So I finished Bonesetter Stew's cleanse thing! Yay me! I don't have new pictures yet but here are the numeric stats:
Weight: Stew ran the numbers with 155. This was higher than what I actually weighed in at (159). He's running the numbers again because I'm anal like that, but here are the ones gleaned with 155.
BMI: 24.28, a drop of about 3/4% to put me just under the cut-off for "overweight." Did I mention that I upped my max deadlift to 220? Damn skippy :)
Body Fat Percentage: 24.9%, a drop of 1.4%. Not too shabby! With the weight of 155, this means I've got 38.6 lbs of fat and 116.4 lbs of lean mass. Boo on the slight loss of muscle but yay on the greater loss of fat! Now, more lifting!
Stew & I postulated that a decent overall goal might be 20-21% body fat, so this is a really good first step. Note that I'm definitely not tying myself to that number. If I keep cutting it down and start to really lose my boobs, you can bet your ass I'm reevaluating my goals. Having really nicely-cut abs would be cool, but not at the expense of Ralphie and Louie.
Total Body Water: A solid 45L/64%, up from 43L/59.7% last time. Yay hydration!
Basal Metabolic Rate: 1518 kCal, down from 1540 before. Merh. I wqs hoping for a move in the opposite direction, but I guess that goes along with the slight drop in muscle. Bring on the steaks and heavy weights!
Daily Energy Expenditure: 2278 kCal, up from 2002. Joanne, you told me what this meant before. Does the increase just mean that I'm doing more during the day? If so, how can they tell that? It seems an awfully complicated and variable thing to measure so precisely.
I forgot to measure my waist and hips. And now my waist is like ba-FWOOOM! from the aforementioned hormone poisoning so I'm not really inclined to want to whip out the ol' tape measure.
So, overall, decentish results, at least from my perspective. Honestly, though, I kind of hated it while it was going on. My self-esteem and mood dropped pretty low, and my trichotillomania started acting up again...a lot. As in, I had a dream about shaving my head two nights ago and now I really want to act on it. I also had these batshit insane cravings for stuff like skim milk (I can't stand the taste anymore, but wanted it like crazy) and butter (not on anything, just by itself). And when I roasted my weekly chicken, I saved the fat as normal for use in future cooking. But I got this incredibly strong urge to get a spoon and just drink the liquid fat right there. I was simultaneously nauseated and absolutely drooling for it. Mindfuck.
All said and done, I don't know if I would do this again. Like I said, the results are decent, and I don't know how much of the weird thought processes were because of other things and just coincided, but the coincidence is enough to give me pause. I don't like cringing when I look in the mirror. I don't like ripping at my hair and skin enough so that I'm sore and bleeding. And I really don't have any desire to drink straight fat. Just ew.
Has anyone else done this dealio? Ashley, I'm looking at you. Are my experiences just a fluke? I'd really like to hear that they are.
-Nelly
I have done it a few times. I hated it the first week, but eventually I started sleeping much better, digesting more effectively, and feeling amazing. My performance suffered greatly for the first half of it, but felt better after. I found myself going back to eating pretty grossly and cheating while on it, so I wouldn't do it again, as I have gotten similar results from a whole 30.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lindsay. Yeah, the first week was definitely the worst - the headaches just would. not. stop. I gotta say I'd pick Whole30 over this any day...I can make a damn good smoothie but it just doesn't beat a really good steak :D
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