Ideas that Work: My Adventures with the Modified Petersen Diet
Paleo + Card Games = Abs. Eventually.
I’m a big believer in making life fun. That includes eating. If you read my post on diets, you know I don’t advocate any specific diet. Rather, I advocate following five principles which I described in that post. I LOVE food, and those five principles keep me from getting too fat.
As long as I follow them.
Unfortunately, over the last four months, I’ve largely ignored the principles. Due to work, illness, and laziness, I’ve eaten a lot of tasty garbage and haven’t been moving as much as I normally move. So I’ve gotten kinda fat. Normally, my body fat is in the 15% range. It’s now pushing about 25%. So I need to get a lot more disciplined in my eating habits.
My normal strategy is to cut calories by a combination of 24-hour fasts and skipping one or two meals per day. But I decided to have a little fun this time around.
Way back in 2013, Chris Petersen, a friend from the running years, wrote a guest blog post on my Barefoot Running University site on a diet he called the “Authentic Paleo Diet.” Most people are familiar with the “Paleo” diet, which attempts to simulate the diet our ancestors likely ate, which would theoretically subvert a lot of the health and aesthetic problems associated with the typical American diet filled with a lot of processed foods. I follow a *very* loose version of the Paleo diet as my normal diet… which I haven’t been doing for the last four months.
Chris took the Paleo diet a step further and added a randomized eating schedule, which would simulate how our ancestors probably ate. He simulated the “hunting” and “gathering” part by starting every meal with a three-mile walk or run. Because those hunting and gathering sessions might not be successful, he would draw a card from a deck of playing cards to represent success and failure. If he drew a face card (king, queen, or jack), he would eat as much as he wanted for that meal. If he drew ANY other card, he ate a plain rice cake.
He could draw as many cards per day he wanted, as long as he did the requisite exercise before each draw.
Pretty fun idea, right?
I like it because it requires activity before eating, which motivates us to get off our asses. I also like that it gamifies what amounts to a caloric reduction in an unpredictable way.
My Modified Version
The version I’m doing adds a few wrinkles. First, it replaces the three miles with 30 minutes of moderate exercise or 15 minutes of intense exercise. This is done to account for my current workout routines. The goal is to expend about 300 calories before drawing a card, which is about how much we burn by walking or running three miles.
I’ll shuffle the deck before each draw to add to the randomness of the game.
I'm also adding more ‘rules” to the cards, which is as follows:
King, Queen, or Jack = eat as much as I want in thirty minutes within the five rules of dieting from the original post. [23% chance]
Ten = Eat a 1/2 ounce of homemade beef jerky OR one four-ounce glass of wine [7.6% chance]
Nine = Eat one ounce of dried fruit OR one four-ounce glass of wine [7.6% chance]
Eight = Eat one cup of single-serve carrots [7.6% chance]
Seven = Eat one cup of single-serve green beans [7.6% chance]
Six = Eat one cup of single-serve corn [7.6% chance]
Four or five = Eat one plain rice cake [15.2% chance]
Two, three, or four = Eat nothing [23% chance]
Since Shelly and I enjoy going out to eat, I’m giving myself a “cheat.” If we go out, I’ll remove eight of the Face Cards from the deck for the next 24 hours. This will drop the probability of drawing a face card to about 9%.
Each week, I’ll remove two face cards from the deck, which will theoretically reduce my overall caloric intake. I’m doing this because as we lose weight, we require fewer calories. Also, after a week or so of cutting calories, we start feeling less hunger. This will create the following probabilities of drawing a free feeding card:
Week 1: 23% chance
Week 2: 20% chance
Week 3: 16.7% chance
Week 4: 13% chance
Week 5: 9% chance
Week 6: 4.7% chance
Week 7: There will be no face cards left.
Finally, I’ll add the ability to “preserve” food. Any card drawn can be “saved” until a later time at my choosing. As long as that food is “preserved”, I’ll leave that particular card out of the deck. This is intended to account for socialization where we may be going out to dinner and/or drinks with friends.
I’ll play the game until I reach my goal weight (185 pounds; I’m currently at 200.) To “reach” that weight, I’ll have to weigh 185 pounds or less for four consecutive days, weighing myself as soon as I wake up in the morning.
Once I reach that goal weight, I’ll go back to the normal diet routine I’ve used to maintain my weight.
I’ll post regular updates in our Facebook Group if you want to play along. I’ll also be tracking my morning weight, exercise, the card drawn, and food and calories consumed day to day on Google Sheets.
~Jason
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