Anyone lost a lot of weight, and kept it off?

[853guy]

"The secret" (intellectually honest, rational, and value free enquiry): http://www.konradsgraf.com/blog1/2017/7 ... tal-healthm

.

Thanks, that's a great link.

Interestingly, his Twitter feed retweeted this:

https://twitter.com/SteveStuWill/status ... 2392675328

The full study is available here: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lance ... 3/abstract

BTW, is there any reason I can't attach an image here?

Best,

853guy

[queloque67]

yes for me I Went Whole Food Plant-Based. Never seen 200 pounds again for 4 years. No yo yo diets. I don't count calories. I eat until i'm full. Its a tough sell for people who are comfortable with the Standard Western Diet so most people look for diets centered around the Western Diet. Cycling performance has been the best ever, recovery time incredible, endurance and stamina unbelievable. I dropped as low as 159 pounds this past December. I haven't seen that weight since I was a senior in high school and i'm 50 years old. I went from wearing large and extra large clothes and Cycling kits to Small and Medium size. Never looking back. Long time coming. I did all the popular diets in the past.....Atkins, Zone, keto diets, low carb high fat high protein, protein drinks, under eating low calorie diets. All temporary and was hard to maintain. I like to eat until i'm full like most humans and animals and Whole Food Plant Based allowed me to do that because they are high density low calorie foods that fill you up. Not a sells pitch, it just works for me and people around me. Longest eating lifestyle I've ever done next to SAD (Standard American Diet)

[sanrensho]

^^^This.

Vegan whole food plant-based (WFPB) diet. I'm a similar age and finally was able to shed the 10 lb of body fat (from a 125 lb frame) that I could never shed through calorie restriction/exercise. Completely sustainable--I never calorie count and eat as much as I want. The weight I shed has stayed off too, and I sail through holidays whereas I used to inevitably pick up a few pounds. The food tastes great too. I am never going back to a regular non-WFPB diet.

[Shrike]

Can you guys give an example of what you would eat on a whole food/plant based diet and an estimation of your calories and calorie usage? Reason I'm wondering is because a lot of vegans that I see that love this diet are actually really active as well. I'm wondering how sustainable the eating until you're full mantra works if you aren't a cyclist.

Actually wondering about everyone, do you think you could keep your weight off if you no longer cycled?

[Conza]

Veganism & Health Benefits

Regarding veganism, in comparing anecdotes and personal experiences of happy and healthy vegans to the general population, there are several points that ought to be considered.

First, the general population is a poor comparison group. This group is eating a daily concoction of slow poisons, in particular, all manner of sugars, processed grains, and industrial seed oils, each of which is terrible even on its own, and far worse in a self-reinforcing cocktail of all three.

An implication of this comparison group issue is that even if X seems far better than Y, this does not necessarily tell us that X is optimal. When Y (the general population’s diet) is really, really bad (as it is), there should be quite a number of ways to improve on that. Another trouble with anecdotes is fairly wide individual variation in tolerance for various conditions and foods.

Second, in this light, it is important to note that going vegan is often combined with getting off of a conventional diet. This also usually entails reducing or eliminating most processed foods and adopting whole foods. It is often also found together with above-average awareness of other (non-dietary) health issues and practices (sleep, activity, stress, abstention from harmful recreational substances). These factors are in themselves already hugely beneficial. And whatever the whole foods are that are adopted, they are likely to be better than whatever processed foods are abandoned. The real confusion is that this is so regardless of plant versus animal source (dairy is more complex I think). For example, many of the negative meat study results (besides the serious design problems with most of the popular epidemiological studies in general) come from chemically preserved, rather than fresh, meats. Such factors conspire to heavily confound interpretations of what, exactly, it is that has caused noted positive or negative effects. The cessation of previous negative effects, for example, is often caused mainly by the successful elimination of harmful items.

Third, my reading on the health effects of veganism indicates that many of the negative issues appear longer-term only after a process of gradual degeneration. Homo sapiens are able to live only on plants, but my understanding is that in evolutionary terms, this is primarily a residual ability useful as a fall-back for bad hunting periods. Our digestive systems are not built for relying on plants, unlike, say, those of gorillas, who eat only plants, and whose digestive systems are accordingly completely unlike ours in the amount of space and energy dedicated to various digestive organs. For example, a massive gorilla digestive organ that serves as a plant fermentation tank corresponds to our tiny vestigial appendix, according to Barry Graves. One good critical chapter on the long-term health effects of veganism is Chapter 4 of The Paleo Solution by Loren Cordain.

The Big Fat Surprise, written by the person the above story link was about, also has up to date analysis of the health effects of various food categories and fat types, etc. There has been a great deal of very poor information pushed in this field over the past decades, which has happened to correlate with 1) the making of a great deal of money from “food” products and pharmaceutical products (many of which treat chronic effects of those same “food” products) and 2) an unprecedented and rapidly worsening health crisis. Nina Teicholz’s book goes a long way toward clarifying where some of that ubiquitous misinformation has come from and replacing it with something better grounded in research.
— Konrad Graf

Just some food for thought

[glepore]

Most of the important points are above, particularly in 853's posts. I just want to emphasize that the key for me has been easy intermitent fasting. If you don't need to get up and do hard physical work, the American credo of a hearty breakfast is just bunk. Unless I have a big ride on the schedule, I generally don't eat until a late lunch. This gives me an easy 16 hr intermitent fast from my previous evening meal. My diet is far from perfect- my southern Italian heritage means I love my pasta and red wine, but I keep my red meat consumption down to one meal or two a week, lots of lean chicken and fish protein, and with the fast I've been steady from my 30's to my late 50's.

One other thing-one of the trainer road guys has been pushing complex carbs, and his favorite quick meal is a baked (nuked) sweet potato with black beans and salsa. I've been doing this for a meal 2 hrs or so before a long ride when I can, or for a lunch the day before, and its a great easy source of complex carbs, and the beans give you a complete protein amino package.

[AJS914]

Are you eating a lot less calories across the board? Sweet potatoes, beans and salsa sounds like it's only a 300 calorie lunch.

[853guy]

Actually wondering about everyone, do you think you could keep your weight off if you no longer cycled?

Hi Shrike,

That was actually one of the things I very specifically tried to accomplish. I've only been back cycling for the last seven months, after many years recovering from various niggling injuries. So a program of exercise as a large compenent of time versus nutrition for body recomposition was never a goal of mine - it had to come mostly from diet. There's a maxim that you can't out-train your diet and that was certainly my experience as I allude to above (especially now I'm in my 40's).

As a father, and husband, and a person with a career and various other commitments, spending five days a week in the gym (or cycling for that matter) is simply unrealistic. Knowing that there would be periods of time in which I could not guarantee regular exercise to the degree I ideally wanted meant finding a way of eating (and intermittent fasting) that accomplished body recomposition without recourse to predetermined periods of physical exertion.

Yes, the weight will obviously stay off easier with exercise than without, but my body recomposition was/is not weighted toward exercise as the defining component. I think there were/are also emotional/psychological factors associated with weight loss that also played a significant part for me, but I can't objectively quantify those as easily as I can the nutritional variables.

Also, I should add that first and foremost I'm a recreational cyclist who rides for the love of it. The secondary health/fitness benefits are a bonus, but for someone like me who sits in front of a Mac for work, kettlebell and core exercises are of more value (aside from the enjoyment I derive from cycling). Were I attempting to best Froome's Strava times, or attempting to become a domestique, then perhaps my nutritional/fasting habits would be significantly different.

Again, long-term, sustainable body recomposition (and the amelioration of preventable harm) was the main goal.

Best,

853guy

[glepore]

Are you eating a lot less calories across the board? Sweet potatoes, beans and salsa sounds like it's only a 300 calorie lunch.

Yes, and no. It is only a 300 calorie or so lunch. I'll follow it with some simple carbs immediately before a ride, and 200cal or so while riding if I'm out for a bit. I don't often ride more than an hour or so without consuming some fuel. Snack on some nuts or something mid afternoon. So by the time the evening meal comes around, yeah, I'm ready to eat. I tend to eat a single large meal at evening time. I love to cook (and am or or less retired, so I have the luxury of time) and I'll eat a fair amount. I don't weigh food or watch calories, but try to keep my daily intake at around basal met + whatever I burned through exercise. You get a pretty good feel for this after a while. And I don't shy away from fat per se, I love my olive oil and use butter in my cooking. Not a whole lot of animal fats though, although I don't discriminate between white and dark meat poultry. And I do consume beverage calories ( 2 glasses of wine or so an evening) but never soda or any fruit juice (wine doesn't count, the sugar's gone).


My point about the sweet potato thing is that its easy, and its 100% plant based and all fuel, nothing that is purposefuless. Consume fuel, not just calories.

[joejack951]

Hi joejack,

I definitely appreciate your perspective, and fundamentally, I agree with what you’ve written. I hope this doesn’t come across as contentious for contentiousness' sake - my intention is only to clarify my post above.

What you seem to be suggesting is that you do better when avoiding sugary drinks and the like. Me too, unless I'm exercising in which case they can provide quick energy when I need it (though water and food with the same readily available energy works, too). Highly refined sugar isn't filling at all and it's way too easy to consume excess calories of it as a result. I'll leave the exact inner workings of how my body handles sugar, complex carbs, fiber, fat, and protein to those who care to know about it. As a general rule, I like to eat foods that are as close to how nature provided them. I recognize when I stray from this and work to minimize it. I see no use in attempting to totally eliminate a type of energy (whether it be carbs or fat depending on which diet you are following) and simply eat what tastes good to me and that which is also satisfying. In doing that and staying active, I maintain a healthy weight with minimal visible 'fat' on my body. If I want to lose more weight, it's back to 'eat less, move more.'

[mentok]

yes for me I Went Whole Food Plant-Based. Never seen 200 pounds again for 4 years. No yo yo diets. I don't count calories. I eat until i'm full. Its a tough sell for people who are comfortable with the Standard Western Diet so most people look for diets centered around the Western Diet. Cycling performance has been the best ever, recovery time incredible, endurance and stamina unbelievable. I dropped as low as 159 pounds this past December. I haven't seen that weight since I was a senior in high school and i'm 50 years old. I went from wearing large and extra large clothes and Cycling kits to Small and Medium size. Never looking back. Long time coming. I did all the popular diets in the past.....Atkins, Zone, keto diets, low carb high fat high protein, protein drinks, under eating low calorie diets. All temporary and was hard to maintain. I like to eat until i'm full like most humans and animals and Whole Food Plant Based allowed me to do that because they are high density low calorie foods that fill you up. Not a sells pitch, it just works for me and people around me. Longest eating lifestyle I've ever done next to SAD (Standard American Diet)

I could have written this - I'm a few years younger but it very closely mirrors my experience. I've spent about the last 10 years trying, refining and optimizing but PBWF just works. It worked quickly and effortlessly, I now recover better, I have a higher FTP, I can ride 15hrs a week every week and it doesn't phase me.

Veganism & Health Benefits
— Konrad Graf

Just some food for thought

While interesting, this isn't a particularly good argument against PBWF. I tried several other diets for long periods and they were all bunk. Keto was great for when you wanted to ride slow and feel cold all the time. Paleo gave zero benefits, except to recover some of what keto took from me. Sleep, food quality, stress management, lifestyle basics like that are down already. I've been doing the WFPB thing for almost 2 years now and I have a pretty good handle on what works and what doesn't. For example, I know I don't get enough lysine eating PBWF because I get back to back cold sores - now I supplement lysine and I don't get cold sores. I think people eat SAD, keto, primal, whatever, and they're hitting most of their nutrient targets through blunt trauma - by eating many varied nutrient dense sources it's quite easy, but it requires someone to also eat lots of saturated fats, more sodium, dietary cholesterol, etc, which undoes the benefit of many of those nutrient dense foods. Vegan makes you work for it so yeah, there are definitely junk food vegans falling apart for their ideology, but that's not exactly proof that vegan diets don't work.

Interesting, you can apply the same basic argument of "some intervention" being better than SAD to someone who tries any diet which makes it very difficult to take anecdata and other people's experiences too seriously. This space is such a disengenuous space of marketing - I find it very ironic reading people who are marketing a product tied to a diet complaining that all the other diets are wrong because the people promoting them are marketing a product. Ultimately, I think that people need to be open to trying things to find what works for them because there is no "right" answer.

Can you guys give an example of what you would eat on a whole food/plant based diet and an estimation of your calories and calorie usage? Reason I'm wondering is because a lot of vegans that I see that love this diet are actually really active as well. I'm wondering how sustainable the eating until you're full mantra works if you aren't a cyclist.

I'll play. Typical work day:
No breakfast

Morning Snacks
~500g carrots
miso soup
capsicum
cucumber

Lunch
Salad consisting of cabbage, onion, carrot, pumpkin, beetroot, kale, mushroom, flax, chickpeas, nooch, walnuts, capsicum, tomato, lettuce, pickles, chillis

Afternoon Snacks
500g sweet potato
banana

Dinner
pumpkin
sweet potato
apple
banana
stirfry of: bokchoy, mushrooms, onion, broccoli, peas

Dessert
soy milk, berries, spirulina

Supplements
multivitamin, D3, EHA/DHA, lysine, zinc

Total IN = 2930 calories

Exercise
AM: Ride from home -> station, catch the train, station -> work = 300 calories
PM: Ride work to home = 1400 calories

Actually wondering about everyone, do you think you could keep your weight off if you no longer cycled?

I would need to very consciously change my intake and my whole approach to eating. I imagine it would be quite a difficult change to manage.

[queloque67]

yes for me I Went Whole Food Plant-Based. Never seen 200 pounds again for 4 years. No yo yo diets. I don't count calories. I eat until i'm full. Its a tough sell for people who are comfortable with the Standard Western Diet so most people look for diets centered around the Western Diet. Cycling performance has been the best ever, recovery time incredible, endurance and stamina unbelievable. I dropped as low as 159 pounds this past December. I haven't seen that weight since I was a senior in high school and i'm 50 years old. I went from wearing large and extra large clothes and Cycling kits to Small and Medium size. Never looking back. Long time coming. I did all the popular diets in the past.....Atkins, Zone, keto diets, low carb high fat high protein, protein drinks, under eating low calorie diets. All temporary and was hard to maintain. I like to eat until i'm full like most humans and animals and Whole Food Plant Based allowed me to do that because they are high density low calorie foods that fill you up. Not a sells pitch, it just works for me and people around me. Longest eating lifestyle I've ever done next to SAD (Standard American Diet)

I could have written this - I'm a few years younger but it very closely mirrors my experience. I've spent about the last 10 years trying, refining and optimizing but PBWF just works. It worked quickly and effortlessly, I now recover better, I have a higher FTP, I can ride 15hrs a week every week and it doesn't phase me.

Veganism & Health Benefits
— Konrad Graf

Just some food for thought

While interesting, this isn't a particularly good argument against PBWF. I tried several other diets for long periods and they were all bunk. Keto was great for when you wanted to ride slow and feel cold all the time. Paleo gave zero benefits, except to recover some of what keto took from me. Sleep, food quality, stress management, lifestyle basics like that are down already. I've been doing the WFPB thing for almost 2 years now and I have a pretty good handle on what works and what doesn't. For example, I know I don't get enough lysine eating PBWF because I get back to back cold sores - now I supplement lysine and I don't get cold sores. I think people eat SAD, keto, primal, whatever, and they're hitting most of their nutrient targets through blunt trauma - by eating many varied nutrient dense sources it's quite easy, but it requires someone to also eat lots of saturated fats, more sodium, dietary cholesterol, etc, which undoes the benefit of many of those nutrient dense foods. Vegan makes you work for it so yeah, there are definitely junk food vegans falling apart for their ideology, but that's not exactly proof that vegan diets don't work.

Interesting, you can apply the same basic argument of "some intervention" being better than SAD to someone who tries any diet which makes it very difficult to take anecdata and other people's experiences too seriously. This space is such a disengenuous space of marketing - I find it very ironic reading people who are marketing a product tied to a diet complaining that all the other diets are wrong because the people promoting them are marketing a product. Ultimately, I think that people need to be open to trying things to find what works for them because there is no "right" answer.

Can you guys give an example of what you would eat on a whole food/plant based diet and an estimation of your calories and calorie usage? Reason I'm wondering is because a lot of vegans that I see that love this diet are actually really active as well. I'm wondering how sustainable the eating until you're full mantra works if you aren't a cyclist.

I'll play. Typical work day:
No breakfast

Morning Snacks
~500g carrots
miso soup
capsicum
cucumber

Lunch
Salad consisting of cabbage, onion, carrot, pumpkin, beetroot, kale, mushroom, flax, chickpeas, nooch, walnuts, capsicum, tomato, lettuce, pickles, chillis

Afternoon Snacks
500g sweet potato
banana

Dinner
pumpkin
sweet potato
apple
banana
stirfry of: bokchoy, mushrooms, onion, broccoli, peas

Dessert
soy milk, berries, spirulina

Supplements
multivitamin, D3, EHA/DHA, lysine, zinc

Total IN = 2930 calories

Exercise
AM: Ride from home -> station, catch the train, station -> work = 300 calories
PM: Ride work to home = 1400 calories

Actually wondering about everyone, do you think you could keep your weight off if you no longer cycled?

I would need to very consciously change my intake and my whole approach to eating. I imagine it would be quite a difficult change to manage.

I don't count calories anymore and don't really have a set schedule or rule of what I will eat. I took 2 months off from riding and gained about 7 or 8 pounds eating vegan junk food. When I first started I did, because thats what I had to do while doing Keto diet for 3 years, peleo, Atkins and zone before......just got tired of tracking food....to me just didnt seem normal and now I listen to my body.
This is also assuming you avoid processed foods/junk food vegan food most of the time......which can make you gain weight.......Most potato chips are vegan. 1300 calorie large 5 guys french fries are vegan. So its easy to fall in that trap. I save my fun food which generally has higher amounts of fat for the weekends like nut based ice cream, french fries, potato chips, cookies or waffles I make with my daughter....etc. Its just foods you don't or shouldn't eat everyday. When I was a kid eating like that was a special occasion or Sunday like Fried Chicken or a pizza. People eat it every day now.

But as far as Whole Food Plant Based eating.......my routine is I don't eat breakfast. No need to. ....I ate a full dinner the night before than slept......I didn't burn a lot of energy to justifying eating a lot of calories 1st think in the morning....my glycogen stores are still full and my bike rides are the strongest in the morning and even got some KOM's on Strava which surprised me. I start eating around 1 pm maybe 2 pm. Sometimes as early as noon. I may make an almond butter sandwhich with chopped bananas and pumkin seeds sprinkled on top with some marmalade on Eziekiel bread. I sip a smoothie for 30 minutes to an hour which would have 4 to 6 bananas with something green like spinach. Flax seed, orange, dates, blueberries or other berries for the antioxidants especially after a bike ride that makes about 2 to 3 mason jars of smoothie I store in the frig.

Reason I drink smoothies slow, it gives my stomach time to respond and say i'm full meaning you can drink a 6 banana smoothie in 1 minutes.....you can't or wouldn't eat 6 bananas in 1 minute without feeling full so I extend my time while drinking smoothies.

When i'm not full, I eat again until i'm full which may be around 4 or 5 pm. I always have beans everyday 1 to 2 cups a day for the majority of my protein and fiber. I usually have it with rice or potatoes or sweet potatoes or all of them.....depends on how I feel. Always have mushrooms, garlic or onions in at least one of my meals. Whole based plant based foods are high density low calorie foods. 1 potato is only 160 calories. I can eat a pound of potatoes get super full and its less than 400 calories. If you ate a pound of cheese thats 2000 calories.....you ate a pound of steak thats 1000 or more calories. If you ate a pound of oil or fat thats 4000 calories per pound. So thats why there is no need to count calories.....high density low calories fill the stomach up...but you may want to count just for starters....like for me if I track everything I eat it would fall in the range of as low as 1600 calories and as high as 2300 calories and on average around 1800 maybe.

I follow a basic rule that is called, GBOMBS (Greens, Beans, Onion, Mushrooms, Berries, Seeds) That are always part of my eating within that day in some form or fashion along with cruciferous vegges like brocolli or cabbage cooked in a steamer or pressure cooker which packs a nutrient punch, garlic as well. Grains, starches and beans gives you the bulk of the calories because you always hear people say when eating plant based....."I'm always hungry and never get enough" Thats because they don't eat the right foods or think Vegans or Plant-based eat nothing but salad. Some of us say, "Salads are for people on diets" LOL This is not a diet. I'm on my 4th year and never fell of the wagon which is common for most other eating lifestyles.

Food Density...reason Whole Food plant based eating doesn't require counting calories...you will become full way before you reach caloric overload. One can eat a large bag of chips, or a dozen donuts, or a whole pizza, or a 1/2 a chicken with fries and a bisquit without a problem....especially men and eat soon after 3 hours later. Very hard when its whole foods plant based due the the fiber and nutritional density within a small amount of calories. Eating a whole tub of spinach is only 60 calories and covers almost everything a multi vitamin covers just from spinach.
Veggies are 100 calories per pound
Fruit are 300 calories per pound
Whole Grains are 500 calories per pound
Beans are 600 calories per pound
Animal products are 1000 to 1300 calories per pound
Refined Carbs/white flour 1400 calories per pound
Junk Food are 2300 calories per pound
nuts and seeds 2800 calories per pound
oil 4000 calories per pound

If you ate simply by following the food density perimeters you probably could succeed just as well if you didn't go plant based. Its not for everyone especially those bounded by traditional eating in our culture. So for others who are reading this, i'm not pushing any vegan agenda. The person asked a question and i'm only telling them what I do or have done. Thats it. So please don't attack me. i've always been a quantity based eater and this for me allows me to go to town with food and not gain weight and drop 40 pounds since I started 4 years ago and keep it off.

Mentok I hope this helped. If it didn't let me know if you need more elaboration. in the end eat what you like don't eat what you can't enjoy. Taste buds do change. Veggies are sweeter to me.

[Shrike]

Yes, the weight will obviously stay off easier with exercise than without, but my body recomposition was/is not weighted toward exercise as the defining component. I think there were/are also emotional/psychological factors associated with weight loss that also played a significant part for me, but I can't objectively quantify those as easily as I can the nutritional variables.

Again, long-term, sustainable body recomposition (and the amelioration of preventable harm) was the main goal.

I'm finding this too, that there's definitely a strong relationship for me between the psychological/emotional and food. Something that must be relatively recent for me, and was definitely not a part of my life when I was younger (I was always very lean, around 64 to 68kg all the way up until my early 30s. For now, like you, I'm really looking more at something sustainable that doesn't require 1000s of calories burned daily from cycling to reach a calorie deficit to lose weight or maintain a certain weight range.

[Shrike]

I would need to very consciously change my intake and my whole approach to eating. I imagine it would be quite a difficult change to manage.

Eating around 2930, and burning around 3700? (1700 from cycling and over 2k from everything else?). That's a significant deficit. I run 500 to 700 deficits too, and lose a ton of weight those weeks, but without the cycling, I doubt I could do it. Would be hard for me to eat sub 2000 calories in a day to lose weight if I wasn't exercising. However a whole food diet seems to be the way forward there. Your diet looks great by the way.

[Shrike]

Food Density...reason Whole Food plant based eating doesn't require counting calories...you will become full way before you reach caloric overload. One can eat a large bag of chips, or a dozen donuts, or a whole pizza, or a 1/2 a chicken with fries and a bisquit without a problem....especially men and eat soon after 3 hours later. Very hard when its whole foods plant based due the the fiber and nutritional density within a small amount of calories. Eating a whole tub of spinach is only 60 calories and covers almost everything a multi vitamin covers just from spinach.
Veggies are 100 calories per pound
Fruit are 300 calories per pound
Whole Grains are 500 calories per pound
Beans are 600 calories per pound
Animal products are 1000 to 1300 calories per pound
Refined Carbs/white flour 1400 calories per pound
Junk Food are 2300 calories per pound
nuts and seeds 2800 calories per pound
oil 4000 calories per pound

If you ate simply by following the food density perimeters you probably could succeed just as well if you didn't go plant based. Its not for everyone especially those bounded by traditional eating in our culture. So for others who are reading this, i'm not pushing any vegan agenda. The person asked a question and i'm only telling them what I do or have done. Thats it. So please don't attack me. i've always been a quantity based eater and this for me allows me to go to town with food and not gain weight and drop 40 pounds since I started 4 years ago and keep it off.

Mentok I hope this helped. If it didn't let me know if you need more elaboration. in the end eat what you like don't eat what you can't enjoy. Taste buds do change. Veggies are sweeter to me.

I read your post at the start of the weekend and have been following up on it. I've never seen a list about calorie density before put that simply. Now the whole food/plant based thing makes perfect sense to me. It is definitely for me the way forward. Started simply at the weekend, using a 1/2 kg of broccoli and 1/2 of cauliflower as a base for lunch and dinner (tasted great with fresh chillies, garlic, salt and lemon mixed in. Only 300 calories for a kilo weight of food! Added 350 cal of white pasta to it though which ruined it a bit. Wholewheat pasta doesn't seem much better, same density. Maybe boiled potatoes. Will get both this weekend and see. Used tofu for protein, but would like to try some sort of beans but they seem quite calorie dense.

Early days, but so far so good. Today I have no riding, so will need to go quite low on cals as I'm dieting at the moment (want to lose 3kg more by summer). Monday's will be hard that way.

So far I did:

1/2 protein shake 50 cal
Apple 150 cal
2 small oranges 100 cal
Pear 200 cal

Total Breakfast: 500 cal

10.30am here and feel fine. Would have preferred to fast until lunch but was feeling a little light headed earlier and have too much on this morning so..

They say eggs are great for satiety too, but I'm going to try and dodge animal products as much as possible and see where that takes me on my journey.

Biggest problem so far has been looking bloated even though I've been around 500 to 700 cal deficit since Wednesday. Maybe I put too much salt in the vegetables. Wholemeal bread, apples, broccoli have been the staple for days now (read that these are all bad for bloating) so wondering if that's something a lot of people experience when moving towards a more whole for diet and puts them off? Will stop adding salt to veggies from today and see if it helps.