I was reading an article on MSN a little bit ago and in the comments section I seen alot of different advice on losing weight and also alot of questions on how to do it from people. So I wanted to make kind of a recap post on what worked for me over the last…150 days or so.
The first thing I had to do was to figure out what exactly it was that I was eating. I thought I was eating pretty healthy but I also knew I had unhealthy snacks at times. From my first day of recording my eating habits you can see that I was having an awful lot of sugar and sodium and I came to realize that I wasn’t eating as healthy as I could be. So the step of recording everything I ate was a very important step for me. I used a simple excel spreadsheet and still use it to this day.
Next up I really analyzed what I was seeing on that excel sheet and did some research on where my numbers should really be. From here I made goals for my weight loss / healthy eating.
Now that I had the facts on what I was eating, what I should be eating and I set my goals, I started to make changes to my diet and eating habits. The first thing I tackled was my sugar intake. I was having 1 to 2 Mountain Dews per day average. I cut that out of my diet over time to avoid bad cafffeine withdrawal symptoms. I also reduced my calorie intake by a minor amount and moderated my fats.
I also bought some tools to help me continue to monitor my success or failure. Being aware of the numbers really seems to work for me. I Don’t know if it works for everyone but I’ve had positive results whenever I do it. Not just with the healthy eating kick but with other things as well.
At this point things were going very well for me. I was eating healthier and losing the stomach fat that I really wanted to get rid of. So what I did next was to re-evaluate my eating habits yet again. I think this was the point that I really noticed my sodium intake being so high. I reduced my processed foods and started monitoring the sodium that was in everything. I cut out foods that were to high in sodium and tried to find low sodium alternatives for the foods that had them. Such as cheese.
So what were the results? I went from 148.8 lbs to 137ish lbs. Right now I hover between 136.5 and 137.5.
What were my failures? There were a few. Mostly it was individual days that I had more junk food. But I stuck with it and just kept modifying what I was eating. Lately I’ve been reverting a little bit back to what I was eating before. I’ve eaten out a bit too much at Chilies and had a few too many sugary snacks the last week or so. What I do notice is that when I have slips like this it usually is preceded by a lack of recording my daily intake values. So what I’ll do is not record Monday’s numbers and then have some junk food and also not record Tuesdays numbers. The weekends are the hardest for me when doing this.
Here is a recap of the steps I have taken that have worked well for me:
- Record every calorie, sugar gram, fat gram, etc. that I eat every day.
- After two weeks, analyze what I have been eating and set goals!
- Make changes to my diet.
- Continue to monitor and record my food intake.
- Re-evaluate my eating periodically and make new goals where necessary.
I hope this helps other people out there looking to lose weight or just eat healthy!
PS – I’ve just added a new post on what my typical daily diet is. This has been mostly what I’ve eaten while losing weight.
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Here is an article that has a short bit at the end on BPA in platic bottles. I read somewhere that #3,6 and 7 are the plastic numbers to avoid. But BPA may be in other plastic numbers too.
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/05/22/the-consult-the-pros-and-cons-of-long-life-and-other-news-from-the-web.aspx
150 days to lose 11 pounds??? Wow…maybe you could also show us how to save 10 cents in 90 days.
ThatsAll . . . not exactly. I lost about 1.1 lbs per week for 10 weeks. Then I was at a weight I was comfortable with so I decided to maintain my weight instead of lose more. So I increased my calories and I’ve been holding steady since week 10 of my diet plan. Now my goals are more nutritional in nature.
If you are looking for a ‘lose weight fast’ site, this isn’t it. According to nutritionists and doctors it isn’t healthy to lose more than 2 pounds a week so I don’t promote doing that sort of thing. It does nasty things to your body and more often than not people gain back more weight than they lost on those type of diets.
ps- saving 10 cents in 90 days might just be an accomplishment in this economy
I think what you are doing is great, and I am trying to do the same. I need to lose more than that, but wish to get to your weight too! Speed is not the solution, but consistency and awareness… Congrats on your results!
Thanks! I’m just glad I realized I was gaining weight early enough and had the opportunity to change it sooner rather than later.
You know what ,you seem to be right.I also take a lot of sugar and pepsi cola and junk food.may be tackling these things may help me.thanx for sharing!!!!!!