Monday, July 16, 2012

17 Day Diet: Day 1

I totally need to finish my vacation re-caps, but I haven't had a chance to sit down and think about it... so you get this instead. :-)

I've been in need of a plan for a while, and with only 2 weeks to go until the end of July {how the heck did that happen?!} and a goal of losting 10lbs in July {only 2 of which I've lost as of this morning}, I decided to jump back on the 17 Day Diet plan. I've been doing pretty well on the exercise front - I even doubled-up {exercise twice in one day!} two times last week. I definitely feel stronger and ever-so-slightly leaner, but I need to ditch the flabby belly. From what I've heard and read, "abs are made in the kitchen." I'm not going for a six-pack here, but I at least want a belly that doesn't protrude and one that doesn't "roll up" the second I sit down. I know my carb intake is way out of control, so I need to reign that in {I've had success w/losing belly flab by reducing my carb intake before}.

So I've embarked on the 17 Day Diet. I tried it last year for about 5 days, and 5lbs came off in no time - had I stayed the course of the first cycle, I have a feeling I would've ended up losing at least 10lbs in 17 days. It's kind of restrictive, especially for someone who doesn't like vegetables at all - grains/bread/pasta/rice are off limits, and you can only have 2 servings of fruit per day {and before 2PM!}, but you're allowed all the protein and vegetables you want. I'm going to give it an honest effort though, and see where it gets me {Vic's birthday is 8/7, and I'd love to be at least 10lbs down by then}.

Today's eats so far:

Breakfast - smoothie made with ~3/4c. plain/lowfat kefir, 1/2 frozen banana, 1/2c. fresh blueberries, and 1 scoop ON vanilla protein powder; venti skinny vanilla latte {needed this to function this AM}

Lunch - wasn't able to prepare grilled chicken yesterday, so I ran to Meridian Cafe for Mango chicken {grilled chicken breast w/mango salsa}, roasted vegetables {broccoli, onion, squash, zucchini}, and strawberry salad {lettuce, strawberries, feta cheese, raspberry dressing}.


Later:

Snack - Chobani 0% raspberry Greek yogurt

Dinner -  chicken breast, broccoli, tossed salad.


I'll be honest here - I am not following the diet to a T {bananas, cheese, any sort of milk, any sort of dressing, and fruit-flavored yogurts are NOT permitted according to the book}. However, I don't really consider these things "cheats" - because I am such a picky eater, if putting a small amount of dressing on my salad or 1/2 a banana in my kefir smoothie helps get it down, I'm going to do it. I'm really using the diet as a guide to limit my intake and structure my meals to achieve weight loss and to break the awful sugar cravings I have. ALSO, the book doesn't recommend exercising during the first cycle - I will be exercising, so those tiny "disallowed" items should be more than cancelled out by any exercise I do.

I'll be posting updates as I go along...

2 comments:

  1. Interesting - a diet that doesn't allow exercise in the beginning. Very strange! Good luck on your 17 day challenge!

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    1. My mistake - I just checked, and it does allow for some exercise (couldn't find it in the book, so I googled):

      From webMD: Exercise at least 17 minutes a day during the first two cycles – primarily walking because of the limited calorie intake. In the later cycles, ramp up exercise to 150-300 minutes per week for continued weight loss

      17 minutes of walking won't cut it for me though - I'm used to doing about 45-60 mins/day of running or cycling. So I'll continue doing so :-) Thanks for the well wishes... so far, so good (although I'm pretty dang hungry!)!

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