Thanks...looking forward to your post.
I was actually getting ready to post about my ongoing weight loss regimen so this thread is timely.
So first, let me start at the beginning. April 1, 2003. I was 6'3" but my weight had creeped up to 303 pounds with a 48-50 inch waist. Clearly not a good situation to be in health-wise though I had been fortunate enough not to have any serious health problems up to that point. I will never forget that day. It was a balmy day, spring was in the air, and it was April Fool's day. Winter was over! I felt like it was a new beginning and so at lunch time, I broke from my regular routine of a fast-food lunch and decided to go for a walk instead.
Near my office at the time, there was one of those rail-to-trail bike paths. I'd seen the walkers, joggers and bicyclists crossing it all the time but I never bothered to check it out. I was pretty much a sedentary person. Give me a book to read, a six pack of beer, and I'm good for the afternoon.
But today, April 1, 2003, I decided to check it out. At 300+ pounds, I wasn't in the best of shape but I made it about a mile and a half down that trail before turning around and headed back. This was a very urban area but the bike trail took me through meadows, woods and lakes that I never knew existed in the area. It was a very invigorating walk and I was immediately addicted to my new lunchtime routine. I resolved then and there that I would walk that trail every workday until winter came back around again.
It wasn't without aches and pains. Suddenly walking 3+ miles a day took it's toll and I especially remember my thighs rubbing together and finding out that I was bleeding through my pants and chafing them down to bare threads. But I kept at it and pushed through the pain.
Almost immediately, I started reading diet books and researched weight loss on the internet. I decided to try the Atkins Diet, which was popular at the time. At first, I was turned off by the fact that I had to cut out things like bread, rice and pasta - all foods I ate in massive amounts. I mean, my typical dinner would be a plate of spaghetti and half a loaf of bread. I would make spaghetti sandwiches. And don't even get me started on pizza. I could easily eat an entire large pizza by myself in one sitting.
But I pretty much followed the plan and I documented it here on Free Republic at the time. You might be able to pull up some of those threads. Between the diet and the walking, I started shedding pounds at the rate of 3-4 pounds a week at times. I sometimes would "plateau" and get stuck at the same weight for a few days but then I would suddenly lose 2-3 pounds overnight and the weight loss would continue again.
As the weather warmed, I increased my walking. Brisk walking. I started getting up at 5 in the morning so that I could walk an hour before going to work. Then I'd do the lunchtime walk. Then I'd walk another hour or two after getting home. On weekends, I would walk up to 10 miles at a time. This was high summer and had daylight from 5am to 8pm so it was easy to get the walking in.
I wasn't a fanatic about counting calories but I stayed away from the foods Atkins told me to stay away from. I started eating more steak and broccoli instead of burgers and fries. I had eggs and bacon for breakfast instead of bowls of cold cereal and toast.
I also decided to stick to natural foods and avoided processed foods - even if they met the Atkins guidelines. That meant mostly eggs, nuts, meats, fish, cheese, yogurt, vegetables, berries and other food in its natural form. If it came in a package with a long list of ingredients, I didn't eat it. If it came in a bun (like a hot dog or burger), I tossed the bun and just ate the meat.
So by mid November, right before Thanksgiving, I reached my lowest weight of 197. I had achieved my goal which was to get under 200 pounds. I was now down to a 33 inch waist and I changed my hairstyle and dressed much better (mainly because I didn't have to go to the big and tall store to get my clothes). The weight loss was so fast that people that hadn't seen me in a while did not recognize me. I remember going to corporate around September of that year. It was eerie passing by people in the hallway that knew me well but they did not recognize me. When I introduced myself, or rather re-introduced myself, it was almost always a shocked reaction.
However, at the time, I attributed the weight loss not so much to the Atkins diet but to all the walking that I did. By then, I was logging 20,000 steps a day on my pedometer (about 10 miles) by walking three or more hours every day. I had started to add carbs back into my diet like beer, pretzels and whole grain breads. So I figured that while the low carb diet helped accelerate my weight loss, it was really the exercise I was doing that was responsible.
I will continue this in the next reply...
November of 2003, I achieved my goal of being under 200 pounds for the first time since I was in Marine Boot Camp. At that point, I decided to take a victory lap. Thanksgiving and Christmas was upon us and I went completely off my diet and started gorging on things like pumpkin pie, egg nog and cookies. I couldn't imagine getting through the holidays otherwise. So I put the bathroom scales away and decided to reward myself for a while. I figured that after the New Year, I'd get back on track again.
You can probably guess the rest. I never did weigh myself again and though I did try to watch what I ate, familiar foods like pizza, pasta and even bagels started making their way back into my diet.
However, I kept up the exercise. I loved to walk, even in cold weather. The iPod was still a new gadget at that time and I would look forward to going on long walks with my iPod and re-discovering my music library and I also got into audiobooks.
So it wasn't like I zoomed back to over 300 pounds overnight. I actually kept most of the weight off for several years, and I attributed this to the exercise I was doing. I figured that the whole low-carb thing was unnecessary. So long as I exercised and kept in shape, I'd stay somewhat slim.
But I was only fooling myself in the long term. The weight did start creeping up again and increasing my exercise didn't reverse it. But I felt great and I was in good health. So I figured what's the big deal about being a little chubby so long as I'm in such good physical shape. So I started buying clothes in larger sizes and by 2008, I was back to 250 and headed up.
In 2012, I had my physical and weighed 275 pounds. I was shocked to see I had put all that weight on but doctor told me I was otherwise in good health so I didn't worry too much and I kept on eating the way that I was and even started adding in processed foods again like Fig Newtons, candies and tortilla chips. However, I was disappointed that I didn't pass for being slim anymore. People that had originally used me as an example for weight loss stopped talking about me.
My biggest shock however was my last physical on Nov 19th. I skipped my physicals in 2013 and 2014 because I was busy with my career and spent most of 2014 relocating here to Connecticut and in the process, lived out of a hotel for several months. Of course, that meant dining out 2-3 times a day. And since the company was paying most of the time, I ate rather well and I always had appetizers and dessert.
Not only did I find myself well over 300 pounds (above my initial starting weight in 2003) but my blood pressure was high and I had signs of "metabolic syndrome" which is basically a nice way of saying I was headed for diabetes, fatty liver, heart disease and worse.
So November 19th was very much like April 1, 2003. I stopped what I was eating cold turkey and immediately switched to what worked for me before. Which is not "Atkins", "Paleo", or any other of the named fad diets; but whole natural foods.
Since November 19th - which was just 70 days ago - I have taken off 36 pounds and this time, I've set my target at 185 pounds, which is about right for somebody of my height. So I have almost 100 pounds left to go.
This time I'm not a nut about the exercise, but I do get out for a nice long walk 3-4 times a week. I do try to get in at least 10,000 steps a day which I do most of the time. But I don't sweat it if I don't.
I just watch what I eat and I used the MyFitnessPal app and record everything I eat. I stick to the whole natural foods only. The beauty of it is that I never feel hungry or like I'm denying myself. I stay away from anything labeled "low-fat" because fat is good. When it's low-fat, it is likely that sugar or salt will be added to make the food palatable and that's not good.
It makes me angry that the government all these years has been giving us such bad advice about nutrition. Like for instance that egg yolks are bad and you should eat egg whites only. Or that margarine is better than real butter. And don't get me started on that obscene food pyramid with the 8-11 servings a day of grains at the bottom. They are fattening us like a farmer fattens cows!
So here is how my typical day will be food-wise.
Breakfast will be a container of whole-milk Siggi's yogurt - which is much more healthier than the "low-fat" varieties that are loaded with added sugar. Siggi's is actually a "skyr" closer in consistency to cream cheese than yogurt. But so filling and healthy. I mix in about a 1/2 cup of frozen blueberries (Wyman's) and it's delicious and filling. I also have a hard-boiled egg. After all that (just 208 calories) I'm full until lunch. In fact, I'm often not even hungry at lunch and need to force myself to have it. Usually a couple servings of nuts like raw almonds, hazelnuts or pumpkin seeds. Or maybe a piece of wild caught salmon or some sardines.
Dinner is always decent. Steak, turkey, chicken or fish with vegetables like brussels sprouts, broccoli or even a sweet potato, with butter or olive oil. Or a homemade turkey or chicken soup with onions, garlic, celery, turnips and other great stuff added to it.
Point is, I'm never hungry and the pounds are slipping away. I completely avoid bread, pasta, rice and baked goods. Not as hard as it seems. I eat virtually nothing that comes out of a package, especially if it has a bunch of ingredients. That's always the telltale sign of bad food - a long list of ingredients you can barely pronounce.
I love beer but I've cut back on that and will never have more than two bottles - when I do have it. Usually though I'll stick to a glass of red wine which has many health benefits.
Another thing I've done different this time and I posted about it here recently, is that I drink my coffee black. No sweetener and no creamer. Now this is an acquired taste but once you acquire it, you never go back. It's also nice to walk into coffee shops and just order black coffee you are in and out of there in a flash. No fussing with sugar and creamers.
The only "sweet" I have is dark chocolate, which is actually a health food loaded with antioxidants and micronutrients, and I'm talking dark chocolate that is at least 85% cacao. I currently eat 88% cacao and it's only 5 grams of sugar a serving (and I only have half a serving at that). It's bitter but also an acquired taste. Once you cut out sweets, a few squares of dark chocolate tastes very good.
Well I can go on and on but I'll summarize my experience this way. The human body was designed to acquire and hold onto fat. The trick is to get your body to burn that fat instead of storing it away. When you restrict sugar (carbs), you force the body to burn fat. So all these "low-fat" diets have it backwards. You should actually eat MORE fat (and protein) and much less sugar (and in fact no "added sugar"). I'm not a doctor so forgive me if I could have worded that better but I now know from personal experience that this "whole food" diet works like a charm. We need to stop obsessing over things like removing skin from chicken, eating egg whites and eating low-fat yogurt crammed with added sugar disguised as "fruit on bottom" and EMBRACE the fat!
Maybe those who are interested can get a ping list going about this subject. I would be interested to hear about other people's experiences with obesity and how to overcome it.