Metabolic Balance diet: final results

So here we are, I’ve completed the first two phases of the Metabolic Balance diet: 2 days of mild detox and 14 days of a strict diet. 16 days, which I thought would be hell and which I wasn’t completely convinced would impact on my weight.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Let’s start at the… end (once in a while it won’t hurt). I wasn’t convinced I would lose a lot of weight because, frankly I don’t have much to lose. Before someone shoots me down, I didn't say I had the perfect body but that, looking at it objectively, in terms of health, I don’t need to lose weight. I’ve got plenty of wobbly bits, thank you very much, my body housed two children for 9 months, I ain’t 20 no more, and Vogue wouldn’t give me a second look. However my BMI at the start was 19.7, so hardly overweight (that’s between 25 and 29.9 in case you wondered). I wanted to do the diet to experience what it was like so that I could really help my clients when they go through it, I know what it feels like, I know the obstacles and I thought about the solutions.

I know the diet works, plenty of people have lost a lot of weight on it, especially in the first 2 weeks, but was it going to work for me too I wondered? Is it just something for those would are really overweight or could it also help those who have a few kilos to lose too? You know, those last few kilos that you just can’t shift despite your best efforts.

I’m sure you can see it coming by now: the answer is yes. Despite me being at the lower end of the BMI spectrum I lost weight.

Here are the stats for my second week:

Weight: -1.3kg (2.8lbs)

Waist: -1cm

Hips: -1cm

Thighs: -2cm

As I explained last time, 1.3kg in a good is pretty good going and what it’s interesting is that when I look at all the data from my scales you can see that this weight loss is fat loss. You can see that because my hydration level is the same and my muscle mass hasn’t changed. The only thing that has changed is my weight and my body fat percentage, which has dropped to a very low 15.9%. 

1.3kg of fat lost in a little more than 1 week without any exercise is astonishing!

Over all in 16 days this is what happened:

Weight: -2.5kg (5.5lbs) of fat

Waist: -5cm

Hips: -2cm

Thighs: -3cm

My metabolic rate is also higher than when I started, my visceral fat is at 1 (healthy range is up to 12), and as far as the scales are concerned, I’ve got the body of a 20 year old (woohoo!).

So, I’ve lost quite a bit of fat and my body has become better at burning fat, isn’t that amazing?!

The best bit is that it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be; as I said, I was expecting hell for two weeks. Now, it was no picnic but certainly not hell either. At first, you have to get your head round everything and you do get a bit hungry but it really doesn’t last very long and to be honest it was a good think to feel hungry. Being hungry is good because it shows you that you can actually cope pretty well with hunger, hunger isn’t to be feared, you need to tame it in a way and realise there are different hunger levels. I think too often we eat at the first signs of being peckish for fear of getting too hungry later or because someone told us to eat little and often. How many times did you say “oh my, I’m starving!” when it got close to lunch time? You’re not starving, you’re body won’t let you starve, or at least there’s quite a bit of margin before that happens. You’re just a bit hungry and you can wait for lunch. Trust me, if you wait until you’re properly hungry, food will taste even better.

I’ve also learned that even my portion sizes are sometimes too big, it turns out I can cope quite well with a lot less food. I think that often we eat until we’re full up when really we need to stop when we’re no longer hungry.

Cutting out sugar altogether was also interesting, as you can imagine I’m not someone who has a lot of sugar in her diet but even cutting out natural sugars such as bananas and dates made a major difference to the balance of my hormones. I really ought to dedicate an entire post on this because it’s so relevant to my practice (most of my clients report being “addicted” to sweets and chocolate and never buying bread or they can’t stop eating it) and really so easily fixed. Job for next week: post on the addictive nature of sugar and how Metabolic Balance can help.

I need to stop for today because I’ve started to ramble and probably lose half of my audience (Dave, Kate and Stu – are you still here?), but just to sum up, this experience has been an eye opener and the benefits have been much greater than just weight loss: I’ve got more energy, I sleep better, my skin is brighter, my moods are much more even and I had no PMS whatsoever.

Happy Sunday everyone!