Operation lose holiday fatness 2011

Well, it was good eatin' this Christmas. I somehow managed to pack on 10 pounds of holiday fatness this year (actually I know exactly how) before the late October Halloween chocolate frenzy and the December holiday meal eat-a-thons. What I ussually do after increasing my mass like this is turn to project Ketosis for a two week period which nets me a damned near garenteed loss of 10-12 pounds. But... It sucks. Carbohydrates, bread especially, makes you as happy as a 13 year old boy in a Hooters reasturant. On project Ketosis, which is the same thing as the first two weeks of the Atkins induction diet, one is allowed 20g of carbs a day. Welcome to unhappiness-ville population me! It's a fad diet to be sure, altering one's food intake radically for a time with fast results which do not stay in place over time. I just go back to eating chocolate and pizzas afterwards and pack it back on in 3 to 4 months (just in time for summer!). It's like, eat like a freak for three months, diet like a freak for two weeks, it takes more time to pack it on than lose it, woo hoo! It's bad though and I've known it for years but never bothered to do anything about it.

Plus, with no sugar in your bod, your system manufactures it somehow to keep your brain going and doesn't do a bang up job of it. You get kinda loopy!

So. Radical departure! This time I tried something different. My six year old was watching "Hanna Montanna" over the holidays and there was Billy Ray Cyrus, the Achy Breaky Heart guy doing pushups in his living room. The full extension part of the exercise brought his eyes in line with the top of his coffee table on which sat a chocolate cake which he talked to as he exercised. He woudl do a push up and say:

"Ah' ma coming for ya!"

And another push up.

"You'll be mine soon!"

 You get the idea. He's burning cals in order to make room for that 350 cal piece of choco cake! So this time, I tried just counting calories. Imagine that! You keep track of what's going in, create a 500 calorie deficit, and low and behold, stuff starts to happen! Burning 3500 calories will equal one pound of fat. Seven days of a 500 calories a day deficit gets you 7x500 = 3500 = a pound a week in weight loss. You calculate what you burn in a day just being alive and going to work (in my case it's like 2700 or so, -500 = 2200 a day) and I'll be darned. This approach actually works! One key is using an iPhone app called lose-it to keep track of what you're stuffing down your pie-hole. Carry it with you, plop in everything you eat that day and you're off to the races. I use it so much my wife calls my iphone my "Fat Pod" now. .

I went from like 215 Jan 01 and I'm 198.5 now mid-March. It's like a pound or two a week. When I get to where I think I should be (195, 190), I'll stop and add 500 cals to my day and I'll stay the same. Now my 2700 daily allotment is tied to my weight and that has gone down as well, (more you lose the less you burn just walking around because you're not as heavy) but not by much.

This is by far the easiest because it's slow and controlled and you get used to this way of eating and doing without food you don't need. AND YOU CAN SNACK! Just leave room or do a pile of pushups like Billy Ray Cyrus!