Post Christmas Rescue Diet!

OK – so you overindulged over Christmas and are now wondering what is the best way to get back to feeling refreshed, rather than bloated.

Let’s just have a quick look at what happened. Worst case is that you could have been over indulging for some time and gained a few pounds and, more seriously, regained the taste for processed food. This blog on Thanksgiving shows how the festive season starting early can be particularly problematic for North Americans. It doesn’t take long to reacquire the taste for processed food – sugar can be particularly addictive, as I discovered Christmas 2009.

You can gain pounds – even in 1 day. When we eat carbs, which we don’t need for energy, the body has to get the glucose from the carbs out of the blood stream. It does this by releasing insulin from the pancreas which turns the glucose into glycogen – the body’s storage form of glucose. The body can store about 100 grams of glycogen in the liver and 250-400 grams in the muscles. (The glycogen in the muscles can only be used by the muscles, but the glycogen in the liver can be used wherever energy is needed by the body). There is some debate as to how much water is stored with glycogen, but four parts water to one part glycogen is often quoted. This means we can gain 500g in glycogen weight and 2kg in water weight in a day. That’s 5-6 pounds in one day! The good news is that it can be lost as quickly as it was gained, but beware if you were planning to get into a particular outfit on Boxing Day.

Phase 1 of The Harcombe Diet is designed to attack both problems – 1) the need to lose a few pounds quickly and 2) the need to get rid of any food cravings/addictions that may have taken hold.

If you are not familiar with the diet, for full details – check out the book “Stop Counting Calories & Start Losing Weight” or register with The Harcombe Diet Club and you’ll get a free download with a 10 day plan and headlines on the three conditions that are causing your food cravings.

Phase 1 is only 5 days long – even doing it for a day or two between Christmas and New Year can make a huge difference and help you get into your favourite outfit for New Year’s Eve. You can eat unlimited real (not processed) meat, fish, eggs, vegetables (not potatoes), salads, Natural Live (Bio) yoghurt and only brown rice is limited in quantity at 50g dry weight per day.

Weight loss is often spectacular and I’m personally disappointed if people lose less than 3-5lbs in 5 days. The current record stands at 19lb in 5 days. A large part of that is water – because two of the three conditions cause severe water retention – but that’s water that your body should not have been holding on to and it can cause elevated blood pressure, aside from the puffy face, ankles and fingers that make you feel bloated. You can drop a clothes size, or two, in a few days – that’s got to be welcome!

Give it a go – especially those who have been counting calories for what seems like for ever. You need never count calories or go hungry again. Calorie counting drives people down the route of eating more of the macro nutrient that makes us fat – carbs! The secret to weight loss is eating food – real food – and managing carb intake. Make 2011 different and Stop Counting Calories & Start Losing Weight!