SCD

t and i have decided to take on a little experiment. a while back, t purchased the book "the four hour body" by timothy ferriss. basically, this guy has made himself a guinea pig for 10 years and tested out about a bajillion theories on weight loss, muscle gain, exercise etc. and based on his findings, he wrote this book. in regards to food and diet, he has laid out a plan called the slow carb diet in the book. i really hate anything called a diet, but i was intrigued. after doing the cleanse, i really wanted to clean up my eating as best as possible. t and i decided to do an experiment and follow the slow carb diet for three weeks. although the benefits of the diet do include losing weight, i was more just curious to see if it actually worked. my weight has stayed pretty much the same for 4 years, and i wondered if this diet could make it move at all. so we'll see how it goes after 3 weeks. 
here are the main points:

Rule # 1: Avoid White Carbohydrates—i.e., bread, rice, cereal, potatoes, pasta, tortillas, fried food.

Rule # 2: Eat Meals every 4 hours or so.  Eat within 1 hour of waking.

Rule # 3: Don’t drink calories. LOTS of water. You can drink tea, coffee (but only use cream with it), up to 2 diet sodas a day. Up to 2 glasses RED wine per day as well if you want. 

Rule #4: Don’t eat fruit. Only exceptions are avocado and tomato. You can have no more than 1 cup or one meal per day.

Rule #5: Take one day off a week. “It is important to spike caloric intake once per week. This causes a host of hormonal changes that improve fat loss, from increasing cAMP and GMP to improving conversion of the T4 thyroid hormone to the more active T3.

Rule #6: You can use spices, herbs. Olive oil, vinegar, butter is also fine.  Salsa is fine too.

Rule#7:Avoid domino foods: almonds, nuts, chickpeas, peanuts, macadamias—you will ultimately end up over eating them. 

so, there it is. it really hasn't been so bad. i think bottom line is you need to prepare yourself at the beginning of every day and think about what you're going to eat. this week most days, i've woken up and  had some cottage cheese with cinnamon (and trivia, sorry timothy ferries, i can't live without some sort of sweetener), just to make sure i eat within an hour of waking up.  i'll then have coffee on my way to work, and grab a big omelette with tomato and turkey sausage when i get there. 

or i'll have eggs and sausage or turkey bacon

i forgot to take a picture of my lunch EVERY DAY dammit, but i just had a huge salad with tomato, cucumber, avocado, chicken sausage, walnuts with olive oil and vinegar. the idea is your supposed to eat so much at your meals that you don't feel hungry in between, but i can't stomach like 8 cups of beans, so at times i have needed a snack. i've tried beef jerky, cottage cheese (again) or a little peanut butter or nuts. it's been fiiiine. 

for dinners we've just done lots of meat and veggies. just try to make it as filling as possible so you don't feel inclined to snack. one of the winning parts of this diet is that you can eat PEAS with BUTTER. sign me up. that is a favorite food of mine any way. 

so, that is a snapshot of what i've eaten this week. tim ferriss recommends not too much exercise and doing a variety of short bursts of weight training (think kettle bells). I've been doing them some mornings just because i like them, but otherwise i've kept my exercise the same just because, as you know, i can't give up running or spinning because they are fun!

so..that leads us to today. the BEST part of the diet. CHEAT DAY. obviously this was a huge part of the draw to this experiment. i could be healthy during the weekend and still have one day a week where i could eat what i wanted and not feel bad about it. there is a great link here about things you should know about cheat day, and exactly how to complete one correctly. see here: cheat sheet

on your cheat day, ferriss recommends eating a slow carb breakfast, waiting a few hours, and then going from there. things i am craving today: dark chocolate M&MS, a latte, raspberries (OH HOW I MISS FRUIT) and maybe another type of easter candy ;). tonight t and i are going to GEMMA for a fabulous italian cheat day meal. i can't wait. 

in terms of progress, you're probably wondering where i'm at right now. while i am quite embarrassed to share my weight on the inter webs, it will probably be helpful for you to see. 

so far, the slow carb diet seems to be working. i started on monday at 130 pounds (i am 5'4) and this morning i was down to 127.4. that is pretty good if you ask me. we started on monday and it is saturday. so 2.6 pounds in 5 days isn't too shabby. i'm a little nervous about the cheat day because i don't want to undo everything, but timothy ferriss says that is normal and my weight should be back to normal by tuesday or so. we'll see. 

we got a new scale as well, the withings wi-fi scale, which wirelessly transmits your weight to your computer or iphone and keeps track of it. it's pretty awesome. i've been weighing myself every day, which i am going to try to stop doing, because it can be discouraging and i don't want to turn into a pyscho. 

isn't it pretty?and yes, i realize my toes are not. 

this is what it looks like on your phone, and you can also look at a graph of weight over time on your computer. 

okay. phew. that was a ridiculously long post. and i hope i haven't lost blog readers because y'all think i am crazy. again, this is just an experiment. i do not believe that the slow carb diet could be something you do forever (it is TOO restricting) and i would not WANT to do it forever, especially during marathon training or something like that. but it's a fun test. so we'll see. 

okay, off to get a latte!! :)