iDave diet, who done it?

I carry some pencil graphite, and a battery with some electrodes to electrolyse the water into hydrogen and oxygen at the trailside. It all gets mixed up in a bowl. You should see me fly.

Can I have Potato Dauphinoise after a ride? With my Steak?

No, but lentil dauphinouse is nice. For a true gourmet experience, you could try Borlotti Dauphinouse.

Too late.

Aah I get it. After a little research, it turns out that white bread is a simple carb – just a refined simple carb.

Sarnie On

Breakfast is easy.

Pork chop on the Foreman grill. Broccoli and cauliflower in the microwave for 3.5 minutes.

Job done.

Tarka Dal type curry for me tonight. Loads of red lentils, chicken, onion, garlic, tomatoes, garam massala, other spices (I just chucked stuff in without paying much attention frankly, any schwartz jars with an orange top are fair game for my curries!) served up with cabbage and a side of green lentils as my gf wasn’t sure about them. Blurdy loverly.

Just set up the wii with wii fit in my digs, so can track weight over a long period by weighing every day and it should give us a graph of weightloss (hopefully a bit of loss). Should be a bit more empirical than ‘oh I feel a bit better’. My weight is the lowest it has ever been since about 14, being 22 now, at 13 stone 3, so very happy with that considering I’m a fairly broad and strong person at 6”2′. Now aiming to reduce body fat on this diet a bit, and the gf is trying to do the same, but starting from a slightly less fit position.

Good breakfast ideas up above, stuck to mostly eggs/bacon so far, but will be looking to have more complex meals like proper bits of meat/vegetables. Not started on beans yet but they are to come in the next food shop this weekend.

Back to 86 this morning. As predicted, the gain over the weekend has gone quickly enough.

My knees are also now really thin.

Breakfast is easy.

Pork chop on the Foreman grill. Broccoli and cauliflower in the microwave for 3.5 minutes.

Job done.

Sounds better than the omelette I had. A cheese-free omelette just isn’t the same.

However if you already exercise a lot and eat well and need to shift 5-10kg (like me) then you need to be cleverer, and this is how you do it.

I don’t understand – if you’re in shape and you have a good diet, why are you all overweight?
Is it simply an age thing – has eating whatever you liked in no moderation when you were younger finally caught up with you?
I accept that everybody has different natural body builds – if that 10lbs or whatever is so hard to shift why is that?

I only ask because I am curious and would like to know how many years I have left before I am only allowed to have my favourite foods (cheese, chocolate, cake, chinese) once a week for the rest of my life ❗

Is it simply an age thing – has eating whatever you liked in no moderation when you were younger finally caught up with you?

no.

just stood on the scales and I’m 65kg this morning… fully dressed in cycling gear including shoes and wearing a fully laden camel-back holding 2litres of water, food for the day, spare tube and tools.

not a bad weight for a 42year old 😉

Kev

I don’t understand – if you’re in shape and you have a good diet, why are you all overweight?

I often wondered this. I came to the conclusion that there was more to it than simply calories in vs calories out. That there was some other mechanism that was causing my body to resist giving up its fat stores and want me to eat carbs.

Turns out that that is what insulin does. The more carbs you eat the more insulin your body produces which (amongst other things) causes your body to use more carbs instead of fat and also lay down more fat.

Switched to the iDave low insulin-creating diet et voila, the weight evaporated of its own accord.

There’s more involved than just insulin though I think – each person’s hormone profile is different which is why some folk never have this problem.

Getting old isn’t necessarily a problem though if you tend towards skinniness. My 65 year old Dad was getting a bit tubby around the waist over the years – then he re-landscaped their garden and it all disappeared within a couple of weeks!

Day off tomorrow! I have quite the feast planned, I already know what all three meals are going to be, muchos nommagos. It does make it easier knowing you only have x days until that reward. And I hope hope everything will taste all the better for it too.

Leftovers for dinner tonight, all the extras from the week defrosted. Curry, chilli, and another curry with a big pile of cabbage/broccoli and carrot in the middle.

I had cake x 2, chinese, steak, 3 bowls of cornflakes, toast, crisps, kitkat, snickers. All good stuff….

You’ve set the bar high there iDave! I’ve got 2 slices of toast with my bramble jelly i made in the summer, a whole baguette with brie and bacon and boursin, washed down with a milkshake, then for dinner carbonara, followed by beers and mini-eggs from easter, and if I can stomach it, some of my mum’s cake. My stomach won’t know what hit it!

I’ve been on it three weeks and shifted 4kg’s, which I am very pleased with. I only wanted to lose 5kg’s in total so this as been a really effective and fast way of reducing body fat %age. Thank you iDave.

If you feel like you would like to lose a few pounds (or more), and it seems like there are plenty on here who do, why not give it a go for 3 weeks? What’s the worst that can happen??

Aside from the weight loss I’ve actually really enjoyed thinking about my diet and what I put in my body. I’ve learnt a lot of new recipes (thanks to all who have contributed!) and realised that with a bit of prep it’s actually not difficult to cut out bland sarnies in the lunch box everyday.

It was my “rest day” yesterday, I arrived back from a 150k ride to find the table spread with buffet food. I think I over did it a bit. Still feeling stuffed now and I’m actually looking forward to 6 days of healthy eating!

Disclaimer. I have never met iDave but I would happily buy him a beer red wine if we ever did meet!

BB

Is there any science behind the cheat day other than it keeping you motivated?

Have dieted in the past and always tried to zig zag calories, is it a similar idea to this? (not letting body get used to any one calorie level)

If i remember correctly it was muted the cheat day helps to pick up things you may have reduced through the changed diet. For example without any milk, a typical calcium intake may be reduced, although there may be other foods which have plenty in. Perhaps some vitamins and minerals, although if you’re eating vegetables all the time on the diet then that shouldn’t be an issue. I would imagine the psych aspect is pretty important, it is to me anyway. mmm, ribena 🙂

Hmmm, not going too well here.

No change in weight for 3 weeks despite sticking strictly ( as far as I know ) to the plan.

7 pounds down in the first two weeks, nothing in the next three. Still plenty of blubber to shift.

Could I be converting fat to muscle hence no weight change or is it just not working for me ?

TM – are you drinking plenty of water through the day? how much exercise?

idave – lots of water, maybe 4-5 pints.

exercise, 10 mile/45 min commute to work and same home 5 days a week, 1 x 6 to 7 hour/40km mtb epic at weekend.

TM, consider a cheat week instead of a cheat day perhaps?

I think the cheat day does something to your metabolism like stop it entering a steady state. Remember your body doesn’t actually want to lose weight. Something to do with hormones and sensitivity.

Is it simply an age thing – has eating whatever you liked in no moderation when you were younger finally caught up with you?

I think age definitely has something to do with it… although having more money to spend on food also comes into it. Still, Carter USM got it right:

Mogrim that is a quote from the TV series Red Dwarf, by the way 🙂

don’t have a cheat week, just keep going. you’ll get another drop in a week or so.

will keep the faith, got to better than salad and perpetual temperance.

really interesting thread. i’ve been struggling with my weight since losing a load last year and then getting utterly demotivated but trying now to get back on track (should’be been the 1st of jan, but hell you know!!). but how do you do the whole i dave thing when you don’t like or can afford to eat heaps of meat? as per my thread on this a few days back, i eat lots of lentil/bean curries, how do i knock out the rice?

Heaps of meat is not ideal. What you need is legumes, cos that’s where your carbs come from. With chilli for example I just put loads of extra beans in it and eat from a bowl without rice. For curries you could make various kinds of dhal to go with your curry, or just veg bhajis ie spicy veg.

Tomato = fruit or not?

molgrips – Member
Heaps of meat is not ideal. What you need is legumes, cos that’s where your carbs come from. With chilli for example I just put loads of extra beans in it and eat from a bowl without rice

Kidney, borlotti and aduki… yummy

plenty of protein in beans too, they’re ace.

Kev

Just a quick note on the cost of eating as it has been mentioned. I am a student living with my gf, and previous to starting this diet we would eat our way through £50 of food from 1 weekly shop. I’m a bit tight, so this included little snacking and booze, mostly healthy meals cooked from raw ingredients (normal amounts of carbs, veg, protein), a few luxuries such as fruit juices, nice coffee, all good quality meat cuts. Everything cooked from scratch. Eating well I would say.

iDave has said this shouldn’t cost any more, and for most people what is typically spent on junk and processed food, this would be true, and it just costs more time to prepare. For us, our weekly food bill has gone up to around £60 (done twice now, so reliable), plus perhaps £10 top-up of fresh veg midweek. This has gone up because of more portions of meat, and I tend to buy quality meat. So with the increased frequency of eating meat (now at lunch and sometimes breakfast, where I would have had some pasta, or a sandwich), cost has increased. Carbs (dried pasta, potatoes, rice etc) are a cheap way of filling yourself up, and so replacing with meat is fairly expensive. I am going to try and bring cost down now by consuming more beans/protein to fill myself up, and buying cheaper meat (not worse quality though), such as buying whole chickens and filleting myself (2 chicken breasts at £3-4 when a whole corn fed free range is £5!!!)

Day off has gone quite well, missed ribena now that I have it, but during the week it didn’t bother me sticking to water. Lots of sweet things have been nice, but rather than craving them (which i expected) i’ve just been eating them purely because I am allowed.

RE tomatoes, I’ve been having them. Not sure about the technicalities of fitting in with the diet, pretty sure they have been discussed in other iDave threads (have a look for them as they have lots of good recipes) and suggested they are fine.

RE rice with curries, as has been mentioned, give the curry some substance with lentils/beans etc, and forget about the rice. Works quite well. If you must substitute it with something, try lots of cabbage.

I found ‘gram’ flour today, which is ground chickpea flour apparently. Not sure if that would fit with the aim of the plan. Chickpeas allowed, normal flour not, due to GI/sugar content, but also perhaps because in the processing of making it flour, you are reducing the complexity of the sugars making it easier for the body to digest, increasing the GI? If so does this make ground chickpea flour also high GI? If anybody has an answer to that I would be curious to know.

you can make chickpea flour by slow roasting soaked/tinned chickpeas in the oven for a couple of hours, leave to cool and grind up – hey presto flour!

I’ve been eating a lot more beans lately and i’m defiantly farting more and going to the toilet 🙁

For those looking for recipes:

I’ve been eating a lot more beans lately and i’m defiantly farting more and going to the toilet

You say it like that it’s a problem??? (Let’s not forget that timeless piece of wisdom, true when it was first written and still true today: “Beans, beans, good for your heart…”)

(And molgrips: I know it was from Red Dwarf, Rimmer’s voice is instantly recognisable!)

Major success this evening with cauliflower rice – grate a whole cauliflower and fry with some caraway seeds (other herbs/spices are available). Yum.

OK folks just started on this as I need or would like to lose at least 15kg to get down to 100kg. I am on day 2 all going well as feel full which good for a diet, staying well hydrated but seem to be getting headaches is that a normal response to the sudden change in diet?

SbZ will be along soon to rejoice at your headaches…

I’ve never come across headaches being an effect.

landy813 – I started this diet last week and had headaches for the first couple days even though I was drinking lots of water too.. No idea if it was due to the diet or a cold I had at the time.
I was a big sugar junky before the diet (too much cake etc) which could also have had something to do with it.