Back in late September — about a year after I started working out regularly — I hit a plateau. The lowest I've reached is about 167 pounds, and I've bounced back to an average of 170 ever since. Two pieces of equipment in the workout room of my apartment complex had broken down, and the manufacturer was taking its sweet old time repairing them. (Only in the last few weeks was the equipment working again.)
These confluence of events spurred me to do something different with my diet and exercise regimen. The Abs Diet was recommended in a few threads on Ask Metafilter, where I learned about The Hacker's Diet. I used the method of measurement in The Hacker's Diet to gauge my progress, and I figured if the Hive Mind were right about that, it would be right about this.
After reading through the book — and cringing at the writing — I went ahead and tried it out. I bought some dumbbells to substitute for the broken gym equipment, and I rearranged my diet to accommodate the "power foods" recommended by the author. I stopped watching calories, as instructed.
But I had some suspicions. Because I was at a plateau, I didn't think ignoring calorie counts would really help. That would be the point where calorie counting because more important.
A lot of the testimonies in the book came from people who lost 10-15 pounds in the six weeks promised by the book's subtitle. Thing is, I got those same results without using The Abs Diet. Those first few pounds are water, and five of them went missing in my first week of exerce. I lost 10 pounds from the very end of August to the very end of September. By October, I was down 17 pounds. During a plateau, I would not register such a change. If I did lose weight, I predicted it would be very, very nominal.
The Abs Diet recommended snacking between meals, which I did at the start of my diet because the smaller portions at lunch and breakfast left me wanting more. But once my body started adjusting to the new portions, snacks actually got in the way. Now I don't snack, but I still eat those same small portions. If I try to eat the way I did before, I'd feel sick fairly quickly. I didn't want the snacking to get me into the habit of expecting bigger portions.
But I decided to follow The Abs Diet as closely as I was comfortable, regardless of my instincts. Over the course of six weeks, I gained five pounds.
It wasn't until the fourth week — when it was clearly obvious The Abs Diet was not doing what it promised — that I got a second scale with a body fat monitor. In the last two weeks of The Abs Diet, I consoled myself with the steady daily reading of my body fat — an average of 22 percent, which is considered an acceptable body fat percentage. The ideal for me is closer to 17 percent.
I even read on the BBS of the book's official site that The Abs Diet would make some people gain weight at first, but they would then lose it. Right.
Once the six weeks were finished, I ditched a few of the diet's guidelines. I stopped eating nuts when I saw the calories from fat consisted more than 30 percent of the recommended daily allowance. I stopped snacking because it felt better not to snack. I went back to watching my portions.
A few things I kept — I've started eating eggs on the weekends, if only to stop me from driving across town to get a bagel. I eat quite a bit of spinach and broccoli. And I still do the exercises demonstrated in the book.
I think The Abs Diet made me gain some muscle, but it wasn't enough to burn the remaining fat lurking around my gut. My weight seems to be trending more toward 169 than 172 now that I've adapted a few of the diet's ideas.
I still have 15 more pounds to go, but I'm not quite in a rush to get there. I haven't been 170 pounds in about eight or nine years, and I'm relishing it. It's also the holidays, so there's little point trying to be good in a season that encourages gluttony. When the new year comes, maybe then I'll start thinking drastically.