Tom and I are starting a new “diet” today…it’s called the 6 Week Body Makeover (this is the guy who Extreme Makeover uses). Let’s just say it’s going to be interesting. We’re used to low-carb…as much red meat, cheese, butter, bacon, olive oil, etc. as you want. Now we’re switching to NO red meat, NO cheese, NO butter, NO bacon, NO olive oil, and NO salt…but we do get rice, potatoes, and quite a variety of fruit. Hoo boy. The plan is quite regimented, but you’re supposed to lose up to 30# in the six weeks—in addition to reshaping your body (you have a personalized 18-minute workout twice a week). If anything, it can’t hurt us.
Before we ordered it, I read the reviews of it, and of course there were pros and cons. The biggest con (which I already agree with) is that it takes quite a bit of time preparing to eat since you need to eat six small meals a day (breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack). And it’s not like oh, grab a chicken breast and a banana for lunch—it’s 2oz of protein (chicken), 1/2 cup of fruit (pineapple), and 1 cup vegetables (green beans)…so everything needs to be premeasured and put in containers. And since we eat three of those meals/snacks at work, we have to have lots of little containers. For both of us. That’s a lot of little containers. (Have I mentioned that’s lots of little containers?) Last night we grilled about 5# of chicken breast, made a huge batch of rice, baked 6 small potatoes, and fried up some bell peppers—just so we can cut out some food prep time for our breakfast and at-work meals.
We were both a little afraid of being hungry. I mean, we’re used to pretty much eating however much we want as long as it’s low-carb but now we’re restricted to very small portions. I estimate that I get the equivalent of a medium- to large- sized chicken breast over the entire day (I think it’s 8oz of protein). That’s quite a difference from having one chicken breast for lunch and one for dinner. I was especially worried about the two measly scrambled egg whites and pineapple I had for breakfast…but come 11:30 I was just starting to get hungry so I ate my snack and probably won’t eat lunch until 1:30 or 2:30, with another snack around 4:30. So…so far, so good. I can’t wait until we’re more comfortable with it and can experiment more. Right now, we’re more concerned with the basics, so it’s chicken three times a day, plain fruit twice a day, the same veggies twice a day, and a cup of rice a day. Boring, but hopefully effective.
The worst part is we have a pantry and freezer full of low-carb stuff we can no longer eat. (That’ll teach me to stock up.)
Wish us luck!