So, the two week DASH Diet challenge is over. Nobody qualified for the CoolSculpting drawing so I guess I’ll have to use it myself and Freeze My Fat. In other words: I AM THE CHAMPION! For those of you who are interested in my experience, read on.
To prepare, I checked out a few books from the San Antonio Public Library. Two of them were in electronic format so they were easy to download and view on my iPad. They didn’t take long to read and were pretty straight forward. There were lots of recipes – but I left those to my wife.
Following the diet was pretty easy. Really just eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, lean poultry, and fish. I did not eat any red meat during the 2 weeks and the only alcohol I had was some red wine on the weekend. The biggest difficulty I found was watching the sodium limit of 1500 mg per day. I had never really paid attention to the sodium content of foods before, but it is in everything! Even the diet Green Tea that I drink had 50 mg per serving. After 2 weeks, I think I can pretty much go without adding salt to my food now and I my taste buds are more sensitive to salt. Really, the only other problem I had was eating out. It is very hard to find a place that serves low salt foods that are fresh and healthy (especially when you eat in hospitals). We did have one good lunch brought in to the office from My Fit Foods that was full of vegetables and low in salt.
I know you are wondering about the results. Well, I did lose a few pounds pretty easily. I do not have high blood pressure, but my blood pressure did go down as well. I also had my Cholesterol checked and it dropped 30 points from before the diet. All in all, I think it is a pretty easy meal plan to follow. For success, you really have to concentrate on eating at home and bringing your lunch and snacks to work. Overall I would give it 4.5/5 stars just because watching salt is so difficult.
I hope that this little challenge of ours has helped to reinforce your resolutions to lose weight or has inspired you to take on the challenge yourself. I have seen results in many of our patients, so I know success is possible. I routinely perform Tummy Tucks and Mommy Makeovers on people that have lost a great deal of weight. We also use CoolSculpting to take care of things like love handles and saddle bags that don’t go away despite weight loss. If you don’t think it is possible read this RealSelf diary from one of our patients who lost about 100 pounds by watching her diet and exercising. If she did it, you can too!