How I Lost Weight

I have tried many different diets and diet programs over the years and what I have found is that the simplest approach works best. You can use tools and products to make the process somewhat easier but you should not ignore a few absolutely basic principles:

1. The body is an engine and food is its fuel. If you take in food at a higher rate than you are burning it you will gain weight. If you take in food at a slower rate than you are burning it you will lose weight.
2. You need to know how much fuel (calories) you are taking in.
3. You need to know how much fuel (calories) you are burning.
4. You need to use the moving average of your weight taken at the same time daily to determine the effectiveness of your dieting program.

If you follow these 4 principles you will understand how to control your weight. If you are following a diet where you are missing one or more of these elements, your success will be unpredictable. Luckily, all of information is readily available today, either from links on this website or on food labels. Using a common food scale is very practical. If you are eating prepared food with no information about the caloric content, I have found that a good rule of thumb to use is 200 calories/100g for very lean food (like plain cooked rice), 300 calories/100g for moderately lean food (a dish with a fair amount of lean meat) and 400 calories/100g for the greasy goodies (pizza with extra bacon). 100 g is a convenient unit because it corresponds to about 4 oz, which is also used on food packages. Also a serving will be on the order of 100-300g, which makes calculations pretty easy. These estimates may be off by a significant amount in some cases but it is always better to have an estimate that is off by a few hundred calories in a day than to have absolutely no idea of your intake.

As for the amount of calories that you burn, a good estimate for an average sized male with moderate daily activity is about 100 calories per hour. It actually takes a lot of exercise to burn off that slice of pizza. You can find more details about the energy expenditure for different activities on links in this site but the rule I have used is 700 calories/hour for sustained vigorous exercise like swimming, biking, running, etc.

So that's it. Add up how many calories you take in per day and subtract the calories you burn and you can predict how much fat weight you will gain or lose over time. In order to do that you need to know that one pound of fat is about 3000 calories. This places some practical limitations on how quickly you can lose weight in a healthy way. From my experience it is difficult to stay below 1500 calories a day without being excessively distracted by hunger. So if you exercise for about an hour to bring your caloric expenditure to about 3000 calories a day and consume on average 1500 calories per day, it is reasonable to expect to lose half a pound of fat per day, or 15 pounds per month.

Now, actually measuring the weight that you lose (or gain) is not as simple as it might seem. The problem is that the daily weight fluctuations due to fluids can be greater that the amount of fat being changed. For example, using the target of half a pound of fat loss per day, you may lose that fat but gain 2 pounds of fluids from one day to the next. One good solution for this problem is to plot your weight on a daily basis, immediately after waking and urinating. Taking a shower or bath can reduce weight by a surprising amount (1-2 pounds sometimes) so make sure that you take the number at the same point in your routine. By plotting the weight on a daily basis you should focus on the moving average, which you can think of as the trend on the scale of weeks. You should attribute no significance to a weight value on a specific day.

These are the basics. The hard facts that you can't ignore to be successful. These principles tell you what your target caloric intake should be for your goal but they don't address the motivational issues. For example, there are products available (like phentermine) that can be used to suppress appetite. There are some good deals available for these products on the links below.

Keep in mind that none of the above is to be interpreted as medical advice. It only reflects the personal experience of the author.

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