The Digest Diet

I'm a little late gettin' to the party and Reader's Digest didn't *actually* ask me to blog about it, but when I saw that they got a bunch of bloggers to try their diet, I decided to at least blog about it.

The essence of the Digest Diet is to get you to eat really healthy food.  Like, health-nut, skinny-person, obnoxiously healthy.  But I love that you have to buy and make your own food.  And you get this huge book that explains all the studies behind why certain foods are better for you than others.  Honestly hearing WHY it matters that I eat pumpkin seeds and sea salt and make my own vinaigrette makes a difference in sticking to the plan.

The plan--like a lot of plans--has multiple phases.

Phase 1:  Fast Release

You're dropped to a sick 1200 cals per day.  I thought I was going to die at times.  You get 2 smoothies a day made with things like coconut milk, almond butter, and flax seed meal.  Then you get a small meal with a big salad in the evening.  My first day, I had a headache I was so hungry.  But phase 1 only lasts 4 days, so it is doable.

Phase 2: Fade Away

You get food again!!!  YEA!!  This phase runs from day 5-14.  You still drink one smoothie a day for a meal--alternating between breakfast and lunch, two meals, and two snacks.

Let me preface this by saying that my mom's lost 30 lbs in three months on this diet, so I was expecting a lot.  I began with daily weigh-in's, but by the end of day 4, I was so bummed, I decided it's better for me to weigh weekly.

Day 8 I finally weighed in, I was down 6.1 lbs.  In a week.  Pretty cool.

Now, I'm a treat girl.  Sure, I overeat meals--especially dinner, but my biggest problem is treats.  I LOVE them!  So by the end of week one I was dying for a treat.  Dying.  So I went out to my freezer and got a peanut butter mini (3 Weight Watcher points) and enjoyed every last lick. My aforementioned weigh-in was the next day.

Part of this program is to get you off sugar and onto better things.  Using honey to sweeten things.  Seeking bitter veggies for their nutrients. And you do get a handful of red grapes every night after dinner.

I'm starting to fantasize about carbs: rice, pasta, even just a slice of bread.  Having read a big chunk of Intuitive Eating, I'm pretty sure that fantasizing about food is not a healthy place to be, mentally.  Carb (brown rice, couscous, whole grain pasta, etc) comes in phase 3 which is four days away.  But, tonight at least, it feels like a looooooong four days.