This is a non-technical, personal post.
I knew, about two years ago, that I was overweight. I have never had issues with being overweight - in fact, I was often underweight until about the age of 20 - instead of dieting to loose weight, I often had to be in a diet to gain weight.
Things changed and I ended up on the opposite side of the fence and found myself about 60 pounds overweight. At the time, my doctor mentioned my weight during my regular visits and check-ups. My family mentioned that I was looking a little heavy (an understatement), and friends said that I was showing signs of prosperity (meaning, I had the ‘good fortune' of being in a position to eat too much).
I went on a self-imposed diet that started in November and ended in April:
- I lost 55 pounds (the last 5-10 pounds are still hanging on)
- 18 months after the end of my diet, I have not gained even one pound
- My diet spanned three birthdays (including mine) and Christmas
- If it not obvious enough, my diet was in the winter (it is not easy to diet in the winter)
- The spring and summer of 2007 were great!
Here is my diet story:
Consulting with various BMI calculators and reading a lot of health-related articles confirmed that I weighed too much. As is typical of people my age, I do not exercise enough, work a lot, and eat too much for my lifestyle. The situation is more interesting because I am a vegetarian (I became a vegetarian about 15 years ago). Being vegetarian has its issues, but too much fat in my diet was not one of them - so I felt that I was better off than most overweight people I know since the source of extra calories was likely not from the food I ate during meals.
Like many others, I tried several times to loose weight. I started out stupid, so to speak, since I had no idea where to start. Obviously I had 
to lower my daily caloric intake, but had no idea how to do that effectively enough to loose weight. I ate less for about two months and did not loose any weight at all. The good news is that I did not gain weight, so I was at least going in the right direction.
Motivated by being able to sustain my weight, I started to research various diets and other weight-loss methods. Although exercise is a core component of any weight loss program, I knew I would not be able to get in enough exercise to be able to make a significant difference while I was trying to loose weight.
I want to make it clear that I did not ignore the effect of exercise. I knew I wanted to loose weight during a period of about 4-6 months and also knew that I would not be able to add new activities to my day-to-day life. I did, however, make more conscious efforts to walk more, take the stairs instead of the elevator, and work more around my home (gardening, heavy cleaning, repairs etc).
As a result of my research I found -
- The average adult caloric intake is 2,000 calories per day
- A diet is considered to be healthy when the goal is to loose 1-2 pounds per week
- At my activity level, 1,500 calories per day could result in meeting the weekly goal of 1-2 days pounds per week
Technically, there are reasons for weekly goal of loosing 1-2 pounds per week; however, I was not convinced psychologically. More research followed but the consensus was demotivatingly the same everywhere. A simple idea fortunately convinced me and, fortunately, restored some of my motivation:
It took a long time to gain weight, so it might take a long time to loose the weight.
I wanted to do something to get started, so I came up with a short-term plan:
I found I was consuming about 3,000 to 5,000 calories on an average day. The extra calories (those that put me above 2,000 per day) came from bread (170 calories per slice), cheese (about 90-120 calories per serving - and I often had multiple servings), snacks (easily in the neighborhood of 300 calories per serving), and soft drinks (roughly 120-180 calories per 250ml - depending on which I consumed of course).
So now I know I can make some small changes that could have a significant effect, over the long term, on my diet. Super!
Next, I had to find foods that could help me loose weight yet provide good nutritional value (I was particular about this since I previously had issues with the absence of iron and certain vitamins in my diet). I found a brand of bread (Hollywood Bread) and another brand of cheese that have just 30 calories per slice each - great!
I also learned that, in my case, consuming things relatively high in protein can help to reduce hunger. I found this be experimenting with the things I ate and being aware of how hungry I felt at different times of the day. It took about a week to figure it out.
I focused on looking for foods that had a high ration of protein to calories. I allow eggs in my diet, so egg whites were perfect. An egg has about 90 calories - a similar quantity of egg whites has just 30 calories (specifically I stuck with a brand called Egg Creations).
Margarine is one of the seemingly innocuous dietary components that I overlooked. I found and started using one brand of margarine that has about 30 calories per teaspoon - compared to 90 calories for a regular margarine I was happy!
I also found that my pre-diet lunch was particularly calorie-rich and protein light - I often took instant or canned soups along with bread, or went out to for lunch. I found canned soups that are high in protein (lentil soup is very high) and low in calories. I also decided to introduce fish into my vegetarian diet since tuna is also high in protein and relatively low in calories. I used a fat free mayonnaise to make a really simple tuna salad.
I am accustomed to snacking, from my days of having to gain weight, and felt that my morale would be higher if I could continue to eat something at odd times of the day. I found that rice cakes worked well for me - each has just 40 calories. Fat free yogurts and puddings were treats and helped my morale a great deal. Later, towards the end of my diet, I replaced rice cakes with a sports bar (200 calories but has about 20 grams of protein - the sports bar easily held me over to dinner).
As for soft drinks, I avoided those completely - even diet soft drinks. I did this more for psychological reasons - it was easier for me to maintain my diet knowing that one day I would be able to drink soft drinks again - when I don't have to count their calories. Near the end of my diet, when things where tasting really flat and boring (since I ate roughly the same thing everyday), I added about 1/8 (maybe 1/10) of a cup of a soft drink to a cup of water - although heavily diluted, it was a nice treat and broke the monotony.
Finally, I found that the following techniques worked well for me:
- Drink about 2 liters of water per day
- Drink one cup of water for each cup of coffee
- Take vitamin B - specifically a type of vitamin B-12 that dissolves under tongue
It's known that drinking water satiates appetite, so that's a simple change (after you get used to it, it is really not bad - in fact, I found that I feel so much better when I drink enough). Coffee is a diuretic, so drinking another cup of water for each cup of coffee makes sense. The last point, vitamin B was very helpful.
Vitamin B - specifically B12 - boosts metabolic rate, so it is a relatively easy way of inducing yourself to burn more calories throughout the day. As with everything, there are risks with this - it affects anxiety, sleep patterns, and a variety of other areas if you are not careful - but if you can get it to work for you then this is a big plus.
So, armed with this, I started my diet. I tracked my progress and ended up with something like this in terms of weight loss:
- Week 1: 5 pounds
- Week 2: 5 pounds
- Week 3: 3 pounds
- Week 4: 4 pounds
- Etc
The initial weeks' weight loss is typical since there's a significant dietary change. Weeks three and four established the pattern for the rest of my diet - sometimes double the weekly goal even though I was at 1,500 calories per day.
I tracked calories my keeping track of the things I ate, looked up the calories and took a total at the end of the day. I counted calories for about 6 weeks - enough time to get a good idea of my daily intake and increase my awareness of my intake.
I should note that I know for a fact that my net daily caloric intake often dipped to as low as 850 calories. My intake was so low because I simply was not hungry enough to eat. I have a tendency to forget to eat when I am not hungry, so I sometimes simply forgot to have diner or lunch. The day after dipping so low was just like any other day - I did not compensate the next day.
I also got into the habit of ‘trading calories' - even though I finished my diet about 18 months ago, I still do this. When I trade calories, I allow myself a treat or meal that is relatively high in calories and trade that for other calories later.
For example, I enjoy certain snacks from a local coffee shop. When I have one or two of the snacks (which are easily in the neighborhood of 300 calories each), I trade those calories by having a calorie reduced breakfast and lunch. My goal is to keep my daily intake to within 2,000 calories and about 35 grams of protein, so this approach works well for me.
As for exercise, I occasionally go cycling but my day to day activities make more of a difference. I commute by public transit - so I choose to stand most of the time, I take the stairs when possible, go for brisk walks (I try to walk after work - about 3km), and work more around my home.
So, in the end, I was on a diet for about six months and lost 55 pounds and have kept it off for 18 months. The diet caused lifestyle changes - I still prefer fat free yogurt, low calorie snacks, and my daily lunch is surprisingly small - I also check most nutrition labels and choose low calorie, high protein foods. The tradeoff is that I eat ‘regular' foods for breakfast and dinner, I can enjoy snacks like cookies, chocolate and ice cream in moderation, and I feel great!
One last note: I am still trying to loose the last persistent 5-10 pounds, but I am not too concerned about them. My weight fluctuates within that 5-10 pound range, so I am happy.