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United States24813 Posts
This may be a bit unusual but I'm not here to lay out my plan for losing weight. I'm going to talk about how I recently succeeded in losing weight.
When I read Sheth's blog about his plan to lose weight, I thought to myself, "You know, I really should lose some weight too." I bought a fairly accurate scale off of amazon and created an excel spreadsheet that would track my weight daily. The plan was to weigh myself every morning when I got up (figured after you go to the bathroom is a good time!) There were some days I was distracted and forgot to weigh myself, so there are a few gaps, but it's not a big problem. Here is the result:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cUeLx.png)
Apparently I'm just a couple of pounds from being within my ideal weight range now. I'm going to keep it up for a few more weeks and see how it goes.
So I guess the important part of this blog is: how did I do it? I wish I could say I willed it and it just happened, but I had a little bit of help. After talking to a couple of people I decided to try nutrisystem. I would eat one of their breakfasts when I got up, along with one of their protein shakes. Mid-morning (an hour or two before lunch) I would eat a 'powerfuel' such as a piece of string cheese or a few walnuts. Lunch I would eat one of their lunch entrees, as well as a smart carb (piece of whole grain bread or fruit) and another power fuel. I would have a snack (dessert item) late afternoon, one of their dinner entrees for dinner along with two smart carbs, and another dessert item after dinner. Wherever I wanted I was supposed to insert some non-starchy vegetables as well. Water was the drink of choice, 100% of the time.
It's obviously worked pretty well, although you couldn't tell by watching me from day to day. I often wouldn't clean out the mixer I used to make yesterday's protein shake, and would have to skip/substitute the protein shake (I haven't had it in like 5 days rofl). Sometimes I would just say 'screw it' and cheat a little if I still felt hungry. Whenever I went out to eat it was very difficult to maintain my diet for that meal. I would sometimes not pack lunch and have to go out and get a lunch that was less healthy (and more expensive :/ )
Looking back I kinda wonder how this has worked as well as it has. I guess, when your goal diet is much lower in calories than your previous diet, a little cheating feels much worse than it really is. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I'm not a 58 year old post-menopausal woman...
Anyway, once I hit my ideal weight soon (maybe 5-10 more pounds off) I'm going to go off the diet. The hard part is to keep the weight off, right? Well yea, it will take some adjusting, but I have a secret weapon: I have done very little exercise (other than lots of walking at work) since I started this diet. When I go off this diet I will just get a good amount of exercise to compensate! I guess I'll eventually share how that went...
Good luck to anyone else with similar goals.
Moral of story: eat a little bit of food every couple of hours; spread it out!
 
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Congrats on the progress, although I would amend your last bit of advice with a bit of a nod to generality. As you yourself suggested, you more or less stumbled onto this method of weightloss and luckily it worked; the same cannot be said for every person. I myself spun my weght loss wheels hardcore with nutrisystem, forcing myself to eat crappy food and still staying at over 300 pounds. My personal path to weightloss, as time and progress would show me, depended heavily on exercise, so much so that I've become somewhat addicted to the gym. I'm proud to brag in regards to my now well over 4 years of heavy workouts and smart eating, as I've gone from a 315 lb weakling to a 235 borderline competitive lifter.
The moral of the story is that the essential component of success with weightloss is an understanding of how truly idiosyncratic we all are as human beings, and that spaced out controlled dieting might work just as well for one person as intermittant fasting and heavy lifting does for another. My advice to you? Hit the weights son, once you get some muscle mass keeping the weight off becomes so much easier.
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That graph, it's so beautiful. The definite trend, the minimized error only possible using the the inerrant subject of linear algebra, the labeled axis, even a slope of negative a quarter pound per day!
+ Show Spoiler +I don't care how mush you weigh, but keep making graphs, and you'll keep getting respect.
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Congrats on losing weight but I just can't agree on weight loss things like Nutrisystem. Just the name makes me wanna throw that stuff out the window. I know for some people it can be a godsend since they can't keep up a good everything homemade and healthy diet. But still, even hearing the name nutrisystem, it sounds really unhealthy to me.
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United States24813 Posts
Yea nutrisystem is really a temporary thing in my opinion. It's great for people who don't eat healthy because of the time/effort it takes to prepare food instead of buy it, though!
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I wonder whether just weighing yourself every day isn't the most important part of this because it makes you think about what you are going to eat. So many times when we don't consider what we will eat in advance, the quick solution is bad for us.
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On March 12 2012 00:59 micronesia wrote:
Yea nutrisystem is really a temporary thing in my opinion. It's great for people who don't eat healthy because of the time/effort it takes to prepare food instead of buy it, though!
Did it taste good? It looked really good in the commercials but I'm legitimately wondering if that was just commercials or if its actually good LOL
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You know I rarely ever see successful stories of people losing real definitive weight just from dieting. There's almost always some exercising in their routines. But that's one hell of a solid graph micronesia, great job putting off that weight in a healthy way =).
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On March 12 2012 00:30 micronesia wrote:
When I go off this diet I will just get a good amount of exercise to compensate! I guess I'll eventually share how that went...
Why not start now? Perhaps you trust yourself and your willpower sufficiently enough to believe you will start and keep exercising without hesitation. But why not start now? Unless you have some temporary time constraint that won't be there after the diet, why put it off?
Moral of story: eat a little bit of food every couple of hours; spread it out!
Don't wanna hijack the direction, but this is as big a misconception as there is in the world of weight loss. At the end of the day the most important factor is the amount of calories you have ingested, as opposed to the amount you have burned. The idea of spreading it out works for some people, but it is only one way to losing weight.
Alas, congrats on your success!
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I recently lost about 25 pounds and I was also worried about gaining the weight once I went off the diet. What I found was that I developed eating habits that stuck with me. It is impossible for me to eat the way I used to. I would recommend finding ways to start counting calories of your normal every day foods. I'm a college student, so that means I'm on campus all day. There's a bunch of fast food around me and not many healthy choices.
For the first two weeks, it was pretty difficult to stay on such a low calorie count and at the time, I didnt have a variety of food that fit into my calorie count, but as I went along, things became a lot easier. I was eating out almost every day during the diet and I did have a soda once a day, but I was still losing one pound a week. I convinced myself that so long I was meeting a certain calorie count that I was eating enough food, even if the meal seemed small. I will say though that eating subway and potbelly sandwiches did become a staple for me. My sandwiches ranged from 300-400 calories. I usually would not eat chips/sides with it. If I went to chipotle, I would ask them to give me two taco's instead of three. Eventually what happened was that in order to enjoy the food I had at lunch and dinner more, I started making my breakfast smaller. I went from a 300 calorie breakfast at the beginning to about 100-200 calories. That way I could get just a little extra at lunch and dinner.
I did weigh myself everyday. I think it's really important to do so. It helps you stay motivated and lets you know when you've eaten a little much the day before. This way, I would know that I need to watch out a little or maybe eat a little less this day. I found that I kept a steady weight on most days until that one pound disappeared. Also, when you weigh yourself everyday, you start to understand the effects of the food you eat a little better.
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On March 12 2012 01:16 Snuggles wrote:
You know I rarely ever see successful stories of people losing real definitive weight just from dieting. There's almost always some exercising in their routines. But that's one hell of a solid graph micronesia, great job putting off that weight in a healthy way =).
On the contrary, from my experience, dieting is actually like 90% of the weight loss.
Congrats micronesia! I hate dieting :/ Mad props for having the dedication and the willpower to pull it off!
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United States24813 Posts
On March 12 2012 01:16 unichan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 00:59 micronesia wrote:
Yea nutrisystem is really a temporary thing in my opinion. It's great for people who don't eat healthy because of the time/effort it takes to prepare food instead of buy it, though! Did it taste good? It looked really good in the commercials but I'm legitimately wondering if that was just commercials or if its actually good LOL
Some of the items taste better than others. After the first month you can customize your order to exclude the foods that taste the worst to you, if you want. It doesn't taste great, but what do you expect from food that mostly can be prepared in a couple of minutes? XD
On March 12 2012 01:26 Tippany wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 00:30 micronesia wrote:
When I go off this diet I will just get a good amount of exercise to compensate! I guess I'll eventually share how that went... Why not start now? Perhaps you trust yourself and your willpower sufficiently enough to believe you will start and keep exercising without hesitation. But why not start now? Unless you have some temporary time constraint that won't be there after the diet, why put it off? Once I go off nutrisystem it's difficult to go back on, so I'll hit my goal weight and then go off at that point.
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On March 12 2012 01:38 micronesia wrote:
Once I go off nutrisystem it's difficult to go back on, so I'll hit my goal weight and then go off at that point.
I mean exercising. Why wait till you go off the diet to start exercising? Start now!
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If you know you're inclined to eat out once and a while, it's worth it take a few moments and look up the nutritional information on the places you go. There's usually a few "diamonds in the rough" so to say of low calorie items that don't taste horrific on every menu. Even Taco Bell has stuff on their menu that's under 300 calories!
Congrats on the weight loss!
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United States24813 Posts
On March 12 2012 01:49 Tippany wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 01:38 micronesia wrote:
Once I go off nutrisystem it's difficult to go back on, so I'll hit my goal weight and then go off at that point. I mean exercising. Why wait till you go off the diet to start exercising? Start now!
I frequently plan to start exercising and things always get in the way. By setting a specific and logical goal (once I go off nutrisystem) it gives me time to plan (so I come up with a good solution for my lack of exercise currently) and an increased sense of urgency once the time comes.
Generally though I do find exercise (cardiovascular) very difficult to work into my life as any type of a regular schedule. Half the time when I get home from work I'm so tired I pass out for a few hours. Then when I get up by the time I could exercise it's kinda too late. My schedule will be changing in a few months though, so I should have a new opportunity to adapt.
My last big push for exercise was to get an upright stationary bike, which I've used on and off since then. The only way it seems to work is if I position it in front of the tv and watch something while I bike. It needs to be something that has many episodes and doesn't require much deep thought though or it doesn't work... still a work in progress deciding what I'm going to do.
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So what will be your diet when you get off nutrisystem?
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United States24813 Posts
On March 12 2012 02:43 solidbebe wrote:
So what will be your diet when you get off nutrisystem?
Good question LOL
I don't know.
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On March 12 2012 03:00 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2012 02:43 solidbebe wrote:
So what will be your diet when you get off nutrisystem? Good question LOL I don't know.
Hahaha, I had an idea you didn't know since you didn't mention it anywhere X{.
Can always ask Eshlow I guess, he knows his stuff.
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United States24813 Posts
The biggest problem with coming up with a post-NS diet or a post-NS exercise plan is that I have to be able to adapt to it. If it takes a lot of time I probably won't be able to right now.
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Your main goal shouldnt be losing weight but losing fat. If you cut protein/slow carb and healthy fat (vegetal) intake the very first thing you'll lose is your muscular mass and you'll end up regain all your kilos quickly. You need to learn the basics of nutrition (if you havent already) first, and it's quite simple.
Once you've done that you have to work out! Cardio is good but if you do some weight lifting to build up a decent muscle mass, that will raise your metabolism and be a tremendous help to lose your fat.
I know you said you're really tired after your work but i'm sure you can find 30min per day to work out and if you walk a lot every day you dont need cardio.
Oh and give up nutrisystem, it's useless, just buy a nutrition book, you'll save your money and learn how to eat/cook properly at the same time.
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EPT
