Monday, January 31, 2011

Why - The 17 Day Diet?

 ...and Why The 17 Day Diet?

After doing some research and reading the book we had to make the call if T17DD was going to be something we were willing to give a try. So, why did we choose it. Well, here are my reasons.

Cycles: T17DD is built off an idea not too much unlike the muscle confusion that you receive in P90X. It's just metabolic confusion. Switching it up every 17 days keeps your body guessing. A good time for someone like me who can easily get stuck in a rut.

17 Days isn't long: I can see how parts of this diet are going to be hard, especially Phase 1. But it's only 1,468,800 seconds and then it changes.

Reset: My cells are overloaded with ick. T17DD looks like a hard rebooting of your system.

Relearn: By the time you get to Phase 3 and 4 I feel like you might actually relearn how to eat correctly. We'll see.

Quick loss: We all hate waiting. But it's worse when you have to wait 4 weeks to only lose 2 pounds. T17DD allows for faster loss. Which I'll admit worried me at first, since it was the opposite of what I had always heard. But they do a good job in the book of backing up the science.

CONCERNS: I have to admit. I have a few concerns. The first two phases of the diet contains a lot of repeat foods. How soon before you get sick of the same thing? How long can one sustain it?  My other concern is it's nearly impossible to eat out. Saves money sure, but some days you are just dog tired and can't think about getting into the kitchen to cook. This has often been our achillies heel with Weight Watchers in the past. And at least with WW you can throw a SmartOne in the microwave and call it a night. I believe there are ways to hopfully avoid these issues for at least 34 days. Things open up at Phase 3.

What is T17DD?
I sent you to the the main website eariler for the info. But I think a quick overview is worth our time.

T17DD is broken up into 4 parts with names like Accelerate and Achieve. Here is the list per Terri's blog.

Accelerate: This promotes fast weight loss by eating low carbohydrates and “cleansing” the body
Activate: This is a metabolism boosting cycle where the metabolism is “re-set”
Achieve: “Good” carbohydrates are introduced into the body
Arrive: A lifestyle eating plan that combines the first 3 Cycles

The best explanation is to watch the videos here

I'm not going to post food lists or all the details that are in the book. I just don't what to get in trouble. What I plan on doing is charting my progress.

The History of Ted

Go forth young man, spring forward from 
history and leave 20 pounds behind.


A little historical reference always helps. Here's mine.

I was a super skinny kid growing up. I had tons of energy and stopping to eat was a speed bump in the road on the way to more interesting things. My family did a good job of feeding me nutritious home cooked food. My Mom followed the 1 Meat, 1 Veggie and 1 Starch system. In fact it's so ingrained that I have a hard time breaking away from it now. Raised in the burbs we had a Kroger, Red&White, FoodLion, PigglyWiggly and roadside stands. The lunches at school were actually pretty good. Granted as kids we talked about how bad it was, but looking back our trays were full of veggies. We had fruit as a snack. We had milk to drink. (chocolate was for Friday only) I really believe that foods back in the 70's and 80's were not as processed, not so full of high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oils as they are today. We rarely ate fast food and junk food and candy was for Halloween.

I see kids today eating nothing but chicken nuggets and drinking coke and I'm amazed. I guess I'm a product of my generation. A solid GenX'er. Current age, 37. I was raised on Star Wars and 80's pop. Went to college with Seattle Grunge. Graduated to watch the birth of the internet, the dot com bubble and The Great Recession. And all that time, as the years went by, my eating habits got worse.

I probably put on my first extra pounds around the 10th grade, lifting weights and packing on the calories in hopes of playing football, +10. Then college the meal plan didn't help, add on some more, +15. After I graduated and moved to the big city, started a job 10 hours a day sitting behind a computer and another 2 sitting in traffic, +18. Add in the sadness of a layoff, a quarter life crisis, +20. The joy of eating out with my wife, +25.

Welcome. Some of you know this place well.

Now I have tried to lose in the past. With some success. I've tried Akins, Weight Watchers, and P90x. Did these diets work? Yes. A quick run down of my experience is as follows:

Akins: works for a very limited amount of time, but is simply not sustainable. You just can't live off bacon. Tired, cranky and headaches that don't end. No thanks.

Weight Watchers: I lost 16 lbs two different times... and that seemed to be my stopping point. I will say it's not WW's fault. We tried to do it on our own, counting points, following WW recipes. I believe it probably works better if you attend meetings. And in retrospect I realize that I was living off 100 calorie packs. My fault. I would try it again because I do believe it works if done correctly. Plus you do learn a lot about how to eat and how much.

P90x: Technically not a weight loss plan, but a get in shape plan. Weight loss is a by product. Does it work, absolutely. But it works better if you can drop some weight ahead of time. The workouts will payoff more if you can do them. Carrying too much weight makes it very difficult and it did a number on my feet, knees and ankles after 60 days. Also be careful what type of supplements or protein shakes you take. Take the wrong ones and you may gain weight, and not just muscle. My biggest issue with P90x was the time required to complete the workouts. It almost has to become your only "hobby." When I drop some weight I'm looking forward to giving P90x another try.

So that's my background. Not that dissimilar from most of you.

The Experiment

Oh book, with your hot pink cover. Will I praise you or loathe you? Yes.

I've tried few diets in my time. Now I can't say I've given every fad diet, late night infomercial exercise revelation or recent appetite control pill a try. I've always felt like I could just watch what I was eating and I'd be able to drop a few pounds. Well, after many many years I'm willing to say it's not that simple.


More history in a few. But for now I wanted to post out a quick message letting everyone know why we are here. My wife and I have decided to try The 17 Day Diet. After hearing about it from a friend we did a little research, gave it some thought and purchased the book. I won't go into tons of detail about what the diet is and how it works, you can find that info explained at the link above. Our reason for being here is to document our journey. Track our progress, or lack there of. Express how we feel, both physically and emotionally. Just write it down. Heck, maybe even receive some support, encouragement and even some accountability from you fine folks out there on the InterWeb.

I promise to keep it simple, and keep the info flowing as much as possible.

So join in, post comments, send us emails and lets get the discussion going.