Day 14

Weight is still up from cheat day, but I'm hoping that once again it levels out by Wednesday. I'm also doing my measurements tomorrow, so I hope those keep me inspired. I have read many people's stories online that say week 2 is a slow week for many on this plan. That has been the case for me, but I'm keeping up the program for at least 30 days, and probably beyond.



Breakfast: Eggs, pinto beans, arugula, avocado, salsa



Lunch: chicken, asparagus, brussel sprouts, artichoke hearts

Once again my picture of dinner turned out dark and ugly. Dinner: Spinach, tuna (with shallot and a little of the apple cider vinegar dressing), pinto beans.

Day 13

I didn't weigh today, but I will weigh myself tomorrow. I started the day with a protein shake since I woke up so late, but I was able to eat a real meal about 30 minutes later. Still not sure if these drinks are a good idea, but I do take cinnamon before I drink one since each has 2-3 grams sugar. That's not a lot of sugar at all, but I still want to mitigate. I also started icing today, so I hope that helps in the long run.





Breakfast: Muscle Milk, 2 scrambled eggs, black beans, green salsa.



Lunch: Chipotle Burrito Bowl: Beans, chicken, veggies, guacamole, lettuce, pico de gallo.



Dinner: trout, asparagus, mashed great northern beans

Day 12, Cheat Day!

So, my weight is unchanged since yesterday. I will do my cheat day as planned because I think I need the metabolism re-set. I hear that many people plateau in the third week, which it looks like I'm on track to do, so I will attempt to follow the plan to the letter. I also plan to start using ice this week. I'm not nails enough to do the ice baths, but I think I can handle icing my shoulders and chest and such, and maybe the occasional cold shower. The discomfort would be worth it if it helped increase my body's ability to burn fat.



Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, pinto beans, spinach, avocado, salsa

Lunch: My camera malfunctioned, but I had BBQ chicken, creamed spinach, and macaroni and cheese. Dessert was a small piece of pound cake, two chocolate covered strawberries, and some creme fraiche. I took cinnamon before this meal.

Dinner: Indian food--Naan, lamb, sag paneer, spicy chicken, potato samosa. Then I had a lemon bar and a chocolate peppermint brownie. It was too dark to take a picture, but it was beautiful and delicious.

Day 11, What a Difference a Cheat Makes

So, I have paid the price for my cheating last night. First of all, I weigh almost a pound and a half more, bringing my total loss back up to a little over 5 pounds. Secondly, because I didn't prepare for the cheating with cinnamon, exercises, grapefruit juice, etc., I feel what could only be described as a sugar hangover this morning. I am considering making yesterday my cheat day, and not cheating on Saturday, but we'll see. One thing is certain: DON'T CHEAT. You will pay in pounds lost and in headache/general malaise.



Breakfast: Eggs with artichoke hearts (rinsed them to remove as much oil as possible), spinach, pinto beans



Lunch: High protein shake. I'm probably going to eat some beans and spinach with this too. I don't plan on doing protein drinks instead of meals very often, but I want to have them as back-up. I have lots of things to get done in the next week or two, so breakfast or lunch may occasionally need to be a protein shake. If this negatively effects my goals I will of course discontinue.

It was too dark to take a picture of dinner, but it was a salad with tuna on it.

Day 10

This morning my total weight loss is up to 6.7lbs. Pretty amazing for 9 days. I am pretty bored of the staples for the diet, but then again I'm only two days from cheat day, so I'm sure I will be fine. If I added fruit, even just one serving a day, I think I could do this diet for a long, long time. As it stands I will at the very least attempt to complete the 30 days with no deviation from the program.



Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, pinto (and some black) beans, spinach. I also had a small coffee with a small amount of cream that I forgot to photograph.



Lunch: Lemongrass chicken with extra broccoli instead of rice. There was no way to finish this--it was a huge amount of food. I have a decent portion left for lunch tomorrow.





Dinner: Sashimi with citrus juice, smoked tomato, avocado, hangar steak, mushrooms, asparagus. The sashimi was the perfect thing to get at a sushi restaurant. Delicious, and all the elements were sanctioned! The hangar steak was another story. I ordered it without any potatoes (extra asparagus instead!), all of which seemed right on plan other than the mushrooms that came with it were advertised as having a teriyaki glaze. Then the whole dish was smothered in sugary teriyaki sauce! I ended up scraping off as much as possible in order to eat the dish, but it was still way too sweet. I should have thought to ask them to just do the whole dish over again, but everyone in my party was eating, so I just made-do. Then I cheated during dessert. I had around 6 bites of dessert, and I did have one piece of sushi with rice. Not a terrible amount of cheating, but up to this point I have not cheated at all except on the right day. I will see if I have negative results tomorrow morning. Today was the first day other than cheat day that I have gone out to eat twice in one day. Of course it's much more difficult to stay on the plan when out on the town, but it is possible to do it. If I had been more disciplined about dessert and been more specific about how I wanted my steak dish prepared, I would have been very close to the mark for my dinner out.

Day 9

This morning I am back down to an overall weight loss of 5.5 lbs. My body fat percentage numbers and total inches lost are more important, but I still like tracking the weight. One thing is certain, it has only taken me 9 days to lose more weight than I lost in two months of tedious calorie counting last fall.



Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, black beans, arugula, pico de gallo



Lunch: Chicken, black beans, spinach



2nd Lunch: Brussel sprouts with fake bacon, caramelized onions, and apple cider vinegar dressing, chicken. The brussel sprout recipe was even better with caramelized onions added!

No picture of dinner. It was a little weird--some marinated artichoke hearts, some arugula, some cottage cheese, and a small piece of chicken.

Recipe: Brussel Sprouts!

Brussel Sprouts w/ Fake Bacon and Warm Apple Cider Vinegar Dressing

This recipe is for a single large serving of brussel sprouts, but many servings of the dressing.

8-10 Brussel sprouts, cut in half
1 piece Morningstar Farms fake bacon (or sub real or turkey bacon, I just happened to have a piece of the fake stuff)
1 pat butter
1 tablespoon macadamia oil or olive oil
salt and cracked pepper to taste

Dressing:
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp cracked pepper
1/4 (plus a little extra) good garlic powder (or 1 large fresh clove minced very fine, or use minced shallot)
Mix all the dressing ingredients in a mason jar and shake vigorously until emulsified. The result should resemble this:



This should be enough dressing for many salads and/or side dishes. It goes well on everything from chicken to fish to collard greens. Adjust the salt, pepper, and garlic levels to your taste, and experiment with adding herbs. It's wonderful with 1/4 tsp. Herbs de Provence, or with rosemary, or thyme, or tarragon.

Now, to the sprouts...

Cut the brussel sprouts in half. Heat the butter and olive oil together over medium high heat. Toss in the sprouts when the pan is sizzling hot. Add kosher salt and cracked pepper. Cook them "face down" for a while so that they begin to caramelize, (about 3 minutes) and turn the heat to medium. Add the piece of fake bacon to the pan, and begin to move the brussel sprouts around with the "bacon".



Cook until desired tenderness (I like them very brown and cooked pretty well through--about 4 more minutes, and you may need to drizzle a tiny bit more oil on the veggies to make sure they do not burn.) Turn off the heat and remove the fake bacon piece. Chop the "bacon" into tiny pieces. Add a tablespoon or so of the dressing to the pan, and lightly coat the brussel sprouts in the dressing. Plate and put the "bacon" on top of the serving. The finished product should resemble this.



Enjoy!

Day 8

I'm down almost a pound from yesterday morning. According to the book, it takes until Wednesday (if Saturday is cheat day) to be at or below the previous week's weight. I did my measurements, and I appear to have lost 8 TOTAL INCHES and 3% BODY FAT in just 8 days. Pretty incredible. I also went to my doctor this morning, so I have a real-deal body fat %, but since I did not have that information at the start of this program, I will have to rely on the online percentage calculator losses to calculate my % lost. I am still a disgusting percentage body fat, but the doctor's reading was lower than my online estimate, so at least there's a glimmer of good news. I return to the doctor March 8 to find out my other test results, at which point I will ask to have body fat % read again, and I will see the progress over the next 2 weeks. No picture of breakfast today due to being in a huge hurry, but it was chicken, green beans, and great northern beans. I like eggs better, but there's always tomorrow...



Lunch, Day 8: Salad bar salad with greens, grilled chicken, roasted veggies, peas, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, some seaweed salad, oil and vinegar.



Mid afternoon snack: Brussel sprouts, fake bacon, warm apple cider vinegar dressing. I will post this recipe soon.



Dinner: Chicken breast, great northern beans, arugula, tomato, apple cider vinegar dressing

Day 7

So my overall weight loss is still around 4 pounds, with none of the 1.7 lbs. (of the total 5.7 before cheat day) have been "re-lost" yet. I'm feeling pretty good about the program, but I have to admit I'm skeptical of what I perceive to be a lack of information that is "female specific" in the book. He does say many women just can't have a cheat day, so I'm hoping I am not one of those folks. At the very least, this blog and taking photos of everything I eat for a month will help me get a handle on what I really eat, and how much. I'm in therapy and we have been talking about real hunger vs. mind hunger and how different those hungers are, and the upshot is that I hardly ever know when I am hungry and when I am not. I seem to feel the best when I eat when I am hungry, but not super hungry, and eat until I am full, but not super full. That may seem elemental to many of you reading, but food/hunger is completely attached to emotional (specifically anxiety) issues for me, that it's a difficult puzzle to put together.



Breakfast, Day 7: Fried eggs (plus a little extra cartoned egg whites), green beans, black beans, sauerkraut.



Lunch: Trout, green beans, mashed garlic white beans, sauerkraut



2nd Lunch: Chicken, arugula, tomato, apple cider vinegar dressing



Dinner: 4-Hour Body Chile Relleno. This was delicious. Here is the recipe:

Take 2 poblano peppers and char them until the skin is black and can be scraped from the flesh of the pepper. Cut off the top and stuff with mashed pinto beans (which I always doctor with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cumin) and a few tablespoons of cottage cheese. Heat a skillet with a little macadamia oil and begin to fry the stuffed peppers. After about 5 minutes on each side, adding some extra cumin and chile powder. When the cheese is starting to sizzle and get melty and hot, put in several tablespoons of salsa. Cook another 3 minutes and serve hot. Next time I think I might add avocado and pumpkin seeds, or perhaps ground beef, but this was a simple, fast, and delicious dinner.

Can my calculations really be correct that this day was only 1200 calories? It definitely seemed like plenty of food, though I was hungry for 2nd lunch just three hours after the first. It's only 6:30 so I might have another snack later, but I'm feeling full enough and satisfied, and al of these meals were tasty and quick and easy to prepare. I suppose I'll stop over thinking it, and just enjoy being full on such a relatively small number of calories!

Day 6, Back to basics

So, cheat day was pretty darn fun. I gained back about 1.5 lbs this morning, but the book swears you lose that + in a day or two. Still, it's a 5 day total weight loss of 4 pounds, which is very impressive. This morning it was back to eggs and beans, and that was just fine by me. I also ate a banana some time yesterday, but I'm having trouble finding the picture on my computer. I think the cheat day total was 2400-2500 calories? I will have to do a more detailed breakdown at some point. Several friends on Facebook have said they want to try the diet, so at this point I will tell you some things that I found essential:

-Macadamia oil, for cooking
-Carton of egg whites so you can supplement whole eggs and not waste nice eggs
-Pre-washed fresh greens (everything else I'm getting frozen or canned, but for me there is no substitute for fresh arugula)
-Beano or some other enzyme for help with digestion and gassiness
-Lemons (for flavor and citrus juice is recommended)

Pretty soon I will start posting some of my favorite recipes and cooking tips that are making this plan delicious for me.






Breakfast, Day 6: Scrambled eggs, pinto beans, avocado, salsa, coffee with a small amount of cream



Lunch, Day 6: Small bison burger, small piece lemon chicken, spinach, green beans, arugula, homemade apple cider vinegar dressing. I was trying to get rid of all the remaining food from the previous week in order to make room in the fridge and figure out what I needed to get at the store to ready myself for the coming week. I think later tonight I am going to make fish and try my hand at making mashed great northern beans in a manner that mimics mashed potatoes.



Dinner, Day 6: Baked trout, garlic mashed great northern beans, green beans. This is yet another combination that I hope to repeat. All three were delicious, and this was very inexpensive. Green beans are about $.65 per can, and this as 1/2 a can, great northern beans = $.70 per can and this was a little over 1/2 a can, each piece of trout was about $1.60--much cheaper than salmon but with a very similar taste and texture.

From my calculations, this day was about 1275 calories.

Day 5, Cheat Day!

As of this morning, the 5th day, I had lost a total of 5.7lbs. Pretty amazing loss for only 4 days on the plan. I'm nervous about cheat day, but it's part of the plan, so I'm going to have fun with it. I will calculate total inches lost and body fat percentage lost at the start of each week, so that's not until next Tuesday... I also have an appointment for a blood draw that day, so I don't have a perfect baseline (from before starting the plan) but I can at least track improvement from here on out.



Breakfast, Day 5: Scrambled eggs, black beans, arugula, salsa.



Lunch, Day 5: Jimmy John's Vito sandwich. (White bread, Italian meats, cheese, lettuce, tomato, vinaigrette dressing) I also had a few of my boyfriend's potato chips. Before this meal I had some grapefruit juice, and I did air squats.



"Lunch dessert", Day 5: Chocolate chunk brownie, Ben and Jerry's vanilla ice cream. This dessert was about 430 calories, so lunch all together was close to 1000 calories. I also took a cinnamon tablet before this dessert. (Cinnamon makes my throat hurt, so I can't just dust it on other things.)



Dinner: Garlic and herb bread with goat cheese, tomato, and roasted yellow peppers.



Cheat day dessert: yogurt and fruit



Cheat day party snack: dark chocolate



Cheat day bar snack: Jasmine rice with an asian brussel sprout salad. I shared this at a bar around 11PM.

Day 4

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs (2 white, 2 whole), pinto beans, small tomato, spinach, avocado. The tomato looks larger than it really is--it's a littler smaller than a typical Roma.

This morning at my daily weigh-in I found that I now weigh 5 pounds less than I did 4 days ago. (3 days really, because today is just beginning.) That is a pretty remarkable amount of weight to have lost in such a short period of time, and I can honestly say I have not been hungry, and have only had moderate cravings for sweets and "white carbs". I hope I am not making a mistake by having my first cheat day be tomorrow, (Ferriss says wait 5 full days) but I plan for my cheat day to not be totally overboard anyway. I'm missing fruit so much that I plan to eat a grapefruit, a pint of raspberries and a banana at some point during the day. (Or maybe a smoothie with tons of fruit, fruit juice, and YOGURT--another thing I have been craving.) I'm also probably going to have my lunch be a sandwich on french bread, and after dinner I want some chocolate cake or some other baked sweet. If I have other cravings I will also indulge them, since the whole point of the cheat day is to spike calories and help reduce cravings during the rest of the 6 days of the week. I will follow the protocol of grapefruit juice and air squats to try to help my body's muscle fibers take on the extra fat and sugar, and my breakfast will be protein and legume heavy.



Lunch, Day 4: Bison burger, green beans and broccoli w/mushrooms, sauerkraut, arugula w/dressing. (Dressing: 1:1 ratio of olive oil to apple cider vinegar, teaspoon dijon mustard, cracked pepper, salt, garlic powder-mixed 'till emulsified)



2nd Lunch, Day 4: Pinto beans, grilled free-range chicken breast, arugula, apple cider vinegar dressing.



Dinner, Day 4: Thai basil chicken with extra veggies. (No rice or noodles) This was amazingly delicious. I hope to make it a major part of my eating out routine.

Why I'm doing this...

First of all, I'm fat. Quite fat. Anything I can do to be less so will be a bonus to my health and well being. Secondly, I'm unemployed at the moment. I need a project, and it might as well be a project that helps me be more healthy and vital, rather than seeing if I can watch the entire first season of Glee in one day. I will not be posting my underwear pics on this site, or my weight, nor will I post my total inches or body fat percentage. If I LOSE inches and/or body fat %, and/or pounds, I will post what my losses are. If Tim Ferriss himself would like my stats, I will provide them to him. I was not able to do a super accurate body mass test like he suggests, because I'm broke, so my estimates were garnered from a health web site. Let's just say I'm at a higher body fat % than anyone he highlights in the book. I'm starting slowly, just focusing on the parts of the book that are about fat loss, or the slow-carb methods, and even then, I have not started cold showers or ice baths, or any supplements. I do play tennis 1-2X a week, and often go on walks, but I'm not adding any extra exercise, other than trying some of the suggested exercise on the cheat day in order to facilitate fat intake toward muscle building instead of more fat on the bod.

Some background on why I chose the 4 Hour Body as my method for my experiment: I have tried calorie counting on several occasions. This was doctor prescribed and directed, and it included me tracking (on paper and/or online) my food and caloric intake for many months at a time. I counted every calorie that went in my face, including "cheats" so as to be able to determine which cheats were the worst for me, and which were best, FOR ME. My most recent attempt at losing pounds with calorie counting was August 1-Dec. 19, 2010. I aimed for about 1300 calories per day on that plan (doctor recommended that level) and based on a BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) test that I had done about 2 years before (couldn't afford it again) I was assuming that my BMR is about 2000 calories per day. That is well below average, (consider that I am a large person) but not extremely low. By this calculation, if I was to consume 1300 calories a day in food, I would have a 700 calorie per day deficit. In the logic of diet land, that means about a pound to a pound an a half of weight loss per week, or roughly 6 pounds a month. Much to my dismay, In 4.5 months, I lost about 10 pounds, an average of 2.2 pounds a month. Not a week, but 2.2 pounds A MONTH. Frustrated and angry, I stopped counting calories and went back to eating what I wanted. I gained back 5 of those 10 lbs. between Dec. 19 and Feb. 15, the day I started 4-Hour Body.

Let's see if 4HB can help me?

The first 2 days...

Breakfast, Day 1: scrambled eggs (2 white, 2 whole), pinto beans, arugula, tomato, salsa.



Lunch, Day 1: lemon pepper chicken, green beans w/mushrooms, pinto beans, small tomato.



2nd Lunch, Day 1: Pinto beans, 2 small tomatoes, avocado, salsa.



Dinner, Day 1: Lemon pepper chicken, green beans, cottage cheese. Lunch and 2nd lunch really filled me up for a long time--only just now felt hungry again, (8:30 PM) and even then not super hungry.



Breakfast, Day 2: Scrambled eggs (whole and whites), green beans, salsa. Not very inspired/inspiring, but I have to do a lot today and this was quick to prepare. I know it's mostly water weight, (?) but I'll be damned if I didn't lose TWO POUNDS SINCE YESTERDAY. That will likely fluctuate, but still--wow.



Lunch, Day 2: Bison burger, arugula, spinach and mushrooms, black beans, small tomato. Very delicious.



2nd Lunch, Day 2: Black beans, chicken, spinach, avocado, salsa.



Dinner, Day 2: Black beans, spinach, arugula, tomato, cottage cheese.


I felt very satisfied with the taste and amount of the food I prepared on the first two days. Also, on the morning of day 3 I already lost 3.5 pounds, so it's tough to complain about missing fruit. I can honestly say I've only had a few "white carb" cravings, and a few sugar cravings. (So far!) But I do miss fruit really badly--I think it will be a major part of my cheat days, which will be Saturdays.

Day 3

I'm already on day 3 of The 4-Hour Body slow-carb diet. I will back-fill my photos of my meals, but here are some pictures of day 3 meals consumed.



Breakfast: scrambled eggs (2 whites, 2 whole), black beans, arugula, tomato, avocado, salsa. Like a fantastic breakfast taco w/out the tortilla!



Lunch: bison burger, spinach, avocado, sauerkraut. It occurs to me that many folks simply would not be able to do this program because of not liking things like kraut, which is recommended. Lucky for me, I love 100% of prescribed and allowed foods.




Dinner: Chipotle Burrito Bowl: Black beans, green peppers and onion, beef, salsa, pico de gallo, guacamole, lettuce.