The beauty of the Physics Diet is that it doesn't really matter what you eat. As long as you eat fewer calories than your body burns you will lose weight.
When I started my diet I had three priorities. I wanted to control the number of calories I ate. I wanted to minimize the amount of hunger I felt. And I wanted to find a way to maintain a healthy weight for the rest of my life.
Some History
I have never been on a low calorie diet before. Eight years ago I lost 60 pounds on my version of the Atkins diet. I always knew I wouldn't be able to avoid carbs for the rest of my life. I planned on being able to go back to a reduced carb diet whenever I gained weight. But as I got older my allergies got worse. I started taking allergy medicine that prevented me from losing weight on my Atkins diet. Eventually I gave up trying to control my weight. I've steadily gained weight the last five years.
Fear of Hunger
When I started my diet in October 2005 I was afraid of getting hungry and giving up. I also felt I wouldn't able to count calories if I had to measure and weigh everything I ate.
Lots of Small Meals
At first I treated my diet as a temporary experiment. I do these sorts of experiments all the time, so this wasn't new to me. The point of the experiment was to find out how few calories I could eat without feeling like I was starving. I also wanted to see how much weight I'd lose. Frankly I didn't believe the equations and formulas I'd learned about. It couldn't be as easy as burning 3,500 calories more than you eat, to lose one pound of fat.
I decided I would eat 5 meals a day. In the spring of 2005 I started eating one package of instant oatmeal for breakfast and I knew that it was both healthy and satisfying. At 160 calories each I decided to continue eating oatmeal for breakfast.
I wanted to give myself a daily sweat fix so I wouldn't be tempted to cheat on my diet. When I learned 1/2 cup of ice cream has around the same number of calories as a serving of oatmeal I decided to make that my last meal of the day.
I decided to split the rest of my calories between 3 other meals. Lunch at noon, a 5pm meal, and a 7pm meal. I didn't know how many calories I would eat per day, but I knew when I would eat them. I vowed not to eat outside of that schedule. I knew I couldn't quit eating cold turkey, but I sure could quit eating snacks cold turkey.
I thought I'd end up eating about 1600 calories a day. At that time I didn't really have any idea how many calories my body needed. I assumed it was between 2200 to 2400 calories. I figured I would lose about 1 pound per week. I was ok with that even though I was able to lose 5 pounds per week on my Atkins diet. Like I said, I was looking for something that I could maintain for the rest of my life.
The first week of my experiment I hit the frozen foods department at our grocery store. I looked at the calories on everything. I was looking for food that I knew I liked, but that was package in a way that I could eat about 300-400 calories at a time.
I found a lot of stuff that met my requirements. Hot Pockets, Lean Pockets, Red Baron breakfast pizzas, microwavable French bread pizzas, Weight Watchers frozen dinners, Lean Cuisine frozen dinners, etc., etc. I knew I needed about 3 meals per day so the first week I got enough stuff for 21 meals. I tried a lot of new stuff but I also made sure I had plenty of stuff that I knew I liked. That way if I found something that was awful I could toss it and not have to miss a meal.
I ate like that for the first month or so. It felt like I was always eating. My family even made fun of me because it seemed to them I like I was eating more than I did before I went on my diet. I found a lot of food that I really liked. My favorites were the Weight Watchers frozen dinners. I found that a lot of my meals were around 200 - 300 instead of 300 - 400 calories. My daily calorie consumption averaged 1200 - 1300 calories instead of 1600 calories.
Ups and Downs
Here's what my Weight Chart looked like for that first month:
You can see a couple of high points on it. On Friday 11/18 my wife and I went out for the first time. We went to Outback. I got a Queensland salad. I've always loved the salads at the Outback but this was the first time I tried one of their dinner salads. I could not believe how big it was. I hadn't planned to eat that much food. I didn't reduce my calories throughout the day. I don't know for sure, but I estimate that salad - with the dressing - was 1000 - 1200 calories. I knew I had overdone it but I was just glad that I made it through a meal out without doing even worse.
After dinner we went to the movies. We got a medium popcorn. I ate three or four large handfuls of it.
When I got on the scale the next day - Saturday 11/19 - I weighed 307 pounds. I was disappointed and discouraged. That was a 3 pound gain in 24 hours. You can see that point on the chart clearly. But you can also see that my weight was still below the blue trend line. When I saw the point plotted on the chart I felt much better. That was the first time I got to see the real value of using a moving average to monitor my weight.
Thanksgiving
The next high point on my November Weight Chart occurred on Friday 11/25. In fact that is the only time since I started my diet that my daily weight went above my average weight (the blue trend line).
I decided a few days before Thanksgiving that I was going to let myself off the hook for Thanksgiving & Christmas. My brother and his wife were coming over for dinner and I didn't want to stress out about a diet on a days that are traditionally all about food. So I ate. A lot. I also drank a lot of beer. I didn't have too many sweets though. I stuck to snacking on pickles and olives instead of pies and all the other sweet stuff I would normally eat. Overall I felt pretty good. I knew I ate a lot more than I was used to on my diet. But I also knew I ate half what I normally would on Thanksgiving.
Friday morning - 11/25 - I stepped on the scale. I weighed 311 pounds. That was 8 pounds heavier than the day before. I wasn't too surprised. I wasn't disappointed though because I chose to take a break from my diet. But that red point on the chart motivated me to get back on track.
The next morning, Saturday 11/26, I was back under my average weight. But just barely. My weight that morning was 307 pounds. My average weight that morning was 307.07 pounds. I was very happy about that. Just one day in the red.
By Monday 11/28 I was back down to 301 pounds. That one day of care free eating set me back 3 days. Not bad, but I learned a lot that week.
I learned how the Weight Chart helps keep me motivated. More importantly I learned that I didn't get much satisfaction from that one day of over eating. I decided I would stay on my diet on Christmas day. It just wasn't worth it. I got a lot more satisfaction seeing my weight chart in the green than I did overeating for one day.
Meal Plan Changes
Shortly after Thanksgiving I decided I didn't need to eat 5 meals a day. I started out by skipping my evening ice cream snack. I didn't miss it either. That surprised me.
A few days later I started skipping breakfast too. I was now down to 3 meals a day. I ate lunch at noon. I'd eat a meal after work at around 5pm. My last meal was at about 8pm.
Boredom
I was now eating about 1000 calories per day. I wasn't uncomfortable at all. But I did start getting very bored with the foods I was eating. The Weight Watchers meals that I liked in the beginning all started tasting the same. I started buying other frozen foods. I got a lot of burritos, mini chimichangas, taquitos, microwave french fries (amazingly good BTW, even better than oven bake fries and they are in a convenient 400 calorie package), and frozen pizzas.
I ate like that for the first 2 or 3 weeks of December. Here is my Weight Chart through the end of December:
It isn't as obvious on that chart as it was at the time, but from 12/05 - 12/17 my weight hovered around 290 pounds. That two weeks felt like two years. But even though I wasn't losing weight on a daily basis, I could still see my moving average go down. That helped more than you can imagine.
It was in the middle of that plateau that I heard about the book Eat, Drink, and be Healthy. I checked out a copy of the first edition from the local library and read it. I decided to try out the recommendations in the book for at least two weeks.
Our next trip to the grocery store was on Friday December 16. I bought some apples, pears, fresh pineapple, stuff for salad, stuff to make my own salad dressing, a variety of frozen mixed vegetables, brown rice, and some nuts. I also decided to change my meal schedule again. Now I was going to eat oatmeal for breakfast, fruit or a salad for lunch, and vegetables and rice for dinner. I was still a bit nervous about eating one meal in the evening. But I thought I'd try the new schedule for two weeks too. If it didn't work, I could always go back to my old schedule.
The next day I had some fresh pineapple, a pear, and an apple. I put all the fruit in a bowl. I was amazed how much food there was. Especially since the entire meal was under 300 calories. But I was skeptical that it would fill me up and satisfy me. I was not disappointed. In fact I almost couldn't finish my lunch there was so much food. That was the first time since I started my diet that I was very full from eating a normal diet meal.
For my first healthy dinner I made a stir fry with broccoli, peppers, onions, mushrooms, water chestnuts and brown rice. I was skeptical again, but I was satisfied. There was a lot of food and it was very tasty.
For the next couple of weeks I rotated salads and fruit salads for lunch. Most of my dinners were stir fry, but sometimes I had a salad instead.
Since then I have branched out a bit. I recently bought a food steamer. I also started eating a low calorie sandwich that I threw together one day. But I am still following the recommendations in Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy and I'm loving. Best of all, my weight loss is more predictable and stable than ever. I broke through my last plateau just a few days after I started eating this way, and I haven't looked back since.
A Lifelong Change
The most important thing to me is that I know I'll be able to eat this way for the rest of my life. And I know I won't feel deprived or get bored. I also know I'll be healthier and happy for it.
In the end, what you eat is up to you. Look for foods that will satisfy your appetite and your cravings. Look for foods that help you avoid feeling deprived. Add variety to your diet. Keep experimenting. If you control the number of calories you eat you can lose weight eating anything.