Weight Loss
At the beginning of November, 2011, I was 'suddenly' 267 pounds, and was ready for change.
I had been researching and working on a system of lifestyle changes with the goal of being merely overweight by my next birthday, in June. At 5'10", this meant a goal weight of 202 lbs.
I began the first major lifestyle change - quitting cola, and switching to self-brewed ice tea.
I began looking into modifying my diet, too. I love to eat, so the challenge was finding low-calorie and convenient replacements for mcdonalds, chick-fil-a, and dunkin donuts. I learned the calorie counts for all the basic foods I usually ate, and spent a few long shopping trips at the grocery store, looking at the calories of everything.
I cut most of the bread out of my diet, most sugars, which meant most processed foods. No Mayonnaise, there are so many tasty replacements, the richest of which are half the calories.
I eat a lot of asparagus, mixed vegetables (corn, peas, beans, carrots), steamed fish, grilled chicken, eggs, bacon, sausage.
I dont avoid dairy, I just measure and know exactly how many calories it represents.
I dont use cheese slices or cubes on food much, I make great cheese sauce - garlic goat cheese, sririacha hot sauce with Extra Sharp cheddar, herb and garlic parmesan.
I still eat these things sparingly: Ben and Jerry's (1/4 cup is 125 calories), I grab a McD's Sausage Egg and Cheese Biscuit (with a Small Coke!) once a week. I'll bake a batch of cookies (according to manufacturers directions, so I know one small chocolate chip cookie is 100 calories).
Finally, I'm starting a workout routine.
Right now, at the very low calorie diet I'm on, I'm not expecting to put on much muscle. Hopefully I can improve my fitness level, keep from losing muscle mass. I want to learn about fitness, study different workout/exercise routines, see what works for me, what I can do on a regular basis, and what gets results.
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Date
Progress
As part of my weight loss strategy, I'm looking for short-term goals to measure success - a 'Level Up', Scott Pilgrim style.
You can set a goal, maybe every five or ten pound counts as a level? but this felt too arbitrary. Instead, I'm using the BMI index. I found a BMI table online, and am using that as a short-term goal marker. At my height, BMI markers are about seven pounds apart, so at a healthy rate of 2 pounds a week, about every 3-4 weeks, I progress to the next 'level'. Here's my progress so far.
Note, November is when I stopped drinking cola, and limited Mcdonalds to once a week. December I started paying attention to calories, trying to restrict my diet to 1500 calories a day, and January and February have involved becoming more physically active, trying out different activities, workouts, etc and coming up with a regular workout plan.
My 'diet' consists of meals along these lines
veggies - Asparagus, carrot/peas/corn/beans blend, corn/pepper/onions/black bean blend. As many as I want to eat, boiled in a bit of water with a garlic, salt, onion powder, and parsley blend.
chicken/turkey/sausage/eggs/bacon (200-300 calories of these)
A bit of bread (100 calorie portions)
Cheesy sauces with just about every meal (Cheese is very dense calorie wise, but the cheese sauces I make have about 45 calories per tablespoon with plenty of awesome cheesy flavor)
Butter. Limited and measured, but I havent had margarine in my house in at least a year.
(Note** My butter isn't 'butter', precisely. It's a homemade blend of two parts butter, one part oil, whipped full of air, and then tossed in tupperware in the fridge. My main goal here is it spreads like margarine.)
For snacks, I usually have
an apple
an orange
half a grapefruit
cottage cheese.
I like to blend fresh (or frozen) fruit with plain or vanilla greek yogurt. I've decided to skip the ones with fruit already mixed in, mostly - the fruit is usually in a fruit syrup that has more sugar than I want.
1/4 cup of ben and jerry's - the trick to desert is to savor it, slowly.
1 cookie (checking the calories, keep it under 100 calories)
I had been researching and working on a system of lifestyle changes with the goal of being merely overweight by my next birthday, in June. At 5'10", this meant a goal weight of 202 lbs.
I began the first major lifestyle change - quitting cola, and switching to self-brewed ice tea.
I began looking into modifying my diet, too. I love to eat, so the challenge was finding low-calorie and convenient replacements for mcdonalds, chick-fil-a, and dunkin donuts. I learned the calorie counts for all the basic foods I usually ate, and spent a few long shopping trips at the grocery store, looking at the calories of everything.
I cut most of the bread out of my diet, most sugars, which meant most processed foods. No Mayonnaise, there are so many tasty replacements, the richest of which are half the calories.
I eat a lot of asparagus, mixed vegetables (corn, peas, beans, carrots), steamed fish, grilled chicken, eggs, bacon, sausage.
I dont avoid dairy, I just measure and know exactly how many calories it represents.
I dont use cheese slices or cubes on food much, I make great cheese sauce - garlic goat cheese, sririacha hot sauce with Extra Sharp cheddar, herb and garlic parmesan.
I still eat these things sparingly: Ben and Jerry's (1/4 cup is 125 calories), I grab a McD's Sausage Egg and Cheese Biscuit (with a Small Coke!) once a week. I'll bake a batch of cookies (according to manufacturers directions, so I know one small chocolate chip cookie is 100 calories).
Finally, I'm starting a workout routine.
Right now, at the very low calorie diet I'm on, I'm not expecting to put on much muscle. Hopefully I can improve my fitness level, keep from losing muscle mass. I want to learn about fitness, study different workout/exercise routines, see what works for me, what I can do on a regular basis, and what gets results.
Normal Overweight Obese
BMI 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
70" 132 139 146 153 160 167 174 181 188 195 202 209 216 222 229 236 243 250 257 264 271
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Date| Date | BMI | Weight |
| Nov 1 | 39 | 267 |
| Nov 15 | 38 | 264 |
| Dec 1 | 38 | 260 |
| Dec 15 | 37 | 256 |
| Jan 1 | 37 | 252 |
| Jan 15 | 36 | 248 |
| Feb 1 | 36 | 244 |
| Feb 15 | 35 | 240 |
| Mar 1 | 34 | 234 |
Progress
As part of my weight loss strategy, I'm looking for short-term goals to measure success - a 'Level Up', Scott Pilgrim style.
You can set a goal, maybe every five or ten pound counts as a level? but this felt too arbitrary. Instead, I'm using the BMI index. I found a BMI table online, and am using that as a short-term goal marker. At my height, BMI markers are about seven pounds apart, so at a healthy rate of 2 pounds a week, about every 3-4 weeks, I progress to the next 'level'. Here's my progress so far.
Note, November is when I stopped drinking cola, and limited Mcdonalds to once a week. December I started paying attention to calories, trying to restrict my diet to 1500 calories a day, and January and February have involved becoming more physically active, trying out different activities, workouts, etc and coming up with a regular workout plan.
My 'diet' consists of meals along these lines
veggies - Asparagus, carrot/peas/corn/beans blend, corn/pepper/onions/black bean blend. As many as I want to eat, boiled in a bit of water with a garlic, salt, onion powder, and parsley blend.
chicken/turkey/sausage/eggs/bacon (200-300 calories of these)
A bit of bread (100 calorie portions)
Cheesy sauces with just about every meal (Cheese is very dense calorie wise, but the cheese sauces I make have about 45 calories per tablespoon with plenty of awesome cheesy flavor)
Butter. Limited and measured, but I havent had margarine in my house in at least a year.
(Note** My butter isn't 'butter', precisely. It's a homemade blend of two parts butter, one part oil, whipped full of air, and then tossed in tupperware in the fridge. My main goal here is it spreads like margarine.)
For snacks, I usually have
an apple
an orange
half a grapefruit
cottage cheese.
I like to blend fresh (or frozen) fruit with plain or vanilla greek yogurt. I've decided to skip the ones with fruit already mixed in, mostly - the fruit is usually in a fruit syrup that has more sugar than I want.
1/4 cup of ben and jerry's - the trick to desert is to savor it, slowly.
1 cookie (checking the calories, keep it under 100 calories)
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