The past week was my official ‘no carb’ week. I did my best to stick to foods with zero to less than one carb per serving, no sugars, no diet soda (even though it is carb free), and even had a couple of more fatty meals, but I also at the end of the week moved up my no-carb to low-carb, and I will explain why in a moment.
I will gladly share my weight here, too, so to people who have seen me in the real world, don’t scoff at my weight compared to my size. I have been told more times than I can count (even by my doctors in the last six years), that I do not look as heavy as the scales says that I am or have ever been. I take that as a blessing, but that doesn’t change the fact that I find my weight to be an issue for me, especially where my depression is concerned.
Now onto the real meat of the post!
I started Monday morning with my typical weigh in. I say typical, because it has become a sort of ritual for me to weigh in before I get dressed for the day. I had to weigh daily for Noom when I started that back in December 2018, and I still find it a great way to keep tack of daily fluctuations in my weight based on what I have eaten or drank, and what kind of activity I did or did not do. So, I did my best to remember to weigh all week to keep a solid track of where things were at with my so-called ‘test’ for this blog post, and aside from totally spacing Tuesday morning, I’ve kept good track! So here’s the break down…
Weight Tracked
- Monday: 236.8 lbs (starting weight)
- Wednesday: 232.8 lbs
- Thursday: 232 lbs
- Friday: 230.8 lbs
- Saturday: 230 lbs
- Sunday: 230.2 lbs
- Monday: 229.2 lbs (ending weight)
As you can see, the week progressed with some decent loss (a whopping 7.6 pounds!), and I will fully admit that I lost much, much more than I thought I would.
What I Did
So as mentioned, my goal for the week was to go ‘no-carb’. As I mentioned above I did shift toward the end of the week into a ‘low-carb’, and my reasoning for doing so is that I was gaining more calories this way. (Not to mention that my body was extremely happy to have something other than canned tuna or eggs again, and no one had to listen to me be in tears wanting something different!) My specialized program through Noom has me with a goal of 1,200 calories a day, but eating zero carbs for the first few days, I found I was way under that mark. When I wound up at Chili’s Thursday with my kids (the husband works there and suggested we come in for lunch on our way home from the zoo), I decided on a no-carb version of a cheese burger. (And yes, it indeed is a very doable option!) The plus of having that burger was that it boosted my calories for the day. BIG TIME! Granted, the cheese and beef meant I was having much more fat than I had been enjoying all week, but it was all worth it. I felt kinda out of it and gross later in the day, but I’m still sure that was because I had way too much caffeine. (It was hot and I’m a sucker for a good iced or cold brew coffee…) This is the only time I broke my ‘no soda’ rule for the week. It’s not like I couldn’t have a diet soda while doing this ‘no-carb’ thing, but the extra sodium that’s in a soda is why I was avoiding it. My goal was to cut out all the ‘extra’ stuff that I didn’t need and new I could pretty much survive without. (However, I am currently craving a huge soft serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate and a warm slice of fresh from the oven bread with butter. Mmmmm…) I broke that ‘no soda’ rule when I needed to settle my stomach and had my husband grab me a diet 7-UP from the shop on the corner by our complex. I figured even a few sips wasn’t going to fully break my progress, and sleep was much more important to me than anything that night.
By Friday I decided that I would be making the veggie soup that I always ate when I was still doing Weight Watchers (now WW), because I love veggies, it’s super filling, and it makes a ton! So even if I didn’t eat only that over the weekend, I would still have some going into the next week (this week).
But Remember
Now, keep in mind, I started this while also having that detox tea and taking Forskolin every day. There’s a good chance that Forskolin is why my body felt like it was betraying me after I had that bun-less burger, but it could also have just been the fact that I was exhausted that day and nothing felt ‘right’ after getting home. AND I was also back on a regular exercise schedule doing walk videos through YouTube and yoga DVDs I had bought about a year ago and have missed doing.
This kind of plan is not going to be for everyone, and I love breads and ice cream and candy way too much to give it all up for good. This is the type of thing I can see doing again every couple of months, maybe, or even a couple of zero carb days during the week. Does it work? Sure! But who’s to say that this time it didn’t work so much better than the last time I tried, due to the extras I was taking, and the added movement I was doing throughout the whole ‘experiment’? I guess the only way to really know, is to try it yourself.
Remember to always talk to your doctor before starting any sort of weight loss plan, to make sure what you are wanting to do will actually be safe for your system. Not every plan is for every body.
What’s Next
I am trying to find a good time frame this coming week or in the next for doing my intermittent fasting plan. I am going to spend a couple of days this week for sure testing what times during the day work best for me, and then my hope is to go into the following week with a more solid plan. My main goal for this coming week is to keep up with my workouts, the extras I am taking, and try to nail down solid times for this fasting gig. Oh, and to not completely pig out at Unity on Thursday, when I go see Skillet! Gonna rock my lil’ heart out and have completely planned on some fair-style junk food to get me through the night!
Admittedly, I almost gave up. I did this no-carb thing once before with the goal of a full week, back in April of 2018, and not only did I not lose the same amount of weight, I also gave up! I told myself five days was good, and to be honest, it was. I was proud of myself making it that far. However, that is precisely when I wanted to give up again this time. But I pushed through and encourage anyone who wants to try the no-carb thing to not give up unless you are genuinely concerned about your personal health during the process. With that said…
I wish luck to anyone who wants to try this past week’s ‘diet plan’ for themselves, and please feel free to comment with any information or tips or suggestions for future post ideas! See you next time…
♥