02-27-2007, 07:19 PM
Dave,
The answer isn’t necessarily in the number of calories you eat in a given day. It’s a combination of several factors.... The number of calories, the type of calories and the type of exercise. Consider... I weighed well over 200 pounds in the middle of June. I’m now 158 pounds and have maintained this weight since the end of August. My waist line used to be nearly 37”. Now it’s 33”. the weight loss shows in my face more than anywhere else. I’m nearly 36 years old and people say I look between 29 and 30 or so now. Here’s how I did it....
1. A change in diet.
a. Breakfast. I never ate much of anything for breakfast other than just a cup of coffee and an english muffin. So, I didn’t change my morning food intake. I still have just coffee and a munchie of some kind, i.e. English muffin with a pat off butter or a bagel with a reasonable amount of cream cheese.
b. Lunch. Lunch is a different matter entirely. Instead of a big honking sandwich or chinese food with chips, I switched to 14 to 16 ounces of salad with no dressing and a can of Slim-fast. Most of the salads I see at the store ar 12 ounce. So, I eat one full bag and about 1/4 to half of another. The next day, I eat a full bag and finish off the one I opened previously. I just make sure I have enough bags of salad to last me the entire week. I avoidd iceberg salads. Instead, I stick to those filled with nicely colored lettuces, i.e. romaine, butter, radiccio, etc. I sometimes eat a few slices of roast beef or a couple of snack sticks of Cracker Barrel 2% cheddar cheese.
c. Dinner is pretty much anything I want and tends to be high in protein and reasonable in carbs. Sometimes it’s a burger or two. Other times, lots o’ chicken, i.e. buy a roast chicken at the supermarket.
On the “Robert M” plan, will I go for a shake once in a while? Absolutely, but not often and not during the salad meal. Every once in a while, I’ll swap dinner and lunch. It all depends. On the weekend, I may eat both. It all depends on what I’m doing during the day.
BTW, I’m not a veggie kind of person and tend to avoid them at all costs, so not only did this change in diet put ample veggies into my diet but it offers a crap-load of fiber, too. I also increased the amount of water i drank as well. I carry around a 2 liter jug and instead of drinking soda or that much more coffee, I just take a swig whenever I’m thirsty. I usually finish about 3/4 of the jug by the end of the day.
Do I know how many calories I consume in a day? No. I don’t count them to that degree. I just make sure the type of food I eat is worth it in calories and not too extreme. Same goes for the size of my meals. Lunch tends to be very low-calorie since a honking bag of salad is very filling, ultra-low calorie and the vast majority of the meal. The act of digesting the salad burns off the majority if not all of the calories it contains.
Which reminds me... Counting calories takes you only so far. You have to watch the fat and cholesterol content as well as the sugars. For example... Nuts tend to be higher in fat and calorie than other snacks but they’re better for you than a bag of potato chips. Some foods might be low-fat but the fat they have could be saturated fat, which is worse than unsaturated. An item may be low-fat but high in cholesterol. Other items may be low-fat, low-cholesterol but high carb and the majority of the carbs could be sugar of which too much will result in increased weight. You get the idea.
2. Exercise
I am at the gym regularly, usually work out a minimum of three times per week, sometimes four depending on my schedule. Of the three times, I attend a very intense cardio boxing class for an hour and burn a tremendous number of calories in it. My fourth session is approximately 20 to 30 minutes of jogging on a treadmill, weight lifting for thirty minutes and fifteen minutes or more working the heavy bag. For what it’s worth, during this session just the time on the treadmill burns over 200 calories. Combine that with the rest and it may not be as intense as the boxing class but it definitely gets the job done.
One thing is for certain my system has worked well for me and my doctor is ecstatic about what I’ve managed to do since June. Heck, my cholesterol is down to 180 or so and, unlike the rest of my family, I didn’t need to take meds to get the job done. Believe me, that alone is a significant accomplishment since high cholesterol runs in my family.
Drop me a PM and I’ll give you more details.
Robert
The answer isn’t necessarily in the number of calories you eat in a given day. It’s a combination of several factors.... The number of calories, the type of calories and the type of exercise. Consider... I weighed well over 200 pounds in the middle of June. I’m now 158 pounds and have maintained this weight since the end of August. My waist line used to be nearly 37”. Now it’s 33”. the weight loss shows in my face more than anywhere else. I’m nearly 36 years old and people say I look between 29 and 30 or so now. Here’s how I did it....
1. A change in diet.
a. Breakfast. I never ate much of anything for breakfast other than just a cup of coffee and an english muffin. So, I didn’t change my morning food intake. I still have just coffee and a munchie of some kind, i.e. English muffin with a pat off butter or a bagel with a reasonable amount of cream cheese.
b. Lunch. Lunch is a different matter entirely. Instead of a big honking sandwich or chinese food with chips, I switched to 14 to 16 ounces of salad with no dressing and a can of Slim-fast. Most of the salads I see at the store ar 12 ounce. So, I eat one full bag and about 1/4 to half of another. The next day, I eat a full bag and finish off the one I opened previously. I just make sure I have enough bags of salad to last me the entire week. I avoidd iceberg salads. Instead, I stick to those filled with nicely colored lettuces, i.e. romaine, butter, radiccio, etc. I sometimes eat a few slices of roast beef or a couple of snack sticks of Cracker Barrel 2% cheddar cheese.
c. Dinner is pretty much anything I want and tends to be high in protein and reasonable in carbs. Sometimes it’s a burger or two. Other times, lots o’ chicken, i.e. buy a roast chicken at the supermarket.
On the “Robert M” plan, will I go for a shake once in a while? Absolutely, but not often and not during the salad meal. Every once in a while, I’ll swap dinner and lunch. It all depends. On the weekend, I may eat both. It all depends on what I’m doing during the day.
BTW, I’m not a veggie kind of person and tend to avoid them at all costs, so not only did this change in diet put ample veggies into my diet but it offers a crap-load of fiber, too. I also increased the amount of water i drank as well. I carry around a 2 liter jug and instead of drinking soda or that much more coffee, I just take a swig whenever I’m thirsty. I usually finish about 3/4 of the jug by the end of the day.
Do I know how many calories I consume in a day? No. I don’t count them to that degree. I just make sure the type of food I eat is worth it in calories and not too extreme. Same goes for the size of my meals. Lunch tends to be very low-calorie since a honking bag of salad is very filling, ultra-low calorie and the vast majority of the meal. The act of digesting the salad burns off the majority if not all of the calories it contains.
Which reminds me... Counting calories takes you only so far. You have to watch the fat and cholesterol content as well as the sugars. For example... Nuts tend to be higher in fat and calorie than other snacks but they’re better for you than a bag of potato chips. Some foods might be low-fat but the fat they have could be saturated fat, which is worse than unsaturated. An item may be low-fat but high in cholesterol. Other items may be low-fat, low-cholesterol but high carb and the majority of the carbs could be sugar of which too much will result in increased weight. You get the idea.
2. Exercise
I am at the gym regularly, usually work out a minimum of three times per week, sometimes four depending on my schedule. Of the three times, I attend a very intense cardio boxing class for an hour and burn a tremendous number of calories in it. My fourth session is approximately 20 to 30 minutes of jogging on a treadmill, weight lifting for thirty minutes and fifteen minutes or more working the heavy bag. For what it’s worth, during this session just the time on the treadmill burns over 200 calories. Combine that with the rest and it may not be as intense as the boxing class but it definitely gets the job done.
One thing is for certain my system has worked well for me and my doctor is ecstatic about what I’ve managed to do since June. Heck, my cholesterol is down to 180 or so and, unlike the rest of my family, I didn’t need to take meds to get the job done. Believe me, that alone is a significant accomplishment since high cholesterol runs in my family.
Drop me a PM and I’ll give you more details.
Robert