A day on the diet

[alex_beecroft]

I’m still wasting away on this diet, having lost 2 stone 4lb so far.  (A stone is 14lb, so that’s 32lb in total).  Only 8lb more to go before I hit my target of 11 stone, which will take me into the ‘healthy’ range of the BMI.

I’m losing between 1-2lbs a week, but that has been prolonged by the fact that I hit a plateau just after Christmas when I stayed around the 12 stone mark and spent six weeks dieting but seeing no change at all.  Fortunately, according to the garmin index body fat scale it then started to shift again in February, and I’m back on the regular loss of 1-2lbs a week.

I don’t know that I’ve managed to locate what makes this diet work.  It’s certainly not calorie counting, because I can eat as much as I like of certain foods, and we even get “oh, well, obviously you haven’t been eating enough,” as one of the standard pieces of advice for people who don’t lose weight in a week.  One of the rules of this diet is to eat often and not allow yourself to get hungry.

That suits me down to the ground.  I think the secret of this diet is some kind of combination of low-fat and food-combining.  But whatever it is, it results in meals that are big, tasty and filling, and no need to go without snacks.  I thought I’d show you a typical day, so you could see.  Bear in mind that I’m a vegetarian.  The lack of meat is not the diet’s fault but mine 🙂

Breakfast

Two weetabix from daily allowance of “Healthy Extra” Fibre choices (I get two of these choices a day, so I could spend my other one on a couple of slices of bread later in the day if I wanted.  In practice I rarely use both.)  Milk on weetabix and in coffee from 350ml allowance of skimmed milk per day.  One of my Healthy Extra Fat choices (I get two of these a day too, which allows me to have a small amount of milk & cheese every day.)  And a banana, of which I’m allowed an unlimited supply.

Lunch

Mushroom omelette, cooked with Fry Light spray-on cooking oil, with baked beans (I use reduced sugar and salt beans because I want to, but I don’t have to.)  This is all free (unrestricted) food, so if I was still hungry after that plateful, I could have another one.

Afternoon Tea (snack)

I get hungry again around 4pm, so a bowl full of frozen fruit salad topped with zero fat fromage frais keeps the wolf at bay.  I use frozen fruit rather than fresh because it keeps better and is less expensive.  And again, it’s unrestricted, so I can eat as much as I want of it.

Dinner

Cauliflower and broccoli curry on boiled brown rice.  I use brown rice because I want to – I prefer it and think it keeps me full longer than white.  This is all free food too, so I can eat as much as I can find room for, and then come back for seconds later if I like.

Pretty much I can use any vegetable or fruit you can think of (except avocado, which is too fatty) in any combination with pasta, potatoes, rice, noodles, couscous, quinoa, any pulses and beans and any amount of spices.  Also any zero-fat yoghurt, skimmed milk cheese & fromage frais, and eggs.  That gives me a pretty wide variety of food I can eat without calculating points, or incurring guilt.  Then I have treat points I can use up on chocolate/nuts/desserts/eating out/extra bread or extra real cheese etc.

I still can’t get over sitting down to a heaped plate of homemade chips, egg & (vegetarian) sausages and knowing that it’s diet food.  But over two stone lost since September 2010 can’t be argued with in terms of evidence that it does in fact work.

I did once lose an equivalent amount through a combination of strict calorie counting and exercise, but I was ravenously hungry for the whole two years, and I did not enjoy the exercise, so as soon as I reached my target on that one, I stopped doing both things and put it all back on.  It was unmaintenable for me because I thought then, and still think, that being thin was not worth the grief.

With this diet, however, I can imagine myself staying on a slightly tweaked-for-maintenance version for the rest of my life.  It has the bonus that it’s all very healthy, and having to make things from fresh ingredients is teaching me to cook for the first time in my life.  (Not something I particularly enjoy, but something from which I get a certain feeling of accomplishment.)

And yes, I can’t deny I get a pang at having to go for the fruit salad (again!) when everyone else is eating fruitcake and brownies and caramel slices.  But it’s a pang I can live with, when I consider how much more stamina I have, and how I’ve suddenly gone from being the person who was ill most in my family to being the person who is ill least.

Mirrored from Alex Beecroft - Author of Gay Historical and Fantasy Fiction.

Comments

[phoebesmum]

Is this Slimming World? My housemate's lost a lot of weight on that, but since her snacks mostly consist of meat (it's done my shopping budget no favours), I didn't see that it could be any use to me.

[alex_beecroft]

It is Slimming World, yes :) I know how you feel, as I've tried and failed the Atkins diet, which is totally impossible for vegetarians. However, Slimming World have a 'green plan' which is absolutely tailor made for vegetarians. That's what I'm on. (It sounds like your housemate is on the 'red plan', which is tailor made for carnivores who don't eat a lot of carbohydrates.)

Have a look on the website http://group.slimmingworld.com/recipes-and-menus/vegetarian-menu.aspx
there's a free 7 day plan which you could try out, though it's heavier on the Quorn than anything I would do.

[phoebesmum]

Thank you - I'll have a look in the morning. I can't eat Quorn though. That is, I can, I can eat it just fine, but it doesn't stay down so I choose not to!

[alex_beecroft]

I just don't like it very much. I'm a vegetarian because I don't like meat, so why I would want a meat substitute, I don't know. However, most of their other recipes don't involve it, so it's not a necessary part of the deal :)

[darkemeralds]

Congratulations! Both on the wonderful weight-loss success and the cooking. I come to cooking naturally, and I know not everyone enjoys it as I do, but I'm absolutely convinced that preparing most of one's own food at home is a key to both long term weight maintenance and general health.

Do you not count calories at all? That is, do you have any idea of how many calories you're actually consuming on this plan? It seems to me that if low-fat foods have a high enough satiety factor (and these would seem to for you) you might well be staying in a nice low-calorie zone without feeling like it.

Your success on your plan is actually anecdotal evidence to me that no one diet is right for everyone (which seems so obvious, but which is rarely mentioned by the diet books and plans): I would be sunk on the high carb meals you depict, and have discovered that a high-protein and even high-fat approach works best for me. I'm losing at about the same rate you describe eating in ways that would make the average dieter faint away in shock (and would be unsuitable for a vegetarian). Funnily, my plan says that on the whole, I should avoid most fruits except olives and avocados. And yet I'm easily able to stay under my calorie bar (1150 after exercise). Weird, huh?

I imagine more and more information becoming available that will let individuals take tests and get an accurate metabolic profile. That way, we'll all be able to determine up front which nutritional approach to take, not just to lose weight, but to prevent ever gaining it in the first place. It looks as if dedication and observation have led each of us to her respective best plans.

Go us!

[alex_beecroft]

Thank you! Yes, cooking is a new thing for me. I've always been an "add a jar of sauce to cooked pasta" kind of person before, and all the chopping and peeling involved in fresh food still strikes me as an enormous waste of time. Not that I would want to go back to eating stuff that was so bad for me just because it was convenient. But it *was* convenient!

I don't count calories at all, so I don't know how many I'm having. But I know that when I did count calories I ate an awful lot less than this, even when I was eating stuff I didn't like just because it was filling.

*g* People are definitely different in the way they process food. I've certainly found that although I'm being advised to make sure I eat protein, and that protein is good for weight loss, what actually happens if I add more protein (in the form of lentils or eggs) is that I stop losing weight. I can eat noodles four times a day (with vegetables and fruit) and lose weight. Potatoes too. Not so much with rice, on which I have to keep a careful eye, or beans. So although I keep eating protein because I'm sure it's good for you, I know I need to keep the amounts low in proportion to carbs if I am to lose.

Have you heard of the Harcombe diet? She explains in that that you can lose weight simply by never combining carbs and fats. Both of our diets are encompassed by her theory that you cannot store fat unless you have *both* carbs and fats in the same meal. So you can lose weight on a high fat low carb diet, or you can lose it on a high carb low fat diet, but not on both.

It does seem that better information about nutrition and how the body processes food is the key to successful dieting. And not, thank goodness, my father's advice of "eat what you like, but less of it."

Go us, indeed :D

[darkemeralds]

I hadn't heard of the Harcombe Diet until now, and it looks intriguing and quite sensible. So far, I'm doing well with calorie counting, perhaps because while I'm reducing the truly monumental, uncontrolled food intake that caused me to gain ten pounds a year over a ten year period, I'm also eating very differently.

I'll see if I can download her ebook from the UK site. It sounds like I've kind of found my way by feel to a point very near what she's recommending. More information is better. Thank you for the rec.

[alex_beecroft]

I certainly found the theory behind it very interesting, and it was that which made me choose the Slimming World diet (because their green plan is the same as the Harcombe diet's carb meal specifications.) I also benefitted a lot by doing the first week of the Harcombe diet, because that did get my sugar dependency under control and made sticking to the SW diet a lot easier.

It takes some of the mystery out of the way you can lose weight without counting calories, on things like this SW diet or the Atkins diet. It's nice to know there is some scientific basis to them!

[darkemeralds]

I meant to add that several years ago I took a knife class at a local cooking school and kitchenware shop. It took all the drudgery and mystery out of the knife work necessary for good home cooking, and made it into a bit of an art. Really opened doors for me.

[alex_beecroft]

That's a brilliant idea! If I could only learn how to easily chop an onion or keep my knives properly sharp, my life would be vastly improved. I'll look for one now. Thank you!

[darkemeralds]

Dicing an onion without (many) tears, and knife-sharpening were, indeed, the two key precepts of the course. I also learned how to mince garlic, julienne carrots and green leafy herbs, get same-sized chunks of potato, select a good knife for purchase, and hold it so as to minimize fatigue and self-mutilation.

It was, without a doubt, one of the most useful, fun, and productive Saturday afternoons I've ever spent.