The Body Experiment

So like most people the new year meant a new me… The only difference is I had made a DECISION! A big one. I wasn’t happy with how I felt and the two main things that were playing on my mind were the business and how I felt physically.

The business was getting into shape nicely, I had taken big decisions and steps towards making sure I would never work in the same way again. When it came to my health, I knew there was so much more that I could do to feel better. I just hadn’t MADE THE DECISION until that day!

So, along with a very good friend of mine, I decided to act upon the plan in a book I had recently read, The 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferris. It was a book that my friend had told me to read, again and again and again for nearly 2 years. When I finally read it, I realised just how powerful it could be.

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In December, I had registered with the doctor’s surgery near my new house. I went in for a quick “Check Up” for their files, so as they had some information about me. It included my height, blood pressure and a few other things, including of course, my weight. At the time I didn’t know it, but this would become THE bench mark first weigh-in.

That day I weighed in, middle of the day, fully clothed, at 103.4kg (if you take off the clothes and give a generous margin for the fact that I had eaten and drunk that day, I would say my morning weight was around 100kg. WOW, this is big, but funnily enough, not my biggest, nor anywhere near my lightest. Over the years I have been as heavy as 117kg and as light as 89kg.

So the experiment:

I wanted to lose weight, and Tim Ferris recommends the slow carb diet, which is very simple. Take out “White” foods – processed or otherwise. So I removed potatoes, pasta, bread, flour, rice and a whole host of things.

As part of the diet, I also had to give up sugar. Not just sucrose but also fructose.

The good news is, I could add in beans and lentils. (I know what you’re thinking, I thought it too, “Whoppeee!”)

My thought process at first was simple, I was skeptical. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, if it would work, if it would be too hard, what if I failed and a whole host of other things. We all do this, more often than we care to admit (it’s human nature to help us avoid doing something that might be hard).

I decided to make a deal with myself. I would try this, and would stick to it religiously for 30 days, from the 3rd January. I started, and at the beginning I was dying to get to Cheat Day.

Every Saturday you could spike your calories, eat whatever you want and as much of it as you want.

During the entire first 30 days I did NO EXERCISE! I really do mean NO exercise at all.

As the 30 days progressed, I started to see some results. I felt better, I had less crashes after meals (you know that food coma feeling you get after a big nice meal) and my trousers started feeling a bit too big for me.

On the 15th January, I received a new set of scales. Bluetooth of course, making it really easy for me to track my weight and keep a record of it for future reference. On the 15th January, I weighed in at 96.7kg.

I carried on for the 30 days. On the 3rd February I weighed in at 92.7kg. That was a 7.5kg weight loss in just 30 days! It was EPIC! I felt great and I couldn’t understand why I had lived the way I had for so many years.

Some simple changes in my diet had made my weight crash and had helped me to feel better ALL day!

Since then, I have continued with the diet, enjoying my cheat days and have now started exercising more and feeling more alive than ever before.

I can’t recommend this enough, if you want a change and you want a way to do it, have a read of The 4 Hour Body by Tim Ferris and create your own 30 day experiment. It’s a month, try it, stick to it and see the results for yourself.

NB: I’ve been away from home for the last 3 weeks and don’t have any recent measurements, so am waiting till i can get back on the scales to be able to give another update, which will probably be the 90 day update towards the end of this month.