Week 11 - food record

This is a record of all food I ate in Week 11 of the diet.

Sunday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Tuna and egg Salad with tomato and cucumber.

Dinner

Gammon steak

Peas, Broad beans, runner beans, broccoli, carrots

Monday

Breakfast

1 poached egg and 1 slice of ham

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Ham and egg with mixed leaves, cucumber and tomato. Home made vinaigrette.

Mixed beans in pesto 

Dinner

Stir fry chicken with chinese stir fry vegetables and mushrooms

Broad beans in pesto

Tuesday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Broad beans in pesto

Lunch

Tuna and egg on spinach, with tomato and cucumber. Home made vinaigrette.

Dinner

Roasted Chicken breast

Mixed leaf salad with tomato and cucumber

Roasted peppers

Fried mushrooms

Wednesday

Breakfast

1 poached egg and 1 slice of ham

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Tuna and egg on spinach, with tomato and cucumber. Home made vinaigrette.

Dinner

2 pork chops

Peas, carrots, cauliflower

Thursday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Broad beans in pesto

Lunch

Ham and egg with mixed leaves, cucumber and tomato. Home made vinaigrette.

Mixed beans in pesto 

Dinner

Gammon steak.

Broccoli, broad beans, peas and carrots.

Friday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Broad beans in pesto

Lunch

mixed leaf salad, cucumber and tomato. Mixed beans. vinaigrette.

Dinner

Stir fry chicken with chinese stir fry vegetables, mushrooms, peas and beans

Saturday

Breakfast

Bagel with Cream Cheese

Snacks

Chocolate (approx 100g)

Lunch (at a wedding!)

Bread roll

Shredded duck salad with plumb chutney

Roast pork, crackling, sage and onion stuffing and apple sauce ...

... Roast and Dauphinoise potatoes, seasonal vegetables

Creme Brulee with strawberries, cream and shortbread

Selection of cheeses with crackers

Dinner

1/4lb barbecued burger with salad

Cheesecake slice

selection of small cakes (lots of cake)

Drinks

2 glasses of champagne

1 pint of bitter

2 glasses of red wine

Week 11 - results

Week 11 took me up to my real target date. My older brother got married on 18th June, and I was sharing best-man duties with my younger brother. There were going to be lots of photographs, so I planned to get in the best shape I could.

I went for a suit fitting 8 weeks ago, and unsurprisingly, when the suits all arrived on Friday, mine was at least a size too big in the trouser waist, the waist coat and jacket. I should have seen this coming of course, but if anything, it proved how much change I'd managed to effect in these last 11 weeks.

As it turns out, the outfitters, Peter Posh of Shrewsbury are on the way to where the wedding was being held, and they were very accommodating, providing me with a replacement waist coat and jacket I could pick up on the way. I decided against changing the trousers as they had sufficient adjustment and any wrinkles in the waistline were concealed by the waistcoat - and it would have been more of a pain for me and the waiting family to have to get changed at the shop.

On the day before the wedding, I managed to hit my 20lb goal, slipping back by 0.2lb to 19.8lb on the Saturday morning through some mystery. However, I had got there in the end. this graph shows the progress during week 11.

The wedding went really well, and there was plenty to eat and drink. As the Sunday following was Fathers Day in the UK, I ended up taking that off as well as a cheat day, and now having just finished week 13, I've just recovered back to my 20lb overall loss.

This is more-or-less where my current story as regards the four hour body diet ends. Having spent 1/4 of a year on the diet, I'm going to take some time away from it and move back to a more regular diet. However, there are some aspects that will stay with me for some time.

- little or no milk in my diet - tea and coffee are now always black
- much reduced intake of bread and bakery products (at least until I'm on holiday in France in August)
- increased water consumption
- breakfasts will probably remain dominated by fish and vegetables. I kind've like it now.

This next diagram shows the daily variations across the whole 11 week period.

I hope you've found this journal of interest. If nothing else, it shows the exact way someone lost 12% of bodyweight in 11 weeks. If you try it, I wish you every success.

E

Week 10 - food record

This is a record of all food I ate in Week 10 of the diet.

Sunday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Chicken Salad with tomato and cucumber.

Mixed beans in pesto

Dinner

Stir fry chicken

Stir fry chinese vegetables, with extra broad beans, peas and mixed beans

Monday

Breakfast

1 poached egg and 1 slice of ham

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

1 chicken breast

Mixed salad with tomato and cucumber

Mixed beans in pesto

Dinner

3 chicken thighs

Broccoli, Asparagus, carrots, peas

Tuesday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Mixed salad with tomato, cucumber, sweetcorn and beetroot

Mixed beans

1 slice of ham

Dinner

Stir fry chicken

half pack of chinese stir fry mix

Broad beans and peas

Mixed beans

One sliced Chilli

Wednesday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Mixed salad with tomato, cucumber

Mixed beans in pesto

1 slice of ham, 1 egg

Dinner

Stir fry chicken

half pack of chinese stir fry mix

Broad beans and peas

Mixed beans

One sliced Chilli

Thursday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Tuna and egg mixed salad.

Dinner

Stir fry pork (2 pork steaks)

half pack of chinese stir fry mix

Broad beans and peas

Mixed beans

Sliced Chilli

Friday

Breakfast

1 poached egg and 1 slice of ham

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Kidney beans in pesto

Lunch

Tuna and Egg, with tomato and cucumber in spinach leaves

Vinegrette

Kidney beans in pesto

Dinner

Stir fry chicken

half pack of chinese stir fry mix

Mushrooms

Broad beans and peas

Kidney beans

Saturday

Breakfast

Bagel with cream cheese and ham

Snacks

Chocolate (approx 300g)

2 bags of crisps

Lunch

Chicken salad

Dinner

Take away Indian curry:

- Chicken Bhuna

- Bombay potatoes

- Mushroom rice

- Naan bread

- Poppadums

Strawberries and ice cream.

Week 10 - results

Total weight lost for week, 0.8 lbs. Total lost since start of diet, 18.6 lbs. I didn't quite make the 20 lbs that I'd hoped for, and again my weight loss does seem to have slowed, although it is still trending downwards.

Week 10 is a good time to review progress made and what the impact has been on how I feel. This is what I and people around me have noticed.

Collar size. Before starting the diet, my collar size was 16.5 inches. I do have a naturally thick-neck, but it has grown somewhat over the past few years. Collar size is now reduced to just about 15 inches. My face is also less rounded and there is some promise of starting to see some bone structure again.

My waist size has dropped from 34" to very nearly 30", virtually two jeans sizes. A couple more weeks and the 30" jeans I tried in the shops this weekend will fit just nicely. Good job my old jeans need replacing soon.

I do feel much better in myself. I have surprising amounts of energy for someone not eating any substantial amounts of carbohydrates, and I don't get hungry as quickly as I used to. I can eat at 6:30, travel and attend meetings, and not have any real problems eating until 1pm. I might feel hungry from around 11:30, but I'm not hitting what I called "sugar lows" where I could end up with headaches and all sorts of problems. Things are much improved.

This chart shows all progress made over the 10 weeks so far.

This does indeed show progress slowing over the past few weeks, but the trend is still downwards. For me, this is telling me to go back to the book and look for further ideas and inspiration to get the rate of loss increased further. The main levers I think I have are:

- improving the diet further - what can I cut out that isn't helping
- do more and better targeted exercise. As I approach a more ideal weight, I need to convert more from fat to lean muscle, and that will mean weight loss slows.
- looking at what I can do with supplements, if indeed I really want to go down the PAGG route.

E.

Week 9 - food record

This is a record of everything I ate in Week 9 of the diet.

Sunday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

1 boiled egg

Mixed leaf salad with tomato and cucumber

Dinner

2 pork steaks

Carrot, Asparagus, Broccoli, french beans

Monday

Breakfast

Poached egg

1 slice of ham

peas, broad beans and broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Ham and egg salad

Mixed beans in pesto

Dinner

Stir fry chicken

Stir fry chinese mixed vegetables with extra chilli

Mixed beans

Tuesday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Ham and 2 egg salad

Mixed beans in pesto

Dinner

2 pork chops

cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, asparagus and roasted peppers.

Wednesday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Dinner

Stir fry turkey

Stir fry chinese mixed vegetables

Thursday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Mixed leaf salad with tomato, cucumber and sweetcorn

Mixed beans

Smoked mackerel

Dinner

Stir fry turkey

Stir fry chinese mixed vegetables

Friday

Breakfast

Steamed smoked haddock

Peas, broad beans, broccoli

Mixed beans in pesto

Lunch

Mixed leaf salad with tomatoes

1 chicken breast

Dinner

Gammon steak

Peas, Cauliflower, asparagus.

Saturday

2 Thorntons chocolates

bowl of fresh strwaberries

3 chocolate chip cookies

2 100g bar of cadburys Dairy Milk

2 slices of toast

2 steak pies

1 bag of crisps

1 spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread and salad

Week 9 - results

Total loss for the week - 0.8lbs. This takes the total lost in the 9 weeks since starting the diet to 17.8 lbs. The target for week 10 is to try to get a total loss of 20 lbs, which would be fantastic.

Week 8 - results

Total loss for the week 3.8Lbs. This has been my best total loss in a single week, and probably due to having an extra day at the start, as the previous weeks cheat day was on Friday rather than Saturday.

Also of note is that the visceral fat has dropped a further %age point to 7% this week. Progress seems to be back on track.

Reading forums and posts elsewhere, such as 4-Hour People, there does seem to be a common theme that weight loss stalls for a while at around 6 weeks. The advice is generally to just stick with it, feel good at what you've lost and know that it will all continue in the weeks to follow. I think that this was a contributing factor to my less good results in weeks 6 and 7.

E.