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Sunday 4 February 2007

Blow Out!

Well it had to happen - after 3 months of low carb eating, yesterday I ate a few (?) carbs!
After a normal breakfast and lunch I spent the afternoon in the hot sun doing manual labour in the garden for at least 3 hours.
After that, I was hot, sweaty, tired and HUNGRY.
A pub dinner was on the menu - too tired to cook anything.
So what did I have - lightly battered prawns, which on their own wouldn't have been too bad, but I also had beef nachos and ATE THE CORN CHIPS.

I figure I still had less than 100g carbohydrates for the day which is not too bad really, but I can't be sure [I didn't count or weigh the chips]. I probably blew the calorie count too.
Interestingly enough, after the meal, and today, I feel quite good. Actually better than I have in a while. Weight is up to 61.5 but that is nothing out of the ordinary for me.

OK - now I need to take my own advice. Maybe one size doesn't fit all. Maybe my desire for as low carbs as possible is erroneous.

You see, what I haven't been owning up to is the fact that although I am not hungry on low carb or particularly tired, I just have NO ENERGY. I find my weight lifting sessions difficult to get through and walking up stairs makes my legs ache.

In the never ending quest to find the perfect diet I bought the Metabolic Typing Diet yesterday after reading about it over at Sizematters.

I did the test in the book and came out as a Mixed type. This means that I need a balance between protein and carbs, not too much of one or the other.

As much as I don't want to believe this because I like my meat and fat diet, low carb hasn't helped me lose any weight. Although I have had limited success with high carb/low fat, I didn't feel great on it.

Now this is where I need to think about things

1. When I was a child I wasn't fat. I used to eat - porridge with cream for breakfast, full fat yoghurt and cereal for lunch, milk as a snack and meat and three veges for dinner.

2. When I lost all the most weight at the beginning of my life change, I didn't count anything at all - not carbs, not fat, not calories. I just ate healthy homemade food and nothing processed. I lost the last bit of stubborn weight by ditching bread/wheat.

I am convinced that I am eating too much protein on low carb, but do I replace it with carbs or with fat? That is the dilemma?

I could go Zone on 40-30-30 or go Rosedale on 25-25-50.

I am going to use my protein requirement of 80g a day as the base point and around 1450 calories. That equals 22% protein.

Now it gets scary - if I go close to Rosedale I am at 90g carbs and 85g fat. All nutrients even - easy to remember!

Pushing my protein to 30% = 108P, 145C and 48F - that sounds like a lot of carbs.

And I am scared that all that water will flood back into my muscles and I'll weigh 2kgs heavier right off the bat!

What to do??? I'm confused [as usual].

Please ignore my previous post about taking advice from people - this time I REALLY need any ideas/suggestions. My constant search for the perfect diet is driving me crazy. I just want to lose 5kgs and stay there. Is that too much to ask??

I think I'm going to explode!!!! H E L P

3 comments:

  1. Personally I eat anywhere between 50-70% carb, 20% protein, 20% fat (1400 cals) and I've lost 10kg in 3 months going from BMI of 30 to 26. I'm 5'2.

    I find that it is helpful to sometimes completely surprise your body. For example, completely stop whatever exercise you're doing and instead spend the next two weeks doing something completely new - if you are currently a runner, then start going to the pool and swimming 1 hour 5 days a week.

    I really believe that losing weight requires using up more energy than you consume, and if you feel like you are not eating much and yet still not losing weight, then the unpleasant truth is that somehow, your body has adapted to the status quo and is not losing weight even though 'it should be'. In this situation I would go for the 'surprise the body' technique by changing your macronutrient ratios; or trying a completely new exercise routine; or doing more incidental exercise like walking around the shops for hours. These are all things which I do at various times in order to prevent plateaus.

    Your mileage may vary!!!

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  2. I don't have diet advice because I don't think I've ever gone on a formal one, but I will say that when I look at your two pictures (the before and after one), I think you look so adorable in the after one that I couldn't imagine you ten pounds lighter! Really. But I will never criticize your decision to do so. My only thought is, have you also stepped up the exercise? A diet by itself seems to take forever, but exercise (if you're eating enough total calories) tends to speed things up for me.

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  3. Katie
    I'd like to help but I want the help to be worthwhile - so I'm giving it some thought - just posted so you know I've read it and will get back to you - hopefully with some wonderful insights!

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