I dropped about 15 pounds or possibly a bit more (maybe 20 – my scale doesn’t work so good) six months ago over the course of six weeks by alternating 24 hours of fasting with 24 hours of eating any normal-ish sort of meals.
It was simple enough – every other calendar day, I started each day with a giant breakfast, followed by nothing for the next 24 hours. A typical “beginning fast” meal might have been a couple of pounds of potatoes fried, skins on, followed with hot tea, or a full cup of rice served with peas – not a balanced meal, but it gave me enough energy to do my usual 2-3 hours of walking as well as work and all that. Lots of tea. The next day, I rarely felt like eating more than I usually would, although I didn’t worry about it nor count calories.
Next day tried to balance with different vegetables, various animal proteins, whatever I was hungry for. Not a big deal, no anxiety, no worries, once the first few days proved it wasn’t this huge ordeal.
I liked the feeling of asceticism combined with a buffet mentality – a prophet and a pusher or something.
I am trying to rise above being a techtard, and one of the ways I’m doing that has been to cash in my Attaboy points at work and get the 3rd generation iTouch. While I still haven’t been able to sync it with iTunes, I have been able to connect with the App Store. Is there an App that allows me to keep track of my intake? I’m very fond of the little bugger, so it may be enough to make me finally faithfully keep track of what I eat. Keeping track of calories did help when I started using Alli, but I didn’t keep it up (and I didn’t keep Alli up either - having every trip to the bathroom result in an oil slick is just too freaking gross to endure). With the iTouch doing the grunt work and the math for me, I think itI might make a difference.
There’s lots of calorie tracking apps, I have the one for Sparkpeople. It doesn’t always have exactly the food I ate but I can usually come close enough. I’d recommend searching for a calorie tracker or counter in the App store, read the reviews on the free ones then try out a couple. Only try the free ones that way you can try out a few, see what you like and you’re not out any money.
LoseIt - my husband is using this and he LOVES it. I tried to find an online version, and found some inferior free programs, but I’m still able to track my weight, calories and exercise.
You’re getting some very bad diet advice in this thread, OP - maybe you should see a doctor and dietician and get some medically-sound advice.
I have a pretty regimented diet, so I’ll let you in on what I do. Every weekend, I grill 5 big chicken breasts, hard boil a dozen eggs, and buy some fruits and veggies to bring to work. Every day at work, I eat a chicken breast, a piece of fruit and vegetable for lunch, and snack on eggs. Breakfast is usually oatmeal. Dinner is usually whatever meat is on sale plus a salad. I am super lazy about salad, so I usually just buy bagged salad. I am usually a little hungry by bedtime so I snack on trail mix before bed (sunflower seeds, nuts, and raisins, no chocolate). I lift weights, so that’s a little more protein heavy then the average bear, but it should give you some ideas. Plus a little protein heavy is a lot better than simple carb heavy, or saturated fat heavy.
Eat soup during the day and a decent meal at night - don’t worry about what’s in the decent meal as long as you stick to just soup for the other two meals. Relax it a bit at the weekends.
It works. And you get to enjoy that evening meal so much. And it’s not hard work at all.
Ex-GF and I decided to get a bit more in shape. We were both very busy, so a regimented eating plan appealed. Two hard boiled eggs and a sausage link or two every morning. A big salad with steak, chicken, or shrimp and vinaigrette in tupperware for lunch every workday. Almonds or sunflower seeds as p.m. snack. Hamburger, lamb patty, or tuna salad, steamed broccoli, or sauteed spinach, couple of glasses of wine for dinner. Rinse, repeat. You won’t be hungry, you will lose weight (esp. if you exercise at high intensity, even briefly). You can prep. five days worth of food each Sunday night with minimal effort though you might want to make the salad for only 2-3 days in advance. GF also reported that her hypoglycemia, which had been bad on her bagel and OJ breakfast plan, vanished.
You can eat pretty much whatever you want - as long as you don’t over do calories.
I dropped 40 lbs over about six months using fitday.com
At 6’5" and 240lbs, I had to consume 3400 calories a day to maintain that weight. I cut my diet to 2000 calories a day - which is not painful and is easily sustainable. That had me losing about 2.5 lbs a week. All of which the site calculated for me based on my age, sex, and activity level.
Now that I’m down to 200lbs - which was my goal, I can eat 2800 calories a day. Which is really easy after 6 months of 2000 calorie days.
The great thing about fit day is that there’s database of something like 100,000 foods and it’s free. You just enter what you’ve eaten and how much of it everytime you do. When you reach your limit, you stop eating.
FitDay is the one I’m using, too. It has a list of commonly-entered foods for quick picks, too, and some days I can pick almost everything off that list quickly. It has some things that could be easier, but it’s all a helluva lot easier than looking everything up and writing everything down and totalling it every day.
I like this one. I’ll also take a look at Huerta88’s idea and Menu Mailer. 1,200 calories a day is NOT going to cut it though, and might lead to dropping 200-lb residents at the critical moment… not such a good idea… anyway, if I could actually stay at about 2,000 calories a day, I would lose all the weight I need to considering the amount of exercise I get. I really wish that diet were as easy to stick to as exercise.
ETA… A Google search for “Menu Mailer” was a tad bit confusing. Is it “Menu Mailer, Inc.” “Healthy Menu Mailer”, or what??
Taber did say that was very protein heavy and it is. Also be warned that the size of most chicken breasts you buy is actually two servings. A proper serving of most proteins should be about the size of the palm of your hand.
Also, I don’t know your activity levels but if you are looking to lose belly fat the best way to do that is to exercise, it doesn’t have to be intense, a 20 to 30 minute walk every other day will help.
ETA: D’oh! Didn’t read for comprehension, apparently exercise is not a problem.
I bought the e-book and love the idea, but I’m a picky eater and a lot of the recipes don’t actually appeal to me, so… no. I ought to go back and give it another look, though - the concept is so appealing.
We don’t use all of them, by any means, but some of them are really good. (She puts about one new recipe on the website a week, and has put out three e-books now, each one for a season.) I mean, yeah, you gotta like beans, but the microwave stuffed acorn squash is awesome, as is the potato peanut curry, the pizza, the pasta with the peanut ginger sauce, I forget the others we do all the time. I’d suggest you try some stuff you wouldn’t normally try - it’s cheap as hell and you might like it.
Daily plate is telling me that 4 oz of boneless skinless chicken breast is only ~120 calories. Two servings wouldn’t exactly break the bank. In fact, I doubt my posted diet would be enough to last Anise through a full 12 hour workday, especially if 200lb residents are being hauled around. Maybe bring the trail mix to work. Kashi granola bars are another good snack idea.
I forgot to add (and it rounds things out nutritionally) – she’d also buy ten small things a week of Greek 2% (liar – I usually bullied her into whole milk) yogurt, one for each of us for breakfast, and lots of fresh berries to go with.
She was a more efficient industrial cook than I, but I am not exaggerating when I tell you that if you’re okay with “monotony” (and I am, with periodic splurges, which we’d do too) I could, with 30 mins. of shopping Saturday morning, and a bunch of (reusable!) Gladware, set you (and an S.O.) up with a full work week’s worth of three meals a day in 2 hrs. Sunday evening, while checking in on football, etc. in the interim. How much money did we save, at that? I think the average grocery bill for a week’s provisions was $150 (ehh, maybe a bit more when you consider that we both had a weakness for nice herbs (not cheap), side cheeses (ditto), and occasional ethnic forays (hint: daal is not hard to make, pretty nutritious, and tasty, but Indian spices, at least the base repertoire, are an investment)).
Also: buy a slow cooker. Braised lamb shank, etc. is cheapish, delicious, and good for you. Slow cooked dishes also cook in big batches, just inviting you to seal multiple portions and refrigerate/freeze for future use.
I’ll also take a look at Huerta88’s idea and Menu Mailer. 1,200 calories a day is NOT going to cut it though, and might lead to dropping 200-lb residents at the critical moment… not such a good idea… anyway, if I could actually stay at about 2,000 calories a day, I would lose all the weight I need to considering the amount of exercise I get. I really wish that diet were as easy to stick to as exercise.