Day 1.

Today was my first experience of the slow carb diet, I think as with all changes in life whether they are dietary or anything else – there’s always going to be teething problems. For me today, it was a case of time and also trying to prepare things I’ve never cooked before.

Today is always a hectic working day, and I don’t have a huge amount of time at home, I’m in and out all day. Breakfast consisted of Eggs and Spinach, call me stupid but one thing I learned straight away from this is you can make scrambled eggs without using milk. I didn’t know that. Thumbs up for learning on this diet. Even though it didn’t look all that appetising, I enjoyed it (that seemed to be a bit of a running theme throughout the day!). After my first bit of work this morning I went and picked up the rest of my shopping and brought it home. I had half an hour to put it all away and make and eat something. Usually this would be a sandwich or some yoghurt and fruit, but this was my first stumbling block (almost). As a lot of the meals are meat based, it’s not something you can whip up in 10 minutes, so I resorted to eggs again, this time with salsa. Lovely. You’ll come to learn that salsa and guacamole are your friends.

So with that little lesson locked in my brain, I packed my can of mackerel for lunch and went on my merry way to my next bit of work. After I had finished, I had my lunch and then more work for 2 hours, and home for a run with the dog, then dinner. Now dinner was a little more adventurous, chicken breast with raw veg, beans, lentils, salsa and guacamole. Again, looked a little strange but was very nice indeed. It was at this point I noticed all of a sudden how I felt. Prior to eating dinner, I would usually have a little power nap after the run, as I’ll be hitting the ‘mid-afternoon lull’ and really need to recharge before going back out for the evening to work. I do this most days, as I do like my naps and I feel they give me a second wind for the evening. However, I hadn’t even thought about a nap today, it didn’t even cross my mind until I realised I wasn’t tired and my energy levels definitely felt more consistent throughout the day. I’ll be keeping an eye on this as we progress throughout the experiment. That has been a big surprise, even now as I sit here at 10pm writing this, I have way more energy and don’t feel tired yet, which is made even more remarkable as I didn’t go to sleep until 1:30am last night, which is a lot later than I usually go to bed. It’ll be interesting to see if my sleep levels change on my iPhone app tonight. I’ll let you know!

I’ve rekindled my love for carrots, I think I’m going to have to buy more, I had one with dinner but they also make perfect little snacks. Delicious 🙂

On the question of training, there are guidelines you can follow in the 4 Hour Body about how to gain muscle etc through exercise along with the Slow Carb Diet, but I want to know that any physiological changes that occur (if any) are from the diet alone, as opposed to changing my training routine. So exercise-wise, I’m not changing anything. My weight has stayed consistently between 73 and 75KG for several years, so it’ll be interesting to see if anything does change. I did my first weigh-in today and I’m currently on the lower end of that spectrum, at bang on 73KG. I obviously realise the scales can be extremely misleading, so I’ve had my body fat measured and had other measurements done to keep a closer eye on things.

Going ahead, I need to have a little more forward planning re: what to eat and when to prepare it, especially as tomorrow and Thursday I need to take packed lunches and dinners to work.

I must say, I’m also looking forward to cheat day on Saturday 🙂