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My fiancée and I started a diet last week. So far, I’ve lost 10 lbs and she’s lost 12.5 lbs.

Given the above information, two questions often spring to mind.

“How the hell did you do that?” and “Don’t you know it’s the holiday season?”

In answer to the second, yes, I know. Thanksgiving is just a couple of days a way, in fact.

And I’m going to eat as much as I want.

“Okay, wise ass. What fad food are you going to choke down instead of pumpkin pie and turkey?”

Hmm. I was thinking… Thick slices of roasted ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, deviled eggs, and cherry topped cheesecake.

“…”

What? I don’t eat much turkey. I might have a little, though. Maybe even some pumpkin pie.

I should probably answer that first question now.

My fiancée and I have developed a diet plan to lose weight at a quick and steady pace. It’s based on The Hacker’s Diet, something you can read about in yesterday’s post. 52 lbs in a year, 1 lb a week.

That’s a little too slow for me. Sure, it’s lazy and it’s the easiest way to do it, but I don’t mind a harder way if it’s also the faster way.

I’d rather just tear off a band aid than do it slowly. I prefer to power through more pain quickly than put up with less pain for longer.

And really, it’s only hardest at the start. Once you get used to it, you’ve built up momentum and things are much easier.

That being said, I’d rather diet for a few months than for all year. I have at least 50 lbs to lose, and after two weeks I’m already 1/5th of the way there.

So what’s my system?

Lets go over the basic, underlying system again…

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You lose weight when you eat fewer calories than you burn.

There are 3500 calories in 1 lb of human fat.

Eat 500 calories a day fewer than you burn and you will lose 1 lb a week. (500 x 7 = 3500)

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Easy enough, right? Now for the extrapolation…

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Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday- 100 calorie fasting day.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday- 500 calorie regular day.

Splurge Day – Once every couple of weeks, eat a big meal on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

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This is something I’ve worked out with my fiancée, and she’s been instrumental in making sure we stick to the diet. Truth be told, I’m allowed to have a couple hundred more calories than that each day, but this is the base that we go by because it’s what applies to her. I burn more calories a day than her, but I try not to eat that extra food in front of her.

We each stick to this, and try to eat even less each day if possible.

Sound like starvation? Maybe, but it’s controlled starvation. This is something each of us knows we can handle, we take vitamins, drink lots of water, and try to eat healthy.

We each try to go as long as we can during the day before we eat, consuming the bulk of our calories at night. (Yes, that’s right- at night. The whole ‘don’t eat before bed’ thing is bullshit. I know from experience.) I usually have my couple hundred extra calories for breakfast, but I burn that at work during the day.

What’s Splurge Day, you might ask?

Splurge Day is awesome!

Once every couple of weeks, we both can have a small breakfast and then we eat a big supper. This usually involves going out to eat somewhere like chinese buffet or El Rancherito.

And it doesn’t hurt the diet. In fact, Splurge Day was last Friday at El Ranch and I had the huge Burrito Especial (without lettuce, tomato, or guacamole) and a large order of Mexican Fried Rice. Melody had a big Chimichanga (without lettuce, guacamole, or pico de gallo) with extra sour cream and a small side of Mexican Fried Rice. Add to that two waters and two baskets worth of free chips and two bowls worth of free salsa (eaten mostly by me), and we felt bloated afterwards.

That’s a meal that two weeks ago would’ve just barely satisfied me. Yet this time I was full enough to be nearly sick but oh so happy.

The next morning we had each lost at least a pound! (1 lb for me, 2 lbs for Melody.)

Too good to be true? Not so! The truth continued the next day, when 500 calories later we had each lost more weight.

So how does Splurge Day work? It’s not something found in the Hacker’s Diet, but something I’ve learned from experience.

The way I like to think about it is metaphorically, so you get a good visual.

Imagine that old scene from I Love Lucy, where Lucy and Ethel are in the candy factory trying to keep up with chocolates coming through on a conveyer belt.

With me so far?

Now, those chocolates come in a fairly steady, slow pace. One little chocolate, easy to process.

Now imagine a huge mass of them comes steaming down the belt.

For once, Lucy and Ethel don’t get into comic hijinks. They just stand back, let everything pass on through and ignore it. Once the huge amount has passed and the chocolates return to the normal trickle, they go on with their job as usual.

There’s a disturbing metaphor just beneath the surface there, but the point is still the same. It’s probably something about our metabolisms being up and used to using fat reserves, so that extra food gets converted into energy instead of stored away, but it’s easier just to picture it as passing through.

So, that’s it.

My starting weight was 241.5 lbs and I’m currently 231 lbs. My goal is at least 190, but I’d be awesomely ripped at 180. For now, I’m just losing weight, but around 200 lbs I’m going to start exercising more so I stay athletic instead of skinny.

Oh, and the holiday season? A couple extra Splurge Days won’t mean much in the long run. :D

~Matt Booker

Tags: Diet, Food

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 1:10 am and is filed under Weight Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.