Day 40/130 A new version of SCD?

GOALS

• Goal date:                      May 28, 2011
• Weight goal:                  199 pounds
• Total Inches goal:         115.75 inches

  Today's Weight:        204.4 

  Yesterday's Weight:    207.0 

  +Gain/-Loss:           - 2.6 

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A high(-er) calorie day (double protein and beans at dinner). A big weight loss. Go figure. Also, all trends are now back in the losing mode, although not to goal, yet.

This is all very confusing. Yesterday I talked about getting back to basics. After writing that, I read an excellent article by some practitioners of SCD that re-wrote the rules as 8 DO's, rather than the original 5 DO-NOT's. The interesting thing is, that, when re-cast that way, the plan looks (to me) much more difficult than what I got from reading and re-reading it in 'The 4-Hour Body' (Tim Ferriss). It seems, there's a lot of appendices to the original rules, both in the book and in the author's blog. When you take those into account, the 5 original rules look like this:

Rule #1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates. Don’t eat bread, pasta, rice (brown or white), grains, potatoes, breaded fried food or dairy on your slow-carb days.

Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again. Meals should include protein, legumes, and non-starchy vegetables; eat as much as you like, 3-4x/day.

Rule #3: Don’t drink calories. Avoid milk (including soy), sweetened soda (no more than 16oz of diet), and fruit juice. One or two glasses of red wine are permitted.

Rule #4: Don’t eat fruit. Tomatoes and avocados are okay (the latter in moderation).

Rule #5: Take one day off per week. Go nuts and eat lots of calories to keep your metabolic rate (thyroid function, conversion of T4 to T3, leptin) up. Do at least five days of rules 1-4 before following rule 5.

The new Slow Carb rules:

1. Eat 4 meals per day: each with beans/lentils, lean meat protein (25 grams minimum) and green vegetables
2. Drink 8 glasses water per day, 4 with lemon juice
3. Exercise 2-3 times per week, raising your heart rate doing something that leaves you feeling different afterward in your body (energy/focus/sweat/fatigue) – Most likely this is 10-30mins each time for most people and most activities.
4. Drink tea, coffee, water, all without sweeteners (natural or artificial), some with cinnamon
5. Eat meal 1 within 30 minutes of waking up
6. Have an overload day once a week that starts at lunchtime and goes until bed and includes fatty and starchy foods, plus some alcohol
7. Take supplements to enhance fat loss and support your body: Green Tea Extract*, Alpha Lipoic Acid*, Aged Garlic*, Policosanol*, B Complex, Vitamin C, Calcium/Magnesium, ChromeMate* and take 1 day off the starred items each week 3 days after overload day, 1 week off per 2 months
8. Get adequate sleep - between 7 and 9 hours every night

I think the new list is wonderful,but then I compared it with my experience. I have been doing the SCD with pretty fair success – a 4th month stall being the only real negative – since Jan 1 with very good results, having lost 40 pounds and and a couple of pants sizes.

The thing is, I do not follow a single one of these new rules exactly as written.

1. I eat 3 meals a day (usually)
2. I drink more than 8 glasses of water, typically plain.
3. I don’t exercise.
4. I do drink coffee every day, without sweeteners, but also without cinnamon – ever. I like my coffee black, and tasting exactly like good coffee. Or bad coffee, if nothing good is available. (I do, however LOVE cinammon, and use it where I can, and, because I am aware of its positive health qualities, take it as a supplement daily).
5. I sometimes, but not invariably, eat my breakfast within 1/2 hour of waking, but usually not, usually, I get it in at the 1 hour mark. On overload day (I call it Free Day), I tend to sleep in and have a lazy day, and have it within an hour only by accident.
6. I do have an overload (Free) day, but sometimes it starts with breakfast, not lunch, and only occasionally includes alcohol.
7. I take most of the supplements listed, but not ChromeMate, and my Free day is my day off from PAGG.
8. Finally, I can’t remember the last time I got 7 hours sleep, let alone 8 or 9.

Now the old rules were inadequate – they really did not completely describe the diet – because the addenda in the next 2 chapters of the book actually added lots of items and suggestions that expanded them. Additions and corrections were also made on Ferriss’ blog , and those chapters and blog notes are where many of the items on the new list come from.

It is a great list, and a great plan. And, I have no doubt that my results would have been better – would BE better – if I followed the new list the way I followed the old one, It is not a plan I can follow, but it is really, really good.But I followed the old list - pretty much ignoring everything else, except PAGG, whose benefits I am still, 5 months later, not completely sold on - and got good results. That is, until I found others on the diet that were paying a lot of attention to the apocrypha, and lost MY orthodoxy.

I need something simpler than this plan for it to work for me. If that means not maximizing my weight loss over time, so be it. We do what we can. 

Weight-Loss on the Slow-Carb Diet (SCD)

Weight since starting the Slow-Carb Diet on Jan 1, 2011. First 5 days were estimated. Dotted red line is the 6-day moving average.

Daily Weight vs Goal 

Today's Food

Breakfast

24g protein drink (not shown) and a whole egg and two 2 whites scrambled with red bean and spinach curry..

Lunch

Smoked turkey off the bone with red beans and vinaigrette dressing on Spring Mix greens.

Dinner

Beef and bean burger (grass-fed beef, black beans, Great Norhern beans, onion soup mix, Worcestershire sauce) with  Chipotle salsa, and buttered green beans with spices.

Today's Liquid

    24 oz. of black coffee and 130+ oz. of water.

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