I started the Slow Carb Diet on May 9th because I needed to change my eating habits…it’s been long overdue.
Tim Ferriss, author of the Four Hour Work Week, developed a plan on “How to Lose 20 lbs. of Fat in 30 Days…Without Any Exercise” and with some research and experimentation he made the Four Hour Body. Check out his blog for the basic plan and pick up the book to see the extensive plan he came up with.
The basic rules of the plan via his blog:
“Rule #1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates
Avoid any carbohydrate that is — or can be — white. The following foods are thus prohibited, except for within 1.5 hours of finishing a resistance-training workout of at least 20 minutes in length: bread, rice, cereal, potatoes, pasta, and fried food with breading. If you avoid eating anything white, you’ll be safe.
Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again
The most successful dieters, regardless of whether their goal is muscle gain or fat loss, eat the same few meals over and over again. Mix and match, constructing each meal with one from each of the three following groups:
Proteins:
Egg whites with one whole egg for flavor
Chicken breast or thigh
Grass-fed organic beef
Pork
Legumes:
Lentils
Black beans
Pinto beans
Vegetables:
Spinach
Asparagus
Peas
Mixed vegetables
Eat as much as you like of the above food items. Just remember: keep it simple. Pick three or four meals and repeat them. Almost all restaurants can give you a salad or vegetables in place of french fries or potatoes. Surprisingly, I have found Mexican food, swapping out rice for vegetables, to be one of the cuisines most conducive to the “slow carb” diet.
Most people who go on “low” carbohydrate diets complain of low energy and quit, not because such diets can’t work, but because they consume insufficient calories. A 1/2 cup of rice is 300 calories, whereas a 1/2 cup of spinach is 15 calories! Vegetables are not calorically dense, so it is critical that you add legumes for caloric load.
Some athletes eat 6-8x per day to break up caloric load and avoid fat gain. I think this is ridiculously inconvenient. I eat 4x per day:
10am – breakfast
1pm – lunch
5pm – smaller second lunch
7:30-9pm – sports training
10pm – dinner
12am – glass of wine and Discovery Channel before bed
Rule #3: Don’t drink calories
Drink massive quantities of water and as much unsweetened iced tea, tea, diet sodas, coffee (without white cream), or other no-calorie/low-calorie beverages as you like. Do not drink milk, normal soft drinks, or fruit juice. I’m a wine fanatic and have at least one glass of wine each evening, which I believe actually aids sports recovery and fat-loss. Recent research into resveratrol supports this.
Rule #4: Take one day off per week
I recommend Saturdays as your “Dieters Gone Wild” day. I am allowed to eat whatever I want on Saturdays, and I go out of my way to eat ice cream, Snickers, Take 5, and all of my other vices in excess. I make myself a little sick and don’t want to look at any of it for the rest of the week. Paradoxically, dramatically spiking caloric intake in this way once per week increases fat loss by ensuring that your metabolic rate (thyroid function, etc.) doesn’t downregulate from extended caloric restriction. That’s right: eating pure crap can help you lose fat. Welcome to Utopia.”
If you could see from the plan it’s a pretty strict diet for people who love carbs & variety so at first I was reluctant to try the program but I had read about it on Zen Habits and my sister who is a personal trainer tried it along with her boyfriend. All 3 lost weight using the program and my sister and her boyfriend did not fully follow the plan but adopted the main principles. It wasn’t until my boyfriend told me he read about it on Gizmodo and he wanted to try it that I thought it was realistic. I’ve found that having an accountability partner is a helpful with both eating better and working out.
We decided to start it at the beginning of May so on Sunday , May 8, we went to the grocery store and brought a list of the items we needed to purchase which helped us to keep on track.
We recently purchased a crock pot so to start off our new diet I found a recipe for a slow carb friendly beef stew. For breakfast I made boiled eggs, lunch was the beef stew I made in the crock pot, and for dinner we made a burrito bowl sans the carbs. While I found myself wanting dairy the cheat day is what makes me somewhat confident in being able to continue this for 6 out 7 days a week. Ferris says a cheat day isn’t an option in order to help your metabolism and so on cheat day I get so excited and my boyfriend and I plan our days around eating. It’s ridiculous but seriously it’s the simple things in life. haha
If you do think about starting the program here are some things I found helpful starting this program -
Meal Planning
Bringing a list of the items you need to the grocery store
Finding someone to keep you accountable. (i.e. my boyfriend)
Finding slow carb friendly recipes to give yourself a little variety while eating the same foods weekly.
Tags: health, Slow Carb Diet
