To start out, the first picture is me in 1999 when I weighed 450+ lbs and in the picture above I weigh 281.6 lbs. So far I have lost over 170 lbs. Although that is a great weight loss, I want to loose more weight and I am using it as my new before photo.
This week I weighed in at 276.6 lbs for a weight loss of 4.8 lbs. Not bad for a week and taking into account that I could not work out because I am still healing from my car accident 2 weeks ago. Next week I am going to start working out again, only cardio though, I don't think I should be lifting heavy weight with my bruised ribs. In future entries I will be posting part of my spreadsheet that shows my daily calorie intake/burn so you can see what I am doing day to day for my weight loss.
I have tried many diets in the past and every diet pill imaginable. I have found that every diet has two things in common.
1) I always crash and gain the weight back
2) They all are made to do the same thing, burn more calories then you intake.
Looking at the first one. Why do I crash and gain all the weight back? Because all of these diets exclude foods that I enjoy and after a while my cravings become to great and I give up and crash. Looking at the second one. Why are there so many different diet fads? Because people do not want to have to think about their weight loss and just want to be told what to do. All of these diets take advantage of one simple truth, one pound of fat has 3500 calories and if you burn more calories in a day then you intake then you will loose weight.
An average male needs to eat 2500 calories a day to maintain their weight because they burn 2500 calories a day just doing their normal activities. An average female needs to eat 2000 calories a day to maintain their weight. Of course, these numbers change depending on your age and current weight, but you get the idea. To loose weight you need to make a deficit between your calorie intake and burn amounts. So, if you want to loose 1 lbs a week then you will want to make a deficit of 500 calories a day (500 * 7 = 3500). To do that you can either eat 500 less calories or burn 500 more calories per day. So, it doesn't matter what diet you are on, you will loose weight if your burn amount is higher then your intake amount.
To keep track of my calorie intake I have an app on my phone, "My Fitness Pal", that I enter the foods and amount I am eating and it keeps track of the calories. To keep track of my calorie burn I bought a Bodybugg with a digital watch (http://my.apexfitness.com/products/product_details.php?item=6009-BBPKG&isbb=Y). It is 90% accurate and uses my height, age, heart rate, body temperature, and a step counter to figure out my current calorie burn. I use this information and plug it into a spreadsheet I created to keep track of my calorie burn and intake for the day and estimate how many lbs I should loose. I also enter in my current weight once a week to figure out my actual weight loss for the week. Starting next week I will be posting those results.
To keep me on my diet I am allowing myself to eat foods I enjoy, I just find lower calorie alternatives and not in the amount that it hurts me. This way I don't crash because I feel deprived of something I like. I love diet coke, but I need to drink much more water, so I am allowing myself to have one or two soda's a day. That way I get what I like but I am also drinking a lot of water otherwise. I also love rice, meat, cheese, and carbo's. I am allowing myself to eat those meals, but in smaller amounts. I am also working on eating healthier, not just smaller amounts of the same foods I use to eat. I have added more salads and raw fruits. But, if you are the person like me that loves salad and puts a lot of dressing on it, be careful. I use a low calorie natural dressing (Annie's Natural Honey Mustard Vinaigrette Light, only 40 calories per serving). I like to make sure my dressings have under 50 calories per serving and I will only use one, maybe two, servings on my salads. I keep my meals around 200 to 400 calories per meal and allow snacks as long as I don't go over 1870 calories a day for the days that I am not active. For the days that I am working out (depending on the amount I work out) I will not go over 2000 to 2500 calories a day.
Thanks to everyone that has been supporting me in my weight loss. It is nice to know what people think and also that my story has inspired some people to also loose weight.
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