A couple of years ago I made my first genuine attempt at writing a diet. Back then it had the title '16KG's in 60 Days' and essentially involved 'replacing' what you planned eating with something similar or the same but as unprocessed as possible.
So if you were going to have fried rice, replace the white rice with brown rice. If you were going to have fried chips, have a backed potato instead. It was pretty simple and it worked.
I documented daily what I ate, what exercise I did and even developed a range of recipes including 7 meals made from the same base (it starts with Lentil Soup and ends up on the 7th day as a Brown Rice Curry Risotto). It worked, for me at least... I lost almost 16KG's at the end of the 60 days.
The problem though, and this pretty much goes for most diets, is that not to long after I lost all that weight, I put it back on... and some.
Below are 2 shots of me, one I took in Bali from early 2012 shortly after doing the 60 day diet. The other was taken yesterday.
So if you were going to have fried rice, replace the white rice with brown rice. If you were going to have fried chips, have a backed potato instead. It was pretty simple and it worked.
I documented daily what I ate, what exercise I did and even developed a range of recipes including 7 meals made from the same base (it starts with Lentil Soup and ends up on the 7th day as a Brown Rice Curry Risotto). It worked, for me at least... I lost almost 16KG's at the end of the 60 days.
The problem though, and this pretty much goes for most diets, is that not to long after I lost all that weight, I put it back on... and some.
Below are 2 shots of me, one I took in Bali from early 2012 shortly after doing the 60 day diet. The other was taken yesterday.
 Bali, early 2012. Approx. 86KG's. |  My place, early 2014. Approx. 96KG's. |
Once I got to where I needed to be from my newly created diet old habits kicked in, as they do, and I put all the weight I lost back on.
More recently I came across Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, the brilliant documentary from Joe Cross (another Aussie).
Joe's diet, called 'Reboot with Joe', is fairly simple. It involves replacing your meals over a set period (usually at least 30 days) with freshly made juice.
If you've seen the documentary, it is clear that in following this diet to the letter, you will lose a tonne of weight and become a whole lot healthier through the process.
I did the 24/7 juice thing for a couple of weeks and it worked wonders 'but' at the end of that period I couldn't wait to get back to so called 'regular' food.
Long held food habits are hard to break and in fact for many, the harder you try not to do something, ie cut out fatty foods completely, or try to avoid carbohydrates... the more likely it is that you will not only return to those things... but you will do so at levels the same or above where you were previously.
Yesterday, I started another food & wellness program*, this time focusing on something that will both work 'and' be something sustainable over a longer period than standard diets.
* I don't believe what I am proposing is a Diet in the strictest sense as it is not necessary to cut anything out... only to ensure that you do a small number of things every day.
The issue I have found with dieting generally is the processed food most of us eat on a regular basis is not only heavy on salt, fat and sugar but 'also' has been designed to trick the body into thinking you need MUCH more of these products than you do (have a read of 'Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us'... we really have the odds stacked against us).
Compare say Carrots to Gummy Bears. By weight, Gummy Bears deliver almost 10x the calories per 100g that Carrots do.
Carrots = 40.6 Calories per 100g (Source: Calorie Count)
Gummy Bears = 341 Calories per 100g (Source: Calorie Count)
Put another way, you could eat almost a full 1KG bag of Carrots to get around the same calories as you would from a little over 100g of Gummy Bears.
Now clearly the above is an extreme example, but it does highlight that processed foods generally pack a whole lot more calories into a very small space. Whereas most people couldn't finish a 1KG bag of Carrots in 1 sitting, very few however would find any difficulty in polishing off 100g or more of Gummy Bears.
With processed foods generally, it takes more mass to fill you up and therefore you end up consuming more calories than you need... and invariably you'll put on weight.
I figured there had to be a way you could get the nutrients and energy you required without overeating and putting on weight. Equally, there had to be a way to lose weight without 'dieting'... and without having to 'not' have this... and 'avoid' too much of that.
I reckon there is... and I will be testing my theories for the month of February 2014.
I've created a program for myself called 1:10:100.
More recently I came across Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, the brilliant documentary from Joe Cross (another Aussie).
Joe's diet, called 'Reboot with Joe', is fairly simple. It involves replacing your meals over a set period (usually at least 30 days) with freshly made juice.
If you've seen the documentary, it is clear that in following this diet to the letter, you will lose a tonne of weight and become a whole lot healthier through the process.
I did the 24/7 juice thing for a couple of weeks and it worked wonders 'but' at the end of that period I couldn't wait to get back to so called 'regular' food.
Long held food habits are hard to break and in fact for many, the harder you try not to do something, ie cut out fatty foods completely, or try to avoid carbohydrates... the more likely it is that you will not only return to those things... but you will do so at levels the same or above where you were previously.
Yesterday, I started another food & wellness program*, this time focusing on something that will both work 'and' be something sustainable over a longer period than standard diets.
* I don't believe what I am proposing is a Diet in the strictest sense as it is not necessary to cut anything out... only to ensure that you do a small number of things every day.
The issue I have found with dieting generally is the processed food most of us eat on a regular basis is not only heavy on salt, fat and sugar but 'also' has been designed to trick the body into thinking you need MUCH more of these products than you do (have a read of 'Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us'... we really have the odds stacked against us).
Compare say Carrots to Gummy Bears. By weight, Gummy Bears deliver almost 10x the calories per 100g that Carrots do.
Carrots = 40.6 Calories per 100g (Source: Calorie Count)
Gummy Bears = 341 Calories per 100g (Source: Calorie Count)
Put another way, you could eat almost a full 1KG bag of Carrots to get around the same calories as you would from a little over 100g of Gummy Bears.
Now clearly the above is an extreme example, but it does highlight that processed foods generally pack a whole lot more calories into a very small space. Whereas most people couldn't finish a 1KG bag of Carrots in 1 sitting, very few however would find any difficulty in polishing off 100g or more of Gummy Bears.
With processed foods generally, it takes more mass to fill you up and therefore you end up consuming more calories than you need... and invariably you'll put on weight.
I figured there had to be a way you could get the nutrients and energy you required without overeating and putting on weight. Equally, there had to be a way to lose weight without 'dieting'... and without having to 'not' have this... and 'avoid' too much of that.
I reckon there is... and I will be testing my theories for the month of February 2014.
I've created a program for myself called 1:10:100.
1:10:100 works as follows...
For 1 month, to lose 10% of your weight, drink 100 Litres of Juice & Water. (In my case, as I currently weigh 96KG's, I will aim to get down to around 86KG's by the end of February.)
My thinking is, and I have come to this after experimenting with a number of diets and healthy living programs, that by consuming around 3.5 Litres of freshly made juice and water (split as 2L of juice and 1.5 Litres of water) EVERY DAY several things will happen...
- After around 5 - 10 days of consuming 2 Litres of freshly made juice per day, you're appetite will evolve and you will start to crave less of the highly processed, high calorie foods and more foods that are good for you... Raw Almonds instead of 'Roasted' Almonds, Multigrain Low GI Breads instead of Supermarket White Breads etc... Remember, the processed foods industry uses years of research and technological advances to get us to buy and eat more and more of foods that we simply don't need.
- 2 Litres of 'freshly made' Juice has a fair bit of fibre in it, is 'heavy' to drink and quite filling. By making sure you consume 2 Litres of freshly made juice, you simply wont have the room for as much bad, highly processed foods as you would normally. For my part, yesterday, I had around 1 Litre of Juice at breakfast (instead of breakfast), a small lunch followed by 500 ML of juice and instead of my usual snack after dinner, the remaining 500 ML of juice.
To follow are some pictures of a typical juicing to make around 1.5L - 2L of fruit and vegetable juice.
For 1 month, to lose 10% of your weight, drink 100 Litres of Juice & Water. (In my case, as I currently weigh 96KG's, I will aim to get down to around 86KG's by the end of February.)
My thinking is, and I have come to this after experimenting with a number of diets and healthy living programs, that by consuming around 3.5 Litres of freshly made juice and water (split as 2L of juice and 1.5 Litres of water) EVERY DAY several things will happen...
- After around 5 - 10 days of consuming 2 Litres of freshly made juice per day, you're appetite will evolve and you will start to crave less of the highly processed, high calorie foods and more foods that are good for you... Raw Almonds instead of 'Roasted' Almonds, Multigrain Low GI Breads instead of Supermarket White Breads etc... Remember, the processed foods industry uses years of research and technological advances to get us to buy and eat more and more of foods that we simply don't need.
- 2 Litres of 'freshly made' Juice has a fair bit of fibre in it, is 'heavy' to drink and quite filling. By making sure you consume 2 Litres of freshly made juice, you simply wont have the room for as much bad, highly processed foods as you would normally. For my part, yesterday, I had around 1 Litre of Juice at breakfast (instead of breakfast), a small lunch followed by 500 ML of juice and instead of my usual snack after dinner, the remaining 500 ML of juice.
To follow are some pictures of a typical juicing to make around 1.5L - 2L of fruit and vegetable juice.
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My particular recipe, for what I am calling 'Dean Machine', is as follows...
- 1 KG of Juicing Carrots.
- Half a bunch of Celery.
- Half a bunch of Kale.
- A small piece of Ginger (around the size of a Golf Ball).
- 1 Full Lemon.
- 1 Australian Continental Cucumber.
- Half a Kilogram of Granny Smith Apples (small).
I use a Breville Juice Fountain and pretty much everything above can be put in without taking the skin off (the best part)... including the Lemon.
The only preparation I do with the above ingredients is to remove any stickers that have been placed on the fruit or vegetables (sometimes the Lemons and Apples have stickers on them) and chop off the base of the Celery bunch.
I then add everything whole to the Juicer... from the Carrots... to the apples... to the Cucumber... to the Lemon.
You will find the above recipe is a little bit bitter (because of the Kale) and quite tart. If you would like it a little sweeter, add more apples and reduce say the number of Carrots or Tomatoes. Remember though sweet fruits like Apples have more Calories per 100 grams than Carrots or Tomatoes.
To mix things up a little, I'll sometimes swap Spinach for the Kale (or even Parsley for Kale)... or add Beetroot. I really like Lemons so will often add 2 Lemons instead of 1 to the above recipe to give it a little more kick.
I like to make the above 2L of juice first thing in the morning and drink around 500ML to 1L of it instead of having breakfast... then have a small lunch followed by 500ML or so of juice... and then finish off the remainder of the 2L of juice throughout the day.
The most important part of this plan is this... you make 2L of juice every day... and you then drink 2L of juice every day.
My belief is that you will at first eat less of the processed, high calorie foods you would usually eat throughout the day and over time, start to crave better foods as your body adapts to your eating less of the bad stuff. For my part, and around 24 hours after I started this program, I'm already craving Raw Almonds instead of a Bag of Chips. Time will tell if this holds. I believe it will.
I'll provide regular updates on my progress throughout the month of February... and all going to plan... I should lose around 10KG's.
- 1 KG of Juicing Carrots.
- Half a bunch of Celery.
- Half a bunch of Kale.
- A small piece of Ginger (around the size of a Golf Ball).
- 1 Full Lemon.
- 1 Australian Continental Cucumber.
- Half a Kilogram of Granny Smith Apples (small).
I use a Breville Juice Fountain and pretty much everything above can be put in without taking the skin off (the best part)... including the Lemon.
The only preparation I do with the above ingredients is to remove any stickers that have been placed on the fruit or vegetables (sometimes the Lemons and Apples have stickers on them) and chop off the base of the Celery bunch.
I then add everything whole to the Juicer... from the Carrots... to the apples... to the Cucumber... to the Lemon.
You will find the above recipe is a little bit bitter (because of the Kale) and quite tart. If you would like it a little sweeter, add more apples and reduce say the number of Carrots or Tomatoes. Remember though sweet fruits like Apples have more Calories per 100 grams than Carrots or Tomatoes.
To mix things up a little, I'll sometimes swap Spinach for the Kale (or even Parsley for Kale)... or add Beetroot. I really like Lemons so will often add 2 Lemons instead of 1 to the above recipe to give it a little more kick.
I like to make the above 2L of juice first thing in the morning and drink around 500ML to 1L of it instead of having breakfast... then have a small lunch followed by 500ML or so of juice... and then finish off the remainder of the 2L of juice throughout the day.
The most important part of this plan is this... you make 2L of juice every day... and you then drink 2L of juice every day.
My belief is that you will at first eat less of the processed, high calorie foods you would usually eat throughout the day and over time, start to crave better foods as your body adapts to your eating less of the bad stuff. For my part, and around 24 hours after I started this program, I'm already craving Raw Almonds instead of a Bag of Chips. Time will tell if this holds. I believe it will.
I'll provide regular updates on my progress throughout the month of February... and all going to plan... I should lose around 10KG's.
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