Soy sauce isn’t paleo-approved, but it tastes good and is only 24 calories….so go right ahead and soak that stir fry.

The impact upon blood sugar is minimal and it probably helps you to enjoy your paleo dinner a little more.

No commercially processed oils – too many chemicals

Examples?

My prediction:

Week 1 – Fully motivated, he easily gets 90% compliance. His desire not to lose again boosts his will power
Week 2 – Harder. Motivation level drops & his body increases his craving
Week 3 – The most important week – This is where he cravings start to recede or he quits altogether
Week 4 - Either he’s blown it or it’s getting noticeably easier as his cravings have dropped. He may be bored of healthy food or finding it inconvenient to find appropriate convenience food, but he’s over the worst of it

If he fails to hit 90% compliance by the end of 30 days, a very embarrassing punishment will occur.

Public shaming is a wonderful motivator

Mr. X has a lot of hormones, brain chemicals and well established neural pathways pushing him away from the paleo diet and towards his sugary delights.

It will take some time for these diet killers to weaken & disappear. 4 days serves only as an introduction to the power that food has over our bodies.

Forget steroids, the most anabolic substance you can ingest is food.

But why would squash not be allowed with the fresh veggies?

I always do better without flour products in my diet, so I had been having, for example, meat/tomato sauce with spaghetti squash instead of wheat or rice noodles. I didn’t realize squash should be classified with root veggies.

I thought it had a better nutritional rep — I mean, I know zucchini isn’t up there with green powerhouses like spinach and broccoli, but is it really as bad as potatoes?

If you haven’t discussed it already would you comment on why it was removed from the allowed foods in Mr. Carb Junkie’s Monday-Thursday Plan?

I think I am very carb/High GI sensitive, if I went on this diet I bet within 5-6 weeks I would be at or near my goal weight and probably feeling better than ever. I know this consciously, but subconsciously I keep finding reasons to eat carbs/High GI foods (exercise excuses, but I need those carbs! I probably don’t it seems.), so balancing the right carbs with exercise I don’t quite have worked out. If I understand correctly you need some moderate or even simple carbs if you exercise intensely post workout to fuel your recovery so that next time you can work just as hard. I have thought about doing a straight low carb or keto diet, I think the average 200lb male can store around 200-250g of glycogen in their liver (800-1k calories), but that’s not enough if you have regular 1k calorie exercise days with a sprinkling of over 2k calories from time to time as I don’t think recovery pace would be adequate.

How do you approach fruit/fructose with this? Consider it sugar or carbs and mostly avoid it, use sparingly, use for exercise post recovery, free for all? Fructose is a very low GI food, if its in fruit even lower due to fiber and other nutrients, but it also more easily converts to fat from what I understand.

Anyways you made a great point with this article and short test, and maybe it has flipped some switches in my brain to make me realize how much better I could be doing with weight loss and probably overall health and fitness if I would just friggin eat better. Dang sugar and its insane availability!

-Matt

That said, I’d like to see this chart. And make yet another attempt on getting back on track!

HAHAHA!! that’ll teach him eh?

anyway, that was a great post, very interesting how fast one’s weight and measurements can be affected by the right / wrong foods. I find the same thing happens to me… I can even stay within my calorie range but the minute I use some of those calories for a pepperoni pizza, I know I’m gonna feel puffy the next day (hell, the next hour)…

thanks for this… great to have a reminder of stuff like this once in a while!! keep it up.

and yes, please. I’d love a copy of the compliance chart.

thanks tons!
gwnn

Isn’t it crazy how quickly results can happen? Just think, most people are like your client in that they tell themselves they are following a regiment “good enough”, or “as good as could be expected”, when they don’t realize how much their old bad habits remaining even just a little can hold back their potential. Your experiment proves that.

Does this mean you won the bet? Did the results you explained qualify for a win? I think if your client continued this plan he would begin to crave those foods less and less as his night-before-christmas excitement dwindles after experiencing those crashes enough times.

As good as that big greasy pizza sounds, knowing what you will feel like for HOURS after as a result will far outweigh the few minutes of tastebud heaven.

I’d also like to see your compliance chart!

Looking forward to your follow-ups.