I've been seriously relaxing my weight loss regimen in the last month because I've done a lot of good work in a year, and I deserve a bit of break. So I've been keeping my panic perspective in check about the obvious plateau I've now reached. I haven't been able to budge past 168 pounds for a number of weeks now, and while it wouldn't be a bad idea to shed another 13 or so pounds, I think losing 47 since last year is a remarkable achievement.
But I know what's happening: my body has adjusted to change in diet and to the increase in activity. It's figured out how I'm expending my energy, and it's calibrated not to lose any more than it's already lost.
Unfortunately, my personality loves structure. I like going into the workout room of my apartment complex — it's too small to deserve the name "gym" — and knowing I'll do three reps of 10 on Machine X, three reps of 10 on Machine Y, 20 minutes of cardio on the treadmill, etc. So too does my body, and the only way to get it to work is to change the structure. And no, I'm not that big of a fan of change.
I've run across mention of The Abs Diet on Ask Metafilter, and I figured it might help me to shed off the love handles that I've had since, well, forever. I read a bit about the premise, and I found it somewhat encouraging. So I dropped cash on the book itself.
I finished it this weekend, and boy, did I have to steel myself from all the self-help hot air. The author, David Zinczenko, is editor-in-chief of Men's Health magazine, which should put him in a position to know his material. And he does. It does not, however, put him in the position of being a good writer. Yes, he can string together a coherent sentence, and yes, his words have a definitive a voice. A needlessly smarmy, conceited voice. The kind of voice that had me saying, "Shut the fuck up, you goddamn frat." I guess motivational books need a certain writing style to convince
people to get up and do something, but Zinczenko can come across as a
total asshole tool.
Actual mention of the diet itself doesn't start till page 93, which means you essentially get 92 pages of introduction. Yes, 92 pages of "The Abs Diet will do this" and "The Abs Diet will do that" with no mention of what The Abs Diet really involves till 3/4 of the way through the book. Yeah, it wouldn't be much of a book if it cut to the chase — it would end up being a 20-page pamphlet, actually — but holy fuck do you have to get through lots of bad jokes and stupid pop culture references which already makes the book sound terribly dated.
Like there's still comedy gold waiting to be mined from Janet Jackson's Superbowl half-time show.
Those 92 pages aren't without their merit, however. Zinczenko puts out a lot of common sense to debunk the low-carb craze, and he explains quite plainly the difference between good fats and cholesterol from bad fats and cholesterol. I found that information engaging, despite Zinczenko's best efforts to sound conversational.
I admit, I'm the kind of person who wants points to be made with minimal fuss. Be creative, yes, but don't overstate your argument. Perhaps books of this ilk aren't designed for readers such as myself, because it was quite an effort to find the information amid all the rah-rah.
The funny thing is, I was already doing The Abs Diet without knowing I was doing The Abs Diet.
For the past year, I've been using The Hacker's Diet, which is less a diet and more a methodology of measurement. The Hacker's Diet tells you nothing about how to eat and how to exercise. In fact, its only advice is to eat less, exercise more, which is what doctors and health professionals pretty much say all the time. Instead, The Hacker's Diet encourages people not to pin everything on the number you read on the scale. It doesn't measure everything, but regular (i.e. daily) measurements can indicate overall trends. In short, The Hacker's Diet cuts through the signal to noise ratio of what the scale shows you.
So I consulted my doctor, and she gave me certain bits of advice that pretty much confirmed what I already heard — you can still eat what you want, just in smaller portions. And make sure calories from fat don't exceed 30 percent of total calories. A cookie once in a while won't hurt, but a cookie every day won't help.
My eating and exercise habits changed gradually over the past year, and back in June, I found myself eating vegetables, meat and rice in reasonable portions. By the time I read The Abs Diet, I found myself saying, "Yeah, I already do that. And I already do that …"
I'm probably going to add a few more foods to my menu, and I'll probably go back to eating snacks between meals as I did at the start of the exercise regimen. Back then, I needed to because I was unaccustomed to eating smaller portions. Then it stopped being an issue because the meals themselves were enough to keep me full from one to the next.
And since the gym equipment in my apartment complex has been broken for the past month and a half, I've invested in some dumbbells. I need to shake things up with the workout routine, and doing them in my apartment rather than relying on the gym should be a drastic enough change.
It'll be a few weeks — six, according to the book — before I notice a change, so I'll let you know if anything happens. At that time, we'll see how much of a ringing endorsement I can give the book. But my immediate reaction to The Abs Diet? Good info, but the writing is crap.
