Introduction:
First and foremost, I am not a doctor and nothing I write
here should be considered professional healthcare advice. With that disclaimer
out of the way let me start by saying that this article isn’t about a diet. It’s
about a permanent change I made to be a healthier me. Now you’re going to hear
several familiar phrases throughout my ranting. Things like, “diet and exercise
are essential to weight loss”. Don’t
just brush it off and think you know better. Because, trust me, if you think you
can lose weight AND be healthy without both of those you’re wrong and you’d
probably already be healthy and at your goal weight instead of reading this.
But before I get ahead of myself let me tell you what this article IS about.
It’s about me and how I lost nearly 100 pounds. I’m not going to claim my way
will work for everyone but my hope is that this article might inspire others to
find their own way to reach their health goals.
Where I began:
Those who know me know “manual labor”, or any exercise beyond
dancing in a nightclub, was not really something that got priority on my “to
do” list. Ok the very notion of it was laughable. Thanks to a youthful
metabolism, I maintained a 150 to 160 average weight through high school and my
early 20’s. I was by no means fit, mind you, but I was active enough to burn
through countless calories from cans of soda, fast food and other junk. As I
got older and life took its toll psychologically, the physical repercussions of
my eating began to take its toll as well.
I’ve battled depression for most of my life and eventually it evolved
into a full on breakdown that left me agoraphobic. What that means is that when
I go outside my house I experience progressively intense anxiety until it
becomes a panic attack. Trust me, it’s not cute. I had to be doped up on hard
core tranquilizers just to attend a funeral for a few hours.
In any case, my now insular living, lack of activity and
depression led to even more bad eating habits. I stopped caring. I figured if
my life was so miserable I would make it a little less so by eating whatever I
wanted and hoping it shaved a few years off of my “sentence” (living). I
ballooned up to a whopping 268 pounds! Though I didn’t actually make the big
changes till I was around 240 and started recording my weight loss.
Where I am now:
Today, at 37 years old, I am a healthy 150 pounds. The same
weight I was in high school, but far more fit and healthier than I ever was
back then. I can even wear some of my old clothes from 20 years ago! We’ll just
ignore the fact that I still have clothes from 20 years ago though ok? A
photographer friend of mine, who did some great photos to promote me back when
I was a DJ, said “it’s like you haven't aged at all
and I have not seen you for more than a decade!” I’ve heard other remarks like this along the
way too! I still suffer from agoraphobia and depression, but the depression and
mood swings are much less intense now.
How I got here:
And here’s the part that everyone
actually cares about. The short and
sweet of it is that I got here by changing my eating habits and exercise. I am
reluctant to use the word diet. Diet implies a temporary change in eating until
you achieve a set goal. Diet may not mean that, but most people think of it
that way. What I did was make a lifestyle change. I know I’m going to sound all
“infomercial-self-help-book” now, but it’s the truth. I want to stress though
that this whole process was an evolution. I didn’t just start with an extreme
change of eating and a marathon run every day. It was baby steps and it took me
over a year to get from where I started
to where I am. My way may not work for everyone but the point of this article
is to help others find their own way. Find what works for YOU.
It all started when I experienced
a fainting spell while putting away groceries. I call it a “brown-out” because,
for a few moments, I just felt like someone “pulled the plug” on me. I couldn’t
think, stand or even hang on to the vegetables I was putting in the
freezer. After a few moments, I was able
to get up but my whole body felt like lead and I had to lie down. Weeks later I
finally pushed myself to visit the doctor. I had a barrel of tests done
including blood work. The blood work
came back ok in most places but they detected traces of fat around my liver in
my urine. The doctor said I needed to lose weight. As much as I wasn’t inclined
to prolong my life, I also didn’t want to burden my family with severe medical
expenses to care for me. I decided I’d change a few things about my eating and
go from there.
The first, and probably the
biggest change I made, was to do away with soda completely. You have to
understand I practically had a constant I.V. of Pepsi running through my
system. I was consuming upwards of 1000 calories or more of soda per day.
That’s on top of Cheez-Its, Twinkies, McDonalds, Gummi-Bears, you name it. Even with my subtle palette, I need a little
flavor in my drinks so plain old water wasn’t exactly compelling (though I do
try to drink some every day). Thanks to the internet I learned a great deal
about healthy eating and drinking. Green Tea consistently popped up so I found
Arizona Diet Green Tea and tried that. It was the perfect substitute for soda
for me. It has zero calories, it’s chock full of anti-oxidants, has a nice
flavor, can be consumed hot or cold, and has just enough caffeine to keep my
body from going through caffeine withdrawal.
The next step was to stop buying junk food. If it’s not in
the house I can’t eat it. But at the same time I discovered there’s a certain
psychology to the body. You can’t just deny yourself everything you enjoy in
the hopes of losing weight. You’ll be doomed to either suffer or give up and
return to bad eating. I found a compromise. I didn’t “deny”. I “replaced”.
All the junk food was replaced with other things I loved. My
new snacks were fresh strawberries, bananas, strawberry shortcake flavored
yogurt (90 calories), Quaker Oats
granola bars with chocolate chips (100 calories), Welch’s fruit snacks (80
calories a pack), and I even have a treat at the end of the day: a good old
fashioned ice cream sandwich (160 calories).
As you may have guessed, I started tracking my calorie consumption. This
doesn’t always work for everyone since some people just can’t be bothered but
it helped me control my portion sizes. I even got a food scale!
Major meals became more consistent. I eat at regular
intervals now so my body knows to expect fuel and it doesn’t feel like it has
to store fat in case of deprivation. Remember what I said about psychology? The
body is weird. If you want to stop water retention what do you do? Drink more
water! It sounds strange but it’s true! If your body is constantly hydrated it
doesn’t feel the need to store water. The same applies to fat. If you have
enough fuel, the body isn’t desperate to store some for lean times.
Breakfast went from 2 toasted bagels slathered in butter to
2 hard-boiled egg-whites with either a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal or
one large blueberry muffin. Lunch went from various things around the house or
fast food to a tuna fish on whole wheat bread with a banana on the side. Dinner
went from huge helpings of whatever was around the house or fast food to a
steady meal of chicken breast meat and broccoli with butter or cheese most
nights. I’m the kind of person who can eat the same thing day in and day out as
long as it’s something I like. I have a limited selection of foods I like so it
works well for me. Others may feel the need to vary their menus and you should!
You need to ENJOY this process. Losing weight doesn’t have to be a battle or
torture with some carrot at the end to push you through it. It can be an
exciting and uplifting (figuratively and literally) experience from start to finish.
Today my daily eating schedule looks something like this:
7:30am Wake Up: drink 2 glasses of water immediately and
wait 30 min before eating
8:00am Breakfast: 2 hard-boiled egg whites (no yokes)
lightly salted (about 35 cal), 1 bowl of honey bunches of oats cereal with a
little milk (about 220 cal). An alternative to the cereal is a 250 cal
blueberry muffin or a 190 cal slim fast chocolate royale shake. If still hungry
I add an apple or orange (about 100 cal). Be sure to take daily multi-vitamins.
10:30am Before Lunch: Drink 2 glasses of water and wait 30
min before eating
11:00am Lunch: Tuna sandwich on whole wheat bread (150-180
cal), Banana (120 cal). An alternative can be Campbell's healthy choice chunky
chicken soup (220 cal) with 10 Ritz crackers (140 cal). If I’m still hungry I can
have a couple hard-boiled egg whites.
2:00pm Snack: a 100 calorie snack of my choice. I went with
yogurt or granola bars.
4:30pm Before Dinner: Drink 2 glasses of water and wait 30
min before eating
5:00pm Dinner: Dinner for me consists of 600 to 800 calories
though I tend closer to 600. An entire bag of broccoli with 2 table spoons of
butter (about 200 cal) plus 7-8 ounces of grilled or baked chicken breast
(about 380-430 cal). An alternative I enjoy is Marie Calendar's Golden Battered
Fish Fillet frozen dinner (with rice and broccoli & cheese for 410 cal)
plus a chicken & broccoli & cheese lean pocket (260 cal). For rare
treats I enjoy a personal pan pizza hut pizza with light sauce and chicken
topping (610 cal) or a portioned container of Chinese food (chicken & broccoli
in brown sauce with white rice - about 700-800 cal).
9:00pm final food: Last food intake for the day (3 hours
before bed time). I chose sweet snacks I enjoyed as a reward for the end of the
day but no more than 200 calories. I went with either: 1 ice cream sandwich (160
cal each), 2 bags of Welch's fruit snacks (80 cal per bag) or a cup of frozen
yogurt (180 cal).
Understand that my eating habits did not start out this way
when I decided to become healthier and many may find it calorie restrictive if
you don't ease into it. The thing to remember is EAT WHEN YOU'RE HUNGRY! Even
if that means having significantly more calories than presented here. But be
SURE you're hungry when you decide to eat! If you feel hunger, drink some water
or a zero cal drink. If the hunger comes back 5 or 10 min later you're really
hungry, otherwise you were just thirsty. When I got into a comfortable eating
pattern, the above food schedule is what I ended up with. I don't call this a
diet. This is my eating lifestyle from now on to ensure I never get as heavy as
I had before. When reaching your goal weight it is important to slowly increase
your portions/calorie intake to stabilize your weight vs. your activity level
so you maintain your weight. Reaching your goal is not a license to go back to
bad eating habits. It's a forever change in eating.
You may have noticed the water that’s part of my eating
schedule. As I mentioned I am not a big water drinker but doing 2 glasses
before every major meal ensures I get at least 6 glasses every day and I try to
fit in 1 to 2 more at various points throughout my day. Other than that I am
CONSTANTLY drinking my green tea. My glass is never empty very long. I almost
never feel bloated or retain water anymore. You’ll also notice every major meal
of mine contains protein. Protein consumption is important. Your body takes
longer and works harder to process protein into energy than it does carbs so
major meals filled with protein not only keep you full longer but your body
burns more energy to process it and that protein helps build muscle tissue.
Now for the less than fun part for me… exercise. As an agoraphobic, I don’t leave my house
unless I absolutely have to… which amounts to roughly once a month. Needless to
say I lead a very sedentary lifestyle. I don’t own any exercise equipment or
free weights. My house is small, so I don’t have a great deal of space to
exercise. At first I tried doing what I did in my youth… dance. But as much as
the heart was willing, the body couldn’t stand up to more than 10 minutes of
that. So I scaled back to something simpler: walking. I walked for 30 minutes a
day back and forth through my house at a moderate pace.
As pounds came off and
endurance improved I upgraded to 20 minutes of dancing and 10 minutes of
walking. That progressed to 30 minutes of jump rope. From there I added
push-ups and crunches and reverse crunches. At first it was 10 push-ups, 30
crunches and 10 reverse crunches. Today its 90 pushups, 50 crunches and 50 reverse
crunches. These are all things I do in my bedroom without any equipment. I do 75
curls and 75 military presses with full jugs of green tea to get some muscle
building exercise for my arms too.
As I neared my goal I added 30 minutes of
walking back in on top of everything else in the later part of my day.
Basically I do the initial exercises before lunch and do the biceps/presses and
walking before dinner. I do these 5 days
a week, only do the 30 min of cardio and 30 min of walking on Saturday and have
Sunday off to let my body rest. Most experts will say I am “overdoing it” and
they are right. You are probably better off exercising 2 to 4 times a week. I
do it to ensure I stay consistent because I can get distracted easily.
How the brain works… or at least my brain:
Now to give you some perspective I’ll explain why exercise
is important. It goes back to that “psychology of the body” stuff I mentioned.
When you exercise you are purposefully stressing your muscle tissue to
encourage your body to make more and make it stronger and more resilient. This
puts your body in an “active” state. It’s working, spending energy, burning
fuel. Losing weight ALWAYS results in a loss of both fat AND muscle. Which one
your body burns more of, is entirely up to you.
Exercise tells your body to replace that lost muscle and in
doing so raises your metabolism. Just starving yourself is doing the exact
opposite. You’re telling your body to save energy (store fat) because it
doesn’t know when more food is coming. It burns muscle for fuel because it’s
storing the fat to keep you alive during these” times of famine”. This makes
you weaker and slows your metabolism. Exercise is telling your body “Hey I need
these muscles to do stuff. Burn something else (like fat) for fuel so I can do
stuff with the muscles.” Eating regularly and drinking lots of water tells your
body “Hey it’s ok to burn that fat, more fuel is coming at a steady pace! Oh
and don’t worry about hoarding all that water. We’ve got a veritable “old
faithful” flowing through here!”
Losing weight isn’t so much about eating less, but rather eating
the right kinds of food in the right amounts. It’s about sending your body the
right messages through eating, drinking and exercise, of what you need it to
do. Don’t get me wrong portion control is VERY important… especially in today’s
“super-size-drive-through” world, but trust me when I say 200 calories of
McDonald’s fries aren’t as good for you or as filling as 200 calories of
broccoli. The trick to “winning” the battle of the bulge isn’t so much about
eating less, but finding foods that you can eat more of that aren’t going to
pack on pounds. For me broccoli was one of those foods. A whole bag of broccoli
from the freezer (enough to fill a nice sized bowl) is about 120 calories. Add
some butter and it’s about 200 calories. It’s not called a super food for
nothing! A small fries from McD’s is 230 calories and you know how tiny a
portion that is.
Advice from me:
I learned a great deal about managing my weight by going
through this process. The best tips I can give besides what I’ve mentioned
earlier are:
1)
Eat when you’re hungry. Just be mindful of WHAT
you eat and HOW MUCH. You should never be hungry while losing weight. That’s
the trick you need to figure out: how to eat less bad stuff, eat more good
stuff (within reason), and to not be hungry while you do it.
2)
Eat slowly. Every 3-4 bites take a sip of your
drink. This not only helps make controlled portions last longer, but it fills
you up so you aren’t hungry AND hydrates you. I have 2-3 glasses of tea with
every major meal and it takes 15-30 minutes for me to finish eating.
3)
Avoid beverages with calories when you can.
Sometimes it’s inevitable but make the majority of what you drink calorie free.
It’ll hydrate you without packing on pounds. I never have an empty glass for
very long. I piss like a race horse all day but I’m never hungry and always
hydrated. And hey, getting up to use the bathroom is getting me some easy
calorie burn!
4)
Eat foods you love! You might love fast food but maybe there are
healthier alternatives you love too! Find them! Hell, most fast food places
have a calorie menu. Look at it and put together as calorically frugal a meal
as you can from it! Make that meal a special treat once a month!
5)
Eat regularly. Not everyone can stick to a
schedule to eat like I do, but try to consume healthy foods every 3 to 4 hours.
This lets your body know fuel is always incoming and it should be free to spend
energy and not store it as fat.
6)
Record your weight once a week. Every Sunday I
record my weight for the week. Seeing your progress helps motivate you. Seeing
a lack of progress can tell you something you’re doing isn’t working or that
you’ve hit a plateau and may need to change things up a bit. Or sometimes you
just retained water that week.
7)
Try to eat high sodium meals early in the week
and low sodium later in the week. This helps you avoid water retention on
“weigh day”.
8)
Exfoliate and moisturize every day! What’s this
have to do with weight loss? Well the older and/or heavier you are the more
loose skin you’re going to have as you lose weight. Exfoliating and
moisturizing regularly will help tighten that loose skin. A lot of people don’t
discover this annoying fact till AFTER they lose the weight and they have
unsightly loose skin hanging from them. There’s no reason you can’t improve
skin elasticity and encourage new tighter skin to form WHILE you lose the
pounds! It’s worth doing, trust me.
9)
Don’t get discouraged! You are going to have
weeks of little or no weight loss. Too much stress, too much sodium, or just
stubborn fat cells that refuse to release water weeks after they are depleted
of energy, can all result in progress slowing. As an FYI did you know fat cells
never go away? They grow or shrink but they don’t leave. When the energy is
burned out of them they are small but immediately after being emptied they fill
with water that can take weeks to leave the body!
10)
Don’t expect a quick fix. Gimmick pills are just
that: Gimmicks. They don’t work. The manufacturers don’t want them to work. They
want you to be fat so you keep buying their bogus pills. A caffeine pill will
do the same thing. It took me roughly a year to go from 240 (when I really
began to change my habits and exercise) to 150 and at my heaviest I was 268. At
first you might see many pounds slough off. Don’t get too excited, it’s mostly
water weight. A healthy weight loss pace is .5 to 2 pounds per week on average.
You may see periodic drops in weight that exceed that every month or so as fat
cells release water and yes you can smile about that and be encouraged. Those
make up for weeks you see much less weight loss because the fat you burned that
week was replaced by water retained in the fat cells.
11)
Take your vitamins! Make sure you have a good
vitamin regimen to go with your healthy eating and exercise. I take two One A
Day Vita Craves gummies with Omega-3 DHA every day. Not only does this give me
a great multi-vitamin, but it lets me enjoy a gummi treat every day! I also
take Metamucil to ensure I have a good amount of fiber, vitamin C and Calcium
with vitamin D.
12)
Happy people don’t kill their husbands. Wait…
what? That’s actually a reference to a movie quote: “Exercise releases
endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people don’t kill their husbands.”
As amusing as the quote is, there’s a grain of truth there. While I may find
exercise distasteful, I can’t deny the positive effect it’s had on moderating
the extremity of my depression and mood swings. If for no other reason than
that, consider some cardio in your plan to lose weight! It’s like telling your
body to get you high legally!
13)
Listen to your body. And know when NOT to
listen. Our bodies like having easy access to energy. They can be lazy just
like us and would rather take empty calorie energy they can process quickly and easily into fuel over
healthy foods like protein which takes more work to process. It is often
suggested that you have an 80/20 eating schedule where you eat healthy 80% of
the time and 20% of the time you eat what you want. This can sometimes backfire
by giving you intense cravings after the fact for more bad foods. I have found
that smaller fast food meals can work for me. I will have one McD’s cheese
burger, one small fry and one apple pie as a meal, very rarely, and with no
backlash. I’ve also found a Pizza Hut personal
pan pizza with chicken on top is a nice treat for dinner and its only 610
calories!
14)
Don’t beat yourself up! There’s no race to lose
weight. Some weeks are better than others. Sometimes you retain water for any
number of reasons and the scale isn’t telling you the whole story. Take good
looks in the mirror. Try on old clothes. Run your hands over your trouble
spots. You’ll SEE and FEEL differences in your body that the scale just can’t
tell you about!
I hope that some of what I’ve written here can help others.
Every person’s body is different. It’s up to you to find which way works for
you to achieve a balanced healthy body. Don’t just buy into the latest fad diet,
some gimmick pills, or think paying a gym membership will encourage you to do
something you just aren’t into. You know yourself best. Use the same strategies
you’d use to convince someone else to do something on yourself! Use what you
know about yourself to ensure you reach your goal!
