Why would one want to adopt this kind of life style?
How about 38 pounds in about 14 weeks …
Yup … that’s a good reason. From everything I have read, diet is 90% of the game with losing weight. Exercise is important for other reasons, but you gotta control not only the calorie balance, but the quality of the calories.
Now, an update on the content of the article linked in the first line of this article.
- The food scale continues to be my best ally.
- I continue to log every calorie. Even in Stockholm, I signed on at night and estimated.
- I ate almost all the flax loaf, but I have little desire to make another.
- I ordered two loaves of Superflax bread, and ended up tossing them. Yuck.
- I have not made Barley in a while. I plan to do it again soon, but I have been off my cooking schedule lately. It happens, just make sure you have alternatives around to eat.
- I find it extremely difficult to incorporate enough veggies and fruit. Really tough.
- I went back to diet sodas. Water does not cut it for me. Sorry.
- I have not managed to get excited about the Shirataki noodles. However, I have cooked Atkins pasta several times and it has been excellent.
- Atkins bars are your friend. High in fiber and protein, low on net carbs and low in calories. Excellent. 2 bucks a meal is also not bad. I like the Chocolate Decadence bar. The Cookie Dough bar makes an incredible treat if you don’t mind 100 extra calories.
- I found a Lentil Soup – Primo brand – that is almost perfect. A whole can has about 130 calories, and about 2/3 of your daily sodium requirement. So if you are careful the rest of the day, this ia s superb meal. Mic in some Turkey breast, some cumin (Lebanese style flavouring for lentil soup), some parmesan cheese, some black pepper, and some Rooster sauce (Vietnamese hot sauce) … and you have Ambrosia. Just sayin’ …
And even though I have reneged on some of the planks of the life style, the weight continues to come off. One of the hardest tasks is ensuring that I get enough calories. Go figure. In fact, I had a follow up with the doctor today and he asked me if I had a plan to increase the calories to slow down the weight loss, which at 2.7 pounds per week is too high. Surgery patients go that fast or faster, but for the average person 2 pounds per week is the upper limit.
Of course, I waved my hands, pulled a rabbit out of my ass, and we moved on. Distraction works.
I have another follow up in a couple of months. For anyone who plans on trying this out, please ensure that your doctor is involved. And it is way easier than you think. The hard part is accepting the life style as permanent. That can take years. When that transition is made, everything else just clicks along so long as you understand that the tools are necessary to success.
