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I found this on Timothy Ferris‘ blog: How to Lose 20lbs of Fat in 30 days. I was familiar with this method. I’ve been eating like this for years. However I didn’t know this diet had a name. The Slow Carb Diet.
Benefits of the Slow Carb Diet. The slow carb diet focuses on low calorie foods & a high protein intake. This makes you lose fat fast. But there’s more:
- Maintain Muscle. Rich in protein, the slow carb diet helps you maintain & build muscle. You’ll lose fat, not muscle.
- Increase Health. The slow carb diet lowers cholesterol, regulates your blood sugar, reduces blood pressure & lowers your body fat.
- No Calorie Counting. This is an all you can eat diet: the bulk of your food is low calorie, you’ll never feel hungry.
- No Cravings. Foods with a low glycemic index (GI) means no cravings.
Rules of The Slow Carb Diet. Avoid the following foods on the slow carb diet to enjoy its benefits.
- No Carbs. Carbs are high caloric & high GI. Most whole grain carbs contain high fructose corn syrup. Avoid all carbs: rice, pasta, breads, potatoes, oats, cereals, etc. Except within 90 mins post exercise.
- No Fruit. Your body converts fruit to fat when you eat too much of it. Limit fruit consumption to post workout & consider a multivitamin.
- No Milk. Milk easily makes you gain fat. Avoid.
- No Junk Food. Limit junk food & soda consumption to once a week.
What You Can Eat. You don’t need need to count calories on the slow carb diet. Eat as much as you want of these foods.
- Proteins. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, cottage cheese, whey, etc.
- Veggies. Low in calories, veggies fill your stomach without making you gain weight. Eat spinach, broccoli, asparagus, salad, cabbage, …
- Legumes. Higher in calories, provides you with energy. Eat all kinds of peas, lentils, beans, edible pods, nuts, etc.
- Healthy Fats. Fish oil, saturated fat, olive oil, flax seeds. No trans fats.
Example Meals. Eat 4-5 meals a day. I like eating the same meals every day for several weeks, then switching to new ones. Make sure you eat legumes: you need them for energy. Some ideas:
- Breakfast. Eggs with Black Beans & Mixed Veggies, Eggs with Spinach, Eggs with Peppers, etc. Remove the yolk if you believe cholesterol in eggs influences blood cholesterol.
- Lunch/Dinner. Beef with Beans & Mixed Veggies, Tuna Salad with Olive Oil & Nuts, Turkey with Lentils & Mixed Veggies, Steak with Peas, Mixed Salad with Grilled Chicken & Beans, etc.
- Post Workout. You can (don’t need to) eat carbs within 90 mins post exercise. Spaghetti Bolognese, Tuna with Rice, Post Workout Shake, etc.
- Eating Out. Order meat, poultry or fish with salad or veggies. No french fries & potatoes. Watch out with sauces & dressings.
Junk Day. You can’t eat clean every day. Planned cheat days limit the damage, give you a mental break & make social meetings easier. They also increase fat loss by keeping your metabolic rate high.
Plan one weekly junk day. I advise Saturday or Sunday. Eat whatever you want in excess. The next day go back to the slow carb diet. If you eat 6 days out of 7 clean food, which days will be the most decisive? Indeed.
Vegetarians. You need protein on the slow carb diet. Meat makes things easier, but isn’t necessary. Go for eggs & dairy. Watch the glycemic index. Whey also helps getting your daily protein intake.
Exercise. Any diet will make you lose fat faster if you exercise. Strength training increases your metabolic rate & builds muscle. If you’re new to strength training, check the Beginner Strength Training Program.
More Info. Check these links for more information on the slow carb diet.
- 30 Days of the Slow Carb Diet. John Wesley’s (PickTheBrain) results.
- Glycemix Index & Glycemic Load. Definite table for the Glycemic Index & Glycemic Load of foods. The excel file is easier to read.
- Glycemic Index Food Lists. Shorter list of Glycemic Index of foods.
- Protein Power. High protein, low carb way to lose weight in just weeks.
- The Glucose Revolution. Authoritative guide to the glycemic index.
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What are the benefits/drawbacks between this diet and the anabolic diet?
Needless to say, but I’m a bit skeptical of this guy’s claim. He has another post on his blog about how he gained 34lbs. of muscle in 4 weeks. In order to lose 20 lbs. of FAT in 30 days, that would require a loss of 1.5 lbs of FAT per DAY. I just don’t see this as possible. Maybe 20lbs. total in 30 days, of which most will be water in the beginning, and about an equal amount of muscle and fat if you don’t include exercise (His claim is that this is done with NO exercise). With exercise, and with a very obese person, I think it’s possible. But no exercise? C’mon…..
34lbs. of muscles is just an insane claim for a 4 week time period unless he was a) on steroids or b) severly malnourished at the time. He’s full of shit if you ask me.
The diet can work, but don’t expect some ridiculous results like he claims. It’ll take more time then that.
Benefits. Lower fat intake than on the A.D. , some simply can’t get used to it. Carb intake on weekdays (from legumes & possible post workout) for those who can’t live without it (carb cravings).
Drawbacks. Anabolic Diet increases testosterone levels because of the high fat/high cholesterol intake. This leads to more muscle/more strength. You don’t have this benefit on the slow carb diet.
There’s probably more, great question Allen.
He used HIT in that post on 34lbs muscle in 4 weeks. I frowned at his workout routine when I read it. I won’t be making claims about things I haven’t seen. Maybe he did it, maybe he used supplements, doesn’t matter to me.
20lbs of fat in 30 days. 20lbs weight is easily possible thanks to the waterloss. 20lbs of fat you’ll have to add exercise indeed. That’s what Ferris did as he wrote he built muscle while losing fat. I guess he wanted to make the headline a bit more catchy by adding “without exercise”.
No Milk. Milk easily makes you gain fat. Avoid.
All Milk? Please Explain.
I have a comment as well. I don’t mean this to be juvenile at all, but how do you deal with all the gas from the beans and vegetables and legumes.
Definitely agree with this question. How does this get included, but we are allowed to eat unlimited amounts of cottage cheese?
Won’t the lack of fat put the body into starvation mode, making you keep the fat rather than lose it? Where do you get your energy if you are eating very few carbs and fat?
I wouldn’t use this diet if you are below the age of 21. You need fats and complex sugars. Eliminating simple sugars wouldn’t be smart either. Your bodies reaction to simple sugars wouldn’t be good if you had none of them. Also this seems ridiculous with these claims of such great fat loss. I wouldn’t listen to this guy. If you are going to lose weight you should only eat about 14X your body weight in calories. If you are trying to maintain weight about 16X and to gain weight 17-18X. Some people can get away with different amounts of calories also try to keep all your food healthy with a good mix of all nutrients.
Great article, Mehdi.
I don’t agree with the no milk, no fruit though. I’ve heard that limited fruit is a whole lot better than a multivitamin. I understand why you would say no fruit no milk as you can’t have an unlimited amount vs the rest of the foods you can eat. Skim, 1%, 2% has been proven to help lose weight since it fills you up more than just water would. you eat less = less calories, more weight loss.
Thank you for sharing this article Mehdi!
My diet is similar to this slow carb diet (no grains or dairy), and it works pretty well (I went from 15 - 11% body fat between 2/07 & 6/07) - it is essential to take in alot of protein to avoid losing lean mass. I agree with the no dairy. I’m not convinced about the “no fruit.” I don’t see many fat people who eat alot of fruit and veggies (unless its concentrated juice, deep fried, on top of ice cream and cake, or next to a plate of chilli-fries and twinkies).
why does increased satfat/cholesterol increase testosterone that much, and where did you find that testosterone helps build muscle? im not doubting you, i’d just like to understand it a little more.
i think i’m on this diet as well. it’s hard for me to cut out all carbs because then i’d lose fiber and s tuff and trips to the bathroom won’t be fun anymore. i’ve actually gained weight doing this though, which i think is fat!
i don’t see why you can eat unlimited on this diet, especially when it’s the calorie count that is most important for avoiding fat gain.
Legumes. You need to eat legumes, those provide you with carbs. Additional carbs can be eaten post workout. You should also eat fats (olive oil on salad, fatty fish, fish oil supp, etc). You won’t get into starvatation mode if you do the above.
Milk has a low gi, but if you’ve been on a high milk diet, you know milk is anything but a low gi food. It gets hungry, it makes you gain fat, etc. One glass would be ok, but definitely don’t overdo it.
Cottage cheese. How cottage cheese can you eat in a day realisticly?
From my experience, whole grain carbs cause more gas than veggies & legumes.
Casein actually helps with fat loss.
Veggies are 80% water. Brocolli, spinach, salad, etc are all very low calorie. So you end up with a calorie deficit. You won’t gain weight from eating 1kg salad a day for example.
Testosterone is derived from cholesterol, present in saturated fat.
Do you count the carbs in legumes? I mean as part of your 20/day limit. Or do you not count them like you do vegetables?
There’s no carb limit on this diet. You don’t count anything calorie wise on the slow carb diet, you only need to consume the right foods. Eat legumes & veggies with each meals, fill your stomach KL.
OK, but how about on the Anabolic diet? Are legumes “allowed” during the week on the Anabolic Diet? How do you count them?
No the Anabolic Diet is different. Here’s a list of foods you can eat on the Anabolic Diet
Did you know that veggies are very high in protein as well? Lettuce gets 34% protein, broccoli gets 45%, spinach 49%, cauliflower 40% and celery 20%. Just thought I would put that info out there. If you are vegetarian and would like to start a diet like this, you won’t need to worry about buying whey protein and/or other protein supplements because the veggies that you eat already are very rich in protein.
-YoYo
Working with percentages for veggies doesn’t work well. Of course brocolli has 45% kcal coming from protein. It has only 34kcal/100 to start with. Veggies are 90% water. 100g brocolli has 3g protein. Which means you’d need 1kg brocolli to get 30g protein. Even if you eat 1kg brocolli a day, you won’t get to 1g/lbs protein daily. Same story for other veggies.
In general: don’t count calories from veggies. They’re 90% water anyway.
And vegans? ;D
It sucks so hard that there are no real high/”all” protein food which I can easily add to fix things up when I have eaten much food with lots of carbs but low on protein.
And I guess following something like this and remove bread, pasta, potatoes and so on will make my food lack even more vitamins & minerals. Maybe not if I eat lots of veggies.
But then I’m not fat, or well, atleast I didn’t used to be =P, but a clean diet is always nice. (I shouldn’t eat as much dried pineapple, mango and papaya mixture as I’ve been eaten last month or so but they are sooo delicious :D)
Hugs to all the meat eater and cow killers out there ;/
The slow carb diet needs a high intake of protein. Doesn’t work well with a vegan diet. I understand the moral reasons for being a vegan, but from a building muscle/losing fat perspective a vegan diet doesn’t work well. Look at a vegan, they’re often skinny. (You’ll probably find a freak somewhere who is a vegan & huge bodybuilder, you’ll find a freak for everything, but that’s the exception rather than the rule).
I think there are some soy products higher in protein that you could try. But again the goal here is high protein. 1g/lbs protein should be the minimum. Also saturated fat from feat increases testosterone levels. Increased testosterone levels means more muscles mass, muscle burn calories, more muscles = more fat burned, thus lower body fat. Not to say you have to go on a high saturated fat diet, but some saturated fat in your diet is good, something you don’t have as a vegan.
I actually started 6 weeks ago with a high protien (200 plus grams a day), extremely low fat, and low carb (good carb) diet. In conjunction with my lifting and cardio regimen, I went from 6′1 218 up to 225 initially, with the muscle gains accompanied by the fat loss. I put on a lot of muscle and made substantial gains in strength but was dissappointed with my overall fat loss. 4 days ago, I cut out all carbs - My diet now consists of tuna, chicken, multi vitamins, natural peanut butter, and water. Already I’m down to 211, 7 pounds off from 4 days ago, getting really shredded. I estimate to be at 205 and extremely ripped up by the end of the week. This is extremely difficult to adhere to, but it works - especially with the aid of a thermogenic enhancer. Yes, you will have the jitters, and yes, you will have severe cravings for carbs and fat, but it works like no other.
The author mentions low GI and then discounts fruits. Include low GI fruits in your diet but watch total calories since fruits tend to pack more calories in a small package. Lots of good healthy stuff in fruits.
I AM SORRY, BUT DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS POST. Diets are for losers, lifestyle change is the best and healthiest way to get fit. You need carbs and grains! They provide energy, and you will go crazy without them, as will your body. No fruit?! listen to yourself! Dont cut out necessary and natural food items! And as for a “junk” day, that is the stupidest thing I ever heard. I used to have days where I would binge eat because I was restricting myself on a regular basis and I was very unhealthy. If you allow yourself small treats on a regulary basis, and eat healthily the majority of the time, then you will feel more satisfied and maintain a healthy eating system. Losing weight and staying fit is simple (although i know its easier said than done)-eat whole, healthy foods (such as organic fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, legumes, and fats) and stay active! Find activities you like to do and stop falling prey to stupid fad diets. It is worse for your body to yo yo with these diets rather than slowly and steadily getting healthier and healthier. Now, I am a vegan, but I am not here to preach that lifestyle. Veganism is what works for me-you need to find what works for you-and a fake eating plan such as this isnt going to cut it.
20 lbs of fat lost in 30 days is WAY too fast–a very unhealthy pace