- I'm sure I lost *some* muscle, but not too much. My strength pretty much was the same, maybe slightly worse. I focused on strength workouts of very low reps (4-5) with heavy weights (close to 1RM values).
- I did much less cardio (limited to once intense short session per week in addition to hockey).
- I wasn't "perfect" with the diet, I should logged all my food and calories :(
- It's hard to do this diet with the family. I pretty much ate what I could with them and then made my own supplemental SCD food.
- Definitely don't have near the sugar/processed food cravings I always had. The cheat days made my stomach hurt at night and the next day.
- Certainly not where I want to be overall but do suspect I got rid of some visceral fat (that's the "internal" fat next to your organs...yeah.
Even with less cardio work, playing hockey with 7lbs less weight has more than made up for some lost sprinting endurance. So what now?
First, I'm definitely going to add more carbs, though probably limited to select quantities of rolled oats and brown rice; likely some pasta right before I workout or play hockey. I started doing this the last week and I didn't put on any extra pounds but did notice a significant difference in energy and post-workout soreness.
I'll still avoid all processed carbs except for a cheat day (will still maintain that). Ideally a breakdown somewhere around 35-45% Protein, 30-40% Good Carbs, 20-25% Fat. Tracking to be done via fitday.com (the site performance is slow, but pretty good overall and free).
I plan to run with this modified diet a couple more weeks to see if I can peel a few more pounds of fat then reassess again - all the planning/cooking is still somewhat of a pain. I have a more practical plan "next", but will save that for another day.
[1] This blog entry has the diet pretty much summed up if you don't want to read the book: http://johnnybtruant.com/slow-carb/