Merlin Star's Website

Not to worry my current subscribers, but I am trying out a new diet that accommodates my disability. To soothe your worries, it’s not some woo diet, fatphobic, or a sign that I’m about to become insufferable. With that out of the way, I want to talk about this and why I’m doing it.

Most diets don’t work for me (and if you look on studies, most diets don’t work for most folks.) For me, what derailed me from sticking to a diet was mostly on the fact that not only did most of them not account for my food sensitivities, but that most of them want you to cook quite often and that would fail whenever my energy levels inevitably dipped from a chronic flareup. So what I have decided to do is to make a diet that accommodates both my food sensitives and my energy levels while still taking care of my body the best that I can. I first decided to divided food up into tiers of effort it takes to cook. Down below are the efforts I divided my food into:

High effort tier: When I’m at high energy levels. This will include food that takes more than 3 to 4 steps to make, like vegetarian tacos. I plan to make food that uses this much energy 20 to 33% of the time. I know, wide range, but I can’t always predict what energy level I’ll be at. Also, much of the high effort food lasts for days, so I shouldn’t have to cook too often in this category.

Low effort tier: When I am at low energy levels, but am not bedbound / nearly bedbound. This will include meals that take at most 3 to 4 steps to make and can be done in under 10 minutes. This would include baked beans, mac and cheese, and other simple meals. These are meals that I plan to do about half the time. Much of the time, I simple do not have the effort to do a more involved meal.

No energy tier: This is when I am bedbound or nearly bedbound and need to stay in bed. This would include fast food delivered to me, frozen meals, and other suck things that require little to no energy. This is what I plan to do for the remaining percent of the time. Hopefully this will not happen often, but you never know.

I am currently vegetarian, so I will not be using any meat products. I will be taking a daily iron supplement for my anemia. I will also be taking a potassium supplement once every 2 weeks since my potassium levels tend to be low, but not dangerously so. I also got myself a bunch of snacks I can use for any tier of energy, but will especially be helpful for low tier and no tier energy. I have also divided my food up into protein heavy, sodium heavy, and neither. This might seem like an unusual schema, but it’s a schema that works for me, especially since I tend to run low on iron, protein, and sodium. Before you go there, I have issues with digesting most meats and I was anemic even on an omnivore diet. In fact, my anemia has improved since switching to vegetarian. What works for one may not work for another. Please don’t tell me to eat meat.

I will be limiting myself to 1 2 liter soda a week in terms of soda. I’ll be mostly drinking water, orange juice, apple juice, grape juice, and other stuff. Besides the snacks, I’ll also be limiting myself to one premade dessert a week. I told myself that if I want to try other desserts that it would have to go into the high effort tier food and preferably be a dessert that I haven’t tried before. That helps expand the options that I can cook and I get to try something new!

I notably wanted to avert doing a complete restriction on sweets because not only do I have a massive sweet tooth but said aversions are usually rooted in fatphobia and tend to demean many cultures. That is particularly why I want to start making simple desserts from other cultures. I am not a chef (nor do I have the aptitude or skill), but I can cook some stuff.

I originally was going to start doing this Jan 1st, but you know apartment with no running water ruined that. I needed to give myself some time to adjust to the place that I moved to and not change too many things at once and cause myself to have a mental breakdown from too much change. Hopefully with this diet change my energy levels will be consistently higher.