1 week Results

After more less dieting for one week I am ready to see if it worked. Again, as a reminder - I have not been able to work out yet. To make it more difficult I also had to attend 1 lunch meeting and 1 dinner with friends (followed by Starbucks Coffee which is known to carry a lot of calories). Ok, I step on the scale and the result is a cool looking 168 lbs. So, I lost 2 pounds of weight without really dieting. That is good, but of course it is too early to say if that is really the result of how I am eating. We will see how things turn out in the next following days.

More information about my diet. For over a year I have already been eating 1 (one) Benefiber tablet per day as recommended by my physician. I had stress related stomach/stool problems and he said more fiber would help against these problems. He was right. However - I never really read the label information of Benefiber. One serving size is actually 3 tablets (I have been eating only one). One serving size gives you 3 grams of fiber. Duh - I have been eating 1 extra gram of fiber per day. That is easy to change. I now eat about a total of 10 (ten) Benefiber fiber tablets throughout the day (= 10 grams) of fiber. If you keep track of my fiber intake you will soon that I am actually exceeding the 35 grams of the Fiber35 diet. If you read Brenda Watson’s Fiber35 Diet book you will see that is actually part of the overall deal during the weight loss phase. You mainly stick to 35 grams of fiber when you reach your goal and just want to maintain that weight. I forgot to mention the fiber intake of my breakfast in my earlier posting. Depending on the fruit and amount of cereal it varies between 10 and 15 grams of fiber.

Let’s do a quick calculation of where I am with my fiber intake per day:

• 2 apples = 8 grams of fiber
• 2 bananas = 8 grams of fiber
• Breakfast cereal with fruit = 10 grams of fiber
• 10 Benefiber tablets = 10 grams of fiber

That totals to about 36 grams of fiber per day already. Pretty easy to get there, wouldn’t you agree.

Let’s do it

Time to start. I read most of Brenda Watson Fiber35 book. I stepped on my digital scale to take an assessment of where I am with my weight and to define my first goal. The scale stops at 170.3 lbs. Yep, I can feel that weight. I see the love handles. They need to go. I sit down to prepare a shopping list. I am also thinking about working out, but (of course) I am fighting (another) sinus infection. No workout for the first week. I will do however regular lunch walks at work to get at least some exercise.

I also do not want to do the actual weight loss program Brenda describes in her book. It’s not practicable with my work schedule. Instead I pretty much want to just increase the overall fiber intake by adding some foods to my diet that contain a lot of fiber. They will also replace some other foods that I am usually eating. Example: I already try to eat one apple and one banana a day. Did you know that every medium sized apple contains about 4 grams of fiber? A banana contains approx. 3-4 grams of fiber and no fat at all (the latter applies to apples, too). So, my plan is to eat two apples (= 8 grams of fiber) and two bananas (= 8 grams of fiber) which brings me already up to about 16 grams of fiber per day.

For breakfast I am usually eating Special K from Kellogg’s which claims to help to lose up to 6 lbs in 2 weeks. Some research on the Internet shows that this is a very optimistic number. If someone follows that Special K diet to the letter the results will rather be in the 3-4 lbs section. That is still not bad considering that you would lose weight, but then again you move away from normal foods and it gets boring after 5 or 6 days and that just increases the cravings of the victims folks trying to lose weight. When searching my local supermarket shelfs for other options I discovered Kellogg’s All Bran with Youghurt Bites (for a little better taste). I bought a box and a gallon of Fat Free Milk. Now my breakfast looks like this:

• Large Bowl Kellogg’s All Bran with Yoghurt Bites
• Choice of 1 Banana cut into slices or 1 cup of fresh Blueberries
• Fat Free Milk

 If I get bored by Bananas and Blueberries I can easily add other berries to the mix.

This breakfast combination turns out to be really good tasting and I enjoy it. It also fills me up for quite a while. Exactly what the Fiber35 diet is all about.

My Fiber Diet

Just recently I had my last physical checkup at my doctors. My cholesterol turned out to be too high and he prescribed me a medicine that I now have to take until the rest of my life. I am not overweight, but I am slowly reaching the upper third of what is acceptable for my height/weight. I want to lose weight, but I do not want to go on a diet. I hate these “special” shakes and special “power bars” that make you (eventually) poor slim.

 I started researching several diets or possible lifestyle changes. I liked a specific diet, but when I wanted to order the book it showed the book out of print and a new version/edition scheduled some time late May 2007. I did not want to wait that long. I wanted to start losing weight now and not in 2 months or so. More research was needed and I ran into Brenda Watson’s Fiber35 diet program. It’s actually not like all these other diets. It’s based on the way how fiber works in (and for) our bodies. The impact to your lifestyle seemed to be the smallest compared to other diets and the long-term change actually seemed most appealing.

I ordered Brenda’s book and started reading as soon as it arrived. This blog and this entire fiber website are the result. Come back to read about my fiber35 diet results.