QuestionHi Tanya, how are you? My name is Paul. I am writing you today to ask about and maybe receive some serious suggestions for dieting. I hope you are willing to allow me to tell you the situation I am in and everything that has gone on before we head right into my objective. I thank you in advance for taking the time to read this. I hope to start the new year off with a tremendous goal for weight loss.
Ok, I am 25 years old. In high school and up until my late teens, I was in great shape. I was very athletic. I played baseball and football. I weighed between 140-165 lbs. I was very happy with my body style. I am about medium build. Then over the years, I went majorly downhill. I met my fiancee about 3 years ago. I was about 180 lbs then, still in pretty decent shape. I played softball and bowled on a league. My job was pretty physical. It was not hard labor, but still required a fair amount of exercise. I was from Massachusetts and my fiancee was from NH. We then sporatically moved up to Maine away from family and friends because she got accepted into a good college up here. That all happened a year and a half ago. At that time, I was on my downward spiral topping the scale at just over 200 lbs. After a few weeks living in Maine, I obviosuly had to get a new job. I was offered an office position which I still have now. It involves no exercise at all of course. So about a month of living in Maine, my fiancee and I decided to try the South Beach Diet. She is overweight as am I. We were very shocked at the results we got from the South Beach. After about 2 weeks of it, we both lost about 12 lbs each. It then became difficult and we eventually put the weight back on. From that point on, we have tried to diet at spontaneous times and we never seem to stick to it. I was a very energetic person but have gone downhill. I now weigh about 220 and am dead serious about losing major weight before the spring time. I play on 2 softball leagues up here. I am a great player but my sudden weight gain has played a factor in my lack of speed and agility. I dont really have motivation to exercise although we just bought an "exercise bike" that we have in our basement. I definitely want to start using that and maybe taking a walk around the neighborhood daily. My job completely wears me out. I do accounting work and stare at a screen all day long. When I come home, we usually eat supper. I then have to go out and get a coffee (bad addiction), and a snack and we usually sit down and watch a movie and then head to bed. It is the same routine over and over. I just need some kind of inspiration or motivation to cruise along with the diet. 90% of my weight gain is in my stomach, like a beer belly (although I don;t drink beer or alcohol!). I just love to eat.
I always mention to Christine that I have a certain weight goal that I wanrt to get down to. I basically just want to lose the "gut" and everthing else will fall into place. I know it's bad to say, but I would not be dieting to "watch my health" so to speak. I do have high blood pressure but everything else is ok. knock on wood. I just want to come back to softball looking great and feeling like an athlete again. My girlfriend and I also do a 20 mile walk on May 7th. It's called "The Walk for Hunger" and it's held in Boston. I don;t know if you have heard of it or not. I plan to use that date as my "final weigh in" to see what kind of results I got from the whole thing. I am very big into statistics and numbers, hence my occupation! I love to set number goals for myself.
I am sorry I have written so much. I guess what I am basically asking you is if you think the South Beach diet would be best suited for me for the kind of results I want. For me to see quick results is a lot more effective than to say "little at a time." I have very little patience with stuff like that. I love to start the South Beach for the first two weeks knowing that it is normal to lose between 8-12 lbs. That is amazing. So, considering you recommend the South Beach, is it ok to exercise and work out even the first two weeks? I have heard that you arent supposed to until the third week, phase 2. Also, hypothetically speaking, if I am at 220 lbs at the start of the new year (well maybe say 225 after all the Xmas and New Years junk!), what would be an educated guess at what I could lose for weight in just over 4 months? Taking into consideration that I am very athletic (under the extra weight!) and very determined. If I set a goal to be say 185 lbs by mid May, (loss of 40 lbs), be too far fetched?
Any information you can provide to me would be wonderful. I appreciate your time and all your help. Thank you so much for whatever advice you can give me (and my fiancee). I hope to keep in touch. Thanks again!
Paul
AnswerDear Paul,
Let's get to the point right away :)
Having success on SBD and then stalling on it is very typical for this diet, which has been designed just to slightly correct general flaws of USDA pyramid and usual American eating style.
The matter is, this diet and even much more strict Atkins diet leave out of equation a very important food quality - the ability of any food, depending on its macronutrient ratio, shift your metabolism from running on carbohydrates to running on fats, including the body fat!
The equation is: fat grams should exceed carb grams plus protein grams combined at least 1.5 times.
Meanwhile, this ratio's numbers (your favorite part I guess) are known to clinicians for decades and are in use since 1920s. They keep the ratio of course not 1.5 but as high as 3 or even 4, making the diet very difficult to comply with at home. The lay dieters just cant do this. Bodybuilders, however, are highly motivated and do all the counting and calculations with very good results.
So, in 2002, we started designing our Banta diet that we planned to be, though less aggressive but easy to comply with. We did all the counting and calculations. When we tried it on 1300 participants, the success rate was close to unbelievable 92%. After one year, all dieters who responded to our followup questionnaire were able to maintain the lost weight and were particularly happy that the program allowed them to manage plateaus and periodic cheating bouts.
If you could be interested, my answer to your question would be very simple: try reading more about it at http://bantadiet.com
I'm always ready to help with the monetary problem should it be the only obstacle. Just contact Isabella using contact form at http://dietandbody.com/mfeedback.html and copy this my answer for her to know that I'm aware of your inquiry.
Hope it helps.
Tanya Zilberter, PhD
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