powdered milk
- Yogurt
- Any processed food containing HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup; this is tough because almost any packaged and processed food product has HFCS in it, those commercials that say “it’s ok in moderation” are complete bullshit)
- Pastries made with full fat dairy ingredients and processed white flour and processed sugar or corn syrup
- Dairy products
- Canned or processed or packaged fruit (as it is usually packed in syrup or has sugar and preservatives added)
- Regular soy sauce
- Processed or cured or canned meat
- Liverwurst
- Bologna
- Ham
- Bacon
- Livermush
- Patte of any kind
- Hot dogs (most hot dogs, unless they are 100% natural and low fat)
- Fatty cuts of meat
- Bacon
- Beef ribs
- Chicken and turkey legs
- Chicken and turkey skin
- Chicken and turkey thighs and wings
- Fatty beef roasts
- Fatty cuts of beef
- Fatty ground beef
- Fatty pork chops
- Fatty pork roasts (such as pork butt)
- Lamb chops
- Lamb roasts
- Leg of lamb
- Pork ribs
- Pork sausage
- T—bone steaks
- Anything deep fried
Eating Habits
This is an area that we kind of left out of the last challenge and we will be incorporating the information and suggestions we have for you here into our upcoming manual. Some people (myself included) have some pretty bad eating habits, and I’m not just talking about what they are eating but how they are cooking it and when they are eating and also how they are eating their food.
Eating too quickly is a very common problem and one that I have a very hard time with. I have always eaten very quickly and it takes a large amount of mental effort to slow down. I take large bites of food and I don’t slow down. This isn’t just gross and rude to those you are eating with but it also allows you to overeat and consume far too much food than you really need to. I’ve read lots of tricks to slowing down, eat a few bites and then put down your silverware, try to carry on a conversation with someone (but don’t talk with a mouthful of food) are the two most common ways I have read on how to slow down and both work fairly well. To be honest, this is habit that is just tough to break and is something you just need to be conscious of and make every effort to curtail. It is easiest, in my opinion, to eat slower when you eat with someone else. If you are eating with someone else, try to put down your silverware and talk after every few bites and, what I do, try to finish your meal around the same time as the other person. I do everything quickly, including eating, but you need to slow down. It takes 20-30 minutes for your brain to realize that your stomach is full, so if you eat a huge pile of food in 5 minutes you can stuff in way more than you need before your brain realizes what’s going on, so try to take at least 15 minutes to eat your meal, unless it’s a snack like an apple. Slow down, savor your food, enjoy your meal.
Skipping meals is another common mistake people make. Breakfast is probably the most commonly skipped meal and is the most important meal of the day and if you skip it you are sure to never lose weight and keep it off. Skipping meals may drop a few pounds here and there but the instant you eat again you will gain it right back. You should be eating five to six smaller meals per day instead of two or three huge meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner and two to three snacks is fine. If you wait to eat until your stomach is turning and your brain is screaming “I’M STARVING!”, then you have waited too long and your body is metabolizing itself and you are now eating your own muscle, muscles that should be used to burn off fat but is instead being depleted so now you have less of it and thus have lowered your ability to burn fat throughout the day. The problem then comes when you do finally get to a plate of food, you eat too much because you have ravines hunger pains and want to satisfy them quickly (this also contributes to eating too quickly). The other problem is that when you skip meals, you actually slow down your bodies metabolism, sending you into “caveman mode” where your body thinks you are going into a cave to hibernate and starts holding onto every once of stored fat you have instead of burning it and when you get to your next meal your body will hold onto that meal longer instead of burning through it. Imagine, you could lose weight by eating more! Really you will lose weight by eating more often, not by eating more food. This does not mean you can snack or graze on food all day long, your meals need to broken up by breaks, roughly about three hours long. Some people tell me that they don’t have time to take a break at work which is bullshit, if you can make time to go to the bathroom then you can grab a handful of almonds, or a small bag of carrots or an apple and if your boss wants to bitch then tell them to bitch at the people outside taking smoke breaks who are driving up the company’s health insurance premiums.
Dirty cooking. I love take out Chinese food, who doesn’t?! We like to eat what we call “dirty Chinese”, as in take out food from a whole in the wall restaurant. It’s pretty rare that we have this type of food anymore, it’s a special treat and only happens a few times a year now compared to the few times a month we use to eat it when we were super unhealthy. Dirty cooking is when you load up you food with fat, sodium and simple carbs by cooking it in an unhealthy manner. Deep frying anything is a dirty method. Breading anything is a dirty method. Drowning food in most store bought sauces, dips and coatings is a dirty method. Adding tons of salt and sugar is a dirty method. The cleanest way to eat food is raw, but this of course only works for fruits, veggies and certain other foods. One of the cleanest ways you can cook food is by seasoning it and grilling it, but not everyone has grill skills. Steaming your food is another excellent way of cooking clean. Simply sautéing food in a pan with a couple tablespoons of good oil is another clean method. Baked or broiled meats, seafood, veggies and fruits also fall under the clean method so long as they aren’t baked or broiled in a dish filled with butter or sugar or some dirty sauce.
If I were to boil this diet down to a few key points it would look something like this:
EAT SLOWER. EAT FIVE TO SIX SMALLER MEALS PER DAY. DON’T SKIP MEALS. COOK CLEAN.
NATURAL. Try to eat as naturally as possible, the less packaging and the shorter the ingredient list, the better.
HIGH PROTEIN – LOW FAT. High protein from lean meats with as little fat content as possible, try to eat naturally fed, hormone free and cage free or free roaming meats, poultry and wild caught fish and seafood.
FRUITS AND VEGGIES. Lots of fruits and veggies; darker colored veggies and fruits are best. If you are going to eat the outside or the skin, go for organic, if you are going to peel the skin off then don’t worry about it.
NUTS AND SEEDS. Nuts and seeds; just be careful with the nuts as they are very calorie dense and you can eat over 1,000 calories with just a few handfuls of nuts and dried fruit. Nut butters, all natural, the ingredient list should only have one item; again, high calorie, so watch out, but they are excellent for a little snack.
NO DAIRY. You are not a calf, get off the teet!
NO ALCOHOL. Alcohol is a poison, the human body doesn’t like poison.
NO HFCS. High fructose corn syrup is in almost everything so this is tough but it seriously will make you fat. It is made with some horrible chemicals that seriously poisonous and deadly.
NO WHEAT GLUTEN. Gluten free does not mean carb free, so look out for items that are touted as being “gluten free” but still have a ton of carbs. You want to try and be as grain free as possible.
Again, I know this is not going to be easy, but nothing that is good in this life comes easily or without some hard work. If you can come as close to making this a part of your lifestyle as possible, I promise you will see results. And seriously people, you can do anything for 30 days! I am confident that all of you can attempt this and succeed!
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