Rob reduced his carb intake to as close to zero as possible. This meant mostly meat,�fish and chicken very limited vegetables. He�insisted on low carb or no carb condiments�and snacks that were very low in Net Carbs.� He also would let the waitress know he was trying to avoid carbs, which often helped in getting suggestions for alternatives or his food specially prepared. At one time we even met a waitress at lunch who totally identified with the diet and went on to say she had lost 120 pounds on it-this woman was slim too!

Rob also tried the internal cleansing product that I and another friend were using. He had the most um…signifigant results on that.

The results? In 28 days, he lost 15 pounds! His clothes no longer fit, they are too loose. His neck size dropped by an inch and a half, and he lost 3 inches off his belly. He also noted that the sensation of being full or bloated right below the rib cage, is gone. That “lump” has smoothed out. Not bad for a 28 day test!

Rob is going to stay on the diet for now, as he wants to continue loosing weight. He has experienced more energy and enjoys rollerblading for miles at a time now. He also reports he sleeps better, thanks to the tea provided with the colonix product from Dr. Natura.

I will continue updating his progress over the month of March 2006.

I definitely had the symptoms of loosing inches this week, none of my clothes fit right. I had paper bag syndrome all around my belt regardless of what I wore. My shirts also look like they are hanging on me instead of fitting. Nice problem to have of course, but I’m just not used to seeing that so I may need some new clothes before long.

OK, now for the measurements:

Measurements for Week 9 Feb 26 2006

Height 5-8
Weight 161.00 down 4
Stomach 33 down .5
Thigh 20.5 down .5
Chest 40 down .5
Bicep 12.50 same
Waist 32.00 down .50 (I really thought this had gone down but maybe next week)
Wrist 6.75 down .25
Ankle 8 down .5
Neck 15.5 same
Body Fat: 15% down 1% Awesome!

I’m glad my body fat percentage continues to drop so I know I’m loosing fat instead of muscle. That is a nice safeguard. I definitely feel better and have more energy to work and do things around the house. I also don’t feel exhausted when I wake up in the morning which was the case back when I started the diet.

After 1 week using an internal cleansing product, I have noticed other changes as well. The product is made by Dr Natura and is called Colonix. I am trying it out as a first time user of anything like this, along with two friends. The details of that experience is better documented on Experiment Monkey under the category, Colon cleanse with friends. I haven’t had any bizarre discoveries yet just noticed I have to “go” more often, that’s about it. My friends have had varied results which arehilarious in the most disgusting way–but hey, everyone has to go eventually right?

I have noticed my skin looks better since starting the colonix stuff but I can’t tell if that’s from the cleansing (they say complexion is linked to your colon condition) or if I am just continuing to heal from the chemical peel stuff. Time will tell, as always!

My goal now is to get my waist down to a 31 or 30. Everything else feels about right now. After that I will start weight lifting to get more tone in my abs. By the way, I read that the secret to getting a flat stomach and reducing love handles is to rid your intestines of all the junk etc etc. I’m curios how true that is and will let you know what happens as I continue on the product for 3 more weeks. My stomach definitely is getting smaller, but then it has been since I started dieting…but flat?…hey that would be cool!

Its better of course to diet and add exercise but I feel it is more goal oriented to drop the pounds first then go work out. Each week I have had physical workouts; I’ve either gained or lost very little weight.

OK now for the numbers, which are not all bad…My weight this week is 165 up two pounds form the week before. This is truly my plateau for weight loss, I’ve been floating around this number for weeks! That said, I checked my measurements and my stomach shrank a half inch, I am now at 16% body fat. Big improvement over 22% where I started.

It’s the difference in having 26 pounds of fat (still need to loose more of that) vs. almost 39 pounds when I started. This reaffirms that the weight I am loosing is fat and not muscle, so it’s all good.

Here is the rest of the measures, which are up and down like crazy from last week.

Measurements for Week 8 Feb 19 2006

Height 5-8
Weight 165.00 up two (sigh)
Stomach 33.5 down .25
Thigh 21 up .50
Chest 40.50 up .50
Bicep 12.50 same
Waist 32.00 down .50
Wrist 7 up .5
Ankle 8.5 up .25
Neck 15.5 down .25
Body Fat .16% down 1%

With all the lifting and walking I did while moving, I think many of these numbers may shift over the next week. We will see…

Here are the measurements for Week 7 Feb 12 2006

Height 5-8
Weight 163.00
Stomach 34 down .75 (yes!)
Thigh 20.50 down .50
Chest 40.00 down 1
Bicep 12.50 down .25
Waist 32.5 same
Wrist 6.50 down .25 (which explains why my watch keeps slipping)
Ankle 8.25 same
Neck 15.75 up .25
Body Fat .17% down 2%

Aside from dropping a few inches overall, I was glad to see my body fat percentage come down-as this indicates the loss of fat rather than muscle (very important factor to monitor on low carb diets).

For example my weight last week was 166 and my body fat was .19-this resulted in 31.54 pounds of fat in my overall body composition. Can you imagine so much in one place? Actually it’s spread out all over and you need some of that to live, so it’s not bad when the number is in balance with the rest of your body.

Scientists recommend you get closer to 15% or even 10% if you are athletic. With the changes in weight and measurements this week I dropped 2% or almost 4 pounds of fat. -Nice!

I’ll be adding more physical activity to my diet in the next week so it will be interesting to see how things shift. I also changed the kind of diet bar I have been eating for breakfast, which may be helping pounds melt off. I was eating the Atkins Advantage bar, but they are so darn expensive, that I switched to the Carb Wise brand. Carb Wise has this “s’mores” flavor that makes a great snack as well.

A: His clothes were different so he saw the difference there plus he probably has lost a good bit since last week.

B: The fastest way to loose weight finally kicked in and he feels a lot better from the process: you figure it out.

Either way he is a lot happier now and is on his way, tomorrow to seeing the results of a full week on the diet. Stay tuned

First I tried a glycolic peel (I had no idea what was what at first). These can be bought at a drug store and are very basic. It didn’t burn much, and in five minutes you rinse and put a moisturizer on. That’s it! My skin looked smoother but…not necessarily better.

After trying a few of these, I decided they are just a tease and I needed something more painful-I mean effective. I looked on the net, where all the good chemicals are, and found one that had different percentages of the acid called TCA. There were warnings all over the page about not going up to the full concentration at first, which goes as hgh as 18%. They even suggested I try one around the 8% level. Perfect, this stuff sounds amazingly dangerous and effective, just what I want.

OK, even my friends say things like, “Dude, aren’t you afriad of screwing your face up?” And I always so no. Of course…I figure it is so messed up already it can’t get worse! But I’m being a bit sarcastic. Oddly, all I heard, in my head, were my friends when I put the nuclear waste, I mean TCA on my face.

Yes, I ordered it, 12.5% just to be in the middle. It arrived, I read all the instructions, got the ointments and stuff they recommend then went to town. Apply it with Q-tips only!…hmm ok thats gonna take a while. I guess I can’t splash it on like after shave?

About 3 seconds after the swab passed over my forehead, I knew it was going to be hard to finish this. Are you kidding me?! It felt like my skin was on fire, seriously! I tried the usual things, fanning it with my hand…no dice. Still too hot. Just gotta tough it out for 5-8 minutes then rinse.

OK, I get it all on, wait my time then rush to rinse it off. The second the water touched my face, there was a chemical reaction, bam it felt even hotter! More water, quick, more! It finally diluted and I was done.

So what did I expect? Well I’m thinking maybe everything peels off within a few minutes or something? Hey-they don’t explain that on TV! Nope! You’re just left with your face looking like it has saran wrap covering it. Shiney! And I mean shiney! Smoother? Well yeah…in a polished chrome kinda way….?

I put the antibiotic ointment on, and noted the enhanced glossy finish where my face used to be. A bit red by now and very sensitive. For the next 3 days I had the ultra shine going on. People looked at me weird but couldn’t quite say…um..hey why is your face so uh….glossy? You using vaseline as sunblock or what?

A few days after that, I started to peel a bit. Sort of like after a sunburn. Nothing major just flakes…lot of em. I felt like an iguana for a while but kept moisturizers on as recommended. THey said not to but…I ended up using a peel mask to get the dead skin off as it was just takin too long! That helped a lot. I did that after one week.

So, all in all, my skin is improved but I think I need several of these things to really get a good result. I am thinking of doing like 3 or over a period of months to see if I actually remove the freckled and dimples areas where my acne used to be. If it works great, if not I may consider something stronger like the 18% level stuff.

After lunch we stopped at a store to pick up a measuring tape. Now he can see how things are going using the numbers that really matter-measurements (not pounds). It’s too bad he wasn’t able to measure last week when he started as that is a good indicator of how things are going, right away.

I wrote down the places I recommend keeping weekly measures of and also pointed him to the body fat web site I use to calculate my BFI. We guessed at what his current number might be and then multiplied the percentage (25%) times his body weight. The result meant he was carrying 60 pounds of fat in his overall body content. Wow! We then checked how mine had changed and sure enough, even though I had only lost 10 pounds (so far) my fat index measured that to be 14 pounds of fat. Now that is the right kind of progress!

I know this is a lot of numbers, but when you diet, you really need somekind of assurance all the effort isnt going to waste!