The Fiddle Diet - How to Find all the Information You Need

photography Amy Albertson 

I'm in the process of getting all of the information you need for the Fiddle Diet up on the Blog.  At some point I will make a web site or hire a designer to make all of this easier, but at this point I'm doing the best that I can with this free and easy method of sharing the information.

At the top of The Fiddle Diet Blog there is a bar with all the links to the components of the diet.  I've also hyper links below as well.

FIDDLE BASICS

THE FOUR STAGES OF THE FIDDLE DIET

FIDDLE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

FIDDLE RECIPES


There are two Fiddle blogs:  The one you are currently on, The Fiddle Diet and the original one I started that only had the Fiddle Recipes.  Initially only the people in the test groups had access to the actual diet and had the guidelines emailed directly to them.  This was in order for me to see if what worked for me personally worked for everyone else as well.  It turned out to be successful far beyond my imagination.  Not only were people losing weight consistently every week but they also wrote to me saying their cholesterol was lower and their hair and nails were stronger and their felt healthier all the way around.  I think the part that made me the happiest of all was that many people wrote to me saying their families loved the food.  That the recipes were easy, delicious and didn't feel like diet recipes.  (Since I am a chef who cares deeply about taste, this was my favorite news to receive.)   The average person lost 15 pounds, but in the test group of 60 people we had weight loss ranges from 10 pounds to 40 pounds. For those who followed the guidelines of the diet it was an overwhelming success.  The only two people the diet didn't work for were for those who didn't follow the guidelines.

Basically I think this is true about most diets:  they work if you follow them.

So what is different about this diet?  In many ways it is just basic logical sense about food and eating.  It is a portion controlled diet that includes all food groups and emphasizes eating in moderation.  They two KEY differences are that you have to eat a minimum of two fruits and two vegetables a day, and you have to have BOOST days.  Ideally, you would eat three to four servings of fruit and three to four servings of vegetables, but the minimum for this diet is two of each.

The BOOST days to me are what make this diet livable and fun.  Originally I had tried being on another popular diet that has worked well for many people for years.  The only issue for me is that the first week of the diet was the least amount of food I'd ever eaten in my life.  I was so hungry as my body tried to adjust to the strictness of the diet.  After I completed the first week it said the following week I had to eat less and exercise more.  What!!!  How could I eat less?!!  I was already eating such a minuscule amount.  I'd rather live my life a slightly overweight and and continue to enjoy food as I always had than cut back even more.  It just didn't make sense to me.

Then I remembered a lecture I'd heard about twenty years ago from a guy at a gym who was talking about eating on Thanksgiving.  He said it is basically impossible to gain weight from one day of eating.  Just like it is impossible to lose weight from one day of eating.  He said to enjoy whatever you wanted for Thanksgiving and then go back to your normal program the day after.  He said you won't gain weight.  It was completely true.  Additionally, I'd also heard about body builders who have one day a week where they basically pig out to keep their metabolism high and "fool" their metabolism into thinking more food is coming.

Basically our bodies adjust to project us from dying.  If we were starving in the wilderness our bodies will start doing everything possible to slow down our metabolisms to keep us alive. We have to keep making changes to prevent our bodies from adjusted to that lower system.

So I tried this concept of a BOOST day where I went to a wine dinner and ate all the hors d'oeuvres, bread and butter, cheese, wine and every single course.  The next day I went back to my normal Fiddle Diet plan.  I lost weight that week.  Eating more actually helped me to keep losing weight at the same rate that I was instead of adjusting down.

Having BOOST days also work well when you are on vacation.  During vacations or holidays I usually recommend trying to maintain weight instead of losing weight.  I recommend having two or three boost days during a week long vacation and then have the alternating days be what I call BALANCED days, where you eat healthfully and with portion controls.

I am a single working mother of two teenage girls.  Once my girls graduate from High School I hope to be able to devote more time to testing recipes and adding them to this blog.  Currently I write the Beating Cancer with Nutrition recipes for The Silver Pen.  Many of the super healthy low-fat vegetarian recipes I write for The Silver Pen are ideal fits for the Fiddle Diet.  So feel free to incorporate those in as well.