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How I lost 30+ pounds (and counting)

I've been asked by a few of my friends on facebook to explain how I've lost so much weight, so here it goes:

Disclaimer:

First, let me explain that I make no claims whatsoever about how healthy this is.  You should consult your own physician before undergoing any major, planned health changes such as massive weight loss.  There are wrong ways to do it.  You need to check with your doctor to find out what your ideal weight is and make that your target and don't go below it.  You should get nutrition advice from your doctor too.  It's not really all that healthy to lose weight very rapidly.  I'm no expert.  Keep in mind that I did this before, back in 2002-2003 and lost over 60 pounds, but the fact I'm doing this again shows you that I did NOT keep it off permanently.  Your mileage may vary.

Here's what I did:

Avoid sugar, fat, and carbs (no sweets, greesy, fried foods, no bread).  OK, maybe a little bit every now and then, except for the greasy and fried foods, that is... just stay away from that totally.  Avoid dark colored soft drinks.  And ABSOLUTELY NO SUGARY DRINKS!!!

A side note:  I eat no cooked vegetables.  That's not part of my weight loss plan.  I'd probably be much better off if I did, but I can't stomach them.  If you like'em, eat'em.  Eat more salads, but avoid salad dressing unless it's the low calorie and most importantly, FAT FREE!  You might want to try adding lemon pepper or other stuff from your spice cabinet in place of salad dressing.  I really like salads with fat free Italian or Ceasar dressing with lots of crispy toppings and lots of black and red pepper.  Oh, I also don't eat breakfast.  You probably should.  I don't because I'm not a morning person and sleep as late as I possibly can, then rush out to door to get to work on time (well, almost).

Try to increase your vegetables and protein.  Actually, you'll probably find yourself craving foods that happen to be high in protein like steak and eggs.

Snacking:
When I sit in front fo the TV, I usually have to have a bag of chips, or candy, or something to eat the whole time I'm watching TV, and this is usually late at night.  This is a VERY BAD habit to get into and you should break it immediately.  I started going to bed earlier just to avoid the temptation.  At work, people are always bringing homemade fudge, or cake, or brownies and the last Thursday of every month is "donut day".  I just have to walk past all of that stuff.

Workday lunch:
I usually leave the office for lunch and Oak Ridge is full of fast food places.  My favorite is Mexican food with lots of cheese and chips and salsa.  Sure, the salsa is pure vegetables, but the chips are fried and the cheese is well... cheese (fat).  I've now fully changed my lunch habits and bring my lunch to work.  It usually consists of a single Slim Fast bar (chocolate cookie dough... and it's awesome).  Sometimes my local grociery store doesn't have any, so I'll take a single serving of sugar free Jello and 1 pack of Pringles pizza flavored stix.  I try not to eat both of them.  I also take my own cooler with my diet drinks.  All this saves me time and plenty of money.  My lunch now costs no more than $1.50.

Exercise:
I don't do it.  YOU SHOULD though... and so should I.  But, it's not necessary to lose weight.

Drinks:
Let's talk about drinks.  Water, if you can deal with it (I can't).  I've gotta have my carbonated beverages.  I avoid the dark sodas.  I've heard from multiple sources that you'll lose 5-10 pounds just going from dark to clear soft drinks (diet or regular).  Also, my Dad, who is a doctor, told me to stop drinking the dark sodas because the phospher in them is bad for your heart, and considering how many I drink a day, it's significant.  So, diet soft drinks only (if you drink any soft drinks) and light colored like sprite, mellow yello, etc...  No Coke, Pepsi, or Dr. Pepper. You should drink water, if you can stand it.  Tea is really good for you too (not sweetened!!!).  I also despise the taste of diet drinks.  There are a few gems out there though that you can't tell are diet.  Here they are in no particular order:

  • Diet Dr. Pepper (tastes awesome, but this is a dark soft drink).
  • Diet Citrus Drop (It's a Kroger store brand and when it's on sale, you can get it for about 10 cents a can!)
  • Diet Ginger Ale (not the Wal-Mart brand... It's horrible).
  • Diet Raspberry.
  • Diet Orange (there are several brands... they're all good).

It's really important that you are aware of your progress.  Let me state that again:  It's really important that you are aware of your progress!!!  It's what keeps me going.  To do that, I made a simple spreadsheet with the date in the left column and my weight for that day in the next column.  Since I'm a programmer and a numbers kind of guy, I've added lots more data and graphs, and I track what I eat, etc...  But most importantly is tracking my daily weight AND graphing it.  As far as I'm concerned, that's the most critical part, along with keeping your target weight at the forefront of your thoughts.  When I graph my weight, I get to see this awesome line that drops.  Sure, it'll fluctuate a little, but when it starts moving up, that's my queue to try a little harder that day.  Here's a snapshot of my Excel graph from my daily measurements so far:  My target weight is 160 lbs.

Daily Schedule:

Day What to do  
1 First thing in the morning, before you eat, before you shower, but after you've used the bathroom; disrobe and weigh yourself.  Do this every morning.

Liquid diet only.  Jello (I recommend sugar free... tastes every bit as good as the sugary stuff), chicken broth, tomato soup, etc...)  Eat as much as you like... just don't gorge yourself!  Don't plan on going anywhere either... You'll thank me later!		  
2 Same as day one, but this time try to scale back.  See if you can make it by with 1/2 of what you ate yesterday.  
3 Same as day two.  
4 Mostly liquid diet, but start eating some bland food.  Your digestive system needs to be weened back to solid foods.  Don't over do it.  Also, by now, your stomach should have shrunk some... Not your visible belly... your actual stomach.  When you gorge yourself with food, your stomach stretches... at least, that's my theory.  These past few days have allowed it to shrink back down some.  That's my theory anyway and I'm NOT a doctor.  You should have lost AT LEAST 4 pounds by now.  You should also notice that it doesn't take nearly as much food to make you feel satisfied.  Keep it up!  Don't waste the last 4 days of effort by over doing it.  You're on a roll now, so DON'T SCREW IT UP!  EAT LIGHT!  Don't eat any meat today, especially red meat.  Eggs are good.  NO SNACKING!!!

You should be aware that your prior eyes for food desired much larger portions.  DO NOT put all that food back on your plate!  It will NOT take that much to fill you up now.  TRUST ME!  If you fill your plate with all that food you used to, you'll have the natural desire to finish it all.  Don't do it.  Don't stretch your stomach back out.  This will take a conscious intention every time you eat for at least 2 weeks until that habit eventually fades away.		  
5 You can get back to a little bit more normal food.  Keep it a little bland and don't over do it.  3 squares.  NO SNACKING!!!  
6 You can get back to regular food, but remember:  Avoid sweets, fats, greasy fried foods, and carbs (generally, that means no bread).  Increase your portions of veggies.  Eat more salad than you used to (not larger portions, but more often).  Don't use salad dressing unless it's fat free (most important) and low calorie.  I recommend getting a diabetic cookbook.  That's the healthiest food you can eat... but continue to avoid carbs (bread).  
7 Day 6 is now your regular, daily routine.  Keep your portions SMALL and for goodness sakes... push your plate AWAY from you BEFORE you've finished it all.  Trust me, the starving kids in Africa won't know.  I promise not to tell them!  It's NOT a waste of money to push that plate away.  Save it for later or throw it away, but DON'T EAT IT ALL RIGHT NOW!  THIS will be your hardest habit to break.  It goes against everything your parents told you when growing up.  But you're an adult now, not a growing kid.  DON'T clear that plate!  If you're worried about the starving kids in Africa, sign up with Unicef and start sending some money, but by no means should you finish that plate of food!!!!  
     

Hunger:
Sure, you're going to feel hungry every now and then.  For me, those feelings were my reminder that it's WORKING!  The first two weeks are the hardest because you've got to break your old habits and deal with the occasional feelings of hunger.  It gets easier and eventually you look forward to that feeling because you know that if you feel that, your weigh in tomorrow morning is most likely going to show some progress.

Keeping it off
Well, I haven't accomplished this yet.  I can't tell you what's right, but I can tell you what I did wrong last time:  My confidence was too high.  I did such a good job losing the weight, I figured it would be no big deal to go a little over my target weight and start back on my diet again.  That didn't work.  I kept creeping back up the scale and after about 15 - 20 pounds back up the scale, it seemed to difficult to try again, so I didn't... for several years, until long after I reached my old maximum weight plus a couple more.  This time, I plan on reminding myself that.  I'm going to try to do what I was planning on last time:  Continue to track my weight daily and when it gets over my target weight, I'll cut back on my food intake again until it gets back down.  I have to remember that it will be an effort that I'll have to continue to work at.

Oh!  One more thing:  Some Encouragement!  Let me tell you how awesome it is having shed 30+ pounds!!!  IT'S FREAKING AWESOME!  It's TOTALLY worth it!  I'm still used to seeing my fat self looking back at me in a mirror, but every time I walk by a mirror, I have to do a double-take and think, "Dang!  That's a good lookin' man looking back at me!".  Then I'll stop and admire my results so far.  It's sureal seeing myself this thin.  I can't wear my old clothes anymore... they're too freaking big.  I've got lots of old clothes I kept from my thinner days that I'm now able to wear again.  I'd been wearing XL shirts and Large shirts were just way too tight.  Now I only wear large shirts and they're plenty big enough.  My XL shirts make me look like a kid trying to wear my Dad's shirt.  After I lose another 10 or 15 pounds, I should be able to start wearing my medium shirts again.  My pants are so big that if I'm not wearing a belt, they just fall straight down to my ankles.  For my belt, I was on the last belt hole, now I'm down to the first and will have to buy a new, smaller belt in another week or so because there are no more holes on this belt to go down to.  All my pants are cinched up like crazy when I tighten my belt in to keep them up.  I'm between sizes on my pants now.  My fat ones are too big and my old skinny ones are just a little bit too small... maybe 5 or 10 more pounds and they'll fit just right.  Plus, when you shed your first 15 or 20 pounds, most people start to notice and you start getting plenty of compliments and encouragement.  My wife is really excited about it too.  Oh, I should mention that she's doing this too (not as harshly as I am though) and she's lost 25 or so pounds too.

That's it.  Good luck!