Ruth Carter

The 30-day smoothie diet is over, and I’ve mostly maintained the weight I lost so far. When I first went back on real food, my body seemed to scream “FOOD!” and wanted to eat everything in sight, even when I wasn’t hungry. I think that impulse is starting to settle down. I wanted to take this post to address the questions you’ve had for me about the diet.

Evo & Me at our Final Weigh-In

Would you ever do the diet again?
Probably not. I’m glad I did the diet and I’d consider doing it again for 1-2 weeks or do 1-2 smoothies a day plus a regular meal if I needed to lose weight. Doing this diet for 30 days was hard towards the end. The novelty of the diet also made it easier to stick with it. As Dr. Terry Simpson said, people generally don’t like this diet, just the results.

What smoothies you recommend and what smoothies you don’t recommend?
I loved my breakfast smoothie (almond milk, nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt, coffee, and sugar-free chocolate pudding) and smoothies that combined almond milk, nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt, mango, and either raspberries or pineapple. Those were my favorites.

The only smoothie I didn’t care for was the peanut butter smoothie, but I’m not a big peanut butter fan.

What was your mindset going into the diet? Do you have any recommendations for others on how to stick to a diet like this for 30 days?
In my mind, not sticking to the diet was not an option. I was going to finish it without cheating no matter what. Having my friend Evo Terra doing a crazy diet at the same time helped. We could compare stories and commiserate about missing real food.

How did you deal with the ebb and flow of cravings?
I just accepted that cravings were part of the deal. I’ve done raw diets before so I’ve had experience craving things that weren’t on my diet. You just ride them out like a wave. Posting my cravings on my Google+ profile was somewhat validating.

How much pre-planning time did the diet take?
Not that much. I went to my neighborhood grocery stores and figured out who had the best deals on my primary ingredients and made sure the fridge and freezer were always well stocked. At the beginning of each day, I jotted down a few notes about the smoothies I wanted to do that day to make sure my expected calorie count was between 1000 and 1250 calories.

How much clean up did you have to do every day?
I just had to wash my blender(s), cup(s), measuring cup, cutting board, knife, spoon, and spatula.

When you were out with friends what it harder? Any will power strategies? 
I didn’t do meals out during the smoothie diet. If I had a reception or networking event, I just drank water or club soda. The only really hard part was when my parents stayed with me for a long weekend and had friends over for dinner. I sat with them at the table and watched them eat real food while I had my smoothie, but even then it was mostly a non-issue.

Did you have more trips to the “powder room” on this diet? How was your poo?
I didn’t need extra trips to the restroom after I lost the initial water weight and I could definitely tell that I was on a very low fat diet.

What was the total volume of smoothies you consumed?
I drank 2404 ounces of smoothies on the diet, or just under 19 gallons. It would have almost filled a big party tub.

Did you win?
Dr. Terry will declare who won after he looks as Evo and my labs. Evo lost 14 pounds and 3.3% body fat on the diet. I lost 8.5 pounds and 4.3% body fat.

Dr. Terry’s fancy scale will tell you what your basal metabolic rate – the minimum calories your body needs to maintain itself if you did nothing but wake up and breathe. At the beginning of the diet my BMR was 1331 calories. At the end my BMR was 1294. I asked Terry if all I had to do to maintain my weight loss was reduce my pre-diet caloric intake by 37 calories (which I can easily do by adjusting the cream and sugar in my coffee). He said, “Yes!” It’s that easy. I guess little changes do make a big difference in the big picture.