I am now down to 210 pounds!!!
I eat more calories now than I did at the beginning of the diet.
Exercise for me is the key. It keeps my weight loss going, pushes me threw plateaus, helps my outlook, keeps me focused and relaxes me.
Slowly making changes is the easiest way to change. This plan is what I modeled to make the many changes in my eating habits. I did not follow it verbatim, but had done much of it before I saw it for the first time.
Got this from a posting on milliondollarbody.com :
The Easy Six Week Diet Transition
In some ways, changing your diet is similar to making a successful resolution in that it's conceptual at first. Your long-range goal should just be to eat well. As your healthy eating behavior becomes a habit, you will find the other intangibles (such as weight loss, energy gained, etc.) falling into place. The easiest way to accomplish this is a gradual transition from food choices that don't help to food choices that do. By making this transition gradually over six weeks, we've found it to be the easiest diet program ever recommended.
Working in a 6-week cycle, you can train (or trick, if you will) your body into craving more nutritious foods. This cycle is easier if you're exercising because your body will crave the proper nutrients to re-build its broken down tissue.
Week 1
Eliminate the junk from your diet. That's it, just junk; no potato chips, candy, ice cream, etc. Other than this you may eat whatever you like... and here's the kicker: you may cheat on this twice, and that means for TWO WHOLE DAYS YOU CAN EAT WHATEVER YOU LIKE AND STILL SUCCEED!
Week 2
No eating for 3-hours before you go to bed. That way your body can go to sleep in fat-burning mode, rather than in calorie-storing mode. Plus each week carries over, so you still cannot have junk, except for the 2 days when you may cheat and eat whenever and whatever you like.
Week 3
Eat 5 to 6 small meals a day. If you make yourself do this, the size will control itself because you won't ever get ravenously hungry. Try to keep each meal balanced as close to 30% protein, 40% carbohydrates, and 30% fat as you can - and try and eat for what you will be doing for the next three hours (If you're working out, eat more, sitting at a desk, eat less)... Still no junk food, and still no eating three hours before bedtime. You may cheat on two days.
Week 4
Eliminate fast food and alcohol. This can be hard for many of us because we now have to plan our meals, but hey, it's only for a couple weeks. People tend to forget that alcohol has calories, and it also slows your metabolism. Cheat ONLY ONE DAY this week.
Week 5
Eat whole foods. This means that you eliminate any processed foods from your diet, such as bread, most salad dressings, almost all cereal, luncheon meats, cheese, anything with preservatives, and most everything served in restaurants. What you can eat are whole foods such as fruit, raw or steamed vegetables, meat (sans any type of sauce), natural grain rice, poached eggs, etc. It shouldn't be terribly hard since your eating habits have been slowly changing. Still, it's a hard week because it will feel like dieting. Try not to cheat, but you may if you find yourself getting ravenous - just keep your blowout to a minimum.
Week 6
Eat healthy. Eat whatever you want, following the general rules we've followed for the last five weeks. You may be surprised to find yourself craving something healthy instead of a candy bar or pint of Ben & Jerry's. You should now be better at listening to your body because it will tell you what it needs to eat, as opposed to what you're used to eating - especially if you're working out. Keep a couple of cheating days, allowing yourself to give in to occasional indulgences. Just try not to overdo it.
Now take some time off and don't think about dieting. Have your eating habits changed? Most likely they have. You may find that your body feels transformed and that you've shed some fat! More importantly, because you have gradually changed your lifestyle, your body is likely to maintain this change, without a lot of effort on your part.
You should now know enough about yourself to tweak the next 6-week plan to suit you. However, keep the cheating days. They are important, and not just because they allow you to have fun. Whenever you are restricting your caloric intake, your metabolism wants to slow down because it thinks that you are starving. By "cheating" a couple of days a week, you actually trick your metabolism to stay higher, so you lose more fat.
Here is a link to a posting on a blog I enjoy reading:
3 Proven Truths About Exercise and Weight Loss
To sum up the article and posting, you can lose weight without exercise but you will have a heck of a time keeping it off without exercise.
What I already believed.
I thought it would be a good time to recap where I was and how I am progressing.
When I started in January I was about 250 pounds, 50 inch waist at the navel and around 36% body fat.
Today I am 212 pounds 39 inch waist at the navel and 22% body fat. My lean mass has increased for 161 pounds to 166 pounds.
My diet consists of 1600 to 2000 calories, and I try to keep the calorie ratio to 40% carbs 40% protein and 20% from fat. It kind of a modified zone diet in that sense. I decreased my carb intake because my body seems to be real good at turning carbs into fat. I upped the protein to promote lean muscle growth. I continue the practice of eating 5 meals a day like is in the 3 Hour Diet.
My weight loss goal is to reach 185 pounds and between 6 and 10 % body fat by October 31st.
I will outline my exercise routine in a future post.
After a long time being MIA, I am back. I have not fallen of the wagon, just not done my duty to update this blog.
A quick update on what I have done:
I won the biggest loser contest at work losing about 20 pounds!! That was an average of 2.2 pounds a week.
I won the second round of biggest loser at work losing about 14 pounds in 8 weeks. That's about 1.75 pounds a week.
To this date I have lost a total of 42 pounds since January 9th this year. My goal of being 180 to 185 by July 4th will not happen. My new goal is to make 200 by the July 31st and to be 185 by October 31st.
I have modified my diet and exercise some. But that will be the topic of an up coming post. More updates later.
