4500+
Great Links

How I Lost Weight

Related Links

Click for links about:

My Related Pages
Version 0.7
Copyright © 2008-2009 by Zack Smith
All rights reserved.

Introduction

Not everyone is meant to be skinny.

Sure, there are millions of Europeans and Brazilians who are skinny, limber, and sexy, but for some people, that will probably never be the case. Their metabolism is against them.

I used to assume I was the same. Everytime I'd undertake an exercise program I'd find I was frequently famished and would stuff my face. Everytime I'd try counting calories, which is really annoying, I'd find that I was hungry for more than the recommended caloric intake for my gender, age, activity level and height.

But then I took a nutrition course and I learned how the digestive tract works, how energy is stored, how nutrients are used, and how I can maximize the healthiness of my food intake. And I started to experiment with my diet.

Experiment 1: Seven small meals per day

I put myself on a regimen of having seven 300-calorie meals per day, which is not very hard to do. The idea was that my blood-sugar level would fluctuate less and therefore my body would use energy more efficiently with less risk of diabetes. I also changed my diet to include more green vegetables and other things that I had been avoiding.

This was a good idea, but it didn't lead to weight loss per se. My complexion improved. But after all, I was not doing any book-keeping of what types of food I ate. I was probably eating some nutrient in excess, because I sometimes felt a little tingling in my extremities. It was the tingling that caused me to stop the experiment.

Experiment 2: The Food Pyramid

Due to the focus on the Food Pyramid in nutrition class, I decided to embrace the pyramid in earnest. I put myself on a regimen of following the standard USDA Food Pyramid every day. The USDA's website also lets visitors create a custom pyramid just for themselves. I did that but I didn't bother to use the result. (The result that I got at the time gave only weights of foods, not volumes.)

Over the span of 9 months to a year, I lost weight. It's hard to say exactly how much, because my weight varied before and it varies after. I recall weighing as much as 180 pounds on a bad day, averaging at maybe 167, and now I weigh as little as 155 pounds on a good day, averaging maybe 157. So it was probably 10 pounds. My ideal weight is probably 150 without much muscle mass.

I'm told that I look much better than before. My waist has reduced to the next smaller size, requiring that I buy new jeans. My facial bone structure is more visible. I look forward to eating food not as a comfort but because it makes me feel healthy. And I no longer "feel fat".

How does it work?

Diet Checklist It's simple. Every day I keep a piece of paper or more often cardboard on which I record the number of servings of each food group. For instance, to the right is my workup for today.
  • M = meats/nuts/eggwhites/beans
  • G = grains
  • D = dairy
  • V = vegetables
  • F = fruits & sugar
(Why do I write my list on cardboard, you ask? Because it feel different, so I notice it. I obtain it by cutting up cardboard food packaging. Thus using it is also a form of recycling.)

The lines are servings. When I've eaten all servings of a given food type for the day, I cross out that type.

Every day the goal is:

  • 2-3 servings of meats/nuts/eggwhites/beans
  • 6-11 servings of grains
  • 2-3 servings of dairy
  • 3-5 servings of vegetables
  • 2-4 servings of fruits & sugar

If I happen to binge on some type of food (it's rare) for some reason, I reduce the servings of that the next day.

I tend to eat less meat than most people, so my servings of dairy is generally more. I never eat egg yolks-- only the whites.

The dots next to "F" indicate sugar packets, which are not normally a thing to be used: They send the blood sugar through the roof. So I primarily use Xylitol as a sweetener. (Xylitol is also recommended by dentists because it protects the teeth.) But sometimes sugar packets are unavoidable therefore I include them in my count as two packets equalling one fruit serving.

For the Food Pyramid to work, you must not use the servings information that is on food packaging. Why? Because it's unreliable. Many nutritionists and journalists have pointed this out. Use the standard serving sizes defined by scientists, not the ones from corporate marketing departments.

Here they are:

Here I've put roughly the same data into a format for viewing on a mobile phone:

Lastly, it is very important to focus on nutrient-rich foods. Whole wheat bread, not white bread. Fresh foods, not processed foods. Skim milk, not 2% or worse. Home-made, not store-bought. And so on.

I mainly eat foods that are readily identifiable as being from one food group or another. I avoid foods that are mixtures. This in itself helps me choose fresher foods.

I tend to consume all liquids out of a glass Pyrex measuring cup, which is microwave-safe, heats evenly, and lets me measure my servings. It's the perfect tool.

Besides monitoring my intake I've come to exercise more. I avoid forms of exercise that I don't like and I embrace those that I do. You'll never see me at a gym or on a treadmill.

Experiment 3: Foodist

I wrote a program to run on my Windows Mobile phone called Foodist. It's a diet analysis program that lets users enter data about what they've eaten and provides useful information about the number of kilocalories and major nutrients.

Each day's data is stored to the phone's memory. I added a 7-day analysis feature.

Foodist has been very useful for keeping track of my kilocalories and vitamin intake.

Of course, since I prefer to mainly use the Food Pyramid, Using Foodist to enter each food item from a list is much more work. So I added a separate screen to manage just the Food Pyramid counts. Overall the program has worked out very well. I've always got my phone with me therefore I can always use it.

More info at Mangia.tk

Conclusion

The simple system that I'm using (the SECOND experiment) is actually the same one that I was originally advised to follow when I was in high school. It is the same that I was advised to follow when I took a serious college course in nutrition. It works.

  • The book-keeping is very minimal. There is no calorie counting. It is not difficult to follow this system.
  • There are no fancy branded foods to purchase. There are no books to buy. There are no TV shows to watch. It is not expensive.
  • It is not boring. The Food Pyramid requires that you eat foods from all food groups and that keeps you thinking about things you can eat that you might not usually consider.

My third approach, using my Foodist program, is more analytical and has provided me with more detailed information. The caveat however is that no such program can provide exact results since all such programs have limited food data. Mine uses the USDA's SR21 data set and some of its foods don't correspond perfectly to the foods I eat. But for instance, the wheat bread that I eat is 110 kcals per slice whereas the USDA's wheat bread is 60 per slice. So I just add twice the number into the program.

One goal in using Foodist was to let me completely avoid taking vitamin and mineral supplements. To an extent that has worked, since I can see what my numbers are i.e. my rough intake levels for each of the vitamins and minerals. I still occasionally take a supplement however, just in case.

Rules

If I could summarize my insights in a concise set of rules it would be as follows:
  • Eat nutrient-rich foods like whole grains.
  • Avoid addictive foods like tortilla chips.
  • Count your servings and always get the minimum # of servings for each food group.
  • If you go over the maximum # of servings then deduct those from the next day.
  • Don't stress over getting your counts precisely correct.

Links

Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional

eXTReMe Tracker
Google ads on this webpage now use Google's interest-based advertising.