Ok, having read only a small bit of your blog I may be off base here, but here's my suggestions...again, I lost 50 lbs in about 5 months, starting at 35 years old (well almost), 5'8.5", 203 lbs, medium build.
1) Weigh daily. I actually weighed myself 3x/day after awhile once I was really serious. I think it is good because it keeps you on your mental game--there is never a sense that you are "off the clock". This is why diet's tank: the person decides "ok, this one meal/snack/whatever doesn't count, this is not on the clock." But of course to one's metabolism, everything is on the clock. I weighed in the morning, after my afternoon jog, and around bedtime. Normally my weight would fluctuate by as much as 5 lbs each day, as I ran in hot weather and could sweat down like 4 lbs (is that possible? It seems wrong, but the fact is I would be 4 lbs down right after a jog...and back up after dinner more or less). The key is to not get too emotionally involved with the numbers on the scale. Some of that can't be avoided, but it is good to just note it down, and keep your eyes on the next number divisible by 5. So I at 203 I was just looking for 200. Then the next goal was just 195...etc.
2) Count calories! Don't worry about fat/carbs/protein much, just count total calories. I chose to go with between 900--1,300 cal/day every day for 5 months. I found this was good. On average, probably 1,200 I guess. 900 is pretty harsh, so can't have too many of those. At 1,200/day, with jogging 3-4x/week I was on a 2.75 lbs/week loss rate which is really flying. 10 lbs/month was not tough at this pacing. You should set your pacing such that you STAY MOTIVATED. For me this was around this pace. It wasn't too desperately hard, but it was motivating. By the way, you must count calories not only at time of eating but at time of purchase. I wouldn't even buy things that were too calorie dense, as it wasn't a good idea to even have them in the house.
3) Use TV dinners to your advantage. Healthy Choice makes a number of dinners which clock in at 350 cal or so. This is great for the lazy person. One these was dinner. I tried to gather a few "standard" meals and just eat them into the ground, not caring about variety. My general pattern was to skip breakfast entirely (this business about "most important meal of the day" is just silly. I've skipped it for 120 days and feel great and lost weight) other than a coffee or 2 with sugar and creamer (150 cal worth max). Lunch: veggie burger on 2 slices of 100 cal bread, little may (400 cal). Dinner: 350 cal TV dinner. Snack: fresh pear (100 cal) and a decaf coffee later (100 cal). Total: 1,100 cal.
4) Drink water as you feel like it. The "must drink 8 glasses a day" is also just nonsense. If you're thirsty, drink. If not, don't. When I was jogging in the heat, though, I tended to hit the V8 juice afterwards, as it has plenty of sodium/potassium for replenishment and 80 cal/glass. By the way, avoid all other juice--it's more caloric than soda (and avoid soda of course)
5) I jogged as exercise. I started at 0.7 mi jog (very out of shape!) and in 3 and a half months was doing 5.6 mi jogs without much problem. That's 800% of starting. The key is to not push too hard, to go gradually but consistentely. I just would try to run to one more telephone pole or tree than last time, on a pleasant bike/walk path in my town. The key to being strict about exercising is to do it BEFORE an activity that simply *must* be done, such as an important school assignment or serious obligation. So for me that was preparing lectures--I'd run first, knowing I simply had no choice but to finish my lecture for the next day. This is a good way to trick yourself into doing it.
6) Use a calendar (seems as though you were). I would just write my "morn" (morning) "postjog" and "night" weights in each box and later transfer them to Excel where I would later graph my progress. My weight loss was so linear on this plan that the regression line = 0.98 which is close to a perfect line.
That's about it. You have to be willing to just bite the bullet and be hungry at night sometimes (that's why I would skip breakfast, since I am rarely hungry in the morning...I had to save my caloric budget for 8pm--midnight time just in case I needed to eat a bit more, up to 1,300 that day). Read The Hacker's Diet online, he goes into great detail about this sort of approach, which really is rather simple in the end. I have a friend following it and since January he has dropped 30 lbs. Really for a man at least, it would seem that 10 lbs/month is do-able.
1 comment:
Ok, having read only a small bit of your blog I may be off base here, but here's my suggestions...again, I lost 50 lbs in about 5 months, starting at 35 years old (well almost), 5'8.5", 203 lbs, medium build.
1) Weigh daily. I actually weighed myself 3x/day after awhile once I was really serious. I think it is good because it keeps you on your mental game--there is never a sense that you are "off the clock". This is why diet's tank: the person decides "ok, this one meal/snack/whatever doesn't count, this is not on the clock." But of course to one's metabolism, everything is on the clock. I weighed in the morning, after my afternoon jog, and around bedtime. Normally my weight would fluctuate by as much as 5 lbs each day, as I ran in hot weather and could sweat down like 4 lbs (is that possible? It seems wrong, but the fact is I would be 4 lbs down right after a jog...and back up after dinner more or less). The key is to not get too emotionally involved with the numbers on the scale. Some of that can't be avoided, but it is good to just note it down, and keep your eyes on the next number divisible by 5. So I at 203 I was just looking for 200. Then the next goal was just 195...etc.
2) Count calories! Don't worry about fat/carbs/protein much, just count total calories. I chose to go with between 900--1,300 cal/day every day for 5 months. I found this was good. On average, probably 1,200 I guess. 900 is pretty harsh, so can't have too many of those. At 1,200/day, with jogging 3-4x/week I was on a 2.75 lbs/week loss rate which is really flying. 10 lbs/month was not tough at this pacing. You should set your pacing such that you STAY MOTIVATED. For me this was around this pace. It wasn't too desperately hard, but it was motivating. By the way, you must count calories not only at time of eating but at time of purchase. I wouldn't even buy things that were too calorie dense, as it wasn't a good idea to even have them in the house.
3) Use TV dinners to your advantage. Healthy Choice makes a number of dinners which clock in at 350 cal or so. This is great for the lazy person. One these was dinner. I tried to gather a few "standard" meals and just eat them into the ground, not caring about variety. My general pattern was to skip breakfast entirely (this business about "most important meal of the day" is just silly. I've skipped it for 120 days and feel great and lost weight) other than a coffee or 2 with sugar and creamer (150 cal worth max). Lunch: veggie burger on 2 slices of 100 cal bread, little may (400 cal). Dinner: 350 cal TV dinner. Snack: fresh pear (100 cal) and a decaf coffee later (100 cal). Total: 1,100 cal.
4) Drink water as you feel like it. The "must drink 8 glasses a day" is also just nonsense. If you're thirsty, drink. If not, don't. When I was jogging in the heat, though, I tended to hit the V8 juice afterwards, as it has plenty of sodium/potassium for replenishment and 80 cal/glass. By the way, avoid all other juice--it's more caloric than soda (and avoid soda of course)
5) I jogged as exercise. I started at 0.7 mi jog (very out of shape!) and in 3 and a half months was doing 5.6 mi jogs without much problem. That's 800% of starting. The key is to not push too hard, to go gradually but consistentely. I just would try to run to one more telephone pole or tree than last time, on a pleasant bike/walk path in my town. The key to being strict about exercising is to do it BEFORE an activity that simply *must* be done, such as an important school assignment or serious obligation. So for me that was preparing lectures--I'd run first, knowing I simply had no choice but to finish my lecture for the next day. This is a good way to trick yourself into doing it.
6) Use a calendar (seems as though you were). I would just write my "morn" (morning) "postjog" and "night" weights in each box and later transfer them to Excel where I would later graph my progress. My weight loss was so linear on this plan that the regression line = 0.98 which is close to a perfect line.
That's about it. You have to be willing to just bite the bullet and be hungry at night sometimes (that's why I would skip breakfast, since I am rarely hungry in the morning...I had to save my caloric budget for 8pm--midnight time just in case I needed to eat a bit more, up to 1,300 that day). Read The Hacker's Diet online, he goes into great detail about this sort of approach, which really is rather simple in the end. I have a friend following it and since January he has dropped 30 lbs. Really for a man at least, it would seem that 10 lbs/month is do-able.
Best of luck
Post a Comment