Yes, the internet is full of lots of things saying that the laws of thermodynamics have nothing to do with dieting and a calorie isn't just a calorie, but it's all a matter of interpretation: don't forget about that second law and remember that your body doesn't do things with anything close to 100% efficiency and all is good.
The food diary of my diet
My food diary for the last couple of months certainly doesn't look like the food diary of a dieter. It's full of beer, pizza, doughnuts, cookies, wine, chocolate, and the occasional can of Dr. Pepper or glass of fruit juice just to prove a point.
It really doesn't matter what you eat: just don't eat more than you burn.
Again, that efficiency thing comes back into play. If you eat 2000 calories of simple carbohydrate and burn 2500 calories that day, you'll have a 500 calorie deficit on paper, the same as if you ate 2000 calories of protein.
However, the protein may take a bit more energy to process, so the actual calorie deficit from the high protein diet may end up being more than the carbohydrate deficit.
What I'm going to say though, is "who cares"? Do you really need to micromanage things like that? Do those extra few calories really matter enough to make you change how you eat?
Keeping things easy
For me, and I'm sure for a lot of people, the easier something is, the more likely you are to do it. I'm writing this at 6.30 am on a Saturday morning. It's cold and raining outside and really doesn't sound very appealing at all.
If I were a member of a gym, I don't think I could summon the effort to go to the gym on a morning like this (even if I were a member). However, if I had a rowing machine in the house, I'd probably get half an hour in before breakfast. I've got my dumbbells here, so I'll try and get some weights in: maybe a set each time I go upstairs. It's easy.
And I like easy.
The last thing I would want to do when wanting to lose weight is have an overly prescriptive eating plan that breaks down what I need to eat into various components and forces me to come up with a daily diet plan that needs its macronutrients assembling like a game of Tetris. I don't have time for that.
I'm also limited in what I can eat during the day. I don't really have access to a kitchen at work, there's a kettle and a microwave, so I can reheat my leftover curry in a Tupperware, but not much more than that.
I also don't particularly want to spend any more time than I currently do preparing food. Don't get me wring, I really enjoy cooking, I find it a very nice way to spend a Saturday evening: glass of wine in hand - Keith Floyd style - deftly plopping a poached egg on top of a nice piece of smoked haddock; but I don't want to have to spend precious time each evening or morning preparing a scientifically-constructed meal plan.
And I don't want to spend any more on food.
I like the food I eat: it's tasty and it makes me feel happy. While I don't get my 5-a-day (although I never have, it's not simply a diet thing), I think I actually eat nutritionally better than a lot of people and, while I've stopped adding it to the daily food diary, I'm taking my multivitamin every day as well.
Summing up the first 2 months of the diet
I was about to say I just don't get why so many people try to make losing weight so complicated, but then I remembered they need to make it complicated so that you need to buy their book or sign up to their program.
Lots of people want to lose weight, and lots of them are prepared to pay for it. It's big business. I'll admit, that for a lot of people, cost is associated with value: if you pay for something, you value it more. Taking that into the diet world, if you pay for the plan, maybe you're more likely to stick to it, maybe you'll make more of an effort.
For the diet plans where you go and do your weekly weigh-in in public, I can see how paying for that can make a lot of motivational sense for a lot of people; I suppose it comes back to the public shame thing I mentioned before.
Maybe I wouldn't have lost over 12 pounds if I'd not been writing this and making my progress public. I feel I've made a public commitment to lose weight and, quite frankly, I probably would be a bit ashamed if I didn't. Perhaps not ashamed, that might be on over-reaction, but I'd certainly be disappointed with myself and perhaps a bit embarrassed.
From inductive reasoning, I knew that this diet would work. Since they were developed, no event has been shown to violate the laws of thermodynamics and my body is no different.
Sure, if I keep this up and get slimmer and slimmer and continue to drop my body fat percentage, my body might start to panic a bit. My metabolism will change, the levels of those mitochondrial uncoupling proteins may change, my proton leak may drop and I will lose less energy as heat. My leptin levels might fall and my ghrelin levels might rise making me much more hungry.
In short, if I keep going, it's going to get harder and harder to lose weight. But I have no intention of going that far. I don't want to be a rake. My BMI is currently 22.4. I have no intention of it falling below 21.5, and even that's probably too low.
In short, for two months in, I'm really happy with how things are going. I look a lot better in the mirror, and I can continue to have a 5-pack of doughnuts at work with my morning coffee, a bottle of wine on a Friday night, and enjoy pizza and ice-cream with the family.
Last week, my daily calorie intake average was 2514. I round up, so if we consider that that's a 5% overestimate (probably quite conservative), that falls to 2388 - quite a drop. Then consider the extra walking and the fact that I probably spend a lot more time awake than most people, and you can see how I lost nearly two pounds last week.
Away for three days for work next week though -eating out will likely be involved, so we'll see how we do next Saturday!
Day 60 - 2950 calories
Breakfast
Milk (200)
Protein bar (200)
Lunch
5x jam doughnuts (1150)
Dinner
Pint of beer (250)
Steak, chili and pepper stir fry with rocket salad (300)
Bottle of wine (700)
Chocolate crepe (150)
Exercise
60 sit ups
100 press ups
6x sets dips
30m walking
Day 61 - 3200 calories
Breakfast
Milk (200)
Bit of cookie (100)
Fried egg roll (350)
Lunch
Steak stir fry on rocket salad (300)
Small croissant (250)
2x slices toast and butter (300)
Dinner
Beer (200)
Bread and butter (500)
Plaice with leek and broccoli (300)
Crepe (150)
Burger (250)
Wine (300)
Exercise
30 sit ups
6x sets bicep curls
45m walking
Day 62 -3700 calories
Breakfast
Milk (100)
2x poached eggs on toast (300)
Lunch
Fry up (2x black pudding, 2x Lorne sausage, 4x link sausage, 2x scrambled eggs (1000)
Snack
Creme egg (200)
Beer (200)
Mini eggs (250)
Dinner
Wine (400)
Chicken and veg stir fry with wild rice (400)
4x chocolate crepes (500)
Snickers (250)
Whisky (100)
Exercise
30x sit ups
6x sets dips
2m plank
60m in pool with kids (can't really call it swimming)
30m walking
Day 63 - 1850 calories
Breakfast
Milk (100)
Scrambled egg on toast (350)
Protein bar (250)
Lunch
Ham sandwich (200)
Chicken sandwich (350)
Dinner
Bacon sandwich (300)
Weetabix, raisins and milk (300)
Exercise
60m walking
2 1/4m plank
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