One week, pre-results posting

This weekend I only got to Subway once per day, what with all the packing and visitors helping us with packing. However, as of this morning I was down to 219.2.

Five pounds in a week eating 1800 calories per day including 18 inches of Subway sandwiches. I'll post the exact loss tomorrow and some of the details, tips and tricks I discovered.

First Stumble

I wasn't depressed, or feeling down. I was feeling on top of the world, other than a few stressful issues that I was ignoring. Then the free sample girl hit me up with an offer of truffles.

300 calories later... wow, truffles are good. But my planned afternoon snack would have been better.

I can't figure out what might have caused this behavior, other than my old friend the Fear of Success demon. I weighed in this morning almost 4.5 pounds lighter than Monday. I was hoping to reverse the gain from last week's marathon restaurant excursion, but this is more than I hoped for and I started to be afraid this crazy idea might work out even better than my secret dreams. Naturally, I need to take some action to prevent emotional eating during the rest of the move and self-sabotage.

I started reading 100 Days of Weight Loss: The Secret to Being Successful on ANY Diet Plan by Linda Spangle yesterday, only to discover that it is (duh!) a workbook. So today I am busting out my hardly used 2007 journal and doing the first exercise, since if anyone needs to know how to succeed with any diet it's the person who is trying them all.

First Impressions

Two days of the rechristened "Jared" diet and I'm down about 1.5 pounds. I have not remotely lost that much fat, but a combination of system sludge and water. It is important to note that during the time I am trying this diet, I'm also packing the house to move out of state. My current activity level is higher than normal although I am not specifically exercising every day.

My initial impression of this diet is that adding 18 inches of low-fat Subway per day would have the net effect of decreasing fat and calories and increasing fiber for most Americans. As a caveat, this diet is very low in fat and protein without modification to the sandwiches and balancing factors during the rest of the day. The big, bready subs are delicious and fairly filling, but without protein and fat I am soon hungry again.

The cost is moderate. It would certainly be cheaper to do this at home. However, most people are not going to chop up lettuce, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, cucumbers, olives and hot peppers every day. If they did, most of it would go to waste. The precut vegetables are, in my opinion, the heart of this plan. Sure, you could slap turkey and cheese on bread at home but it isn't nearly as satisfying as a bread and vegetable football with turkey and cheese.

The hunger level is moderate, but this depends on where you are coming from. For me, this diet (at an adjusted 1800 calories per day) is well below maintenance. In fact, I woke up early because I was quite hungry. Unfortunately, weight loss does sometimes involve being hungry. A very low fat and protein plan tends to increase hunger as your blood sugar fluctuates more highly.

I strongly recommend buying your own baked chips, or better yet rice and soy chips. This will save money and, in the case of soy chips, change your macronutrient balance for the day. I also recommend supplementing with a whey protein shake at least once daily.

Monday morning weigh-in

Monday morning and I'm staring down 224.2 again. Again! How many times do I need to see this number in either direction to get it?

Luckily I already have this week's plan.

Breakfast:
Oatmeal
and
Fruit + whey protein shake + 1% milk
or
Egg white omelet with reduced fat cheese

Lunch:
6 inch "7 Under 6" sub with cheese
Light chips
Diet Soda

Dinner:
12 inch veggie sub with cheese

Snack:
Veggies and/or whey protein shake

I'll post the exact calories and macros later for this plan, but it should be about 1600-1700 calories per day and low fat (under 20% calories from fat).

EDIT: After calculating macros for day one, I'm in the low 1600s with 20% calories from fat and 30% from protein. I may add milk after dinner or something to bring it up. I realize this is only kind of like the diet advertised on the site, but I feel I can get a clear handle on factors like cost and boredom from this experiment.

In the course of looking up the so-called "Subway diet" I found this site. At first I thought, "A site with that many diet reviews? Why am I bothering?" However... they got the plan wrong.

It's the SUBWAY Diet! It isn't rocket science. Even though it has been years, I remember that Jared ate a 6-inch sandwich with light chips for lunch and a 12-inch sandwich for dinner (no chips) and that one sandwich (the 12 inch, I believe) did not have cheese. I do believe that the total diet is under 1000 calories which isn't enough for me, but they give no details! It's all public, so how long would it take to find the details, pop over to the Subway website, run some analysis of macronutrients, grab a link and pop back?

Let's find out.

Here is Jared's actual diet. 2 minutes

What he ate everyday:

* Breakfast - coffee
* Lunch - "I ate the 6-inch turkey, tons of vegetables, including hot peppers and a bit of spicy mustard." He left off the mayonnaise and cheese and had a bag of Baked Lays® potato chips and a diet soft drink
* Dinner - Footlong veggie sub - again no mayonnaise or cheese.

My mistake, no cheese. (An additional 90 seconds to paste this while chatting with a friend.)

Analysis:

Coffee - 0 calories
6 - inch turkey:
280 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, 46 grams of carbs, 4 grams dietary fiber, 18 grams protein.
Lay's Baked Chips (plain) (from the Frito Lay Website, less than a minute):
110 cal, 1.5g fat, 23g carb, 2g dietary fiber, 2gproteinn
12 inch veggie sub:
460 cal, 6g fat, 88g carbs, 8g dietary fiber, 18g protein

Totals: 850 calories, 12g fat, 157g carbs, 14g dietary fiber, 38g protein (10 minutes, still chatting)

Okay, so there are some very important details here. First, this is a very low calorie diet. Not 1000 calories a day unless your Subway puts cubic inches of mustard on the sandwich. Second, it gets 13% of its calories from fat and 18% from protein making it very low fat and low protein. If I was willing to do it without adjustment (and I'm not) it would be a great transition to vegetarianism prior to the October vegan experiment. Now to decide if I can adjust this diet and still capture the basic idea - I'm afraid at 850 calories per day it's about half what I want to eat but I am *not* shoving down 3 feet of sandwich every day.

Subway Diet?

I've been gaining weight recently and I was hoping to maintain through the move. Stress, finals, not time to cook, blah blah... all excuses. What to do?

My friend Angie suggested I try the "Subway diet" before the move during the time when our dishes are packed (we are moving by shipping container so our stuff leaves 5 days before we do) and we don't have a microwave. I'm going to investigate the possibility this week to see if it can be modified to be a little higher calories without losing the whole idea.

Beginnings

I have purchased Simply Vegan by Debra Wasserman as a prelude to my vegan adventure in October. According to a brief flip through, vegans get approximately 11% of their calories from protein which is sufficient if you eat a lot of calories. The author helpfully suggests limiting calories and calories from fat to lose weight. Uh, okay.

How about I toss in some (as far as I know completely vegan) soy shakes?

Any recommendations from people who have tried a vegetarian or vegan diet?

Give me the first taste

Here is the thinking behind this blog. Many people say "I've tried everything to lose weight."

Really? Everything?

Now, I've tried a lot of diets. Weight Watchers, eDiets, 6 Week Body Makeover, the Zone, Slim-Fast, Body-for-Life, Diets to Go... I've certainly tried a fair number and that's not including all the home-brewed variations. I even spent a day or two on Atkins.

My first diet was a low fat plan based on Susan Powter's "Stop the Insanity!" I was maybe 12 years old and very excited and preaching the low fat life style when my uncle told me in dampening tones that any diet could work, so long as it created a caloric deficit.

I argued with the passion of a true convert that this diet was different, special and superior. But almost 14 years later, I have concluded that he was right. Any diet *can* work. Right now I'm at a place in my life where I have the time, energy and money to try any diet that I want to. Starting October 2, 2006, I intend to try just about everything.

So I know what you are thinking. "Why not just stick with one diet?"

That would be ideal, but 14 years of dieting has shown me that I'm allergic to consistency. Eventually I need to find some plan or set of habits that work for me so I can maintain a healthy weight for the rest of my life. Between now and then, I have 60-80 pounds to lose and a deep well of curiosity about the broad variety of diet plans available. I'm going to be trying everything from Atkins to Veganism so if you are on a plan that you really love, tell me about it and I'll look into trying it for a week or two.

The basic plan is: I develop a baseline diet and exercise plan that maintains my current weight while gradually improving my health. For 2-3 weeks out of every month I try a new diet plan then return to maintenance to transition between plans. Some plans I will be on for less time (cleansing diets and low-carb diets come to mind). I will continue to exercise, drink water and take a multivitamin throughout to provide a baseline.

For each plan I try, I record my impressions. How expensive is it? How hard is it? How much public support is there for the diet? How effective is it? For the next year, I'll keep very close tabs on my weight, measurements, blood pressure and energy levels. In a year, I hope to lose most of my excess weight and learn exactly what I can and can't live with in terms of food. It isn't scientific, but it might prove useful.

Welcome to my journey.