Technology & Life Hacking

30 day slow-carb diet experiment

Published on 14/07/08
by Colin Loretz

The word diet certainly has a negative connotation. Now I don’t necessarily need to lose weight but I know my youthful metabolism won’t last forever. I’m interested in this experiment for the benefits of physical performance and lifetime health.

Tim Ferris, of Four Hour Work Week fame, claims that “it is possible to lose 20 lbs. of bodyfat in 30 days by optimizing any of three factors: exercise, diet, or drug/supplement regimen.” In fact, that is exactly the title of his post: How to lose 20 lbs. of fat in 30 days…without doing any exercise. This post is over a year old but with over a thousand comments, with many of the recent ones from today, people are clearly interested in losing weight. However, they don’t want to just lose weight, they want to do it lazily, without exercise. Tim claims one can lose weight by optimizing only your diet.

If 20 lbs. is possible without any exercise, think about the gains (or loss rather) from optimizing both diet and exercise. For me, exercise is enjoyable, especially in the forms of cycling, running, and swimming so I have decided to put the plan to the test and there will be no calorie counting here folks.

I’ve read a lot on this topic and the following comes from both Tim Ferris’ article as well as other secondary sources. The idea behind the diet is pretty simple.

1. “Avoid white carbohydrates”
White carbohydrates can include bread, pasta, and potatoes. Simple carbohydrates should also be avoided and can come from any other processed foods. Having already been processed, these foods enter your system quickly and give you a very quick jump in your blood glucose levels, however they will come crashing down just as quickly, leaving you hungry. Drastic rising and crashing of these glucose levels can be bad on your heart and lead to heart disease. If we consume complex carbohydrates like vegetables, protein, or even whole wheat alternatives, we can increase the amount of processing time, allowing you to feel fuller, longer, and possibly even reduce the risk of heart disease. (Note that I’m not a doctor on that last bit)

2. “Eat the same few meals over and over again”
Fitting within the diet is not difficult and does not mean that you are eating the same plate of food for every meal. I’ve already been going for a few meals and it is actually quite easy. Tim breaks his meals up into three parts: protein, vegetables, and legumes. For protein look into: chicken, egg whites, turkey, and beef. Pretty much anything goes for vegetables and could include corn, asparagus, spinach, peas, or salad but stay away from potatoes! A few examples of meals are included in Tim’s article.

Finally, there are legumes. What the heck is a legume? This is where you bring in the black beans, pinto beans, peanuts, and lentils. The legumes are very important in this type of diet. The reason diets like this can fail is because someone might feel as though they are eating a lot of food but end up not receiving as many calories as they should. Therefore, they will feel sluggish or become irritable. Tim’s example is pretty shocking:

“A 1/2 cup of rice is 300 calories, whereas a 1/2 cup of spinach is 15 calories! Vegetables are not calorically dense, so it is critical that you add legumes for caloric load.”

3. “Don’t drink your calories”
We’re trying to increase the amount of time it takes to process the food and derive calories. Drinking calories will only negate this effect. Instead of milk, soda, and sweet tea, you can drink unsweetened tea, water, diet soda, and coffee. I’m not a fan of the last two so I’ll be sticking to water and tea.

4. “Take one day off per week”
This is your day to splurge. Eat whatever you want!

To expand on this diet plan I want to add in exercise. By no means will I be looking to optimize my exercise, except for keeping the amount of time I need to be at the gym to a minimum. I already ride my bike around a lot but I’ve also started a very unstructured workout plan. This plan is for my time in a gym, not for the amount of exercise I get from my 20 mile roundtrip bike to work (which isn’t happening as frequently as I’d like with the heat and smokey forest fires).

2-3 days a week
Bike - 30 minutes
Run - 30 minutes

2 days a week
Resistance training - 30 minutes

Again, this is very basic and comes out to 3-4 hours a week but it is already more than I currently do.

I started yesterday with dinner and have already taken some “before” pictures. Those pictures will be posted with the “after” photos at the end of the 30 days, the night of August 13th. I will post my meals and notes each week but will not be measuring progress along the way as “a watched pot never boils.”

I also have an added incentive for this experiment: saving money! I am constantly going to restaurants for food while I’m at work and sometimes even for dinner. By sticking to this plan for a month, I also hope to reduce the number of meals I eat out. However, for those times I will be at a restaurant, fitting within the parameters shouldn’t be too difficult.

Image source: Creative Commons from Flickr user: benefit of hindsight

Updates to the experiment
Week 1 - Still at it and not eating spinach
Week 2 - Sticking to the plan at work
Week 3 - Coming soon
Final Week - Coming soon

That's it. What Next?

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