So… we’ve come to the end of week one. I thought a bit of a summary was in order.
Firstly, the tally of what I ate this week:
– 5 x T-Bone steaks (250g)
– 6 x Porterhouse (Sirloin) steaks (250g)
– 10 x beef sausages (100g)
– 3 x pork sausages (100g)
– 3 x chicken sausages (100g)
– 6 chicken thigh fillets (50g)
– 600g beef mince
– 50g chicken mince
– 2 x pork spare ribs (125g)
– 1/2 pork belly (500g)
– 150g beef liver
– 9 middle bacon rashers
– 1 dozen eggs
– 2 packs of pork crackle (minus some I shared)
– 50g biltong stokkies (beef jerky)
Approximate Cost
This has been a little harder to track. I spent around $200 at the start of the week, but haven’t eaten everything I bought yet (though I should be through it half way into this week.) I’ve also bought a few steaks here and there, to the value of no more than $50, a couple of snacks ($20), and some snags and burgers for a BBQ to share ($20). So let’s make a generous estimate of say, $240 so far on the diet, one week in. But then some of that meat fed other people (my wife, visiting cousin, friends at BBQ, etc… I’m going to say I spent about $200 (Australian Dollars – AUD).
That’s two meals per day, for seven days, or $14.30 per meal. Not bad really, when you consider there are no other snacking costs ever. No breakfast, no lattes, no hot chips, no alcohol. It’s probably not all that cheap compared to how I was living previously (veggies and fruit are pretty cheap), but it’s not by any means outlandish to budget for $30 a day for food costs in a budget here in Australia.
Weight Loss
This one is going to be tough to measure. My weigh-ins are in the morning after I get up and pee, so I’ll have to wait until the morning to be sure. The scales at my mum’s seemed to be very kind, so I’d like to wait until I’ve removed the variable before celebrating any massive losses. BUT… it’s fair to say in week one I have lost at least a couple of kilograms. It could be anything up to four, but let’s wait and see.
The measurements I’ve taken have me going from 92.6kg to 88.5kg in week one – TBC for clarification.
Thoughts
Not a forever solution for me, but certainly worth a month of disciplined, focussed planning and eating. I really enjoy the challenge, can definitely see results, and don’t feel in ANY way depleted. In fact, after just one week I feel quite sharp mentally, and my energy (apart from a 4pm collapse most days) has been excellent. I’ve started doing push-ups again and I’ve noticed I’m not getting the DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) that usually plagues most efforts to get back in shape. The diet has cut out pretty much all snacking, all drinks other than water and the odd black coffee, and has really enhanced my fasting protocols. I’m often going twenty hours between meals with no energy problems or cravings at all.
My main issue would be the ethics of the diet. If everyone ate like this we’d be in serious strife. If everyone did a month of this at the end of an 18 month meat-free period, the supply chains couldn’t handle the demand (unless we all coordinated very well). It’s not sustainable, so until carbon neutral and cruelty-free lab meat is economical, it’s just not a viable solution for everyone. If you’re out there and you suffer from inflammation-related disease or digestion troubles, I strongly recommend you give it a go strictly and completely for a month as a way to slowly introduce foods back to find out what works for you and what doesn’t.
On to week two!