Notions of a Beer Diet

So after meeting my friend Evo Terra told me all about how he loses 20 pounds every October consuming nothing but beer and sausage, I knew I had to try it for myself. Evo, the inventor of the beer diet, even has written a book about the diet, called The Beer Diet A Brew Story.  On a flight home from Miami I finished the hilarious book and decided I had to at least try it.  That next week, Evo and I met for beers and I told him I was going to do it for a week. Evo kind of scoffed at only doing 7 days and convinced me to do at least 10. After all, he does the full month of 31 days! I relented and the next day being October 1st I was on my way. I found it both very challenging and very rewarding.  I was amazed how I could feel full off of so little food if that was my only option. The hardest part was not snacking, and my trip to Costco one day and saying no to all the free samples was the purest of horrors I wouldnt wish on my worst enemy. 

Overall I did the beer and sausage diet for 10 days and lost 8 pounds. I’m pretty proud of that as all I ate was fat filled processed sausage and empty-calorific beer. To be fair I did allow myself a cup of coffee each day and one other exception was if the sausage was served in its natural environment of a bun with peppers that was OK too. These were exceptions I learned from the book (my bible for 10 days) so I felt OK about it as I knew that at least 95% of my calories were coming from beer and sausage. People often ask me how this diet could possibly work.  I tell them the reason the diet works is simple mathematics as you see in my food consumption data below . Everyday I ate between 1700 and 2000 calories. My body is used to eating 2500 calories minimum. Additionally, I did my regular workouts at the gym along with a mix of dodgeball, biking, and running. Basically, I was short roughly 800 calories per day and over 10 days this made a significant change on my body.

Now a few lessons.

The biggest thing I learned is that every calorie counts. Whereas before whenever I would pass through my kitchen I would grab a pretzel and maybe even slather peanut butter on it not thinking that there was any type of calories addition by that activity. Now I knew I was wrong in not thinking those calories added up. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing with eating snacks, its just that I now know to remember that these calories do indeed count.

The other big thing I realized was portion control. During the 10 day diet I ate such small meals (sausages) and enjoyed them thoroughly! I remember cutting up a slice of sausage and eating it small bite by small bite for over an hour. These were some of the most delicious and thought out meals I’ve had in a long time and it was just because I took the time to enjoy every small bite. It really made me realize that I don’t need to eat everything in my plate especially when considering the size of dinners they serve at restaurants these days.

Now the question is, will I keep it off! Well I’ll tell you that I have not slowed down on drinking beer and I am still enjoying amazing bratwurst (it is October afterall).  I have returned to light snacking so we’ll just have to see. Either way it was a fun diet and I’m glad to have tried something challenging for the experience.

Day 1

– cheddarworst at noon (200 cal). 6pm cheddarworst 2 (200 cal). Dinner sausage pepper medley. (400 cal)
1. Banana Bread Wells
2. SN Oktoberfest
3. SN Pale Ale
4. Bud Light
5. SA – Summer Ale