HOW I LOSE WEIGHT

First off, I am not "on a diet". On the other hand, I continually reevaluate my diet.

The National Weight Control Registry keeps tabs on formerly obese people who have remained slim for at least a year, and from time to time does studies of the dietary habits of the registrants. One interesting discovery was that the desire to loose weight was frequently triggered by a "medical event", particularly in the case of men over 50. I had my medical event on March 14th, and on March 18th, I made the final adjustment to my diet.

I had a head start on the whole diet thing because, as I mentioned last time, I had long since given up almost all junk food. The only thing I "gave up" on March 18th was KFC biscuits and chicken strips. Not much sacrafice there, although I did love those strips.

What I did give up was calories. It was abundantly clear that it was about time to start counting calories. I could no longer ignore the simple idea that I gained weight, and kept it on, because I just plain ate too much, "healthy" food or not. So the question was: how many calories should I eat?

I turned to an old idea I had read long ago, and interestingly enough, have not been able to find again anywhere on the web. The idea was extremely simple: if you eat as many calories as is "normal" for a particular (ideal) weight, then eventually you will become that weight. (Probably the idea came from Parade - sounds a whole lot like that "everyone eats too much of one thing" idea.)

So step one was to go one of the many sites that determines your ideal weight based on your height - I kind of liked ask.com's "How to Assess your Body Weight", probably because they made it a bit more complicated and took frame size into account. The second step was to find out how many calories I should eat at the ideal weight. For that, I turned to Nutrition.com.sg. Note that ".sg" stands for Singapore - that's right, I use a Singaporian (??) site for all my calculations. [In general, I find the Australian, United Kingdom and this Singapore site much better than similar American sites - they are simply more direct and forthright with less advertising.] In any event, that's pretty much all I did for the final adjustment to my diet. It worked out like this:

Given my height (77") and frame (heavy) and age (60):

my ideal weight is 213 pounds (the range is 178 to 218)
the calories I should consume for
light exercise: 2933
"lite plus": 3030
moderate: 3422

I also keep similar information for my actual weight, recalcualted every two pounds or so:
actual weight: 323
sedentary activity: 3442
light activity: 3971
"lite plus": 4210
moderate: 4633

From day one I have written down every calorie I have eaten - if I go out, I spend a half an hour or so recreating the meal and trying to make an accurate log of what I had to eat. I target 3030 calories for "lite plus" activity (half way between light and moderate activity), and I don't mind much if I hit 3250 or so. I use the calorie levels at my current (actual) weight to try and set some (mental) limits - for example, I really never want to go over the sedentary calories for my current weight, and I like to make sure that I am targeting 1000 calories below the calories for "lite plus" activity at my actual weight. As I get closer to my target weight, these limits will no longer work, but for now they are fine.

As I write down my calories during the day, I adjust my meals depending on what I have eaten so far - dinner can be anything from a dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant to a baked potato with steamed cauliflower, depending on what calories I have left. I also log my exercise level, which is primarily walking, but includes some weight lifting etc.

The reason I liked Nurtition.com.sg is because they had a useful definition of light and moderate activity that I could apply to my life style: light activity consisted of walking 3.75 to 6.25 miles a week, while moderate activity consisted of walking 10.5 to 17.5 miles a week. For years prior to March 18th, I walked about 4 to 6 miles a week; over the last 3 months I have extended that to 16 to 19 miles a week (I include lawn mowing in that figure). I bought a pedometer to keep track of the actual milage - I don't count anything unless it has an exercise value, and I deduct about 1% from each reading, just to make sure the step count is honest (the pedometer I use is accurate to +/- 1%).

I expect that I will be eating these same 3030 calories for the rest of my life - first to reach 213, and then to stay there. I am trying to keep the exercise reasonable so that it may also be maintained for as long as possible - as I age and it has to be cut back, then so will my calories.

With the control of calories consumed, I feel I have now completed at least the dietary aspects of my Life Style Change. In my head I am already 213 pounds, it is disappointing everytime I look in the mirror and see that I am not. Yet.