Cricket's Journal, 16 Jul 07

Yay! Congratulations on losing those sticks of butter. Tell Mr. Cricket to stick with it --we're sending him support too. :) 

If either of you are feeling discouraged about lack of weight loss, remember that this diet also improves other health factors that you can't measure at home like cholesteral, ect. 

I love "sticks of butter" for a visual aid! Interesting about the hubby's lack of weight loss. The first time I went on SBD I had the sensation that I wasn't losing anything because I didn't feel hungry. But after a few days of the diet AND significant workouts, I dropped weight pretty quickly. If the hubby is frustrated, try workouts. You're making great progress!! 

I think the combination of exercise and diet change is key. I also think that the SBD can be a pretty severe change, and that a less severe change may be helpful before taking the SB plunge. Before I started the SBD I made a simple dietary/lifestyle change. I adopted the rule that I would track the days where I got some exercise vrs the days where I had any alcohol to drink. My rule was that I had to have a day of exercise for each day with anything to drink. I scored a +1 for exercise day and a -1 for a drink day, and calculated a running total in excel (yes I am a geek). Anyways, my goal became accumulating those +1 days, although it took me about a month to build up 5 day surplus. Now I am either running, lifting or swimming everyday, and accumulating about 5 to 6 days a week. This is a huge change from before-- where I was not exercising regularly and would typically have a beer or two with dinner. One key for regular exercise for me has been to keep daily records of what I do. The others have been to make it convenient, and to have an low minimal definition of exercise, at least initially. I bought some new running shoes and run from home, especially after the kids are in bed. I also lift at home, doing basics like pushups, situps, curls, incline press, etc. Swimming is a few laps when we take the kids to the pool. I will also walk/jog home from work some days. The key is working the exercise into the small gaps of time in the day. One last thought. I like to think about the SBD as both a catalyst to a general change in diet, and as a body hacking experiment. The premise outlined in the book is that dietary change can alter insulin production and therefore bodily cravings. This seems interesting. If it is true, then it seems worth it to make a concerted effort to follow the diet strictly for a time period, to see if it has that effect on ones own body. So, you mentioned earlier something about bending the rules, and how you were not in a hurry etc. Mr. Cricket might feel this way too, but I think it is worth experimenting at some point, if not soon, on tackling a chunk of time where you follow the phase 1 strictly, with no deviations. I think I made it 9 days, and in hindsight, I wish I would have skipped the 2 beers and fruit salad at the picnic. Had I persevered through that one evening, then my good stretch would have been 13 days. Would I have had a bigger change in my insulin production? Sadly, I can't know, but save for those 3 hours I would have had a good long streak.