Best New Diets: Scotch and Salad Revisited

The Scotch and Salad Diet I mentioned when I gave one of my recipes actually did work. I lost 75 pounds in 12 weeks. Staying on the diet was fairly easy. After reaching my goal weight, I went off the diet and regained 30 of the 75 pounds I lost. At 195 pounds I am still too heavy, but it is a weight that I can live with.

I thought this was a very bad rebound for a diet, until I heard a few other diet stories. The reason my rebound was lower than most has to be due to the diet. The Scotch and Salad diet is basically the Atkins Diet with a few twists.

The biggest twist is the Scotch. One or two scotches on the rocks at night after or with a meal. The only reason I selected scotch is that it was listed as being heart friendly in moderation. Red wine has the same benefits and can be substituted for the scotch. Red grape juice is perfect if you are not a drinker.

Exercise was required in my diet. Not much, just a brisk morning walk. Distance does not really matter; just walk brisk enough to get your heart rate up a little. About 15 to 20 minutes of walking was all that is needed. More walking is fine, but don't over do the exercise when you first start. I gradually extended the length of my walks over a few weeks. At the end I was walking almost two miles in 15 minutes.

The salads were the third twist to the Atkins Diet. I really emphasized dark green leafy salads. Spinach, endives, and Romaine lettuces instead of iceberg lettuces for example as better diet choices. While bacon is definitely allowed on the diet, I mainly focused on leaner meats. Fish and chicken are of course lean, but many beef, pork and lamb cuts are lean as well. Cheeses are on the diet. I used mainly blue vein and sharper flavored cheeses. Nuts, almonds, hazelnuts and pecans mainly are on the diet but peanut butter was not, too much added sugar. Salad dressing have a lot of sugar, I stuck to vinaigrette and Blue Cheese dressing which are very low in sugar.

The only things not allowed are breads, potatoes, rice, and pasta anything with carbohydrates. Definitely no sweets of any kind are allowed. Instead of buying diet replacements like diet sodas and soy meal flour products, I just stuck to the diet. This helped break some of my bad habits.

Fruits were allowed but only two servings a day. I stuck mainly to citrus but bananas, dark grapes and figs are good. These have sugars, but limited to two servings a day they did not seem to affect my weight loss. Remember that a fruit serving is only about six ounces.

While I don't think it is necessary, I did take a daily multi-vitamin. Not one of the mega pills, just a regular vitamin just in case I was missing something with the diet.

The weight loss started three days into the diet, with the most rapid loss in the third week. At week 8 there was a plateau where there was no loss for a week. I went off the diet for two days at the plateau and restarted. After another week the weight loss started again. Two and a half weeks later I reached my goal weight of 170 pounds.

Coming off the diet I regained ten pounds almost overnight. Well less than two weeks anyway, it seemed overnight. The rest of the weight took near one and a half years to regain.

I am not a diet expert I just want to describe my diet. I found a lot of new healthy recipes on the diet and broke a few bad habits along the way. If you really want to lose weight, this is a great way. And it is very inexpensive. With this or any diet, consult your doctor. If you would like more information on the diet, leave me a comment. I will try to make a list of the main recipes I used and meal planning if there is any interest.