Saturday, March 20, 2010

HERE'S SIX FOR SIX WORD SATURDAY

"My journey into the dark zone."

"Don't try this one at home."

"Busting the fat burning soup hype."

"This was so not worth it."

"For your own safety, stay away."

"Proof why fad diets don't work."





I was entering my eighth week of my commitment to the 26 week X-weighted challenge and progressing slowly but steadily loosing an average of a pound per week through following a well balanced diet, paying close attention to portion size and exercising as much as possible when a friend told me about the "fat burning" soup diet. I won't post the recipe or the details of the diet here as you can google it yourself and find it or a variation of it. This is not a diet you can stay on over a period of time, but is a one week "boost" diet designed to give you a quick start at the beginning of a diet or as a "hump buster" to get you over the plateau stage most people experience when they've been dieting for a while. You can eat all the soup you want, the more the better, but you are limited to eating only the foods the diet specifies for each day, plus water, tea or coffee or light cranberry juice. According to claims, you can loose 10 to 12 pounds in one week if you follow it exactly.

So, with a large pot of soup simmering, I started my week of fat busting.

Day 1 - All the fruits, except bananas, I could eat plus all the soup I wanted...wasn't too hard...I love fruit and the soup was simply delicious.

Day 2 - All the veggies I wanted except corn or potato plus all the soup I wanted...boy, was I missing my usual yogurt and fruit breakfast and cravings were setting in...not for junk food but I would have killed for a slice of bread!

Day 3 - All the fruits, veggies and soup I could eat with a bonus of a potato for supper...finally some carbs...but not enough...I was feeling very tired and cranky.

Day 4 - All the bananas and skim milk I wanted (bananas never tasted so good) plus all the soup I could eat. I was on my second pot of soup at this point but it was still tasty. I was finding it very hard to do my morning walk and too tired to do much else.

Day 5 - Yea protein!!! A whopping 10 - 20 ounces of beef, sliced tomatoes and soup...I didn't eat that much meat...what I really wanted was bread to go with my soup.

Day 6 - More meat, up to 2 - 3 steaks were allowed plus all the veggies and soup I could eat.
Again, I couldn't stomach all that meat so I stuck with mostly soup and veggies and only a small steak. I was tired...tired...tired...a good time to keep your distance.

Day 7 -All the brown rice and veggies plus soup I could eat. The brown rice was welcome, but I was up to my eyeballs with soup and so glad the week was over.

What did I gain from my seven day excursion into the realm of fad dieting...nothing, but a lot of headaches, extreme fatigue, a step closer to a divorce and the grand total of a three pound weight loss which quickly turned into a one pound loss as soon as I started eating a normal diet again. Far from giving me the "boost" this diet is popular for, it set me back, so much so that two weeks later, I am still not feeling as energetic as I was prior to starting it...and I haven't lost any weight since.

The only plus to my week of torture...

The experience did make a sprout and avocado sandwich
taste like fine cuisine.




Bon Appétit!

For more Six Word Saturdays join Cate at Show My Face.




10 comments:

  1. Yes my wife always say its healthy when offering me some strange looking food Random Twitter Stories.

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  2. Wow, that doesn't sound like a healthy diet AT ALL. Not good!

    Moderation and exercise, right? Right.

    Happy 6WS!

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  3. I'm afraid I would have caved on about day 3. An energy-sapping diet would be a hard one for me to stick to.

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  4. I´ve done this diet too, but didn´t even last till the fourth day. WAAAAYYY too much soup and I´m not a soup lover! I, like you, was starving for bread!

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  5. Good luck Marisa. I love all the six words. You sure think a lot in just six words! lol

    Happy Saturday! Mine is Keep the Funnies in your weekend! I would like to invite you to join a weekend meme that I organized called Weekend Funnies. It is weekly from Friday to Sunday. It is the Weekend, TGIF! Weekend Funnies #2, Friday to Sunday (19th to 21st March,2010) is on. Please kindly click FuNNiES#2 to join us? Keep the FUNNIES in your weekends! hugs, shakira FACEBOOK

    ReplyDelete
  6. I've tried a few of the fad diets and no, they don't work. I'm trying to stick to a reduced calorie diet and exercise -- the cold weather has been my enemy in that endeavor. Hoping the warmer spring temps will rejuvinate my enthusiasm. Good luck with the diet. Keep us posted. :)

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  7. Oh Marisa, That's so not fair! I wish it was successful for you. But, did it help curb your carb craving?
    Hang in there,
    jj

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  8. What's horrible is that I recognized the soup just from the photo. And it didn't do me any good either.

    Thanks for playing 6WS!

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  9. hey sweetie,
    just wanted to throw it out there that I have a lot, A LOT of experience and knowledge with nutrition/exercise/weight loss. Way to much for this "comment" to cover. But if I could wrap it all up in a nutshell it would be this...it's all about making serious and permanent changes your lifestyle overall...all else is and always will be a waste of time and energy.. It's normal to get disappointing results from diets because they are unrealistic. I'm sure you knew this but just a friendly reminder.
    By the way...thanks for the compliment a while back on my jewelry:)

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love your blog lots of useful information. I've added it to my favorite bookmarks and subscribed in a reader.

    All these issues are important, and that's why I just started blogging a while ago and it feels great.

    Kind Regards
    Evelina

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    ReplyDelete