Low Carb Diet

Oh hey,
I'm back again, so soon!

Today I am going to go into detail about the diet I've been on, the pros and cons, my overall feelings about it...and so on and so forth. Just a disclaimer, if you don't want to hear about it, stop reading now!

For those of you still reading, yesterday officially marked 4 weeks of being on my low carb diet.

I have lost a total of 5 pounds, 2 inches off my waist, and 2 from my band size. Whoo-hoo!!
On the first week, I lost about 3 pounds. Everything I read warned about this: if you don't stay very hydrated during this diet you are going to lose water weight. So that happened. Then the next week I lost another 2 pounds. Going great! The third week I....gained 3 pounds? Not really sure what happened there, but I am pretty sure it had something to do with the 3 days of binge drinking I went on. (Week three was my last week before I started school aka my last week of freedom.) To punish myself, I did not go wild on cheat day. I had a sandwich, that was all the cheating I was allowed. Cuz let's be honest, 3 days of being drunk is pretty cheating, even if I was drinking whiskey diets the whole time that have no carbs, alcohol is not a part of this diet! Anyways, week four I lost those 3 pounds again. Bringing my total to 5 pounds.

It was REALLY hard to weigh myself only once a week. I know your weight fluctuates through the day and you should weigh yourself at the same time of day for an accurate account of weight loss which I did for my weekly weigh-ins! Especially the first week (after the initial carb cravings died down) I didn't feel like I was on a diet at ALL. I mean, who eats steak and eggs when they're on a diet?

Speaking of those cravings. Those cravings sucked. The first day was kind of whatever...I'm sure I've gone one day in my life before with just a few carbs, so no big deal. Day two my body was like, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO ME? I ate until my stomache hurt because I felt so hungry. That's when it dawned on me that maybe part of my over-eating problem before the diet was due to the fact that I ate when I was hungry. And half the time it probably wasn't hunger, just carb cravings. The third day I was fantasizing about eating an entire loaf of bread. Just the bread. All of it. The fourth day was actually not so bad, but all I wanted to eat all day was a goddamn sammich. And then that was about it! Getting through those first 3 days was the worst part of the whole diet. Now, I rarely have carb cravings (except for the day before cheat day when I start compiling a massive cheat menu)!

I wanted to talk about the effects this diet had on me as far as hunger though. I've always HATED girls who are all like "I forgot to eat today...and yesterday..." seriously? go eff yourself. I've eaten 5 times today and I'm still hungry! So, not to be that girl, but I sometimes forget to eat on this diet. My meals are very filling. I don't even have the urge to snack most of the time! Now I know that sounds great and all, but it turns out when you forget to eat and then go out drinking there can be rather disastrous results. I am not going to go into detail because honestly I'm embarrassed I was such an idiot not to think about eating before drinking, but I ended up blacking out on day three of my binge drinking (remember, I mentioned it, during week three of the diet, the week I gained 3 pounds back). Just to be clear, I do NOT enjoy drinking to the point of not remembering the night. I have a lot of friends who do, but I can't stand it at all. If I'm out with my friends having a good time, why would I want to not remember the night? I love my memories! So, definitely didn't mean to do that. I'm guessing the black out was a result of A. not eating a lot that day. (it was my day off, I wasn't on my work schedule to remind me, plus I didn't do ANYTHING all day prior to drinking so my body hadn't needed anything to give itself energy. and B. the fact that I am a beer drinker! Love my beer (blue moon is soooooo good). But, since beer is basically all carbs, for this diet I have switched to hard alcohol only. And I also forgot that would get me drunker than beer. So I was drinking normal beer amounts and BAM! Suddenly my night was gone. (I got home safe and sound, no worries, one of my roomies came and picked me up. I remembered who to call at least!)

So I guess my point is, you really shouldn't drink on this diet. I already knew that, but when I'm already giving up SO many guilty pleasures right now between working full time, and taking a full load of classes, AND being on a breadless diet, I didn't want to give up one more thing. So I decided drinking could stay. Although that has now been revised to "drinking can stay, but only one night a week, and if I am in a safe place and have a ride home and do not drink heavily!" That should cover it, right? It has to.

So I'm thinking I will stay on this diet a while longer, but with a few changes to what I am eating. Currently I am eating just a ton of meat. (I have one salad a day, don't freak out like my sister Hannah did when she came to visit.) Yes, I just ate steak and eggs for breakfast. But I'm going to have salad for lunch! Salad with pepperoni in it...or ground beef...and then I'll have bacon-wrapped meatloaf for dinner.

Yeah, that completely stays within the confines of a low carb, high protein diet, but I'm not too sure how healthy it is for someone like me who has massive health issues running in the family. So I am going to commit to this diet for another 4 weeks, but trying to get most of my protein from vegetables and chicken, turkey, and lean beef. No more bacon. (Or at least not as much)

I don't know what to call this diet. I called the last one "the opposite of vegan" diet. This one can be the healthy protein diet? I dunno, we'll work on the name later.

That's about all I've got for tonight. Homework time!