What Happens When a 51 Year Old Man Tries the Steak and Eggs Diet?

I'll let you know!

Call it what you want and Google it to your heart's content.  Strictly speaking it's the diet that 50's bodybuilder Vince Gironda advocated for burning fat, and it's the "diet" that informed the 70's "golden era" bodybuilders.  Taken literally the diet advocates two meals of steak and eggs cooked in butter per day and nothing else but black coffee and water.  Generalized it's a ketogenic or "very low carb" diet... Atkins, anti-diabetes, lots-of-other-names.  To the purist, when I say steak and eggs I mean steak and eggs.  To the generalist it means I can eat what I want as long as I keep the carbs as low as possible.  Somewhere in between were the golden era bodybuilders who reportedly ate cheese omelettes and hamburger patties and such.

I'm a generalist but I think the purist's path is warranted here.  I don't think there's anything magical per se about steak and eggs (except that maybe the nutritional value may be as high as you can achieve when eating just two foods per day), but the focus is clear and it grabs and holds the attention.  So I like it.

Also hidden in this approach are other benefits, such as intermittent fasting, which isn't mentioned necessarily but is unavoidable on two meals a day.  I already do this, so I like it.

But I'm just enough of a generalist to say that I am going to try this but when I say "steak" I mean "meat" and when I say "eggs" I mean "eggs".  And maybe some greens thrown in for fiber.

Oh, and there's one "cheat" day free-for-all per week where you are encouraged to eat whatever you want whenever you want (hello beer, I missed you so.)

I'm going to try it, and report it here.  And if I can get the nerve up, I may even take some pictures, knowing full well that these words lack potency without visual proof.

I'll keep lifting as intensely as I can and will ride the bike to work when I have the energy.

The vital stats:

51 year old male, roughly 6 feet tall and weighing 196 lbs.  Muscular but flabby in the midsection.  "Slim" looking to the untrained eye.  (By the way, I have gained 9 pounds since I started lifting weights rather than only strict body-weight calisthenics and slacked off on riding my bike to work.  I know some of this is muscle but plenty is flab.)

My waist size is 33" at the hips but way horrible yuck yuck the farther up you go.  So that reading is more like 39" or more at mid belly.  I hate this!  Thanks a lot beer and stress and poor sleep and lack of self control!

Goals:  get the weight down and the belly measurement way down.  They can go as far down as they want to as long as my strength is not compromised and I am happy.

I'll keep you posted.