bloodhound

Aug 2012 I weighed in at 333 pounds. 11 weeks later I weighed in at 273 pounds. Two months since that weight loss I'm at 270 pounds. I've given my body a break and am ready to drop some more weight.

This is going to be a lengthy and detailed explanation of my approach to losing weight, ultimately losing 60 pounds in 11 weeks.

First, the disclaimer:
This is not advice. I am not a nutritionist. The method detailed below worked for me and may not work for anyone else. I do not recommend making huge lifestyle changes to anyone. Any extreme dieting or fad diets add counter productive stress to your body. Do what is healthy. Do your own research. Find out through trial and error what works for you.

So, again - I am not a nutritionist. I am not offering advice. I am simply sharing my story of what I did and how I did it, while making you aware that it may go against other advice and information you have been provided.

Do what works for you.

Next, the MATH:

One pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories.
To "lose" or burn off one pound of fat, I have to expend 3,500 calories. Seems daunting?

I have something helping me. My height and weight. There are several online calculators where I went to check my Resting Metabolic Rate. I found on average it was calculated to be approximately 2,500 calories. That means that if I woke up, laid in bed all day except for bathroom breaks, and went back to sleep, I would burn 2,500 calories. This is based on my height of 76 inches, my age of 42, and my weight through this weight loss challenge of 333 to 273.

Add to that a light day of moving around the house in the morning, driving to work, working at a desk all day with light activity to walk to the printer and meetings, I burn another 1,000 calories.

So, on an average light activity day, my body would burn 3,500 calories. The calorie amount I consume in any day would be the amount of additional exercise I need to do that day in order to keep the daily calorie balance at -3,500 calories.

So, why hasn't it previously seemed that easy to me? I have always struggled with my weight. Meeting Navy standards was always incredibly difficult. Any form of dieting always resulted in a feeling of starvation and deprivation. Those cravings later resulted in binge eating. My body was in a constant cycle of ups and downs and under a lot of stress.

Really, the question I had to answer was, "How do I diet without the feeling that I'm starving and depriving myself?"

So, with a little advice from a source who I presume wishes to remain anonymous, I took up with some reading and tried out some of the methods they used. I found that I could go through the day without being hungry and without having any blood sugar ups and downs. It was absolutely amazing. A little research set me off on a lifestyle change that absolutely worked for me.

My research can be summed up in a few books, as well as one blog.

Eat Fat Lose Fat - https://alturl.com/nk7gf
Good Calories Bad Calories - https://alturl.com/8jyzg
Bulletproof Diet - https://alturl.com/95cna

The basics:

I recognized that eating carbs/sugars resulted in blood sugar ups/downs that made cravings stronger. If I went longer than an hour without eating more carbs/sugars, I was ravished with cravings that were hard to ignore. I would get light headed and unfocused. I couldn't concentrate on anything but the fact that I couldn't eat because I was dieting.

This time I had to do it differently. I cut out nearly all the carbs/sugars. I quit eating bread. I went gluten free. I avoided wheat grains like the plague. I did not eat processed sugars. I minimized the natural sugars I consumed.

I always drink my coffee black. There is no room in a healthy diet for any alcohol as these are grain based. I avoided foods that were breaded in any kind of flour based coating. I did not eat fruit (except for the occasional grapefruit).

So, what was I able to eat? Meats, vegetables, fats

My average day throughout this challenge looked like this:

Breakfast was 2 eggs, and several slices of bacon. I often had green peppers with it. The eggs were fried in butter or bacon fat. This breakfast gave me the energy for a bike ride if I was commuting to work that day.

Lunch was often a salad of some type with lettuce, onions, peppers, celery, a small amount of cheese such as a nice crumbled blue cheese, and some type of meat such as kipper snacks.

Dinner was typically meat and vegetables with an occasional starch. Chicken and rice with a mix of peppers and onions was always easy to fix.

I drank coffee and water throughout the day. No soda pops. No juices. Nothing but coffee in the morning and water the rest of the day.

The details:

I ate organic as often as possible. The eggs were cage-free, hormone free. The butter was from grass fed hormone and anti-biotic free cows. The meats were organic as often as possible. The vegetables were organic. The ingredients of anything that was packaged had to contain no MSG, no soy, no chemical additives.

Butter and cheese was Kerrygold.
Meats were often Thousand Hills or from local farms.
Vegetables came from our garden or were labeled organic.
Sugars were often very raw such as coconut palm sugar.
Flour substitutes included coconut and almond flours.

Overall:

There were not a ton of calories in the food I ate throughout the day. However, I was also very "even-keel" throughout the day after having had bacon and eggs for breakfast.

I found that a diet of primarily proteins and fats was able to sustain my body throughout the day better than a diet of carbs and sugars.

It was fairly easy to burn off whatever calories I consumed each day. Bike riding every other day. Doing more around the house. Getting up from my desk more often to walk around the building.

It did not take a lot of additional exercise to burn off whatever calories I consumed each day. And because the calories were primarily free of additives such as MSG and nitrites that typically caused cravings and a general feeling of mental/physical unbalance, I was able to get through the day without feeling hungry. I could eat a little every hour if I wanted, or go hours and hours without eating, and I would not feel starved or deprived.

I was no longer ravished with the sabotaging feelings that would drive me to abandon my goal. Thus, I made my goal. Or at least my partial goal.

This lifestyle change will continue, and I plan to continue my weight loss. I hope whoever reads this finds it informative and thought provoking. Do some reading. Pay attention to what you eat.

Jason

Sassonian

Well well done. Eating real foods... Sounds very much like you are following the paleo eating plan...

JakiChan

If you really want to know your RMR then get it tested. It takes about 15 minutes and gives you a fairly accurate planning number.

Chesha Neko

Keep it up. The key is not to diet but to eat a way you can keep eating going forward. The other Gary Taubes book "Why we get fat and what to do about it" is also a good read and has some additional info that is not in GCBC.

brianogilvie 

Good for you! Looks like you found a path that works for you. Keep it up!

I just can't help pointing out one thing:

Not true - wine is grape-based, as are cognac, armagnac, grappa, and other wine-based eaux de vie. Hard cider and Calvados/applejack are apple-based. Some vodka comes from potatoes. Slivovitz is made from plums. Besides, by the time you get to spirits, even if they did come from grain, there's only trace amounts left after distillation.

Cut out alcohol if you wish - it has a lot of empty calories, it's a depressant, and some people can't drink in moderation - but don't do it just because some of it comes from grains.

bloodhound

Excellent clarification. Thank you.

tpy2010

WOW! What kind of workouts were you doing? How much did you workout daily.

cplager

One note of caution. It is possible to lose weight and have yoru cholesterol numbers climb at the same time time. (I'm not saying that this is the case here)

Weight loss itself shouldn't be the goal for msot people. Being healthier is.

Cheers, Charles

JakiChan

Oddly enough, while my "bad" cholesterol number dropped significantly, so did my "good". And the actual good v bad ratio was worse after I lost weight.

vesteroid

I love reading these post as I am always interested in real stories of how others do it.

My question would by why the two month lay off, and no weight loss after staggering weight loss in 3 months?

Are you measuring body fat at all? Is body fat loss in line with the weight loss.

bloodhound

I took a couple months off due to weather, holidays, work, etc.

I have not measured any cholesterol or fat levels during this weight loss.

In the interim, I am much healthier now than I was back in August. During the month of January, I have been rehabilitating my shoulders from old injuries. I plan to continue that rehabilitation during February. Then, starting in March, I will be getting back on the bike for more weight loss.

@typ2010, I did not do a lot of working out. I rode my bike to and from work a couple times a week (20.4 mi round trip) and walked as much as I could while at work. Nothing extra.

-J

SeanBlader

Paleo is all the rage right now, glad you were able to do it! Good luck on the next set!

AWB

Congratulations on the weight loss, will have to give it a try!

KRS

Hey Bro, how is it going this summer?