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This is a continuation of How to Lose Weight and Keep it Off.

What do I eat in a typical day? Here’s a food diary from last Monday:

Total Est Calories: 1695

Note, there’s no coke or other worthless drinks in a day. I do try to have 2 cups of milk most days – there have been medical studies that show calcium aids with weight loss. I don’t know, but I do know that nuts and milk are filling for me. Some kind of protein is also helpful to me first thing in the morning. Again, I don’t know why, just that it is.

Sometimes I need a Cheat Food Day.

As most of you know, I became very overweight since 2000 by over 100 lbs. As I’m losing weight, I figured that other people may be interested in what I’ve found that works for me. This isn’t a lose 50 lbs in 2 weeks plan, rather, it is a lose 3 lbs / week plan. My plan works best for logical thinkers, not emotional thinkers. If you are a scientist or engineer, it is really easy.

The Science There is no magic bullet. Caloric input (eating) must be less than caloric output (sitting, walking, running, sleeping, and exercise). You have to eat less energy than the energy that you use in any 24 hour period. Simple.
What you need to do

• Set goals – 50 push ups, 180 lbs, 5 mile run, 200 sit ups, Walk up 20 flights of stairs, etc.
• Diet – eat 500 calories less than your body needs to maintain your current weight. If you aren’t active, that number is probably below 1700 calories a day. Calculator
• Exercise – you’ll feel better, gain stamina, prevent muscle loss while dieting, gain strength and most importantly, look better. Oh, someone says that muscle burns more calories than fat.
• No gym membership needed. No fancy equipment, just normal tennis shoes, a few dumb bells and your body weight for push ups, dips, squats, and pull ups. Expensive equipment is just another delay. Gym memberships are a complete waste of money unless you’ve already proven that you’d use it 5+ times a week. DON’T SIGN A CONTRACT, period.
• Write down everything you eat. EVERYTHING except water, that is. Keep your food diary forever. Plan your food before you start eating. Plan the calories. Some calories for common foods
• Drink water. Lots of water. Filtered or not. Bottled or not. I drink tap water myself. Well over 32 oz is needed daily. 64 oz may be too much.
• Weigh in daily AND write your weight down – this allows you to adjust for any problems or eating mistakes quicker than weekly. I post mine on the fridge. Review where you’ve been every day. Every success, 1 day at a time, means something.
• Measure and track what you do – this helps you predict when you’ll hit your goal weight. That’s good for getting to your goals. I’m tracking weight, predicted weight, push ups, cardio exercise time, waist, chest, belly, neck and estimated % body fat using the US Navy estimation method.
• Graph what you measure! I have a graph that shows my actual weight and predicted weight if I keep losing 3 & 4 lbs/week. When I fall behind, that gives me purpose for my next workout and feedback on my daily eating so I can adjust or see where I went wrong.
• Avoid Starvation mode – don’t eat too few calories. It helps 1 day, but not much more.
• Count calories – ok, estimate them. It takes about 2 weeks to get good at estimates. Don’t be fooled. It is easy to guess wrong. For 1 meal a week, that’s probably not an issue. More than that – who knows? We all want to be successful with our goals, right? I try to eat about 1700 calories a day.
• Ski machine, free weights, walking, outdoor activities
• No caffeine, no soda, avoid processed foods. Portion control.
• Eat breakfast (400+ cal) and lunch (~700 cal) for most of your daily calories – healthy snacks (~100 cal ea) too
• Don’t eat too much fruit – never more than 2 pieces a day. That’s usually 4 servings.
• Avoid bread – I guess you can find whole grain bread and be fine. I choose to only have bread with my HEAVY lunch, once a week.
• Eat a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack. I’ve usually not hungry when I’m eating it, but that’s the point!
• Fill in remaining daily calories for dinner – usually ~200 cal, so veggies and fruit or oatmeal work. DO NOT HAVE A BIG MEAL LATE In THE DAY. PERIOD
• Don’t go to sleep on a full stomach – ever.
• Don’t eat after 7pm. If I missed dinner, too bad.
• Nuts – there’s something about them is filling. Limit the serving to 1 handful per day and know that it is usually 200 calories, so plan accordingly.
• Have some kind of dairy every day for calcium. Yogurt, skim milk, and yes, cheese.
• Don’t eat too much protein, but have meat/egg protein with breakfast AND lunch. Dinner doesn’t need protein since it will be a heavy meal if you do.
• Don’t skip meals or snacks unless it is a "cheat day".
• Fish is good. White, salmon, cod, crayfish, lobster, crab – yummy. No butter, obviously.
• Avoid processed foods. If it comes in a box, don’t eat it. Fresh is best.
• Whole bran foods are good, but don’t believe the package. Read the ingredients and check the calories per serving and determine what YOUR serving size and calories will be.
• Avoid white rice. The missing husks are the problem. Brown rice is just normal rice without the husks removed.
• Avoid salt.
• Don’t avoid fat like you think. You need fat calories too.
• Avoid packaged foods, except for emergencies. A frozen meal has all the calories listed which makes it easy, but that shouldn’t be your main plain. Fresh food is best and ties you emotionally to what you eat. Soon, you won’t want to put anything processed into your body.
• Bring water and healthy snacks with you. Fruit and single portion nuts in a bag are best for this. I refill a water bottle and leave it in my car. Since I live in the suburbs, walking places isn’t an option.
• Take a multi-vitamin daily – you have cut your calories, so you need to be careful that you don’t cause malnutrition.
• Take an Omega-3 pill daily
  Ok, so you have a list of what not to eat.
  What do I eat? Some of my favorites:
• Fruit: Banana, Apple, Orange, Tomato, Strawberry, Blackberry, Raspberry, pretty much any ‘berry’ fresh or frozen,
• Nuts: Walnuts, Almonds, Cashews, Peanuts
• Vegetables: Cauliflower, Broccoli, Corn, Onion, Romain Lettuce, Mushrooms, shredded carrots (not too many), potato, Brussels Sprouts, Green Beans, Snow Peas, Fresh sweet peas (never frozen), lots of fresh beans (15 bean soup anyone?)
• Meat/Fish: salmon, tuna, cod, trout, snapper, crab, shrimp, crayfish, chicken, occasionally beef. Yummy.

Exercise

• Nordic Track Cross Country Skier
• Power 90 exercise tapes
• Comcast On-Demand Exercise Shows
• Walking
• Yard Work / Brush Clearing
• Park a little further than you normally do
• Take stairs or get off the elevator a few floors early. I used to work on 37th floor, so walking up/down all those flights is a 30+ minute commitment. I’ve never walked up them. I have walked down them – 4 times – during complete building evacuations. 1 was for real – fire on the 46th floor. My legs were very shaky at the bottom.

Final Thoughts
Everyone cheats. Don’t worry about it too much if it happens once a week. I plan on cheating at least 2 meals each week. That doesn’t mean I eat more calories that day. I just have to build them into the total or eat extremely light meals/snacks on that day. I’ve lost 30 pounds in under 2 months doing what this page says and I’m not exercising like crazy either.

What more do you need? Take some pictures of before and again every 10 pounds that you lose.

Typical Food Day | Cheat Food Day | Healthy Lifestyle Motivation Techniques |
Outside link – I didn’t read this until I was writing this page.

As many of you know, I’m losing a little weight while retired. The plan started in mid-November 2007.
Goals

1. Lose weight – about 100 lbs.
2. Increase cardio health, strength, & stamina
3. Consider getting ripped for the last 20 lbs.
4. Don’t gain any weight over Thanksgiving or Xmas holidays
5. Get my resting heart rate below 50 again, like it was in my 20s.

Strategy:

• Diet, exercise, weigh in daily, tracking, & graphing (XLS)
• Eat about 1700 calories a day – yes, that means I need to approximate calorie for foods I like
• Ski machine, free weights, outdoor activities
• No caffeine, no soda, avoid processed foods. Portion control.
• Eat breakfast (400+ cal) and lunch (~700 cal) for most of my daily calories – healthy snacks (~100 cal ea) too
• Fill in remaining daily calories for dinner – usually ~200 cal, so veggies and fruit or oatmeal work
• Nuts – there’s something about them and milk that helps me lose weight and feel full.

Log
What has happened so far? Basically, I’ve lost 3 lbs/week since starting. If this continues, by June 2008, I should be nearing my goal.

The No S Diet

- all data in this section is total loss, not weekly.