30 Day Chef Boyardee Weight Loss Diet: Day 1

January 2, 2009 by Trevor Watkinson · 1 Comment »»

I am going to spend the next 30 days eating nothing but Chef Boyardee canned pasta products by subjecting myself to a 30 Day Chef Boyardee Weight Loss Diet.

Yes, you heard right. In case you missed my post where I stated my focus for 2009, in that post I spoke about how I would be conducting 12 separate 30 day weight loss diets this year.

I wanted to get started as soon as possible in order to fit all of the diets into the current year.

According to the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet I am using to track the particulars of each weight loss diet, I will actually finish the last trial on January 8, 2010.

During each of the twelve 30 day weight loss diets I will endure this year, my total calorie intake will not exceed 800 calories per day. Since this 800 calorie limit is also supposed to include calories I may ingest from drinks, I will be drinking nothing but water for most of the year.

The only exceptions to the water-only rule will be on my free days at the end of each trial period. Free days are the one day a month where my wife Lyann and I take just one day to eat whatever we want and as much of it as we want. Our free days are our reward for sticking to our normally healthy diet of lean meat, vegetables and fruit.

My purpose for conducting these trials is to prove that:

Exercise is not necessary for weight loss.
It is not what you eat, but the quantity of food you consume that makes you fat.
The best way by far to lose weight or maintain your weight is by calorie counting.

Today is the first day of my 30 Day Chef Boyardee Weight Loss Diet. This is quite a departure from my regular diet and I am both excited and a little scared at the same time.

I suppose if ConAgra foods can be trusted, then I should not have too much reason to be scared. I know they want me to trust them because their Chef Boyardee Website claims that all Chef Boyardee food is delicious, surprisingly nutritious and kid approved. Have you have ever wondered how Chef Boyardee got started?

If Chef Boyardee food really is nutritious and a panel of expert kids has declared it kid approved, then perhaps I will not experience any weird side-effects of eating nothing but Chef Boyardee products for a month. Still, I think it may be pretty difficult to eat the 60th can on the 30th day of this food trial.

I am not so concerned about poor nutrition during the next month as I am about the salt intake from the various Chef Boyardee canned pasta products I have chosen to consume. They all seem to be relatively high in sodium content. They range from 1140 milligrams of sodium per can up to 2000 milligrams of sodium per can.

Considering that a person who follows a low sodium diet is only supposed to ingest a maximum of 2000 mg of sodium per day, I will basically be doubling what doctors recommend people consume in order to bring their blood pressure down.

An intake of 2000 milligrams to 4000 milligrams of sodium per day may not actually be that bad for me considering that I am in excellent health right now and I have been known to salt my food liberally in the past without regard for how much I was using at the time.

I only actually became aware of my overuse of salt when I started suffering from migraine headaches. I have since reduced the amount of sodium in my diet. It should be interesting to see what happens when I upset my sodium balance with the primarily salt-preserved canned pasta from Chef Boyardee.

I had to limit my choices of Chef Boyardee products to be included in my 30 Day Chef Boyardee Weight Loss Diet in order to not exceed the 800 calorie daily limit I wanted to maintain. There were some Chef Boyardee products that contained more than 200 calories in just half of a 425 gram can.

Since I wanted to be able to have two cans of Chef Boyardee per day, I had to pick only those varieties that contained a maximum of 400 calories per can.

The Chef Boyardee canned pasta products I picked for this 30 day trial are Chef Boyardee Beefaroni, Chef Boyardee Minis Pasta Shells with Meatballs, Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Meatballs, Chef Boyardee Four Cheese Ravioli, Chef Boyardee Big Super Beefaroni and Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli. The nutritional information associated with these products can be found on the Chef Boyardee Website.

As it turns out from the choices I made, the only product I will not be able to have twice in one day is the Minis Pasta Shells with Meatballs. Every other product on my list contains 200 calories or less per half can, while the Minis Pasta Shells with Meatballs contains 210 calories per half can. If I was to have two cans of this product in one day, I would exceed my 800 calorie limit by 40 calories.

I decided before getting started that I would not break the 800 calorie limit I set for myself. Therefore, if I have the Minis Pasta Shells with Meatballs for one meal, I will have to have something different for my second meal of the day. At least there will be some variety on a daily basis.

What I Expect from my 30 Day Chef Boyardee Weight Loss Diet

Having been on a low calorie diet of my own design for the past two years and also having the luxury of being able to draw on my experiences with bodybuilding diets, I have a pretty good idea of what to expect from eating nothing but Chef Boyardee canned pasta for 30 days.

Some of the symptoms from the extreme bodybuilding diet I used to follow were fatigue, moodiness, inability to sleep, potential kidney problems and unexplained anger. I expect to go through some of these problems during the next 30 days, perhaps with the exception of the kidney problems because I will be drinking a lot of water which should help flush out my system.

After creating my own diet plan 2 years ago which I wrote about in my ebook Save Your Sweat, I have been able to master my emotions and moods to the point where a change in diet usually does not affect me too much anymore.

However, a 30 Day Chef Boyardee Weight Loss iet is uncharted territory for me so I will have to remain on my guard where my emotional reactions are concerned.

As much as I would like to give Chef Boyardee and ConAgra foods a plug here by stating that I expect my health to remain stable all month, I have to admit that I am a little scared of how easily I might get sick. I think my immune system will have a hard time keeping me protected without the usual fresh veggies and fruit I am so used to.

I will keep you all up to date on my health and mental state as the month progresses. I actually plan to post my thoughts daily, though those posts will likely not be as detailed as this introduction.

In each of my daily posts during my 30 Day Chef Boyardee Weight Loss Diet, I will be posting my current weight and the relative number my Salter bathroom scale shows for my body fat percentage. I say relative because I know that my body fat percentage is much lower than what my scale tells me. Don’t ask me why it doesn’t work right, it just doesn’t. In fact, it never has. I have just learned to live with it and so will you.

So now you know my plans for my first 30 Day Weight Loss Diet of the year. Thirty days of nothing but Chef Boyardee canned pasta products. Having clearly stated my plans and goals for this trial, I will leave you with my current stats.

Weight and Body Fat

My weight when I got up this morning was 161.2 lbs. The body fat percentage reading on my scale was 23.0, which as I said is a relative number. I stand 5′7″ high, so if my body fat percentage was actually 23 percent, I would be rather obese. My lowest weight during the last two years was 150.0 lbs some time in November of last year. I expect to reach that weight again during the course of this 30 Day Weight Loss Diet. There is a picture of me on my website where I weigh 151 lbs, just to give you an idea of how off my scale is when it comes to measuring body fat.

Regardless of the fact that the body fat percentage reading my scale gives may not be accurate, using the reading from the beginning of this weight loss diet will give me a benchmark to work with when determining if my weight loss is coming from fat loss or a reduction of water retention.

General Mood

I actually felt pretty good all day today with the exception of a few minutes in the late afternoon. I experienced a few moments of extreme frustration and annoyance due to an unruly child who frequented my place of business with his parents.

His parents let him run all over the place in my place of employment, yelling and breaking things as he went. I have never understood why some parents cannot seem to keep their kids under control or at least show no desire to do so. All they needed to do was keep a hand on him, but they made no effort to stop his tantrums.

It is hard to tell if my temporary lapse from a state of calm detachment was purely due to the child’s antics or also a result of my first day of eating nothing but Chef Boyardee canned pasta products. Since this event happened so close to the beginning of my new diet, I doubt it had much to do with the food I was eating today.

What Chef Boyardee Products I Ate Today

Today, I chose to eat one 418 gram can of Chef Boyardee Big Super Beefaroni and one 425 gram can of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli. This gave me an exact intake of 800 calories for the day because I had nothing but water to drink.

As I sit here typing, I am still strangely satisfied, though I was looking forward to getting home from work to have my second can of food tonight. I think that maybe focusing on what I am typing is keeping my mind off of eating. I am not looking forward to trying to get through a day of boredom, because being bored usually leads to wanting to eat something. I’ll have to remain strong.

In Summary

This was a successful first day for my 30 Day Chef Boyardee Weight Loss Diet. I am happy to have stuck to my commitment of starting the diet today. I had to run out to the grocery store before going to work this morning because I do not normally keep canned processed food in my home. I didn’t even mind the strange look I got when I approached the checkout with my cart full of 60 cans of Chef Boyardee.

I cheerfully explained the purpose for my odd purchase to the lady at the checkout and went on my merry way. I won’t have to endure any more odd looks at the grocery store this year though, because I plan to do my other 30 Day Weight Loss Diets at fast food locations (assuming the cost is not too high).

I am looking forward to the next 29 days of Chef Boyardee. I am anxious to see what effect it will have on my weight and mood. I really think I’m going to experience a lot of growth this year where proving my theories about diet and weight loss are concerned. It’s going to be interesting to eat no more than 800 calories worth of food each day for an entire year, but I’m up to the challenge and running headlong toward the finish line! :mrgreen:

Also be sure to check out the FitBuff.com Total Mind and Body Fitness Blog Carnival #84, hosted by FitBuff.com which included this post. There’s a lot of other great articles to see as well!

Technorati Tags: 30 Day Weight Loss Diet, Chef Boyardee Weight Loss Diet, 800 Calorie Limit, Chef Boyardee, ConAgra Foods, Weight Loss, Food, Personal Development

This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at 8:43 pm and is filed under 30 Day Chef Boyardee Weight Loss Diet, 30 Day Weight Loss Diets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “30 Day Chef Boyardee Weight Loss Diet: Day 1”

FitBuff.com's Total Mind and Body Fitness Blog on January 25th, 2009 11:15 am

Total Mind and Body Fitness Blog Carnival 84…

Monday is Blog Carnivals Day. A Blog Carnival is basically a collection of articles or blog posts, all relating to a similar subject, that are gathered together for your viewing pleasure. You can quickly and conveniently see a list of Article Titles a…

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