What happens when you get on The Spartan Diet
How the Spartan Diet may change your body and your life.
The Spartan Diet exists to transform your life; to optimize your diet and lifestyle for maximum health, maximum energy — to live a maximum life. These changes take place over the long term. But depending on your existing diet and lifestyle, immediate changes are likely to take place.
There’s no mystery to this transformation. The so-called “standard American diet,” or “SAD,” is highly inflammatory and significantly incompatible with human biology.
The Spartan Diet, on the other hand, is extremely anti-inflammatory, and perfectly compatible with human biology.
It's not controversial to say that our most common diseases — diabetes, asthma, arthritis, obesity, cancer, inflammatory bowel disease and many others — are directly caused by diet and lifestyle. And, of course, inflammatory diseases like cardiovascular diseases and cancer are the leading cause of death in the United States. Most spending on healthcare is to treat mostly preventable diseases mainly caused by diet and lifestyle.
That's all well understood. But what's lost in the conversation is the fact that even people without any of these diseases are sustaining an unnatural inflammatory condition more or less all the time, which makes us feel and look far worse than we really should.
That's why getting on the Spartan Diet removes from your body the burden of diet-caused inflammation. It gives your body the nutrients it's missing. It supplies your digestive system with the conditions for thriving gut health, which boosts your immune system, which helps your body function best.
Everyone is different, and will respond differently to the Spartan Diet based on previous diet, lifestyle, age, gender and specific genetic makeup as well as individual health history. But I expect most people to experience a predictable set of transformations.
First, you'll feel physically lighter almost immediately -- physically and mentally! The Spartan Diet liberates you from the bad fats, sugar crashes and weird chemicals that create sluggishness and muscle weakness. You'll experience a new vitality and unusual mental clarity, which you'll continue to enjoy for as long as you stay on the Spartan Diet.
In fact, you're likely to notice that Spartan Diet meals themselves actually make you feel good. "Conventional" food has too much bad fat, salt, calories, sugar, additives and other ingredients your body wasn't designed to metabolize. As a result, most people feel some degree of grogginess, sluggishness, bloatedness or general weirdness after eating, and have become accustomed to these bad feelings of discomfort or even ailments. We have come to associate these feelings with the overall feeling of satiety. But after Spartan Diet meals, you'll feel satisfied and energized. And you’ll enjoy a much stronger immune system.
In the first few days, you may feel hunger, cravings and some restlessness, an echo from your previous industrial diet -- junk-food withdrawals. Your old habits and impulses will still be in play for a while, so you may occasionally feel the desire to binge-eat. After a week or so, you'll probably stop feeling regular intense cravings, and will become acclimated to a new feeling of overall well-being and physical comfort, lightness, clarity, energy and strength. Rather than getting on a daily roller coaster of highs and lows, food-induced lows replaced by caffeine- and sugar-induced highs, you should just feel consistently better than before, all the time. You'll probably sleep better and acquire a more positive outlook on life.
If you are overweight, you'll probably begin to lose weight immediately. The heavier you are, the faster you may lose the pounds. Whether overweight or underweight, you'll gain muscle strength.
The Spartan Diet combination of sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress management techniques, sunshine and weight-loss, as well as the elimination of various toxins, chemicals and drugs, will make you look more youthful and attractive. Your eyes may appear brighter, and your skin is likely to improve in color and texture. (Don't let it go to your head!)
You may also notice that people interact with you differently. Your posture and physical confidence will improve along with your appearance. Your new presence may be perceived by family, friends and co-workers, and they may respond accordingly.
Over time, you'll gradually feel stronger, quicker and more energetic. Rather than dreading exercise, you'll begin to crave it. The more exercise you get, the more you'll feel the need for it.
You'll cough less. You won't have to blow your nose as often, or at all. Your random headaches will likely stop or occur less and less frequently. Your bowel movements may become consistently softer, easier and quicker as well as more frequent. You will likely never experience constipation. Your hair and fingernails will probably grow stronger and faster.
You'll get sick less often and less severely. While others may be sidelined with the flu, or possibly get a devastating illness from a coronavirus or some other virus, you may find yourself feeling a little down for a couple days, then recover completely speedily. Or you may feel no symptoms at all. You'll might stop needing (and may wish to stop taking, in consultation with your doctor) pharmaceutical drugs for sleeplessness, anxiety, high blood pressure, fatigue and possibly pain, depending on what's causing it. You will likely experience improvements with any health issues, diseases and physical symptoms caused by whatever unhealthy lifestyle you previously had.
After a few months, your skill, knowledge and confidence about Spartan Diet food, cooking and meal preparation will grow, and you'll find it easy to select the best food and make meals from scratch.
All your senses will come alive. Food will taste better, and more complex and multi-dimensional. Your sense of smell will magnify and even your eyesight may improve. Your libido and overall sexual functions will pleasantly surprise you.
You will enter into a profound new relationship with food, and perhaps even the people who grow it. You may experience a new appreciation for the plants and animals that go into your food, and the people who farm, produce, gather and make it. You’ll realize how much more enjoyable it is to cook and eat homemade meals. You will discover how much better you feel eating your own homemade food than when you eat at restaurants or packaged food from the store.
All these changes will come gradually and subtly, and improvements will continue over time. In fact, you'll grow accustomed to the wonderful benefits of maximum health, and will notice them immediately when you stray from the diet. In that event, you'll suddenly be thrown back into your old feelings of bloat, weakness, fogginess, anxiety and generalized bad feelings. These will hit you harder after getting used to the feeling of vibrant good health.
I don't claim these benefits for all Spartan Dieters as every individual is genetically unique with a different set of environmental circumstances as well as personal habits and adherence to the diet. But these are the general transformations that have been reported to me by clients on the Spartan Diet Coaching Program, and by others who have embraced The Spartan Diet. - Amira Elgan
Recipe: White Bean Soup with Fresh Collard Greens
Wonderfully flavorful and full of immunity boosting nutrients, this bean soup will delight all your senses and give you lots of energy.
To paraphrase the Beatles: All I am saying is give beans a chance! The world of beans is complicated and controversial. But beans are delicious, nutritious and a wonderful and important part of a healthy diet — if you know how to prepare them. (Here’s how to prepare them.)
Nearly all beans can be used interchangeably for the same recipe. You can make my Spartan Diet Roasted Bison Chili Beans with white beans, black beans, chickpeas, adzuki, black eyed peas and even lentils! The same recipe made with different beans will delight you with completely different results in terms of flavors but they will all taste delicious.
Likewise, this White Bean Soup recipe, which calls for white beans, can be made with chickpeas, cannellini beans, mung beans, black eyed peas and other beans.