Protein Power Lifeplan

The Diet:

The main points of the diet are:

• Be sure to consume at least 20 grams of protein at every meal.
• Do not consume more than 40 grams of carbohydrates in a day.
• Limited fruit, preferring less sugary ones.
• Snack on nuts (except cashews and peanuts).
• Non-starchy vegetables are fine.

The Experience:

I do not have a good history with low-carb diets. They always leave me exhausted and irritable. Supporters of these diets have often told me it is because I am not getting enough fat and not enough variety to make the diets a success.

In order to increase the fat content I was sure to cook all my meat with olive oils. In addition to that I cooked my broccoli and other things in butter. I will say that adding butter definitely made the vegetables taste better.

For variety I tried a few different things. I was sure to add spices to my meats when I was cooking them at home, and when I was ordering out I ordered meats that had been seasoned. Whereas previously I might have only had chicken for the week I made sure to switch between chicken, pork, and beef. And finally I decided to name my food and give them backstories.

Little Jerry the Steak was a nice enough fellow. He and his siblings came from a cushy existence of eating hay and grain on the farm. One day he set out on his own to see the big world. He met a variety of different meats in the local butcher shop. Finally his dream came true and he was purchased and placed in a refrigerator for 0-2 days before being fried over the stove.

I wept for poor Jerry, even though he had achieved his lifelong dream. I will also say he tasted delicious.

This was one of the more stricter weeks for me. I was pretty soured by having gained quite a bit of weight on the previous diet. There were three exceptions to the diet. Wednesday evening was a friend's birthday party, and I had a frosted cupcake and about a dozen potato chips. Thursday evening I had a protein shake with banana and milk, and Saturday evening I had some microwave popcorn.

Since I don't really enjoy nuts I didn't have any all week. Normally for snack food I would use a carb control shake (3 carbs) or an Atkins Protein Bar. You have to look through those Atkins bars because some of them seem to have quite a bit of carbs. Of course I also had the sugar-free (0 carbs) jello snacks from Kroger.

I had never really paid attention before but most hard cheeses are carb free. I bought some swiss cheese and would eat it with cured meats (such as pork). The mozzarella cheese I purchased claimed <1 gram of carbs per serving. When I had mozzerella I counted it as 0.5 carbs per serving against my 40 grams total.

Thursday evening I had that banana and Friday I had some blueberries in heavy whipping cream. Those were the only fruits I consumed for the entire week.

Not too surprisingly (to me at least) I was feeling pretty low on energy this week. I didn't let that bother me too much though, because I was determined to get full workouts in. Monday and Wednesday I lifted weights and jogged, as I always do. Thursday I also did the P90X Chest & Back video. In the mornings I did several sets of pushups and crunches.

When Friday came I taught my martial arts class at the college. Not only was I pretty exhausted by then, but I was also quite irritable. In the past I've been sure to get a few carbs in on Thursday to try and counter act this, but I really wanted to be true to the diet this week. As a result I was short tempered with my class and it probably was one of their least enjoyable experiences. I'll have to make sure to go back to the old plan of a little bit of slack for the sake of my class.

The Result:

I ended up 2.8 pounds down this week. I was also tracking my body fat percentage and it went down .7% as well.