Four Hour Body Diet – The Beginning

Today is Day One of the new “diet.” I promised Michael I’d give it a shot for 7 days and then decide what I think about it, or whether or not I will continue it with him.

Why Michael is doing this experiment: He says he realized far too late that we have a short period of time before our bike rides this summer and he wants to drop the weight as quickly as possible. He does not intend to maintain this lifestyle beyond how long it takes him to drop the weight. In order to successfully ride the Gorge Ride or the Portland Century without feeling slow and like he’s going to die, he needs to lose a little bit of weight. Even 10 pounds would make a huge difference on the bike.

This is a very valid reason for wanting to lose a little weight. There’s a great article on Livestrong.com about the effects of weight loss on cycling performance:

“Many cyclists believe that losing body weight will boost performance because it creates a higher power-to-weight ratio. This is particularly crucial when you are riding uphill. Those seeking to attain the proper power-to-weight ratio often follow this rule of thumb, per the Cycling Performance Tips website: The number of pounds you carry should be no more than twice your height in inches.”

Why Lisa is doing this experiment: I don’t really have much to lose. I’d be happy with losing 6 pounds but if I stay where I’m at, I will be happy. If I followed the above equation for cycling weight, I should weigh 130 pounds (my height in inches doubled 65 +65). But I don’t think that’s attainable for my body type.

I’m doing this experiment to see if I going low-carb/high-protein is something my body will respond to. I also don’t want to cook a separate meal for myself to eat while Michael is doing this diet. That’s a lot of wasted time, money and energy in my opinion.

Today’s post is the initial Weigh-Ins and Measurements for a baseline comparison. Neither of us will be sharing “before and after” photos on the blog but I will keep a detailed account of what we find.

MICHAEL’S STARTING STATS:

Weight: 197.8

He would like to get down to 170 pounds.

LISA’S STARTING STATS:

Weight: 144

Waist: 32.5

Hips: 35.5

Thighs: 18.5

Biceps: 11.5

My goal is to get down to 140 and maintain it.

I don’t know why I thought May 1st was Monday but I did. So Sunday morning Michael was ready to start the diet and I wasn’t. I’d purchased strawberries on Friday night with the idea of eating them all weekend before I went no-fruit. I decided that Sunday I would eat the strawberries until they were gone, even though we were starting the diet. That means that my numbers for the first day will be a little off. For example: Michael made what will be our typical breakfast and I ate plain Greek yogurt with strawberries and Kashi puffs cereal. My breakfast was 37 carbs total. 30 is the limit on this diet. I’m not too upset about going 7 grams over the diet on the first day. I’ll just chalk this up to me easing into the experiment slowly instead of jumping in feet first.

I will do this experiment for 7 full days starting tomorrow (Monday) so I can have an accurate range. I will also take photos of all the food we eat during this experiment to accurate give you an idea of what this diet entails. Today Michael and I will sit down and plan out every single meal we’ll eat for this week (including snacks).

It’s a sunny day in Portland today and I hope that Michael and I will get outside for a bike ride! In the meantime, I’m heading to the pool to stretch out my sore muscles from weight lifting.