How I lost weight

In my last post I told you about the framework of my weight loss plan. In this post I want to give you my particular plan for losing the weight.

1. Determine what you would like to weight. In my case I chose 160 pounds.
2. Determine how many calories you need to maintain a 160 pound weight if you don’t exercise at all. For men multiply your goal weight by 10 or 11. For women multiply your goal weight by 9 or 10. I chose to multiply my goal weight by 10 which started me with maintenance calories of 1600.
3. Exercise for at least 30 minutes every day and add the calories burned by this exercise to the calories determined in the last step. In my case I burn about 500 calories each day in exercise so my total is now 2100 calories. If I were to mow the lawn, take a brisk walk or do other prolonged exercise I would add the calories burned for that as well.
4. I carry a card with me that has 7 columns, one for each day of the week. Below is a picture of my current card.
   
5. The 16 at the top of each column is my base maintenance calorie needs divided by100. I count all calories “roughly” and only by hundreds thus I use the shortcut of 100=1, 200=2, etc. I really don’t want all those zeroes and I really don’t want to track my calories to the nth degree as this gets tedious.
6. If you can see it in the picture there is a circled number. That is my exercise calories. The base calories is what I really should not go under on any day so I don’t send my body into survival mode. Once I’m finished with my base calories I can dip into my exercise calories. If I don’t use all of my exercise calories I can add them to the next days exercise calories and so be ready for a day where I need or want to eat a bit more. That DOESN’T mean you don’t have to exercise each day. That is an important and non-negotiable “must do”. I have gone on trips where I may get only a few days of walking in but once I’m back at home i continue with my daily 30 minutes.

Well I think that’s enough for now but bottom line is if you eat this way your body should try to get down to the goal weight you used at the beginning of this plan which of course you are going to stay with forever and thus this is NOT a diet, just a new way of eating. Remember the weight will come off quicker at the beginning because your heavier body needs more calories so don’t get discouraged. Also I seldom weigh myself. I go by clothes size instead to determine if I am losing. I have weighed myself only about two or three times in the last 2 and a half years.

More to come…