lettuce
The CSIRO Diet road test
In case you don’t follow me on twitter you may have missed my exciting news (that after being sick in bed for most of last week) I have been inspired by @garydlum to take better care of my temple. Recently I also picked up some wonderful free books from @eatnik including this gem from 2005…
I started the CSIRO well-being diet on Monday 28 April. I currently have a 108cm waist, I lug around 30% body fat (which is probably much more than I need, even to survive a protracted zombie holocaust) and I weigh 102kg. I understand that weight alone is not a good measure of progress, especially as I have a large frame. Although not particularly tall (6ft) I have weighed up to 110kg in the past when I was a bit lonely and did a lot of body-building. But my best fighting weight is around 87kg (after a year in the military at aged 18.5… a long time ago!).
I reckon I should be around 90kg so that’s what I’ll aim for, at least initially. So my plan is to lose around 1kg per week for the next 12 weeks. I understand exercise and extra water will help and will try my best to find time for more of that as well. Anyway, wish me luck!
The first step is to try and stick to the meal plan, that replaces lots of unhealthy food (burgers, fried food, pizzas, too much pasta, etc.) with healthy options … like this chilli tuna salad sandwich on day 1!
My better half is also helping immensely, just to remind me I’m the luckiest man in the world.
Day 2 update: I haven’t died of starvation yet, despite the audible tummy rumbles during the day. I don’t think I’ll bother measuring my stats or progress until at least the weekend. There’s no point stressing over it each day, once a week will be enough! 🙂
Anyway, feel free to comment/criticise/laugh, etc. Peer pressure helps right? 🙂
Day 7 update: This morning I weighed, measured and stared at myself again, as I will each weekend for the next few months. The good news is I have lost a whole kilo, despite not doing any substantial exercise whatsoever (apart from the usual daily stroll with the dogs each morning). If I can continue to lose a kilo each week I will reach my goal weight of 90kg on schedule in 12 weeks. Can’t complain about that. What is perplexing though is that the electronic scale still says I have 30% body fat. I guessing it does that because it rounds it up or down a percent and I need to lose a bit more fat. Also, it turns out I was measuring my waist incorrectly. Better half says I should be doing it where I bend to the side. So turns out my waist is 104cm. But I can’t really compare that to the 108cm from last week which I measured a bit lower on my abdomen. Good news is a couple of more ribs are showing and my stomach is clearly starting to shrink a bit as I keep to the food plan. So far so good!
To celebrate our mutual progress we enjoyed hamburgers for dinner tonight! here are some pictures and captions:
I set the table with an abundance of healthy options for the family to add between their burger buns, in addition to the meat patties:
My partner made enough healthy lean meat patties to ensure I was tempted to eat two – but I resisted, for about an hour, eventually eating a second one without a bun or cheese etc. I cooked them to perfection. Insides were still juicy, though not raw!
My fine burger, assembled with love, and wholegrain bread buns, lettuce, cucumber, tomato, capsicum, mushroom, beef and (light!) cheese 🙂
This is what happens if you let a six year old decide what to put in their burger and assemble it unsupervised. Her “lettuce and butter burger” was intentionally designed to allow room for dessert and post-dinner snacks. Naughty!
I think its all the cooking shows she watches with her mum and dad, but the 2 year old now enjoys many creatively “deconstructed” meals, including burgers.
CBRfoodie 