I am a firm believer that Diets Don't Work - meaning diets as in, get your beach body here, 3-day detox, cabbage soup, instant slimmer stuff. As far as I can tell, these are just a recipe to have your body's response to food totally screwed up and return to above your pre-diet weight, leaving you miserable, fatter than ever, and ripe for the next charlatan who wants to sell you a load of hokey. The diet industry is huge (as it were) and it relies on people coming back again, and again, and again.
Diets as in the older sense of the word - an eating regime, the way you choose to eat, e.g. eating a vegetarian diet / halal diet / an 'invalid diet' (anyone else learn about that at Guides?) and so on - I'm much more interested in.
From reading boabacca's posts, I seem to have a fairly similar metabolism: I stay more or less the same weight, which is above my 'ideal' regardless of calories in and out - so I generally haven't bothered. If eating dust means I lose a measly 2 pounds and my sense of humour, I may as well eat bread and beer and enjoy life. So I thought I'd give this a try, and it does seem to work. I started on Monday so that's just under a week, and it went in the sort of order of Monday - fine, but hungry. Tuesday, headaches (presumably sugar withdrawal). Wednesday I felt dreadful in the morning and then much, much better, and normal service seems to have been resumed.
Report one week in: I'm not permanently hungry which I did use to be. I'm hoping it will improve my energy levels because getting up in the mornings has been a mission for years - I don't think it's just being lazy, and I wonder if it's connected to sugar levels. Not feeling 'empty' in the same way means it's harder to tell when I'm getting hungry - I seem to go from fine to NEED FOOD NOW in about ten seconds. A week without sugar has made sweet stuff taste sweeter. It seems pretty easy to stick to because I've always preferred veg to fruit, and after years of indoctrination that fat = evil, high fat food is a 'treat' with every meal. I've also noticed a difference brushing my teeth - a low sugar diet is definitely better for my teeth and gums (I have crappy gums, which bleed if I smile at sugar.) Oh, and I've lost 4lbs this week.
However, before I get too carried away with how great it is, I've also looked at what I would have eaten if I weren't trying this - and it's more calories, definitely (nb I'm not saying that's the same for everyone but it's certainly true for me.) For example yesterday I had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for breakfast. I would usually have had toast with that, although I would not have had the raspberries and cream as well. I skipped lunch because I was in a hurry and the only low carb food in the house needed cooking which I didn't have time for, so I had two mini babybel where I would usually have had a sandwich. The afternoon I was at a workshop full of queer women which meant there was delicious cake of every type including ones with coffee buttercream which I would definitely have had at least one of, normally. Someone else had brought Quality Street and I would usually have taken one. In the evening we went out for a meal and I had calves liver and broccoli - but left the potatoes on my plate, whereas I would usually have eaten them.
And, of course, no beer in the evening. I've used the Livestrong calories counter to work out that yesterday although I ate more fat than usual and under 50g carbs, I would have eaten just over 2000 calories yesterday if I were eating carbs, whereas in fact I ate 1250. So for me there is a calorie difference
as well as the processing difference.
I haven't tried doing any actual exercise with it yet
But I'm going to give it a try til Easter (coinciding with everyone else giving up sugar for Lent seems like a good time) and see what happens. So far, and it's very early on, it's a cautious thumbs up.