So, I'm 2.5 months in to this thing, and have probably gone over 20 carbs a day 10 times, and 50 carbs in a day about 4 times. I haven't caved in and had a whole pizza or a bowl of pasta or anything like that even once.
I'm down 17lbs.
I'm digging it, tons of good food, have changed habits, learned a ton of new recipes for side dishes and overall it's been pretty easy. I could see keeping this lifestyle up permanently.
I thought I'd miss beer, but don't, also thought I'd miss bread and pasta more than I do.
I just started an altered form of the potato diet on Monday that Penn from Penn and Teller and Kevin Smith both used to the quickly lose 100+lbs and have to say I’ve been impressed with the results so far. Basically the principal is that 5 days a week you eat nothing but a five ounce serving of a lean protein and as many potatoes cooked without fat as possible. On those five days I’m supplementing my diet with collagen, high EPA fish oil, benefiber, gummies (multivitamin, extra fiber, extra c and calcium), pills (turmeric, green tea extract, garlic, cayenne, cinnamon, Japanese knotweed/resveratrol, coQ-10, and bilberry) and some dried with most sugar removed beet powder. You do that for five days and the sixth day you eat whatever you want but watching calories to match your maintenance level of calories and then the seventh day you feast and eat an amount that would have you gain a half pound. So basically in essence it’s a semi fast for 5 days with two days of eating and it should work out to losing a healthy two pounds a week (you should lose 2.5 during the fast and gain back a half on the feast day).
So far it’s worked fantastic, best diet I’ve been on and I haven’t even reached the feast portion yet. 3 days in and my measurable weight is down 11.5 lbs (yes, most of that’s BS “water weight” aka cleaning the gut and lessening inflammation from bad eating, but I’m guessing 2-3lbs is real fat) but with exercising at a high level on top and me eating only 600-700 calories a day it should be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3/4 to a full pound of actual fat loss per day. But the best parts haven’t been the weight loss but the energy levels (despite taking in very few calories they’ve been through the roof) and the lack of inflammation (suddenly my old shoulder pain which I believe is arthritis from old HS baseball injuries has 100% disappeared as well as mild lower and middle back pain I was getting just from being fat). And the eating almost exclusively potatoes thing hasn’t been THAT bad. I’m not a huge potato fan to start with, but we’ve been able to slightly vary it up by boiling, nuking, making hash browns with no fat on a nonstick griddle, making no fat “waffles” in a waffle maker etc...and then varying the spices or dousing it in vinegar (which is allowable).
So the positives so far are:
1) Quick and healthy weight loss
2) A disappearance of all inflammation and the chronic pain from it
3) Very high energy levels leading to great workouts as well as work during the day
4) I’m never hungry despite only eating between 700-850 calories a day
5) Should be getting all of the micro and macro nutrients I need thanks to supplementation and lean protein
6) My mood is better for some reason, I’m normally a very even keeled, content but calm person. Now for some reason I’m actually bright and cheerful to the point my wife was wondering what the heck happened. Even my subordinates that don’t know about the diet asked why I was suddenly smiling a lot more.
7) I still get to talk about and look forward to eating “bad foods” during the weekend as long as I keep it SOMEWHAT under control.
To slightly offset that the negatives are:
1) Lots of supplements, including a few that are relatively pricy.
2) I will probably learn to hate potatoes, I definitely do not want French fries or poutine this weekend.