Since my Last Entry

It's been a while since my last entry. The main reason for that is because I went off of the diet. At the moment, my wife and I live with her parents. Between the four of us, I was the only person in the whole house eating according to the Slow Carb Diet. After probably 10 days of preparing separate meals (usually the same one over and over again) I had had enough. I didn't go and gorge myself on everything I could find, but I also didn't really pay attention to what I was eating. Since the end of the diet, I have started to re-evaluate how I've had success in the past with weight loss, or changing my body in general. The greatest success I had came during the last two months of my first deployment to Iraq. I've been trying to do everything I can to duplicate the results. Unfortunately, I don't quite have the money to afford the insane amount of food I used to eat (a couple of hours after breakfast until dinner, I used to eat a small snack on the hour every hour).

Why am I mentioning past eating habits? First, because I've had success with it in the past. Secondly, and more importantly, because instead of trying to adhere to a diet that is frustratingly strict I am trying to copy my previous "diet". What was this magical diet that had so much success in the past, you might ask? I'm sure that you've all seen it at one point in time. It was the old food guide pyramid - not that new garbage that's been put out with the sideways pyramid. The new one is stupid. I'm talking about the old one with the grains at the bottom, with fats and sugars at the very top. I basically followed the food guide pyramid, trying to eat the MINIMUM recommended amount from each food group every day (with the exception of meats. I probably at the maximum amount of meats). Because I was trying to eat the MINIMUM of every single food group minus the "dessert" part of the pyramid, I was eating almost constantly all day. That was the reason for eating nearly every hour!

So, basically I've given up on the Slow Carb Diet because it was torture being in the same house with three other people eating regular food. The change, however, is something much more sustainable. At least I think it is. I'm doing my best to eat fewer starches, and normally I try to eat those in the morning. I eat some fruit, but that's because I have sweet tooth. But, for the most part I'm still eating a majority of meats and vegetables. Now that I'm not restricting myself to only certain food groups, I don't find myself prowling around the kitchen looking at all the stuff I can't eat. The long and short of it is, that it might take a little longer to reach my goals, but I believe that it will be a lifestyle change that can be maintained rather than a quick way to lose weight.

The highly anticipated, yet simultaneously dreaded first "cheat day" has come and gone. I had already prepared myself to see the numbers on the scale go back up. I knew it would be a lot, but not a much as I had lost. Sure enough, I stepped on the scale yesterday morning and weighed in at 201. I had gained 6 of the 12 pounds I had lost. At first, I wasn't too happy with this. I was hoping to at least say under the 200 lb range. But, when I stopped to consider that most people tell you that you can only lose 1-2 lbs per week, I was pretty damn excited. In one week, I had lost 12 lbs, and gained half of it back in a day. Total loss for the week, 6 lbs. That's freaking amazing! And, now that I've experienced a day focused solely around eating, the next coming cheat day won't be nearly as excessive. I'm still going to eat things that I'm not allowed to, but it's going to be regular portions. I'm not going to eat the super gigantic meals followed by snacking just because I could. So, I'm expecting similar weight loss results this week, but less damage the next time I step on the scale.

Along with my hopes and expectations for this coming week, I got a real confidence booster this morning. As my manner has become, I stepped onto the scale first thing this morning and found that I was down to 199. It seems that after going back to eating according to the diet I'm losing 1-2 lbs a day again. It's funny, because every time I go to weigh in I'm crossing my fingers, just praying that the numbers are going down. Why? Mainly, it's because I want to see some tangible results from the effort that I'm putting into this. That's why I step on the scale every single morning. When I see that I am constantly reaping the benefits of eating such a strict diet, it makes it really easy to keep on eating the same, boring food over and over. I've never been one to complain too much about food. In fact, I'm grateful that I even have the opportunity to eat the way that I do. But, let me just say that beans, eggs, chicken, and vegetables get old really fast. I'm trying new ways to prepare the same few ingredients (kinda like Taco Bell, if you think about it) so that it stays kinda fresh, but recipes on the internet aren't really designed with the Slow Carb Diet in mind. For now, it's all about seasonings, hot sauce, and mustard. 

With that being said, if anybody knows any good recipes for beans or eggs that don't involve any: sugars, sweeteners, processed foods, flour, wheat, or starches, please let me know.

Starting weight: 207
Current weight: 199

Before I get started, as promised earlier, I checked with the friend of mine I mentioned earlier. Meighan has said it's okay for me to share her blog information with you. You can check her blog out here.

Yesterday was a big learning experience for me. I didn't weigh myself when I normally do, and instead of the numbers going down, the scale said I had actually gained weight. I was kind of disappointed, and started to doubt whether or not this slow carb diet was going to work. (On a side note, though, when I first learned about this diet the recommendation was to ignore your weight and pay attention to your measurements, how your clothes fit, how you look, etc. I just like tracking the weight.) I hopped online and began to research the things that I had been eating on a regular basis. Let me say that it was a learning experience. For instance, I've been eating a lot of stir fried vegetables with soy sauce. I came to find out that soy sauce has wheat listed as an ingredient! Obviously, the soy sauce has to go. Then I found out that I can't eat corn (including baby corn- which is what I was eating). Lastly, I discovered that whey protein is only okay once a day prior to resistance training. I had been using the protein shake as breakfast. So, I learned there was some room for improvement in how I was doing things. Like G.I. Joe said, "Knowing is half the battle".

Today was a big day for me. It was my first "cheat" day. It was the day that was (and will continue to be) a regularly scheduled day of gluttony. However, as excited as I was for Monday to finally get here (yes, Monday) it wasn't the glorious taste bud rapture I had expected. Did all the junk food taste good? Sure it did. But it wasn't nearly as delicious as I had remembered it being. I ate a Thanksgiving style meal for breakfast, complete with cranberry sauce; the highlight was the cranberry sauce. I had various slices of pizza, candies, and beer. It all tasted fine. I'm not saying that it wasn't good. It just wasn't nearly as good as I remembered it being. In short, it wasn't satisfying. I didn't make myself sick by gorging on all this unhealthy food like I joked about doing. In fact, I had sort of hoped that the sudden influx of nearly empty calories would in fact give me a sort of queasy feeling so that the next week on the diet would be that much easier. One feeling I did notice that was different today, is that I felt tired and sluggish the entire day. All I have wanted to do is lie down and go to sleep. While I'm grateful to eat whatever I've thought I wanted, I'm looking forward to the next week so I can get back to my "normal" eating. 

When I started this whole "getting back into shape" project of mine, I told myself that I was only going to workout 3 times a week. Not only can I NOT afford a gym membership, but I didn't want to spend all of my time exercising and neglecting my family. Due to learning that I bought the wrong kind of protein for the slow carb diet (whey protein), I will have to add in some sort of resistance training on the other days until it's gone. I'll be making sure to keep track of how the new insight to the diet, as well as the exercising, goes. I might eventually even get around to taking pictures to track this progress too.

Starting weight: 207
Current weight: 194.9

Also, I'm supposed to expect a somewhat dramatic increase in weight after cheat days, so we'll see just how much damage I was able to do in a single 24 hour period. 

I recently hit a point in my life that I'm not proud to admit. Within the last 30-60 days, I've noticed my weight increasing, my clothes not seeming to fit, and my athletic ability was absolutely dismal. I don't know what it was that lit a fire under my ass, but this prior Tuesday (April 15th) I started a diet. I had previously tried this diet before while my wife was pregnant, and saw amazing results for the brief period of time that I stuck to it. As you can imagine, I didn't stick to it very long. To be exact, the first time I tried the diet I lasted 2 days. So far, I've made it almost through the whole first week this time around. The diet I am trying is called the "Slow Carb" diet.

About two years ago, I bought a book called The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferriss. If you want to know more about the book, you can check out the website here. Anyways, the book explains the diet in detail. Summarizing the chapter which covers the diet is pretty simple, though. Basically, the rules are as follows:

1. Don't eat dairy, starches, or fruit
2. Don't eat processed foods, sugar, or artificial sweeteners
3. You can eat as many vegetables, eggs, beans, and meats as you want
4. Follow the above rules 6 days a week. One day a week eat as much of whatever you want.

There it is. Looking at those 4 rules, it seems pretty simple. And, for the most part it's easy enough. Physically, my body doesn't crave all the foods I'm not eating. I work for a company called Flying Pie. We make the best pizza in Boise, ID (seriously, we were voted the best pizza in Boise by USA Today in 2010), and I don't have a hard time avoiding the foods I'm not supposed to eat. Do I still want to? Hell yes! In fact, my first "cheat day" is scheduled this coming Monday (April 21st), and I'm going to the lunch buffet at work to get my fill of delicious, forbidden pizza goodness.

Anyways, enough about about pizza. I started the Slow Carb diet weighing in at 207 lbs. Today, I weigh in at 198. I've consistently lost 2 lbs each day. I've made sure that the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is take a step on the scale so I'm not getting inaccurate results from being weighed at different times in the day. You might be thinking that it's exercise that has helped produce these results. To some extent, the exercise I do could have some impact on my weight loss. But, I'm trying to get back into shape. I started the Couch-to-5k running program, and I've added in a bit of body weight exercises as well. But, I only do this three days a week. If I were exercising the way I used to while I was in the Army, I would think that it had more to do with the recent changes in my weight, but that isn't the case now.

Now, I am starting to see dramatic, consistent changes in my body. It is because of these results that I've been getting that I have decided to start this blog. A friend of mine that I went to school with recently underwent a life changing experience and started a blog of her own, detailing the changes in her life.Until I get her permission, I won't tell any details or post a link to her blog, but her story inspired me to publicly keep a record of my health and fitness goals. With all of that being said here goes:

Starting weight: 207
Current weight: 198