7 days on a slow carb diet
Hello, ladies and germs, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome back…
Yes, the famous slow carb diet that Tim and many many more people recommend. No rice, no potatoes, no flour (read: no cakes) for seven days.
I consider myself a healthy person that cooks most of her meals (roasts, curries, salads), doesn’t eat as much sweets as she used to and exercises 2–3 times a week. Oh, I also walk quite a bit. Since my work isn’t spent sitting for 8 hours a day, I am generally quite happy about my health situation.
My partner is a crazy Ferriss follower. He is also waaaay healthier than me when it comes to eating. His motto: “The worse it tastes, the better it must be for you”. Disgusting green juices with spirulina and protein powder, long runs in the evenings and substituting rice with chickpeas is him in a nutshell.
So, I decided to try and see if elimination of afformentioned starch delights is going to do anything to how I feel.
I started writing this on Day 3 of my adventure and so far it has been pretty easy. Day 1 was accidenly carb free and was proudly proclaimed to be intentional.
- My breakfasts (haven’t changed at all): banana, youghurt and muesli (yes, technically muesli are not slow carbs but I decided to ignore that fact).
- My lunches and dinners: chicken and kumara roasts, beans, chickpeas, sausages and some greens here and there.
- Snacks: couple of squares of dark chocolate (just a couple, I swear).
- Exercise: the usual — trademill runs, kettle bells 75 reps in 1 set (totally Ferriss thing to do), pilates or cardio pump classes — 2/3 times a week.
DAY3: How do I feel? Well, mentally I am telling myself what a healthy goddess I am. Physically, well, it has been 3 days — what am I expecting? 10kgs shed? Definitely not (OK, maybe expecting that a bit).
Went for a date dinner night and couldn’t find anything that I wanted that didn’t have fast carbs. Settled on my favourite place Burger Burger and ordered kumara fries and a burger wrapped in lettuce. Just as delicious!
Tomorrow is Saturday and a ‘cheat day’ — don’t worry, Tim recommended to have a cheat day once a week so it is totally justified.
DAY4 (cheat day or cheat meal? to be or not to be..): Had my normal breakfast. Went out with friends to a cafe and was a good girl — drunk water (how exciting). It was Chinese New Year so we (bunch of white people) decided to eat out at a Chinese restaurant. Shared some dumplings and a rice dish. Regretted it all hours later when my stomach denied me the pleasures of white carbs and was sore for the rest of the night.
DAY5: Feeling great-ish.. Not craving anything, just generally feeling meh (it is a real word, look it up). My partner told me that when you change your diet even slightly, your first week is always going to be poops. Well, it is and since my challenge is only 7 days, I guess I will have to extend it to go past the first week onto another side of feeling like a better human being with a brighter glow around me.
DAY7 (because nothing changed since day 5): Last day! Did yoga and felt like I am better than all of these people who eat white carbs. Don’t they know it is not cool anymore?
Jokes aside, I feel good. If I don’t eat rice — I don’t die so that’s good to know. I lost half a kg. Now I am very curious if that had anything to do with me not eating white carbs.
I am definitely continuing this to see how I feel. I told myself that I can have 2 or 3 cheat meals (not days) a week.
I hope when I read this in a year I will look like Gal Gadot and be all fit and healthy with my trendy water bottle thinking that this 7 day challenge pushed me to have a bit healthier life. Or I will be 100kgs eating fries from my belly and watching The Bachelor. Let’s hope for the former.
Here is a picture of me and I bet you if you tried to guess which one is ‘before’ and which one is ‘after’, ya’ll fail :)
