Recently I have seen a very toned gentleman promoting his latest diet for women over a certain age who wanted to lose belly fat. Of course, he had a plethora of women, all with flat stomachs, who sang the praises of his new way of eating.
So, in the line of duty, I wanted to check out what was involved. I sat down to listen to his sales pitch. After an hour, I'd almost lost the will to live, although I would say that in the past, I'd have probably been reaching for my credit card in the first 10 minutes. That may be why he did the presentation with his shirt off.
While waiting for him to get to the point, I scrolled through the comments. It appears that it wasn't just me who thought he went on a bit! One very kind person had got the nitty gritty....it was Carb Cycling and HIIT exercise. As I continued to listen to him, I checked out what was involved.
According to WebMD, "Carb cycling is a very strict diet used by serious athletes and bodybuilders who want to drop body fat, get more muscle mass, or store more carbs for long-haul exercise like a marathon. It's becoming more popular with people who want to kick-start weight loss, even though a lot of the weight you may lose would come from water. Carb cycling involves going back and forth between high-carb days and low-carb days. You would usually have a high-carb day when you plan on exercising hard."
It made sense, and although I'm not a bodybuilder or athlete (can you tell), I thought I'd try it out, because you can't really know the facts unless you've tried it.
My results.
Please note this will not necessarily be the experience for everyone; after all, we're unique.
I decided to try this diet for a month.
I weighed and measured myself at the beginning.
Day 1. A high-carb day. Easy peasy.
Porridge with plums and banana for breakfast. Homemade baked beans (borlotti beans and tinned tomatoes)on toast, 100g chicken and a pear. A giant baked potato with tuna and salad for dinner. A green apple as a snack. I was so full it was unbelievable. However, I was still 39g of carbs and 51g of protein short of my goal for the day.
Day 2. A medium-carb day. More difficult.
Today my protein goal was supposed to be 123g, and this was only a medium day. I made myself a lentil curry for dinner and added nutritional yeast, I also had a protein shake and an egg, but I was still short on my protein by 65g
Day 3. A low cab, high protein day. More difficult than the rubrics cube.
Today's goal 73g carbs, 165g protein. This was really tough. Three eggs (imagine the constipation if I did that every day!), cheese, beef and a protein shake, I managed to hit 101g of protein. I did, however, hit my carb goal.
Now, if I'd have been my previous self, I would have gone down a rabbit hole about what a failure I was, how fat and useless I was and then....I'd have stuffed my face to compensate.
What did I do instead?
I wrote about it for you because unless a diet is sustainable and you can afford to eat the food you need (imagine the cost of high-quality protein), you will never succeed.
And, as I hope you would also have done, I stopped eating what I was told couldn't fail.
Please don't spend your money on another diet plan that will never work in the long term. PLEASE save your money and spend it on good food that will help you live healthily, and if you need support and help with that...I'm always around, just ask
#carbcycling #bestdiettolosebellyfat #bestdietforwomenover40 #paleo #keto #intuitiveeating #dietsdontwork
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