How to Lose 25lbs and Keep it Off

If you’re anything like I was a year ago you aren’t happy with your body.  I had spent pretty much every year since I hit puberty trying to lose weight.  I wouldn’t have called myself fat, more... not skinny.  In the right clothes I felt attractive, even beautiful at times, and then I would go out and see all those tiny young girls parading about in their tight skirts and suddenly all good feelings would evaporate.  It was when I realized I had put on twenty pounds since high school that I finally resolved to really do something about it.

I had tried every fad diet in the past ten years.  I would work out for hours on end and instead of shedding those pounds I merely found myself a muscular girl with a nice layer of fat covering any hint of definition.  It was when I read an article about how little exercise could have to do with weight loss that I really changed my dietary approach and began to get results (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857,00.html).  Essentially what I got from the article was that it takes a lot of exercise to burn relatively few calories, but that exercise wears you out and makes you hungry and people tend to compensate by eating far more calories than they burned.

After several hit and misses I finally discovered a diet that worked for me and in the following year lost 25lbs, making me thinner than I had been since elementary school (in which I reached my full height).  And what was the key to it all?  Never go hungry!

It was amazing, my diet had me eating any time I felt a craving and yet I saw results.  The times I tried essentially starving myself were the days I failed.  So you may be wondering what my diet was.  Let me take you through a typical day.

For breakfast I would have a few eggs or a bowl of cereal (an adult cereal, not the kind that are appallingly marketed towards children and are filled with sugar).  Fruit and veggies didn’t count and I could eat as many of those as I wanted throughout the day.  For lunch and dinner I typically ate a frozen meal, not because there is anything intrinsically good about them but because its an easy way to keep track of my calories and keep them under 400 a meal.  Meals were typically accompanied by a salad (spinach, sundried tomatoes, a sprinkling of cheese and bacon bits with a few spritz of low cal dressing).  Of course, if you have a sweet tooth like I do a meal is never complete without some sort of desert, so I typically ate a real fruit Popsicle at the end or a serving of ice cream.

Now this was already a lot more food than most diets I had previously tried would allow, but that wasn’t all.  Between meals I snacked.  Maybe a handful of nuts, a large bowl of air popped popcorn, some dry cereal.  Anything in portions small enough that it was less than 100 calories and I ate it.  As I pickle lover I reveled in the fact that they contained absolutely no calories.  Any time I felt hungry I picked one of these low cal snacks.

After about six months I hit a plateau and the weight seemed to refuse to budge any further.  So, for about three months I raised my calorie intake in small enough amounts that my body became used to more food but I didn’t gain any weight.  When I had really adjusted to this routine I switched back to my diet and the weight began to decline again.

Its been ten months since I began my diet and I feel better about my body than I have in years... than I ever have, to be honest.  I can wear “skinny” clothes that I never imagined I would be able to fit in, much less look good in, and I no longer have to worry about the dreaded muffin top.

Now I’m not saying my specific diet will work miracles for everyone, but trying to find a diet that fits you and doesn’t involve any attempts to starve yourself is essential to weight loss.  Don’t allow yourself to be brought down by any stumbles along the way.  If you mess up on your diet just continue with it the next day and don’t give up.

Give it a try.  Your worth it.