Starting the decade right - Lost 15 pounds in 30 days

[McLovin]

My weight has crept up a bit in the last 3 years, I wanted to re-set and start the decade in the right place.

I lost quite a bit on no carb in 2003. I've tried it again a few times over the past few years and it wasn't as effective.

This time I went old school calories counting. It seems indisputable that if you eat significantly fewer calories than you burn each day, you are guaranteed to lose weight.

I found that for weight loss, I always need a strategy. "Just eat less" doesn't work for me in my 50s.

I tried intermittent fasting. First I did 18 hours. Only eat between 12 and 6. Then I went to 20 hours. Between 2 and 6. A very small meal at 2 (200 or less calories) and a very small dinner (500 or less calories).

My 2 o'clock meal would often be an Atkins shake (150 calories) with half a banana (50) or some strawberries (less than 50 calories) put in a blender with a bunch of ice to make a smoothy). Dinner would usually include a salad with a small amount of olive oil, and some small amount of protein (usually chicken).

Surprisingly it became easy after a few days. I eventually was able to do some days with dinner only, total daily calories under 500.

Whole, "clean" foods only, and at those low calories counts a lot of vegetables, by necessity. A lot of lemon water to stay hydrated.

Some exercise, which is going to the gym for 1/2 hours and doing some light weights, or walking a couple of miles, but not every day.

Anyways, maybe something to try for those who have a new year's resolution to lose weight. Was a lot less painful than I thought it would be.

Appreciate this. I too have lost 20 lbs, but only over the last year. I would like to do another 20, and have heard diets like these are the best way to do it. Your data really helps.

[McLovin]

I've never been successful with the slow and steady weight loss plan. Like losing 20 pounds over the course of a year. That's probably the better or more healthy way, I just can't do it, I get impatient.
Seeing rapid weight loss is motivating to me and keeps me going.
The intermittent fasting helped me because for 20 hours, food isn't even an option, so I don't even think about it.
Hunger is far more in the mind than the stomach.

[McLovin]

Anyways, I hope everyone has a happy and healthy 2020.

[IROC]

Losing 15 lbs in 30 days is quite an accomplishment.

One thing I will add is that until watching the video below, I had no idea how fat leaves the human body. It was one of those things you never really thought about. When you lose weight, where does it go?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIlsN32WaE

[Evans, Marv]

I've always been a lean person, who's weight only varied by a few pounds throughout the year. A couple of years ago, I noticed I'd developed a bit of a stomach - like going from 32 in. to 34/36 in. & it gave me a little round tummy of visceral fat - nothing on the outside. I realized it had crept up on me without being noticed for quite a while. I figured it was a function of age (mid to late 70s) and eating sweets without thinking about it. So I've pretty much cut out anything classified as a sweet or dessert. I've cut way down on carb rich food & eat meat, veges, & a bit of carbs. So over the past year+ I've started to get back toward a 32 in. waist and now my usual 32/32 pants fit well again. At this point I am pretty much in a groove of eating the way I have been over the past year+ to get rid of that 5 or 6 pounds. I find I don't think much about ice cream, cake, or any of those other sweet things, although I eat a cookie or something once in a while. But mostly, I've lost the craving for that kind of thing. I think that's where you have to get in order to establish & continue a decently healthy diet regimen.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by IROC

Losing 15 lbs in 30 days is quite an accomplishment.

One thing I will add is that until watching the video below, I had no idea how fat leaves the human body. It was one of those things you never really thought about. When you lose weight, where does it go?

[Jims5543]

That is awesome McLovin!! Years ago, in 2009 I gained almost 25 lbs, it know why, I was depressed over the economy. I decided to make some huge life changes and since I had nothing but time, I turned back into a gym rat, radically modified my diet and dropped the 25 lbs in short order.

Then in 2010 I decided to see how much of a 6 pack I could get, I used a trip to our time share in the Bahamas as a goal date. I got a nice 4 pack never getting the full 6 pack to come in. I realized when I was dieting and training to get there how much life sucks when you try to maintain single digit body fat.

I went off the diet on vacation carbs and beer never tasted as good as it did then.

Then I made a rule, NEVER, EVER need to lose more than 10 pounds, I check my weight maybe once a month, if I see the 10 pound mark coming up, I get back in line, it is so much easier to lose 7-8 lbs than to lose 15-20 lbs. I can typically drop the weight back off in 3-4 weeks with just a few small adjustments in my lifestyle. Then I get back on with enjoying myself. Beer is typically my biggest problem. I love a couple of cheeky pints after a long hot work day.

Good on you dropping that weight, now try to never have to do it again.

[wildthing]

Isn’t 15 in 30 days a bit much? I guess it depends where you started.

[drcoastline]

Congratulations, keep up the good work and happy New year.

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by Jims5543

Then I made a rule, NEVER, EVER need to lose more than 10 pounds, I check my weight maybe once a month, if I see the 10 pound mark coming up, I get back in line, it is so much easier to lose 7-8 lbs than to lose 15-20 lbs. I can typically drop the weight back off in 3-4 weeks with just a few small adjustments in my lifestyle. Then I get back on with enjoying myself.

I do the same thing. My problem is in the last few years I made the goalposts a bit wider.

For many years it was “get back on track when I hit 180.” Then it was mid 80s. Then “anything in the 80s is ok, because I’m still less than 10 pounds from 180.

I had some health scares the past few years (resolved now) that made a few extra pounds seem not as important, and I started seeing low 190s.

When I saw 199 a few days after thanksgiving, that scared me into submission.

I went from 199 on November 30 to 181 this morning.

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by wildthing

Isn’t 15 in 30 days a bit much? I guess it depends where you started.

Started at 199, down to 181.
I’m 6 feet and worked out in my younger days and am not a thin build. 178 is my ideal weight. I got down to around 172 in my early 40s, that was a little too low for me.

The weird thing about losing a lot of weight is when you then carry, say, a 20 lb bag of dog food or something and you realize just what a toll each extra pound puts on the joints. When I turned 55, I had my first knee replacement. Lost 20 lbs right after, but quickly gained back 30 after losing mobility.. Second knee came a year later, and the cycle repeated for another net 10. This past year, I got back to my pre-replacement weight, but want to shed another 20 in 2020.

[regency]

Last year at this time I was nearing 200#, I had always been a lean runner but Coors & food was catching me up. So... I got on my Concepts 2 rowing machine every day, continued my daily runs & started riding my bike on the turbo trainer. Nothing happened for about a month but finally, I started to loose weight. Today I'm running at about 168 lbs, It's doable, just gotta hand in there.

Steve

[LWJ]

I never buy pants larger than size 34.

[aigel]

While that's sure an achievement, that's way fast and you will be hard pressed not to yoyo as what you are doing isn't sustainable. I don't get why you'd want to put yourself through such a radical diet instead of just upping exercise and changing few things in your diet and go slow. You also will have something you can sustain once you reach your target.

I just did look at my activity stats for 2019 and I would have gained about 30 lbs of fat if I had eaten the same but stayed sedentary. (assuming 3500 kcal = 1 lbs).

G

[mattdavis11]

I lost 40lbs in 3 months last year, holidays put 10 back on. I quit eating breakfast, which was 2-3 egg, bacon, cheese tacos. When I lost the weight, I was quite a bit more active than usual, moving into a new home had something to do with it. 20lbs came off in a week and a half. Still need to shed anther 20lbs, but I like ice cream too much. I'm 6'1, 212 now, was 243lbs. My frame was not meant to take that much weight and I feel a lot better now. My feet no longer hurt.

Keep up the good work!

[Bill Douglas]

You lost them.

Don't worry, I found them.

It's so unfair. All my life I've eaten like a pig, and drank alot. But since I've hit 60 it's really gone to my waist. I could starve it off but the rest of me would get sickly skinny before my waist slimmed down.

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by aigel

While that's sure an achievement, that's way fast and you will be hard pressed not to yoyo as what you are doing isn't sustainable. I don't get why you'd want to put yourself through such a radical diet instead of just upping exercise and changing few things in your diet and go slow. You also will have something you can sustain once you reach your target.

G

I agree that with weight loss, yoyoing is always a potential issue.

I don’t agree, though, that it has anything really to do with the speed you take the weight off.

Of course what I’m doing is not sustainable. It isn’t meant to be. I would eventually die of starvation if I sustained it.

If you lose 25 lbs, you have the danger of gaining it back, whether you lost it in 2 months or 10 months. If you go back to the eating habits that caused you to gain it, you’ll gain it back.

Another thing is yoyoing is in a way a dieting “first world” problem. Most dieters don’t ever have to worry about it, because they never lose any real weight to begin with!

Me personally, I’ve never yoyoed. I’ve not been perfect and struggled, for sure. I’ve lost significant weight 3 times in my life. When I was 17 (about 25 lbs), it took me years to gain it back, when I was around 35 and in a very high stress job.

At 35 I lost 45 pounds in 3 months (which was 5 pounds too much). I never gained it all back, but by early 50s slowly had gained about 25 of it back.

Now In 5 weeks or so I’ve lost close to 20 and am very close to ideal again. 3 more pounds and I’ll transition to my maintenance plan.

So I guess it’s maybe a slo mo yo-yo.

Anyways, the real reason I do it this way is it’s the only way it works for me. I simply can’t lose weight the slow and steady way. Like i said above, it’s probably the better and more healthy way, but I’ve tried it many times and it’s never worked for me. So I don’t really have a choice.

[wildthing]

I only wondered about the sudden weight loss because it used to be a life insurance underwriting question about 20 years ago in a third world country... "Have you lost 5 lbs. or more in the last 7 days?" And it was a yellow flag. Not red.