How to Lose About 5lbs in a Week

Update: Please read the follow up post to this (above) so you can see how unrealistic a low carb diet is for healthy weight loss.

Note: Please remember that we are all different, our bodies store fat and metabolize differently so we will all lose fat and metabolize food differently. So if you see your results in weight loss not going as quickly as you like don't get down on yourself. Be proud of what you can achieve and keep working to achieve more. End note :)

Ok, that being said over the fall I hit a major plateau with my weight loss. I was still dropping inches from all my work outs, but the scale was staying the same and the fat wasn't coming off as fast as I wanted to. So I got fed up and decided to give up sugar and get really strict with my diet Jan 1. I did that for a week an half while I stuck to my low calorie diet and STILL the scale didn't go anywhere even eating 1500 calories a day. Normally I probably should have lost about 2lbs or more a week.

So I set up a meeting with my boot camp trainer to discuss my diet and he put it in pretty simple terms for me. My body was too used to my diet and my metabolism slowed down. I need to make a big change in what I was eating in order to shock my system and jump start my weight loss.

His solution: A weekly rotation of Low Carb, Low Glycemic, and Low Calorie/higher carb diets.

When I heard the words low carb I wanted to freak out! Low Carbs! I'm part German and Italian!

Give me my potatoes and wheat beer and my spaghetti, Italian bread and wine and I'm a happy girl!! I was raised on spaghetti and meatballs!

I'm also a firm believer that the Low Carb diet does not work. I don't need to be an expert to say this, I've seen it first hand happen to my father. He did the Atkins diet for months lost the weight really fast, went off the diet and gained it all back. Slow and steady wins the race and all things in moderation is my motto.

Needless to say I was actually a little afraid to try the low carb because of this, but what did I have to lose? I wasn't losing anything currently with my diet the way it was that's for sure, so I had to give this a try. What gave me the motivation to give this a try was that the diet rotated weekly. So essentially my body wouldn't adjust too much to the low carb's. When I switched my diet up after a week I wouldn't gain all the weight back right away and I wouldn't go crazy from not having some oatmeal or spaghetti :) WIN!

So far I've only done week 1: Low Carb. Yesterday was my last day and I'm happy to report I survived the week. Today I start low glycemic index, so I'll be posting about that next week.

Instead of focusing on what I couldn't have I was happy with the list of foods I was allowed:

-meats/dairy: beef, chicken, fish, eggs, cottage cheese, cheese, shellfish.

-unlimited veggies including asparagus, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, onion, lettuce, mushroom, pepper, snow peas, radish, spinach, tomato and zucchini. no carrots or green beans.

Mmmm... unlimited vegeeees!
(oh, but no fruit allowed for low carb week... sorry delicious apple!)

-allowable fats: cream/milk, canola and olive oil, nuts (almonds, brazil, peanuts, pecans, walnuts), avacado/guacamole, all natural peanut butter.

I was very happy that I could eat handfulls of nuts for a snack... if you recall I love nuts!

My daily goal was to eat 1600 Calories, 40g of Carbs, 89g of Fat, 160g of Protein

Here's an example of meals that I ate.

Sunday:

Breakfast - 3 egg omelet w/ salsa & cheese

Lunch - grilled chicken Caesar salad, no croutons

dinner - pork chop & salad

Monday:

Breakfast - two hardboiled eggs, 1 cup cottage cheese

snack - mixed nuts, dry roasted 1 oz.

Lunch - grilled chicken breast, salad w/ balsamic dressing, 4 celery sticks w/ peanut butter

snack - mixed nuts

dinner - 5oz Tilapia, asparagus

The Con's of this diet:


1. I don't recommend this diet to anyone who is just starting out with making a change in their lifestyle. It has a LOT of restrictions as to what you can and can't eat and you need to plan every meal. If I did this as a Newbie dieter I probably would have given up and that would have gotten me no where. If I had to follow a diet that said NO you can't eat this and NO you can't eat that then I would have had a very hard time because it would have been giving up too much too soon for me and I would have gotten overwhelmed.

I believe it's important to learn how to make healthy choices on your own with out restrictions first. Learn what foods (from all food groups) are healthy for you and learn how to properly portion your food before trying something like this. This is what sparkpeople.com teaches you. I had no restrictions on my diet starting out, technically I could have eaten what ever the hell I wanted to. But what I learned very quickly was well, I can't eat what ever I want beauce I won't see results. I had to learn on my own what healthy foods would fill me up instead of wasting my calories on an empty snack that would leave me hungry.

Now that I've learned all this, it was the right time for me to analyze my diet again and cut more out. Which is why I tried this low carb/low glycemic/low calorie rotation.

2. Removing carbs from your diet causes a HUGE DROP in energy. Carbs were my main source of energy before I gave them up. I would eat a cereal bar before working out and at 5am it really gave me that boost I needed to get through bootcamp. Eating protein for breakfast doesn't enter my system as quickly, so I found myself tired through my work outs, tired in the middle of the day, crashing at the end of the day and taking long naps.

3. I had to eat protein shakes some days to make sure I got enough protein. Can we say... blech!

The Pro's of this diet:


1. I learned that it wasn't so terrible to cut carbs from my life. I survived the week, granted I was tired a lot, but I did it. I've also realized that when I reach my weight loss goal and go off of this rotation diet, I don't need to depend on having carbs in my daily diet. I can go a day or several days with out toast, oatmeal, or pasta. And I figured out a scoop or two of peanut butter with a cup of milk will give me enough energy to get through my work outs.

2. I saved money, learned to plan ahead and ate better. At the grocery store I only bought chicken breast, fish, vegetables, nuts, cheese, cottage cheese, eggs and milk. I didn't eat a single processed, over salted frozen meal, and I didn't go out every day and buy a salad for lunch. I am a self proclaimed microwave queen and I usually buy salads for lunch or even frozen organic meals like Amy's brand. This week I prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner for myself and I learned to experiment more with some seasoning and I cooked a mean dish of tilapia! YUM.

3. I SAW RESULTS!!! After months of the scale not budging in either direction I FINALLY saw it go down again and it felt AMAZING!! I was so excited that after only a few days I saw the scale drop. After a week, my new jeans are already fitting me better! And people at bootcamp told me they saw a difference already!

But it's not just about the diet ladies!!

You got get up, get out there and exercise as well!

This was my work out schedule this week:

Monday: Spinning 1hr, Yoga 1hr

Tuesday: Bootcamp, 1hr (no soccer this week *sadface*)

Wednesday: rest (got a massage ;))

Thursday: Bootcamp, 1hr

Friday: Bootcamp, 1hr

Saturday: Run/walk (run for 4 min, walk 1), 6 miles and lots of hills!

Sunday: Run, 3 miles (not much hills)

Best part about my Saturday run was that I got a compliment for doing a good job from a cute stranger runner guy....who happened to pass me once when I was going down hill (enjoyed the view though) and when I was near the end he was already running back up hill (enjoyed that view too...I'm bad). But he was cute and said I was doing a good job so I forgive him for putting me to shame.