I have a lot to say about my weigh loss journey, but I think the thing most people are interested is in the how. I know I have read many books and articles about how to lose weight in hopes of finding the secret to success. Often I find contradictory information on things (only eat full fat dairy/low fat dairy/no dairy) and things that make me think being fat is the better alternative. I read the sample menus and I just can't do it. I'll just share my experience after years of dieting. What worked for me 20 years ago no longer works and what worked for me last year didn't work as well this year. It might not work for you, but it is the question I am most asked so I will answer it here.
I will explain the whys later, and give you the how now in 2 parts. There is the first 90 and the last 20 which overlap because of a 10 pound Holiday gain. The first 90 is what I'd recommend for anyone who needs to lose a lot of weight. When you want to lose a hundred pounds or so it is a very daunting task. I remember putting my information into a diet calculator and seeing it would take over a year of faithful dieting to achieve my goal and that just really seemed like a LONG time to be on a diet. It is a long time. It is too long. I think that is one reason people so often fail. I briefly talked to a cashier at Target one day who said she was on a 1000 calorie diet to lose over 100 pounds...I should have said something, but I wanted to be supportive and I couldn't think of a non-negative way to say that was way too restrictive to keep up and lower calories than recommended. It is really hard to diet off 100 lbs. I couldn't do it anyway. What I did was a lifestyle change. I tried to act like and feed the thin woman trapped within me. I started walking. I ate 1800 calories a day in 6 small snacky meals which tended to be (5 X 200) +800 because I need dinner. Dinner I eat with my family. I need to feel full once a day. A typical days menu would be: Before 10: FiberPlus protein bar, 10-12: 45 g shelled pistachios, 12-2 8 oz lowfat chocolate greek yogurt sweetened with stevia (homemade, it is actually easy!), 2-4 2 oz turkey jerky, 4-6 30g roasted almonds, after 6 8 oz grilled chicken, 8 oz black beans and a serving of corn or peas. I don't like fruit or vegetables otherwise I'd have gotten to eat a lot more by munching on veggies all day! I changed the marinade for the chicken and twice a week I had pork or beef for dinner. I aimed for 1800 calories a day, but I tried to have one 1200 day and one 2400 day. The higher day is more important. You don't want your body to learn that 1800 is the most it will get and adjust to that. I started out walking 2 miles a day and increased until I was walking about 9 miles a day. It became habit, routine, and I lost about 10 lbs a month just living my life which is dominated by my 3 kids. I walk the older 2 to school (1/2 mile each way), take a 6 mile walk, pick up the middle girl, and then walk to pick up the eldest later. Three round trips which saves gas, wear and tear on the van and saves me dealing with school traffic so it is a win-win! Nothing extreme. No starvation, no boot camp. On my walk I pushed my youngest in the stroller while Facebooking. The weight steadily came off, slowing down to 5-8 lbs a month towards the last few months. Then I hit a plateau. Then I gained. Then I tried some stuff that didn't work. Then I came to the last 20.
The last 20 was different. When I had 104 to lose it was a marathon. At 20 it is more of a sprint. You can do things for 20 lbs that you wouldn't do for 100. Maybe someone else would, but I don't think I would have. I changed from mainly being concerned that I stay within my calorie allotment (going for a 1000 calorie deficit) to LOW carb. I read The Metabolism Miracle...ok, I skimmed a lot of it, I have 3 kids, I don't carefully read much. I didn't follow it very well, but I took 2 things from it--1 really low carb day, 50-80 carb days and 90 second high intensity intervals during cardio. So for 30 days I pretty much had the following menu most days: Before 10, Promax LS bar (18 g protein and 14 g fiber, sweetened with Stevia), 10-12: 3 eggs scrambled, 12-2: 8 oz grilled chicken breast, 2-4: PromaxLS bar, 4-6: can of tuna with mustard, after 6: grilled chicken breast, sometimes bacon wrapped. 2 nights a week this is replaced with pork or beef. One day a week I sub something else for the bars like mozzarella cheese sticks and extra chicken. Definitely no wheat or white sugar at any time. After 30 days, since I am so close to my goal I switched to maintenance mode. Monday through Wednesday I eat like I did the first phase--going for a 1000 calorie deficit, but allowing complex carbs. Thursday I do the under 20 carb menu. Friday through Sunday I do 50-80 carbs. I call that "maintenance mode" because that is basically what I will be doing for the next 6 months while my set point is hopefully adjusting. The only difference will be that I won't be going for a 1000 calorie deficit. I'll get to eat more. At first I thought I'd just stop taking my walk and reclaim that time, but that doesn't seem like a good idea--exercise is good even if you aren't trying to lose weight. Adding in an extra 1000 is disgustingly easy. It is a lot to cut, but adding in it adds up fast. Pretty much I could have one of those blended coffee drinks at Starbucks and be done. I think one of the biggest mistakes people make dieting is that at the end they think they are done. For months after losing your body really wants to gain that weight back so what you eat then is just as important as what you ate to lose the weight.
On my walk I added in four 90 second spurts where I run. I use an interval timer and have it set so I walk for 20 minutes, run 90 seconds, walk 20 minutes and so on. I don't really like running with the stroller, but it still seems to be very effective. For toning, since I am close to my goal, I do push ups, lunges with weights, squats, crunches, leg lifts, planks...basically the greatest hits from 30 Day Shred. I use an interval timer to time 30 second sets and I just rotate through. I don't think I'd try that stuff too heavy--I don't think it pays off. I could be wrong, but I think I would have been too discouraged if I'd tried pushups in the beginning.
In between phase 1 and phase 2 which I have only named in retrospect--it wasn't the plan, I stumbled and then flailed. First I stagnated, then I stumbled and then I flailed. There may be lessons to be learned in there so I will talk about it.
A year ago basically I went from steadily losing to very slowly losing and then I just stopped before I actually gained some. As I got more active I started eating more. I wear a BodyMedia Core band that monitors my activity and I enter my food into Myfitnesspal which syncs with my band and tells me how much I should eat. It is a pretty cool set up, and I recommend both. The summer was hard because my routine was disrupted and we took several short trips which meant "vacation eating." Typically when I fall off the wagon I am up 5 lbs the day after we get back from a 2-3 day trip. It goes on fast. The combination of drive thru, not drinking enough water and sitting in the car for 3 hours each way, restaurant portions, hotel free breakfasts (carbs and fat) just does me in every time. Usually most of it is off in a week, but that 3 days pretty much put me a week or two behind each time and we went every few weeks! So when school started again I was about where I was when school ended rather than having gotten to my goal as I'd assumed I would. Then even when school started and I got back into my routine nothing much happened until I hit the Holiday season and I gained 10 lbs. This was very discouraging since I went from being midway in the 20 lbs that is the difference between being "Healthy Weight" and "Obese" which is just "overweight" and back up to "OBESE" which made me sad. It was especially disheartening because I hadn't gone on a month long free for all. I'd had a few bad days, BUT the majority of days I still was making my 1000 calorie deficit through all of this! So there was the wonder if my BodyMedia band was inaccurate, but all the info I have found on them says they are very accurate. Even if it were 80% accurate I still should have lost more than I gained.
The year before I'd made it through the holidays losing 5 lbs which I'd been bummed about since I was used to losing 8-10 a month. Then I realized that there was a difference between Holidays 2012 and Holidays 2013. In 2012 I made fudge. 2013 was the year I tried to perfect my cookie cutter cookie recipes and technique. I baked a lot of cookies. I ate a lot of cookies. I would eat cookies when I wasn't hungry and my stomach hurt from being too full. PMS hit really hard and I'd eat insane amounts. I like fudge, but I never ate myself sick on it. Then I read something about the whole "Wheat Belly" idea and decided that going wheat-free was worth a try.
So come January 1st I started anew with a fresh vengeance. Wheat free AND I took my activity up a notch and traded my moderate activity (walking) for vigorous activity and started doing Shaun T Rockin' Body DVDs and Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. I wasn't messing around. I also didn't lose much weight and my pants weren't getting loose so it wasn't a matter of muscle just weighing so much more than fat. I was running 1500-2000 calorie deficits a day and not losing. So I thought maybe my body had gone into starvation mode because I was burning so much more than I was eating and I started eating more...and I gained weight despite the 1000 calorie deficit! I lost 6 pounds in January when I would have expected to lose more coming off a splurge month which should have meant lost retained water, but then GAINED 1.8 lbs in February. March, which was when I switched to the low carb I lost 13.9 pounds. I use an app called Happy Scale which keeps track of that stuff for me. The other change I made in March is I went back to my 6 mile walk. It was my "research" (that is my fancy way of saying "Googling") into how I could be not losing weight despite exercising more that led me to the low carb thing--someone mentioned the Metabolism Miracle which I then got from the library. While I didn't follow the diet really, I did take note of some of the principles. Mainly, keeping insulin release to a minimum.
I'd tried low carb back about 15 years ago and hated it and it didn't work. It had made me cranky and lethargic. This time, eating every 2-3 hours I felt great. I can't just eat 4 oz of lean protein at a sitting. That is pretty much a deal breaker for me. However, my way worked for me. Eating the whole 8 oz chicken breast didn't void the results. Years ago what worked for me was eating once a day. I lost 100 lbs in 9 months that way back in my 20's. That and a combination of ephedra, caffeine and aspirin. And being 25, that helped...and I smoked. Once a day with no carbs was awful. The benefit of eating once a day was I could have anything I wanted as long as it wasn't deep fried so if I was craving something I just had to wait for my next meal/opportunity rather than it being off limits. Chicken club croissant sandwich? Sure. I just had a baked potato instead of fries. I worked in restaurants so that was handy. I couldn't do that now. I didn't have to shop or prep food which was a bonus.
I came by the eat every 2-3 hours thing because I had to do that when I had Gestational Diabetes when I was pregnant with my youngest. I lost 10 lbs in the 10 weeks I had it. I've read that there is no proof that it has any impact on weight loss, but it works for me. I can eat more in a day when I eat 6 small meals than I can if I eat 1-3. I always eat at least 7 grams of protein every snack. Now I avoid wheat and white sugar. In a few weeks I'll experiment with adding back sugar. So far the benefit of no wheat is I don't get cravings. The benefit of going really low carb is that lowers appetite. I've made many treats without being tempted to even try one bite. I don't buy into the you can eat as much protein as you want, no need to count calories if you aren't eating carbs idea. IMO calories always count and I could eat an insane amount of bacon. I could probably eat a pound or 2 of bacon (well, a pound or two raw cooked which wouldn't weigh a pound since so much of the weight cooks off, not a pound or 2 of crispy bacon. I think a pound of raw bacon cooks off to 3 oz. I could probably eat 6 oz of crispy cooked bacon and that would not be good, delicious, but not healthy. I could eat a lot of calories in meat easily. I weigh and log everything I eat.
I have tried cooking things without wheat and have had good success. Nothing has gone straight to the trash. I did eat 3 nice slices of wheat-free bread to log it and find that for the same calories I could have eaten almost a whole pint of Ben n Jerry's core ice cream! That made me a little sad. Hot bread out of the oven is just so good. It didn't make me feel puffy the way that wheat does and it didn't start a feeding frenzy. Who knows if the sugar in the ice-cream would have affected me differently. I'm not going to find out until I hit my goal. I can say that because it is a week or 2 away.
The benefit of cycling between low carb, really low carb, and higher carb is that for one, anything you do too consistently your body adjusts to. If you eat 1200 every day for too long your body will adjust. I assume the same would happen with under 80 carbs. The other benefit is that by splitting the week there are things I can eat some days that I would not be able to eat if I only ate one way. For instance--I couldn't fit bacon wrapped chicken or a big steak into the calorie count on just a low calorie day. I can have bread. When I have a higher calorie allowance I can try out wheat-free baked goods recipes. Wheat-free flours with coconut sugar for low glycemic treats. I'll share the recipes.
