Somehow a decision to try making my own pizza from scratch last weekend evolved into a nutrition lifestyle experiment involving eating pizza every day. It was an acknowledgement of my love of pizza, my enjoyment of cooking, and my amazement at how easy it was to make pizza. As I made the pizza, I also started to rethink it. Is it really a “junk food”? How can it be when the ingredients are flour, yeast, salt, olive oil, a very small touch of sugar, tomatoes, basil, garlic, pepper, cheese and toppings. This is not unhealthy stuff.

Topping selection certainly can affect healthfulness, but if you make it yourself, you can control that. The other challenge with pizza is that it is calorically very dense. Dough is dense; as is cheese. And if you use things like sausage and olives as toppings, it doesn’t take a large pizza to deliver a large meal.

As I pondered the ingredients, I wondered: Was it possible to eat pizza every day without affecting my physical goals? I don’t have any aspirations for six pack abs and am quite content with a bit of “padding”, so long as it doesn’t interfere with my ability to enjoy playing my favourite sports or affect my confidence in how I look.

I realized it would be fun to find out, so I embarked on this “research project”. The response from Facebook suggests that I am not alone in wishing for the freedom to eat pizza daily.

I am now halfway into my second week of the project and already there have been some interesting observations:

1. 1. My new pizza serving size is smaller than my normal pizza serving size. It would seem that knowing there will be another one tomorrow reduces any need to get what I can now. Or maybe it’s that making it myself means I’m only putting the appropriate serving size in front of me. I’ve never been one of those people who only eats half of some delicious meal and saves the other half for another meal. If it’s delicious and it’s in front of me, it won’t be there for long. But home-made means I can make a normal sized serving.
   2. I tend to snack when I’m bored, or when I have something I’m trying to avoid (yes, I do that). So far, I have done none of that. No unnecessary snacking, and no desires for junk foods. Because I know I’m having pizza later, I feel a desire to eat extra well the rest of the time.
   3. If I’m going to succeed with this, I have to be careful about my topping choices. Realistically, this means limiting meat and olives. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with either, but both pack a lot of calories, which will likely put me over the edge.

1. 1. I’m going to limit toppings to no more than three, preferably two (not including cheese and sauce). I think this just makes sense from a love it, don’t smother it perspective. I think it’s going to take a while to figure out what combinations are the best from an I love this! and a this is still healthy perspective. More research!
   2. I need to keep an eye on the cheese quantity. Not “no self-respecting pizza-lover would make this” low – the point is delicious and healthy pizza, not ruining pizza. I think the key will be following the concept of Minimum Effective Dose, or in this case, Minimum Delicious Cheese. I think experimenting with different types of cheese may lead to great things here. Not all cheese is created equal.
   3. I am trying to sort out what is an appropriate serving size. I know it has to fit in with my overall daily nutrition, but I’m not sure how just yet. It will take me some time to figure out what portion of my daily menu should be taken up by the pizza, both from an enjoyment and a satiety perspective. I started using a nutrition tracker to help sort that out, and will continue to do so until I have a better idea. So far my pizza servings have stuck between 420 and 585 calories, and a macronutrient breakdown in the range of 50-60% carbohydrate, 17-22% protein, and 18-27% fat. Not bad!

1. I bought a digital kitchen scale to help with this. It’s too hard to eyeball the portion of the package to get an idea of how much cheese I’m using and my analog scale is very hard to read accurately.
2. I’ve had a side serving of vegetables with each pizza this week, because veggies are amazing. I have decided to make this a mandatory accessory.
3. Even though I’m calling it My Daily Pizza project (I even bought the url. Not even joking. Nothing there yet, but maybe soon.), I’m not going to literally have pizza every day. Not because I worry it won’t be healthy, but because I don’t want pizza-making to feel like a chore, and as it turns out I do actually like other foods. Last week I had pizza five days, and this week looks like it will be four of five days of pizza.
4. Once the dough and sauce are made, it is actually remarkably quick to make the pizza. And making the sauce and dough on Sunday is really not that much work either. I’m still a bit surprised at how easy it is.
5. I think my body is doing well from this challenge, but it’s too soon to tell. I haven’t actually weighed myself in months, and I don’t really have an interest in starting. I’m generally happier when I don’t weigh myself regularly. Molly Galbraith of Girls Gone Strong had a great line in a presentation at the Women’s Fitness Summit last year (might be slightly paraphrased): “Should you weigh yourself? Does weighing yourself make you a crazy person? If yes, then no.” It turns out I am closer to the yes than the no end of that spectrum. Instead I’m keeping track of my results based more on observations: how well my clothes fit, how I look in the regular exercise videos I record, and how well I perform at the gym and on the ski slopes, ultimate field, and tennis court. So far so good, but it has been less than two weeks. Once again – more research!

I’ll report back in another week or so. In the meantime, have any pizza options you’d like to suggest?

Elsbeth Vaino, B.Sc., CSCS, is a personal trainer at Custom Strength in Ottawa, Canada and a believer that it is possible to eat food that is both delicious and healthy.