The Diet

Following my last post there is a priority to what has to be followed. The biggest part of making a change to your body is controlling what goes into it. There are some core concepts to diets that need to be mentioned here and a few fine-tuning areas that you need to work out for yourself.

What goes in?

For me, this is easy. The only diet I've had success with is the phase one Atkins diet. There are a number of reasons why it worked for me personally and I'll get into that but the big take away from this diet is the sheer amount of protein you consume.

When you lose weight you do it through not consuming enough calories to maintain your body mass. A big downside to that is muscle loss. It's inevitable. You can't stop the body from using muscle for energy. You can slow it though. The higher your intake of protein the more your body can try to hold off from using muscle for fuel.

The diet itself is simple, you avoid breads, pastas, sugar, etc. You need to make sure you check labels for the carbohydrate content and ensure that you're eating something with less than 5 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams and definitely checking that you aren't going over your count for the day by eating it.

Something I've learnt from this diet in the past is that you do seem to slow your weight loss if you eat more than around 8 grams of carbohydrate within a short timeframe. It seems to kick you out of your Ketosis just by peaking that carb count up over your normal low intake.

What is Ketosis?

"a metabolic state characterized by raised levels of ketone bodies in the body tissues, which is typically pathological in conditions such as diabetes, or may be the consequence of a diet that is very low in carbohydrates."

When you hit a low intake of carbs for long enough, usually it was a few days of zero carbs for me, your body starts to break down fat cells in the body for energy. This is in contrast to burning the usually readily available carbohydrates which we normally burn for energy.

The consequence of this is a huge initial drop in water weight, followed by loss of fat around the centre of the body. Because the fat in your body is also made up of water you drop a huge amount of this as the cells are broken up. It's a great feeling to have that stripped away and make such huge gains really fast but don't expect this to last for long.

How much goes in?

This wasn't a question I asked myself at the start of this diet. When I flipped that switch I was eating whatever I wanted or at least how much I wanted. Part of the appeal of this is that you don't really have to count the calories and so it doesn't feel as restrictive. The high protein means that you're not hungry with this diet. Meat will make you fuller for longer and you get to eat bacon and call it healthy.

I'm going to keep a closer eye on how much I'm eating with this and spend some time fine-tuning the diet to make the most of it.

Fine-Tuning?

All effective diets work on the basis that they've had someone sit down and plan out what and when you should eat and the dieter actually follows that plan. The part that falls down is the people on the diets need to follow the rules. I've never been good at following rules when quantity is involved. I can handle a hard yes or no diet but counting calories is difficult when you're as greedy as I am.

So what am I going to do? I am going to switch my diet a bit on two days a week. Every friday and sunday my caloric intake is going to drop to 1000 kcal. Why?  Starvation shouldn't be able to set in if there is a break so close between and it means there are about a thousand kcal that will be stripped away on those days.

What am I eating today?

I have some square shaped Tesco's own sausages which are about 0.6 grams of carbohydrates and 105 kcal per sausage. Alongside this will be a portion or two of Castello Burger Blue cheese which comes out under 0.5 grams of carbohydrate per 100 grams.

That's breakfast. Lunch or snacks will be small cuts of strong cheese with carbs per hundred grams less than 0.1 grams.

Dinner will be either salmon fillet with garlic butter or chicken and paprika with grated cheese.




Today's Goal:

Get the diet right. Don't panic about how much you're eating.

Last meal, first post

Over the years my bodyweight has fluctuated hugely and the last four years have seen me gain back 126 pounds. At my heaviest around 8 years ago I weighed in at 336 pounds and on my relatively short 5ft 8 it wasn't a great feeling going out with friends.

Through a huge effort I switched my diet to a carb free one and saw my weight drop drastically and my health soon improved by leaps and bounds. Within two weeks I had lost 14 pounds and within the next two another 12. I was finding everything so much easier to do with my legs carrying less weight that I went on long walks all over south Wales. By the time two months had passed, I was down from 24 stone to 20 stone.

At this point, I was convinced this was the path I needed to be on. There was no turning back. I would have bacon and eggs for breakfast, snack on blocks of cheese and pepperami until I got home and then have eggs and steak. Eggs were a huge part of my diet at the time but I'll get into that at a later date.

It was only about two months into my diet that I'd decided to really push my workouts. Up until that point, I'd only been doing moderate exercise, the occasional pushups and squats along with long walks outdoors. This was the time where I set myself to finding the right workout for me. I tried a few things but as a rule of thumb if I couldn't keep myself doing something for more than a week I would give up on it.

Enter Stronglifts.

For those that don't know Stronglifts 5x5 is a workout aimed specifically at strength gains. It's not there to burn fat or make your muscles huge. It's about making you lift the heavy thing. I stuck to Stronglifts really well. I never found myself reeling the day after and I saw gains in the amount I was able to lift. The most important thing though was that I found my energy improve and my weight loss, although slowing after the first two months, improved.

What's the goal of this blog?

I've found the number of changes to my life over the last four years have thrown me. I've lost the spark that pushed me to lose all of that weight. My lowest bodyweight was down to 168 lbs. I have the opportunity to do this again but with the benefit of hindsight.

When I first started I had two months where I did low-intensity workouts. There were numerous missed opportunities that could have helped push me towards my goals much faster. I'm going to start today because there's no time like the present.

The main goals here are to lose weight and to feel better. One big downside to weighing so much is that nearly everything hurts and doing the simplest things take much more effort.

Over the next twelve months, I aim to bring myself back down to that 12 stone target. 10.5 lbs a month doesn't sound too hard but as all overweight people will tell you: it's not that easy.

Well, let's have that last meal and then get on with it.