Gluten Free Weight Loss Diet: Day 1
Posted by Mike in weight lossJan 6th, 2010 | 12 responses
I am going on a weight loss diet, gluten free style! My motivation is a trip to Costa Rica at the end of March. I am currently 220lbs and my goal is 190lbs. Many of you have already said this is unhealthy, but with my education and diet consultants, we feel the goal should be obtainable in a health manner. Basically, I have to lose 2.5lbs per week.
As with my blog in general, I want to stress that this doesn’t have to be hard or expensive. I want to show you that this all can be done at home, with simple foods, and without an expensive gym membership or personal trainer.
My diet plan is structured over 12 weeks.
Diet:
Even when trying to lose weight and be healthy, you still needs carbohydrates and fat. A no-carb diet only screws with your body and allows you to lose weight in the short term, but you will have a hard time keeping it off. Your body and brain also needs good fats to function. All of my meals will attempt to consist of 45% protein, 35% carbs, and 20% fat, throughout the entire diet.
The main thing when losing weight, is make sure you are eating enough. Yes, you need to eat, what seems to be, A LOT! SIX MEALS PER DAY! If you starve your body, it will shut down, and be overloaded when you do eat. This is why you have to keep your metabolism up and space out your calories throughout the day. Even if you have to get up early to eat something then go back to bed, you must do it.
Weeks 1-3: 2300 calories per day. 383 calories per meal. 43g protein, 40g carbs & 9g fat. I am not eating any carbs in my last meal.
Weeks 4-12: We will adjust my caloric intake depending on how the diet is going- probably 200 less calories per segment.
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Foods:
Eggs, nuts, chicken, tuna, rice, nuts, skim milk, potatoes, and lots of water. I’ll probably get sick of these and start adding in more. I will also have a protein shake in place of two meals.
Currently, I am tracking my foods in an excel spreadsheet. I am looking for a software program that will let me save foods and easily count my totals for me.
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Supplements:
I have some leftover protein powder from when I used to lift during college. It is OK, but I am looking for something new. I am looking into Syntrax. When I placed my order, I spoke with them about offering my readers a discount on their products. If you are going to order from them, use coupon code: MH3090 to receive 40% off! I’m excited about that 40% off. They claim to be the best tasting stuff on the market, so I will let you know.
I will have Omega 3 fish oil pills handy. These will help get my fat requirement each day, since most of the foods are really lean.
I’m not a big believer in fat burners, but this diet is sort of an experiment, so I may throw one in at the end. We will have to see if I am struggling.
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Exercise:
6 or 7 days per week, I plan is to do a light weight routine at home for 30-45min, then do a 45-1hr run/walk. It is all about keeping your heart rate up.
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Predictions:
My weight usually fluctuates 5lbs pretty easily. I’m guessing I’ll lose 5lbs in each of the first two or three weeks, but then really struggle from there. The last 10lbs. will be ten times as hard as the first 20. 12 weeks is a short period of time, so I have to stick with this 24/7. 6 meals per day will be tough and take some time to get used to. A lot of time will be dedicated to cooking, although I plan to prepackage a lot of my meals at once.
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What to look for:
I will try and do a weekly video, usually shot on a Friday with an update on my weight, foods, and how I am feeling.
I will also do a diet tip once a week. The topics will come from my struggles or anything I find helpful.
I have some before photos, but I think I will save those embarrassing photos until the end….
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Please let me know if you have any suggestions, questions or comments! Wish me luck!
12 Responses to “Gluten Free Weight Loss Diet: Day 1”
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good luck Mike
not sure if you would be interested but i have a bbq recipe that is like a carolina style bbq so it is pretty much 99% meat so pretty high protein and of course a bit of fat but the crock pot cooks it off well
-matt
Thanks Matt! You should be my resident college chef! I’d love the recipe! BBQ sauce is another thing I am going to soon clarify what is gluten free and what isn’t, and also compare a few of them. Email it to me and I’ll post it under your name. Thanks!
mailed the recipe, its a good carolina style if i do say so my self
(just kinda looked to the general recipes and went with the common ingredients)
-matt
I am looking forward to getting tips and seeing your progress!
Hey Mike! Thanks for the the heads up to come take a look for you..
First of all, the numbers look good. You’ve set up at about 10x/bodyweight for calories, which should have you at a calorie deficit. Aside from your structured exercise, which is great, also try to just move (take a walk, stand up instead of sit, etc) as much as possible. I generally calculate calories based on g/lb instead of percentages, but your numbers look OK-you may want to bump protein just a bit and drop carbs just a bit-for dieting and weight training a protein intake of 1.5g/lb is good to preserve muscle mass and assist with satiety. (I outline this in the free PDF on my site-do you have that?)
I have been using Fitday.com for years to track calories-check that out and see what you think.
Research has shown absolutely no “metabolic advantage” to eating frequency-ie 3x vs 6x day. If you can’t get in the 6, no worries, just make the meals you are getting in bigger so your totals at the end of the day are the same. Bottom line intake vs expenditure it what really matters.
Also-are you weighing your food?
And lastly for now-don’t have the expectation that this will be hard. Self-fufilling prophecies do happen. Yes, the first 5 # or so will be water and easy, and then may get tougher, but don’t set yourself up like that. Expect success-and if you stick with the plan you’ll achieve it
Thanks everyone!
@Erin
Thanks for looking over this. This is just my starting point, and we will modify it once I have hit these numbers consistently for a couple weeks. True, the first thing I will probably do it cut back even further on the carbs and up the protein. We just wanted to make sure I had enough energy to get through the workouts and the day. We did assume I would probably lose a little muscle mass when losing 30lbs in 12 weeks.
I’ll grab your pdf now, Thanks!
I’ve been struggling to hit the 6th meal, and sometimes the 5th. We knew that would be tough. So, I have started eating more in the first half of the day.
I left my food scale at my parent’s in St. Louis, but I will be getting it this weekend. I’ve stuck to pretty simple things this week to make sure I was close to accurate.
I am 100% with you on mindset and that will be my first diet tip video later this evening. It is only as hard as you make it. I was just trying to give the nay-sayers some of my expectations that this doesn’t happen without hard work.
Thanks again! I look forward to hearing from you often!
Hey Mike!
I’ve been eating gfree for two years now and only was just diagnosed Celiac over Christmas. sans gluten is a great excuse to not eat out, especially where I live (Whitehorse YT) there are few options, but I concentrate on what I ‘get to eat’ instead of what I ‘can’t eat’.
I was 240 lbs 2 yrs ago and I have lost over 100 lbs so far! You can do it too!
bree, for me its gotten to the point where i dread going out to eat. there are few and far between places i will go to any more but i did find a sweet ethopian place that is 2 blocks from where i live, just nice enough that it would be great for a date but cheap enough i can go there with out needed it to be a special occasion, all of their food is gluten free except their baklava (they use 100% teff for their flat bread).
thats pretty amazing how much weight you lost after going gf, i lost about 20 lbs in 2 months (was 185) and dropped another 5 over time but have gained a bit back the last semester just from not walking very far since i live next to the studio.
i really want to look at some of those protein shakes you are going to use mike i just need to go to my applied kinesiology guy to figure out if im lactose intolerant or not, i can eat icecream and all and have a little milk but the only time ive had a lot of milk at one time in the last couple years it messed with me.
-matt
Hey Mike!
Congratulations on the proposal!
Honestly, if you do some heavy low volume weight training to give stimulus to the muscle, and keep adequate protein intake, you will lose very little to no muscle.
Sounds like you are on the right track! I absolutely agree that you have to stick to a plan for at least 2 weeks to know when/where to adjust.
Have you looked into fitday.com for food tracking? I’ve been using Fitday PC for years.
Keep it going-and get that food scale
good luck with the program. look forward to your posts.
Matt, are you actually gluten intolerant or have celiac disease? I am (Gluten Intolerant). I am curious what make you take on this approach. Just make sure you take enough Vitamin B6 in the Pyridoxal-5-Phospahte version, as gluten has that and if you don’t take it your body will not be getting this vital supplement. Are you planning on posting any day-plans of your food intake? Keep us posted. Good job! Oh, and try doing P90X for a full body trimming results! I am on my week 8 and my boyfriend has graduated from week 12 and he is now ripped!!! Go healthy!!!
@iran, yeah i have celiac (no official dx but the “real” doc i go to agreed and said there was no point to make me go back on gluten for a month just to prove what we already know).
honestly i have kind of given up on trying anything specific right now cause i am just to busy, i am trying to not eat a lot of carbs and trying to stick to balanced diets but im in my senior year of college and i am extremely busy so i don’t really have time, or energy to workout (i am studying glass blowing so the 12+ hours working in 95*f+ heat kind of drains me from any real exercise).
i am interested in p90x but right now money, time, and energy are not there for it.
i was using gensoy (iirc) soy protein shakes (something in milk messes with my head, i can eat cheeses with no issue and usually take milk in cooked things but some things it just hits me hard so i try to avoid milk products i am unsure about like the whey powders). it was fine, didnt really seem to do a whole lot of help but then i found out that soy has something that can mimmic one of the female hormones and actually adds to belly/butt fat… and thats exactly what im trying to cut.