I have nothing against exercising. It’s very good for you and everyone should do it every day or at least every other day. My problem was that I was having lots of lower back aches and pains and exercising always seemed to make it worse. It was a Catch-22 situation: I needed the exercise to strengthen my lower back muscles, but whenever I exercised … my back would hurt. So I decided I would lose the 20 pounds that I’ve been overweight for the past 5 years or so and then I would try to get back into exercising and see if the missing over-weight would make things easier on my back. I figured it was worth a try.

I started eating only fruit for lunch every day. I would get an apple and a banana and a small fruit cup from the cafeteria at work. I would eat it slowly and would usually feel pretty full after only 2 of the 3 items. Then I would eat the 3rd item a couple hours later for an afternoon snack. After a couple weeks of eating like this I stepped on the scale and had lost like 4 or 5 pounds. That was a pretty decent start. Then I got a wild hair and went hunting for nutritional advise on the Internet and found something called Calorie-Shifting.

Here is the official website for the diet: http://fatloss4idiots.com/

.

I’ll admit that it looks pretty gimmicky. And it almost looks like one of those websites that might take your money and then disappear from the face of the earth the very next day. And I’m not willing to pay good money for nutritional advise anyways. So I did some more searching and found this site that actually reviewed this calorie-shifting diet: http://www.weight-loss-for-busy-people.com/idiot-proof-diet-review.html

The review website is a bit critical of the calorie-shifting diet, but also admits that the rules are mostly sound nutritional advise. The 10 rules that form the basis of the diet are listed on this review website. (Not sure that’s allowed by the diet sellers, but that’s not really my problem.) The only thing you’re missing by not paying for the actual diet is the personal menu suggestions … which would be cool, but I’m a tightwad so I decided to try out the rules listed on the review website and see what happened. Here are the rules that are listed on the review site:

.

• I don’t quite understand rule #4. I stayed on mostly carbs for 3 days or so, then switched to mostly protein for 3 days or so. Rule #4 contradicts that scenario, so I didn’t follow that rule.
• I didn’t eat 4 meals a day. Instead I ate my normal 3 meals a day with at least a snack between each. But the snack had to be mostly carbs or mostly protein as appropriate.
• Minimizing the condiments was not easy, but it is probably good advise for everyone at any time. Diet or no diet, most condiments have lots of fat and sugar that make them taste so good. Mustard is probably the safest condiment out there, but I didn’t even eat it during my diet trial period.
• Portion control is a problem for most of us. I went out of my way to make sure I put on my plate what I was going to eat during the meal and never went back for seconds. Portion control alone could possibly account for much of my weight loss.
• I didn’t drink anything but water. Not even juice, not even milk. This won’t be easy for most people, but it was easy for me because I already don’t drink sodas and already drink mostly water.
• I didn’t walk daily because I wasn’t exercising at all during my trial period.
• It was kinda hard to avoid sweets, but I managed. It was during the holidays, so that made it especially hard. When sweets or desserts were served, I would just eat a small bite or two instead of a whole large piece or two.

On my carb days, I would eat whole wheat toast or an english muffin with some of that fake buttery flavored spray and just a small amount of natural no-sugar-added jam. Remember jams and jellys often have lots of sugar, so minimize their use. My other meals consisted usually of spanish rice on a whole wheat wrap with just a little salsa or a nice helping of real mashed potatoes. My carb snacks were usually a Nature Valley pecan crunch flavored granola bar or a handful of Wheat Thins 5 grain crunch flavored crackers or a fat free blueberry muffin from the WalMart bakery.

On my protein days, I would eat sausage and bacon or eggs or the like for breakfast. My other meals consisted of various meats with some beans or eggs thrown in for good measure. Meats are pretty easy to find, but avoid lunchmeats and hot dogs and other highly processed meats. I made sure my protein days coincided with work luncheons and holiday dinners and such. The hard part about protein days is finding a side on a restaurant menu or finding a snack. Most of the sides are usually carbs, so I usually chose the vegetable side. When eating at a restaurant, I always ate half the meal and saved the other half for my next meal. Restaurants always give you way more food than your body needs. What I settled on for protein snacks was a little bit of chipotle flavored or lightly salted peanuts and a little bit of beef jerky snack. But neither is terribly good for you in large quantities. Peanuts are mostly fat and beef jerky type snacks are highly processed and not too good for you.

On this diet I probably lost about 3 or maybe 4 pounds each week. Nowhere near the 9 pounds in 11 days that is promised by the calorie shifting website. But then again, I wasn’t following their menu suggestions that I would have to pay for. 3 to 4 pounds a week is a nice weight loss rate. Much more than that is considered dangerous by most nutritionists, anyways.

.

I lost exactly 20 pounds total by New Years. I started at 180 and now I’m at 160. This was from a couple weeks of eating just fruits for lunch and about 4 or 5 weeks on the pseudo calorie-shifting diet. I don’t look much different in this recent photo, but in the mirror my face does look skinnier and I can see less fat under my shirt and my belt is actually 2 notches smaller. I can now comfortably wear jeans that I haven’t been able to wear in over a year. How much of this weight loss can be attributed to the calorie-shifting diet? I don’t know. But a lot of the principles listed in the diet’s rules are wise nutritional advise, so that counts for something.

Kurt

ADDENDUM: I forgot to mention above that I am not continuing to calorie shift now that my little weight loss experiment is over. I only did it to see if I could lose 20 pounds. And I’m not completely convinced that the weight loss was primarily due to the calorie shifting. Most nutritional experts will tell you that leaving out major food groups is not a good idea. Most nutritionists suggest eating the right kinds and amounts of carbs and proteins and healthy fats at each and every meal.