I am one of those people nutritionists refer to as a yo-yo dieter. I think I have tried every dieting plan known. In November, I tried the Cinch Plan by Shaklee. After gaining 3 pounds and 1 inch, I moved on in January to “Eat To Live” by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. This is a diet that is practically vegan — well, advocates say that he allows meat and dairy, but in quantities so small it’s not worth the bother. The theories behind his diet are excellently detailed in his book Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss
One thing I really liked about the diet was it allowed me to eat a lot of fruit. Most popular diets nowadays warn against the sugars and carbs in fruit, so I’d kind of grown accustomed to denying myself this healthful snack. In preparation for his plan, I spent $400 at the grocery store buying exotic fruits — mangoes, starfruit, kiwi, papayas. And lots of different kinds of nonstarchy vegetables — eggplant, escarole, mushrooms, spinach… Each morning I had 4-5 fruits for breakfast. Dr. Fuhrmann raves about the health benefits of beans. I love beans both because they are cheap and filling, but I never ate so many in my life before this diet. Our house turned into a farting zoo — the four of us took turns stinking us out of the room. With a 7 year old and a 5 year old in the house, it was good for a lot of laughs, but eventually the dog even slunk away in disgust.
So, down goes another diet. After several days of farting and having loose bowels from all the fruit, we all began to experience severe stomach cramping. My theory is that our bodies couldn’t handle all the enzymes and fiber. Maybe we should have stuck with it longer to get our bodies used to it, but .. man… that was pretty painful.
Plus the grocery bills were just extravagant. Turns out less healthy food also costs less.
Did I lose weight on “Eat to Live”? Not the enormous and shocking amount of weight promised by Dr. Fuhrman in the book. I lost 2 lbs in 5 weeks. Not enough to make it a permanent lifestyle change. And I was constantly hungry.
I did take away quite a few tricks that I will remember, though. Here are some of my favorite things I learned:
- Vegetables have a lot of protein — so a “high protein” diet doesn’t have to be all about meat. For instance, broccoli is very high in protein.
- Salt your food right before you eat it, not when you cook it. Because salt is on the surface of the food when you salt at the table, it tastes saltier than if you mix it in beforehand.
- Frozen vegetables are often healthier for you than fresh vegetables. They are flash-frozen at the time of picking, whereas that apple you buy in the supermarket may have been sitting out for weeks.
- Beans really ARE a *magical fruit*.
I felt a little bit of a failure since many of the theories in his book made a lot sense, but at least I’m not the only one who thought the diet was a flop. Read this scathing review by one low-carber.
I don’t have a lot to lose — I am about 130 lbs at 5′4″, but I am at 30% bodyfat according to my Tanita scale. When I told my husband I wanted to go on yet another diet, he said “Well, I understand why you want to lose a few pounds but I want to reassure you that you are not obese or anything.”. I think he meant it as a compliment. I will take it as such since I know men will never have the correct response to the question “Do I look fat”?
Two years ago I was down to 115 and people said I looked great. How did I do it at that time? Two words (that will probably get me some negative comments) for you — ECA stack, the wonderpill. While on ECA I got down to 18% bodyfat, my house was totally clean from all the energy, and I worked out 4 days a week because a side effect was it seemed to make you addicted to exercise. I could actually see my abs. Too bad it’s illegal now….
My next mistake was going on Atkins to help my husband lose weight. He went from 215 to 190. I went from 115 to 125. I think my mistake was eating all that butter and bacon. Low carb may be great, but not when you eat 3000 calories a day of it!
So now my next adventure in my weight-loss quest is to look to the bodybuilders. I figure they have low bodyfat and high muscle mass for a reason . They scientifically study the effects different supplements have on the body. And most of them advocate low-carb dieting to burn fat.
A few nuggets I’ve gleaned from various bodybuilding sites that I am currently experimenting with:
- Apparently yohimbe, the herb that also causes male erections (You may have heard it mentioned in the Grow your Penis bigger spam mails!), has a welcome side effect of fat loss. I’m giving this a try, alternating between the cream and the pills. Hope I don’t grow chest hair, as yohimbe apparently increases testosterone.
- I always did my cardio first, then weights when I workout at the YMCA. I’m going to switch that around — do more weights first, then finish up my workout with cardio.
- I’ve been adding cayenne pepper to my daily lunch of soup to increase my metabolism and burn a few extra calories.
- I’m trying to eat my body weight in protein — that is hard since I figure I’ll gain weight if I eat more than 1200 calories a day.
- I’m checking out the awesome tips on Lyle Macdonalds Body Recomposition site.
Wish me luck!
