Some people find it easy to stay trim - eat and drink as much as they like and never put on a pound. I'm not one of those people!
Inspired by the Tim Ferris book, 'The Four Hour Body' I decided to give the low carb diet a try. A year later, here is the result. I'm very pleased to have lost thirty pounds and also that the trend has been to loose it steadily over the year. The biggest loss was during the first eight to ten weeks where I was pretty much doing the slow carb diet 100% according to the book, then I start to tinker with it and introduce variations to meals etc. Then things went into a bit of a plataux, and I put on a few pounds over christmas.
I like a drink, but up until week thirty I only drank wine on a Saturday night. Week thirty was when I separated from my partner and I started to have a drink every day. Interestingly though this did not reduce the weight loss.
Another significant change in week thrity five I stopped eating breakfast. I never have much of an apetite until about midday so I combined breakfast and lunch, which has obviously reduced my calorie intake.
In case you are not familiar with the slow carb diet it's really easy to follow. You avoid carbs and diary similar to the Atkins diet. But one day each week you get a treat day when you can eat and drink whatever you like. This has probably been key in my ability to stay on the diet, as if I ever feel a craving for a greasy burger I can say to myself 'right I'll have one of those on Saturday with cheese and ketchup'. The craving turns itself into something I can look forward to and knowing Saturday will soon come round, I have the will power to stick to the diet through the rest of the week.
Another thing that has helped is the simple metric of recording my weight every week, and keeping a food diary. Seeing the graph form over time helps keep just a little bit of focus that I need to keep eating largely according to the rules. I'm really comfortable with it now to the point where I can go off the diet, for a social occasion say, and get back on it again, knowing what effect that wil have.
Another thing that has played apart in my success is that I've walked a lot. I've stopped using the car to go shopping. As I can't so easily do a weekly big shop without the car, I tend to walk to the shops whenever I need something which is most days. Because Olvera is so hilly, walking is super effective as a form of excercise!
I've just started a new page in the spreadsheet for year two data. I'm going to keep on the diet indefinately and I expect to reach my ideal weight in two years.
[Originally published 18 October 2013 ]