I now have a pretty solid framework which, feels great, gives me good energy and minimises bloating and gastrointestinal discomfort.
The coming week I’ll be on:
A large breakfast smoothie of various berries, apple, kiwi, mango with 10 grams of L-glutamine and some powdered fibers.
1 liter of fresh squeezed juice orange with bananas, grapes and marshmallows spread over the day.
Evening meal of lean beef or chicken with sweet or regular potatoes, spinach or broccoli, apple sauce.
It’s short on B12, D, Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium, Zinc which I’m supplementing in natural bio available forms.
As this will be a sugar diet which has not given me any clear benefits thus far I’m also adding FGF21 boosting supplements.
I’m hoping to reach similar performance to a sugar fasting + protein refeed days protocol.
Give it some hell!
I completed my experiment Monday morning at 199.2. So down .6 lbs. Unfortunately I did not find the diet to have any special powers so to speak. At least not for me. I could definitely see how this could work, but for me it was not a good fit. My job is relatively sedentary if not working on a build out, trial set up, or other project that requires extra activity. So I am not just burning through carbs / calories in the same manner. I could have definitely tweaked things a bit and made this work but it came down to simply not enjoying this way of eating. I am a meat-a-sourus and prefer to have multiple portions of it throughout the day so this diet was not for me.
I followed Smelly's advice on the carb intake and trying to make sure you got enough, and feel this was not enough of a caloric restriction to really drop the weight with the meals at night for my activity level. I think somewhere in the 300g range a day would have produced better results.
A few comments, I enjoyed the additional fruits, and will have be having more of that again. The sugar fast portion seems to be the real kicker here. For me personally I prefer IF / TRF, I feel I have better results, and am in a lot more control. I would rather be on cruise control in a fast than having to feed fruit and sugar only. Another comment here, is that I found myself having some extra candy here and there. I have a huge sweet tooth, and found it hard to stop a couple nights with the candy after using it for post workout.
Random thoughts on the diet as a tool. I think the Sugar Diet could be a great option as a diet break without blowing up or regaining weight in the process. I don't mean calorically all though that could be engineered, but just being allowed to slam some sugar for a couple of weeks after being on a sugar restrictive diet at least for me made me tired of the things I had been craving. I could not wait to get back to a more normal diet by the 8-10 day point. Done as the sugar diet, this would probably maintain you well for a few weeks, and if you did sugar fasting that week or two I believe you would lose more weight, probably increase leptin stores from the sugar, and if getting like 350-400g of sugar most people would still be in a pretty good deficit while having plenty sugar to stimulate leptin levels. So possibly increasing metabolism there.
In the end I think I had too many carbs a day to lose the weight.
I also found having the candy around the house set me up for accidental overeating on occasion. I had 2 nights I just ate twice as much candy as I should have. So that is a risk I have learned a long time ago, that just not having those things in the house is better for me.
I am back on basic eating style now, planning around 2400-2600 calories a day and 160-200g of protein. Fats and carbs not that important as long as they are within the caloric restriction levels. Some days may be higher fat, and some days will be higher carbs. Basically, I am just going to eat a relatively balanced meal plan consisting of fruits, vegetables, rice, some breads, mostly chicken, then some pork, fish, and beef here and there.
I worked from home yesterday to finish up some work on my car during lunch and right after work. So I got a good bit of physical activity in yesterday, but no actual exercise. Calories around 2500. My weight is up today to 201 and change, still looking pretty good. Ready to get myself back to my more normal eating styles I have found to work well for me. Steady state eating with some IF / TFR added in here and there.
I am traveling for work again this weekend, coming back Wednesday of next week. Also my MIL is coming to visit starting tomorrow, before she goes under the knife for her cancer treatments. We wanted to squeeze in a visit before her health took a hit from the cancer treatments just incase she somehow doesn't make it. The prognosis seems to have just gotten better so that is good but we want to make this happen just in case. I know we all thought Rocket was gong to make it through, and you just never know what can happen. Unfortunately, I won't be able to take time off while she is here, but I am happy she is coming out. So there will definitely be some meals here and there over the next 2 weeks that have nothing to do with my goals, but with entertaining Mom and doing some fun things and getting new experiences to remember while she is here.
On a different note, I got tickets to the Falling in Reverse concert on Aug 14th, my son, his fiancé, and I are going to see them. It will be her first rock concert ever! Should be a nice little break in for her. I love Falling in Reverse, Ronnie's voice is unreal, and I love the rock / rap mix music too. He can sing better than most anyone, and rap with the best of them. It combines my 2 favorite types of music! While she was looking at them a Papa Roach song came on and she told my son she definitely wants to see them. I told him she is in luck, we don't miss Papa Roach when they come ever since Chester killed himself we try not to miss a chance to see our favorites. We missed one of the Linkin Park concert's before he killed himself but luckily caught them the last time they came to Houston. However after that loss, and being like Nah, we have seen them tons of times we were like Damn! We missed one of the last opportunities to see them live because we had seen them many times before, and found ourselves regretting it once he passed.