First Week with a Four Hour Body

I made a silly decision to start my slow carb diet the week of Pride. But I was tired of putting it off for this reason or that. Family in town, traveling, still having to live in hotels, etc etc.

I knew that this wasn’t going to end any time soon and that putting off this experiment would do me no good. Even if it meant I couldn’t enjoy the food and drinks of Sunday’s Pride Parade here in San Francisco.

This morning I woke up, went downstairs and did my weigh-in. Down twelve pound! Almost too good to be true so I did a scale reset and tried again. Twelve pounds, right there. Wow. Here’s how I did it.

Last week, I went to the grocery store and purchased a weeks worth of food, slow carb food. If you don’t know, here is how the diet works.

There are three things you have to eat at every meal. You can mix this up a bit with spices and different ingredients here and there. I recommend you buy the book. You do this for every meal, six days a week. On your seventh day, your cheat day, you eat whatever you want and as much of it as you want (don’t go too crazy).

  1. A serving of beans (canned beans of various varieties)
  2. A serving of vegetables
  3. A serving of a protein (eggs, fish, chicken, etc)

Things you don’t eat?

  1. As with most carb-conscious diets, stay away from white foods (with an exclusion or two). Not even whole grains like wheat or brown rice.
  2. Stay away from any milk product (soy milk, almond milk, etc included)
  3. Absolutely no fruit.

This is the gist of my grocery list.

  • 2 cans organic black beans
  • 2 cans organic pinto beans
  • 2 cans organic kidney beans
  • 1 can organic garbanzo beans
  • 1 stick of butter (allowed in small amounts, I use Plugrá butter)
  • organic salsa
  • organic, free-range eggs
  • 1 carton of egg beaters
  • 2 heads of broccoli
  • 2 bunches of asparagus
  • 1 bag of spinach
  • 1 large onion
  • 1 carton of mushrooms
  • 2 organic avocados
  • 6 frozen salmon filets
  • 6 cans of tuna
  • vegan cheese
  • spices

The total is (rough estimate) around $53 which breaks down to $9.33 a day or $3.11 per meal ! That is incredibly cheap, especially since before this diet I was known to hit up sushi joints for dinner on a much-too-regular basis.

On Saturday I was supposed to go crazy, eat whatever I want, drink whatever I want, get rid of all the urges through the week and also spin my metabolism a bit. Unfortunately I failed! Well sort of. I sure didn’t eat the ice cream or donuts or any other luxuriously delicious foods I had been craving for the week. I did have some potatoes at breakfast, an English muffin and liquor. Other than that, I kept the diet.

In the end, after just over a week, I am down twelve pounds. Now, I definitely don’t see this happening every week, I’d be a stick within months. However, if I can maintain a downward trend of around six pounds a week, I’ll be more than happy, and I’ll settle for three.

So for the next few months, I’ll be sticking to the diet just to see where it goes. Here’s hoping it continues until I’m back to where I was a few years ago, or even better. Once we get our house back together, my personal training sessions will pick back up, speeding this up a bit even more, though weight loss will slow as muscle builds up.

104 comments
justex07
justex07

@HenrikBrandin how did you stumble upon that post? :D

justex07
justex07

@HenrikBrandin I did a follow-up post two months later http://t.co/Cb0EygFZ but in short it was great, hard to do long term though.

HenrikBrandin
HenrikBrandin

@justex07 ok,thx for locating it. sure it is, but it's a good pointer to wut wrx + 'habitualizing' important parts makes 4 a good base diet

Toronto Personal Training
Toronto Personal Training

12 pounds to lose! Kinda worries me too much on time, I love losing weight makes me feel lighter and healthier kinda growing jealous on how the way you can lose weight in a short period of time :)

justex07
justex07

@Toronto Personal Training Just takes some small effort 6 days a week :D

squeakytoy
squeakytoy

@justex07 I haven't yet but I'll check it out. I had good results with 4HB but need something a bit more extreme at this point. :)

TUSK81
TUSK81

@justex07 This sounds super tasty actually! I think I'm gonna give it a try.

JessicaThinkies
JessicaThinkies

@justex07 I've been reading that book, glad to hear you're having success! I dunno if I can do all the sacrifices...

CarlNYC
CarlNYC

@justex07 sounds amazing, but all those beans! Could be a problem lol. How old are you? You young boys lose weight like it's nothing...

justex07
justex07

lushuslulu On Saturdays I can drink as much wine as I like :D

lushuslulu
lushuslulu

@justex07 Losing 12 lbs and drinking a gang o' wine is a Huge temptation.

semiamerican
semiamerican

@justex07 Thanks :) OMG that diet sounds horrible! I don't think I can give up rice. I'm a Mexican and we eat rice with everything O_O

justex07
justex07

@HenrikBrandin gotcha :D

justex07
justex07

@HenrikBrandin absolutely. I would love to start it up again, It's the only thing that has ever worked for me.

HenrikBrandin
HenrikBrandin

@justex07 ok,thx for locating it. sure it is, but it's a good pointer to wut wrx + 'habitualizing' important parts makes 4 a good base diet

HenrikBrandin
HenrikBrandin

@justex07 Stumbled through 4 Hour Body FB page and saw your link there.

justex07
justex07

@HenrikBrandin how did you stumble upon that post? :D

HenrikBrandin
HenrikBrandin

@justex07 Stumbled through 4 Hour Body FB page and saw your link there.

justex07
justex07

@HenrikBrandin gotcha :D

justex07
justex07

@HenrikBrandin how did you stumble upon that post? :D

justex07
justex07

@HenrikBrandin I did a follow-up post two months later http://t.co/Cb0EygFZ but in short it was great, hard to do long term though.

justex07
justex07

@HenrikBrandin I did a follow-up post two months later http://t.co/Cb0EygFZ but in short it was great, hard to do long term though.

HenrikBrandin
HenrikBrandin

@justex07 ok,thx for locating it. sure it is, but it's a good pointer to wut wrx + 'habitualizing' important parts makes 4 a good base diet

justex07
justex07

@HenrikBrandin absolutely. I would love to start it up again, It's the only thing that has ever worked for me.

justex07
justex07

@Toronto Personal Training Just takes some small effort 6 days a week :D

Toronto Personal Training
Toronto Personal Training

12 pounds to lose! Kinda worries me too much on time, I love losing weight makes me feel lighter and healthier kinda growing jealous on how the way you can lose weight in a short period of time :)

justex07
justex07

@squeakytoy @airrun sweet

squeakytoy
squeakytoy

@justex07 @Airrun has the details. I'll send you the Facebook invite

justex07
justex07

@squeakytoy 7/20 tweetup? Not positive I know about it. I get back to SF on the 19th though...

squeakytoy
squeakytoy

@justex07 Would love to get some advice from you. :) Are you going to be at the 7/20 tweetup?

justex07
justex07

@squeakytoy haha I did the same thing. Living situation is complicated, apart net and house are both under major renovation.

justex07
justex07

@squeakytoy oh definitely. I bring that up in one of my posts. At some point you run out of weight to lose (hopefully!)

squeakytoy
squeakytoy

@justex07 I'd love to know more about your living/travel situation since I just quit my job to go independent. We should connect!

squeakytoy
squeakytoy

@justex07 Also the 1lb per day is not sustainable. It slows down. 2-3 per week is generally where it levels off, unfortunately.

justex07
justex07

@squeakytoy when I'm strict on #4HB, lose about 1lb a day but with my current living/travel situation, it's hard.

squeakytoy
squeakytoy

@justex07 I haven't yet but I'll check it out. I had good results with 4HB but need something a bit more extreme at this point. :)

squeakytoy
squeakytoy

@justex07 I haven't yet but I'll check it out. I had good results with 4HB but need something a bit more extreme at this point. :)

justex07
justex07

@squeakytoy when I'm strict on #4HB, lose about 1lb a day but with my current living/travel situation, it's hard.

squeakytoy
squeakytoy

@justex07 I'd love to know more about your living/travel situation since I just quit my job to go independent. We should connect!

justex07
justex07

@squeakytoy 7/20 tweetup? Not positive I know about it. I get back to SF on the 19th though...

squeakytoy
squeakytoy

@justex07 Would love to get some advice from you. :) Are you going to be at the 7/20 tweetup?

justex07
justex07

@squeakytoy haha I did the same thing. Living situation is complicated, apart net and house are both under major renovation.

squeakytoy
squeakytoy

@justex07 Also the 1lb per day is not sustainable. It slows down. 2-3 per week is generally where it levels off, unfortunately.

justex07
justex07

@squeakytoy oh definitely. I bring that up in one of my posts. At some point you run out of weight to lose (hopefully!)