No alliterative theme today. Just some unpleasant truth, with a little hope thrown in. Our attempt at the slow carb diet has been an unmitigated and abject failure.
Mike’s perspective:
Over the past 4 weeks, we have followed the diet rather strictly. There were a few slips here and there, but nothing really dramatic. And we both gained a few pounds.
We know this diet works for some people, but it most emphatically did not work for us.
But it wasn’t a total loss. We did learn one really important thing: all consumed calories are not created equal. I imagine a calorie out is a calories out, though the particulars may also be counter-intuitive.
But our primary concern is calories in, which is to say diet. And macro-nutrient proportions really appear to have an effect on weight of roughly the same magnitude as calories consumed. And carbs appear to be the primary culprits when it comes to obesity.
Rather than recount the various papers and studies that have lead us to the next thing we’re going to try, I’ll simply tell you what it is:
- We will be making a concerted effort to keep our carbohydrate consumption between 50 and 60 grams per day.
- Further, we will make an effort to keep our total food and alcohol consumption to reasonable levels.
- Lastly, we will try to consume the majority of our carbs shortly after resistance training. This one applies more to me than it does to Sharyn.
As is our wont, we will, of course, be doing this in as gourmet a fashion as possible, and blogging about it.
The funny thing about all this is that, in the course of my research, I discovered a pamphlet sized book from 1964 entitled “the Drinking Man’s Diet” (Gardner Jameson and Elliot Williams 1964). Interestingly, what it advises matches my conclusions almost perfectly, with the additional observation that most alcoholic beverages contain few to no carbs.
And since we love the name of the thing, we’ll be using it to describe what we’re doing.
In truth, what we’re eating won’t change much. The biggest changes are the addition of some fruits, and the rather tragic end of cheat day.
All told, I’m expecting it to be a little more difficult than slow carb from a technical perspective in that we will be counting carbs. But it still beats the hell out of counting calories.
Sharyn’s Perspective:
Failure.. . A word I hate so much, especially when it relates to my attempts at dieting. As I have said before, I never, EVER, wanted to eat in any way, shape or form where my love of potatoes, bread, rice and pasta would be compromised. And I see I was right. . . cutting out the things I love apparently doesn’t work for me. I think part of my issue with the slow carb diet is that I normally don’t eat breakfast (yes, I know. . .that goes against every diet principle, but it has always worked for me) and more importantly, if I do eat breakfast, it sure won’t be eggs. And eggs are something they say you should eat a lot of doing it the slow carb way.
Enough complaining. After totally going off the deep end this holiday weekend and eating most every piece of bread and pizza I could get my hands on (for some reason I never found myself with an opportunity to order any french fries, but I did get some homemade potato chips. . .close enough) I am actually quite excited to try this next chapter. Although, I must admit, after 3 years of living in LA, we finally found what we believe to be the best bread in town. Figures, just when I need to keep my bread eating in check. But no matter, thank you Terroni’s of West Hollywood. $20 bottle of prosecco (with amazing pear juice) AND dog friendly. . .you have made friends for life!!
As we get ready for this next chapter . . . I have less than 3 weeks to drop a few before I head down to Florida for my parents 60th wedding anniversary. Yup, you read that right SIXTY YEARS!!
I want to leave you with a few of the tasty treats we indulged in this weekend before attempting this weight loss thing in a more manageable fashion.
