Monday, January 31, 2011

Adventures in "slow carbs"

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The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated.

Okay, you can take the title with a grain of salt, but I've been slow-carbing over the past few days and seeing very encouraging results.  The basics of the diet are what is typical in low-carb diets, minus dairy (butter is okay), plus beans, plus red wine(!).  Lots of veggies, no fruit. No grains of any colour.

I've been having one of the recommended breakfasts each morning (fried eggs on a bed of steamed spinach, topped with salsa, and coffee with cinnamon and a small amount of cream (only allowed dairy along with butter.)  I had a bit of a cheat yesterday at lunch when I was served fruit with my omelet, and had some profiteroles at a birthday party last night, but otherwise I've been true to the diet.  Oh, and the best part?  One complete binge day per week is acceptable!  Like, eat 'til you're sick if you want.  My first binge day won't be 'til next Saturday, but I don't feel incredibly guilty about those two cheats on one day this weekend. Tim wouldn't be happy, but you know, it's my gig. 

Ferriss is a very compelling writer and a big proponent of tracking stats.  On everything.  But it's not necessary to do that to reap the benefits of this plan.  In the past four days I have dropped 5.6 pounds, of which 4 pounds were fat.  ( He's also big on tracking body fat, which I am doing with a scale that (possibly not completely accurately) hands me this lovely measure.)  My body fat % is quite high, so I've got to work to get this down and low-carb approaches have always worked best for me.

On the plan for today is to make a big pot of beef and bean chili for dinners, and a cold bean salad to have in the fridge for lunch with a pile of greens.

If you're looking for a realistic (no big cooking efforts needed) low carb diet that understands why red wine is an integral part of the examined life, give it a try.  It's available as a kindle ebook as well.

I'll keep you posted!

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