The Uncle Sage Diet Plan - Overview

1. Get a fitness tracker (watch, phone, anything) and burn 700+ active calories per day
2. No Bread, Pasta, Rice, or Potatoes
3. Eat the other carbs (nuts, granolas, seeds, etc.) before Noon
4. Snack often on non-carb foods (jarred pickles, veggies, cheese, etc.)
5. Drink a lot of water
6. Give yourself a cheat day once a month or once every two weeks
7. Drink alcohol (if you want) in moderation

Keto. Paleo. Atkin’s. Caveman. So many names for a reduced carbohydrate diet. In my opinion, it’s not about eating NO CARBs. It’s about regulating yourself to an acceptable level. The problem with that statement even as I write it for anyone who reads this is this: we don’t know what our acceptable levels are. There is math behind it, and I will eventually write some articles or link to some that have the information you need for that. For now, I’ll write what I know has worked for me, your friendly guide, Uncle Sage.

First things first: disclaimers. I am not a nutritionist or doctor, follow at your own risk and if you are truly struggling with weight loss or obesity or other health problems, your best point to start is with your healthcare professional. There is no silver bullet, but the methods on this site have all shown results with friends and family, so I hope it does help some others out there.

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As you read this, I’m not going to give you the advice to “Start Now”, but what I will say is, Start when you are ready. When you do start, go ALL OUT. For me, and those who have followed this, it takes about 3 weeks to see results. 3 weeks is something you can do. It’s less time than you wait to take the flight or the cruise you booked for vacation. So stick with it for 3 weeks with no excuses. If you don’t want to keep going after 3 weeks, then cut it and enjoy the benefits of what you have lost.

The Basics of Uncle Sage’s Diet

Most diets start with food reduction. Not necessarily reducing the AMOUNT you eat, but reduction of something. In this one, the reduction is 4 SIMPLE THINGS: Bread, Pasta, Rice, Potatoes, but the reduction is to ZERO 0 intake. The overall diet can be summed up in three simple principles:

• No substantial intake of carbs after 12 Noon
• No intake whatsoever of Bread, Pasta, Rice, or Potatoes
• Everything else, eat and drink whatever you want after Noon (as long as it is not heavy in carbs)

What to Eat

A typical day for Uncle Sage:

• Breakfast: Plain yogurt (or plain Greek yogurt) with granola or muesli and fruit. If you are going for granola, try to get one with no added sugar. If this is your first time, don’t push so hard on the yogurt, most people like flavored yogurt and that should work well too.
• Lunch: Lunchmeat or tuna or chicken salad, eat with a fork or spoon. NO BREAD, Sandwich, etc. I like to roll up cold cuts and cheese, or just eat a huge chef's salad.
• Dinner: Meat, lots of it, mostly chicken. I usually will have a salad or greens with it as well
• Snacks: That’s right, I didn’t say no snacking. The difference is on what you snack. No cookies now people, no chips, none of that stuff. Come on, you know better…….it’s a diet, treat it like one. I go on a shopping spree at the local grocer or farmers’ market and get all the vegetables I can, I pair that will a healthy stockpile of pickles and jarred peppers (I prefer spicy pepperoncini).

There are so many different theories on what to eat and when, but how I keep it simple for me: READ YOUR LABELS. If there are heavy carbs or sugars in it, don’t eat it after Noon. If you feel you need to eat carbs after Noon, then read the label and make sure it’s not too much. For example, I noted jarred snacks above. Maybe you want to eat olives…well, some of them are ok, but most of them have carbs. Same thing with nuts. So, if you do need to supplement your diet with some of that, then keep it to a minimum amount as much as you can. Either way, start this diet out by tossing the packaged cookies, caramel popcorn, french fries, and everything else you love to snack on while streaming TV. If it’s not in the house, you won’t eat it.

What to drink

A typical day for me:

• Breakfast: Coffee – no milk, no sugar – I know gross right? Not really. It took me some getting used to, but over the years, as I learned to appreciate the flavor of coffee, I have been able to learn to drink it completely bare. It’s also a good kickstart to any day (if you are ok with caffeine)
• After Breakfast and throughout the day: Water and plenty of it. Without going into the science, water is a key component to the breakdown of sugars in the body, so after you have your carbs for breakfast, give your body the fuel necessary to break it down. I have a one liter bottle that I consistently fill up throughout each day while I am working or doing other stuff around the house or office (when I am in the office). Usually, I drink about 4 a day, some days more, some less.
• Dinner and after: whatever you like that doesn't have sugar or carbs. So, no juice, no non-diet soda, no energy drinks. I’m a diet cola drinker, so I probably drink 1 or 2 liters a day between lunch and bedtime. Is that recommended, definitely not, but I love it and it works for me. Find what works for you that isn’t full of carbs. A glass or two of wine? Go for it - yeah it has carbs, so be reasonable and on the days you do drink, don't eat the nuts or other snacks in the evening that have the carbs.

How to exercise 

What works for me:

• Get yourself a tracker. Period. Set up the app on your phone if you don’t have a wearable like an AppleWatch or Fitbit. But set it up, and set your goals. Without getting into the science of calorie counting and reduction, know this: if you’re reducing your calorie intake, you can only catalyze the benefits by burning calories at the same time. And the best way to do that, is to set goals and track it DAILY
• For me, I have my Active Calories Burn per day set to 790. EVERY SINGLE DAY. No matter what I am doing, how busy I am, if I’m traveling, dealing with family matters, working on a project with late night meetings, it doesn’t matter. I hit that goal every day.
• What exercise I do depends on my mood and time. I am a runner for the most part. 3-4 miles a day 3-4 times per week. But, some weeks it’s 0 or 1 time, so when I can’t get out there or I am not motivated to run, I figure out some other way to burn through the daily calories. Walking is just as good. Yes, you don’t get the aerobic effects of running when you walk, but if you walk enough, you can easily burn as many calories. For the most part though, when I can’t get outside, I run in place or do jumping jacks, or something else in my house that burns the calories (you should see me with a hula hoop). Sounds silly and IS SILLY the first few times you do it, and then, you’ll find that after you realize it is working, you won’t mind it so much.

Cheating

So where does the “CHEAT” come in? Good question.

There are two cheats that tie everything together nicely and make this work

1. Cheat Day: Again, up to your discretion and depends on how much and how quickly you want to lose. For me, my initial run of this was three months, so once a month I had a Dwayne Johnson style no-holds-barred day. Fast food, pound of pasta, cookies and chips, the works. If you do it more often than that, you will be more susceptible to do it again, so I would recommend once a month since that worked for me. It was enough for me to have something to look forward too, but also infrequent enough for me to not relapse completely and just start binging all the time.
2. Booze: I make no restriction on alcohol (per se). during the diet, feel free to indulge a little and remember everything comes with moderation. There are plenty of carbohydrates in alcohol (or at least your body treats it similarly). I just stick to liquor and a simple mixer (vodka soda, cognac diet cola, etc). avoid the beers, daquiris, and margaritas.

Sage Advice: EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN ACCEPTABLE LEVEL OF DIET AND WEIGHTLOSS, but you won’t see results until you break your current thought on what you think is acceptable.