I ran into a post a few days ago by one of my favorite writers and adventurers, Tim Ferriss, that really opened my eyes to diet success. In the post Tim explains that he created a meal plan that limited his diet choices to a dozen items. He created similar meals over and over in a six week period. The dozen items were all low glycemic which helps keep blood sugar levels constant throughout the day. The result of his experiment with this “slow-carb” diet was a fifteen pound weight loss and an increase of ten pounds of muscle mass. The total fat loss was 25 pounds over six weeks.
His items consisted of…
Proteins:
Egg whites with one whole egg for flavor
Chicken breast or thigh
Grass-fed organic beef
Pork
Legumes:
Lentils
Black beans
Pinto beansVegetables:
Spinach
Asparagus
Peas
Mixed vegetables
Tim also cut out all “white” carbohydrates, drank only zero calorie beverages (water, tea, coffee, etc), and took one day off from the diet each week.
At first I thought this diet would be extremely boring and hard to stick to. I was intrigued by his success so I decided to try to stick to this for a week and see how it went. Here is what I found…
1. When I’ve tried to do any type of low carb diet I would feel extremely lethargic after a day or two. I was never able to stay on this type of diet more than three days. With the addition of the beans and legumes (slow carb items), I have found that I feel more energetic than normal without the highs and lows of most processed carbohydrates. I feel really good on this diet.
2. With the exclusion of bread and white carbohydrates I figured it would be very hard to find meals out that met the requirements of this diet. I was surprised at the variety I could create at places like Chipotle Mexican restaurants, El Pollo Loco, and Panda Express. With their bowl selections I could mix and match ingredients at will to come up with amazing creations. Black beans, pinto beans, and mixed vegetables work very well with chicken and lean beef.
3. At the end of the week, I weighed in with a three pound weight loss. I feel great and have more energy than I’ve had in a while. The meals are tasty enough that I actually look forward to eating them time after time.
4. This meal plan fits very well into my current “Body for Life,” fitness and exercise plan.
Tim Ferriss is the type of person looking for results. Pick up has amazing book, “The Four Hour Workweek,” and you’ll see what I mean. I think he has found a great diet combination here. It is simple, tasty and reasonably easy to stick to. Check out his blog post for more information.