PhysicsDiet.com

As of this morning I've officially lost 100 pounds in 8 1/2 months.

But another PhysicsDiet.com beat me to the 100 pound mark by several months. jm3000 lost 100 pounds in about 4 1/2 months.

I don't have a final goal weight in mind so I'm not sure what my next major weight milestone will be. I will probably drop below 200 pounds before I'm done. But for now I'm focused on getting my Body Fat below 15%. Once I do that I'll reevaluate where I am then I'll decide if I want to shoot for 10% Body Fat.

Lately I haven't been tracking the calories I'm consuming or the calories I'm burning from exercise. I've been using a combination of portion counting and weighing some foods. But I don't track the details anymore.

I spent several months doing different experiments trying to figure out whether I could optimize my diet by eating different ratios of macronutrients or varying the types of foods I ate. But in the end I found that it mostly doesn't matter what I eat as long as prefer healthier foods over non-healthy foods and control my calorie balance.

The key factors for me are:

• Eat 5-6 small meals a day
  This is a critical component of my success. At first I didn't think it mattered. But when I experimented with some of the ideas from Body for Life I learned that eating 6 small meals a day is the best way to control my appetite and my emotions. I'm much more even tempered now. And I'm never hungry now as long as I eat at least 1500 calories per day. I usually eat around 2000 calories per day though.
• Regular vigorous exercise
  For a long time I thought eating 6 small meals a day was the key to my improved mood. But recently I went about 2 weeks without doing much exercise. I've been under a lot of stress recently and I got a bit depressed. After one particularly bad weekend I jumped on my stationary bike for an hour. That's when I realized that I have to exercise to be happy. Without exercise I get much more stressed and I let little things bother me much more than they should. Exercise is the best way for me to deal with stress and relax. Exercise also helps me lose weight, but not as much as you'd think. Controlling your calorie intake is much more important if your goal is to lose weight. But exercise is critical to your health. You can't be healthy without exercise even if you control your weight. And now I know that I can't be happy without exercise.

On Monday my average weight loss topped 90 pounds. But my average BMI was still just over 30. Yesterday my average BMI dropped to 29.9. That means I'm officially "Overweight". Yeah!

My goal is to get my Body Fat % between 10 - 15%. I'm not too worried about what my weight will be when that happens. I suspect it will stabilize close to 200. That means my BMI probably won't drop below 24.9 so I will probably remain Overweight. But I won't be overfat, so I'm not worried

Getting my BMI below 30 is a major milestone that I've been looking forward to. The next major milestone is topping 100 pounds lost. That should happen within the next month. I can't wait.

160 Calories

That is the number of excess calories that I had to eat per day to gain 124 pounds.

When I learned that a pound fat contains about 3,500 calories I realized I could calculate the number of calories per day I had to overeat to gain weight. I just needed two reference dates where I knew what my weight was.

On 5/25/1998 my weight was somewhere around 200 pounds. I know that because that is my third daughters birthday. The spring before she was born I lost about 60 pounds on the Atkins diet.

On 10/28/2005 my weight was 324 pounds. I know that because that is when I permanently changed my lifestyle and started losing weight again.

In 2,713 days I gained 124 pounds. That is just an average of course. Some times I gained weight faster. Some times my weight even stabilized for a period of time. And at the beginning of 2005 it even dropped a few pounds. But that doesn't matter. The simple fact is that over a period of 2,713 days I became 124 heavier.

I gained 0.0457 pound per day. That is just 20.7 grams. To put that in perspective, a AA battery weighs 25 grams.

Now I know how many pounds per day I gained. Since I know how many calories are in a pound of fat I can calculate the number of excess calories I ate per day to gain 124 pounds.

A single serving, or 1/2 cup, of vanilla ice cream contains about 150 calories. When I realized that I only had to reduce the number of calories I was eating by 1 small bowl of ice cream per day I knew I'd never be fat again.

This week I'll publish a series of short articles that explain the simple plan and the various tactics I used to drop nearly 50 pounds (or 5 belt inches and one shirt size) in the course of last year. [Jeremy Zawodny]

I look forward to reading about what worked for Jeremy.

rangerpretzel talks about how he has lost 20 pounds since December of 2005. He has consistently lost about 1 pound per week.

People have asked me:

• How do you do it?
• How is it so easy?
• Why haven't you gained it back?
• How can I do it?

You probably already know everything that rangerpretzel talks about in his post. But that doesn't make it any less valuable. Sometimes you have to see someone you know achieve something before you believe it is possible for you.

When your weight loss starts to become noticeable you'll be amazed by the number of people who come to you for advice. When that happens you should do what rangerpretzel is doing and share what you've learned. Chances are they've already heard what you are going to tell them. But who knows, maybe this time they'll give it an honest effort. And when that happens it is an amazing feeling. It is great to know that you've inspired someone to make a positive change in their life. Nothing motivates me more than knowing that my success is helping others achieve their goals. It is a lot of pressure. But it is a good kind of pressure.

Here are the top 10 fastest losers right now when you sort the list by the 30 Day Weight Change column. This is great. I'd love to hear what you guys are up to on the forums. I'm sure others would love to hear too. No pressure though

The entire public list is amazing. I'm really glad I added this feature. For example, right now the average 1 Week Weight Change is 1.25 pounds. That is about exactly what all the experts say you should reasonably expect to lose per week.

Playing with the list does make want to add a bunch of new features though. I need to include Height, Calorie Deficit, and BMI. I also need to add a summary row so you can see the averages for each column. There is always more work to do

The Traveler's Diet

...

Greenberg's final answers are not the best sales pitch in the world:

Q:Will this diet ever end?
A: If I told you I love this diet, I'd be lying. I don't love this diet, and I'm not a gym rat. But it's a discipline. I can't let it drop.

Q:Do you ever miss the days of flopping on a hotel bed with a Snickers from the minibar?
A: I miss every single day.

I can't imagine you could ever succeed following a lifestyle you don't enjoy.

I enjoyed overeating. And I enjoyed sitting on the couch watching TV. Or sitting in front of the computer working through the night. I used to enjoy smoking too before I quit in 2001.

But I also enjoy never being hungry. I love having the energy to work all day and then go home and play soccer with my kids for an hour and still work in front of the computer until midnight. I love biking and swimming and hiking. I can't wait to live somewhere that will let me add kayaking and mountain climbing and swimming in the ocean to that list.

Life is too short to be miserable. You don't have to trade happiness in your diet to be happy with the way you look and feel. Eat the foods you love, but in moderation. Don't do exercise that bores you to tears. Find fun activities that also happen to burn calories and improve your fitness.

Life isn't a zero sum game. You can have your cake and eat it too. The sooner you find a way to spread the joy you receive from overeating to other parts of you life, the sooner you'll find your new happy, healthy, lifestyle.

Zippygirl is looking for examples of Hacker's Diet success stories. I think the PhysicsDiet.com public profiles page is a great start.

That page only include active users that have chose to make their PhysicsDiet.com profiles public. Users are considered active if they have logged an entry in their Fitness Log within the last 7 days.

Holly (hja) started tracking her average weight in 2001. She recently started tracking it on PhysicsDiet.com, and her public profile is a great source of inspiration.

My profile is currently at the top of the Biggest Losers list. I expect this is only a temporary phenomenon. I want to lose about 30 more ponds and then I'll transition to maintenance mode. That will put me down a total of 120 pounds. Eventually I expect others with public profiles will lose more than that.

quipark and polar are off to great starts. They've both lost almost 38 pounds so far.

Nolan (kwirq) is also doing well. He hasn't recorded any entries this week though, so I hope things are going ok for him.

ttgf is doing great too. And his blog is one of my favorite health and fitness blogs.

quotidianlight just started tracking her weight on PhysicsDiet.com. So far she is off to a great start. I look forward to tracking her progress both through her public profile and on her blog.

So far there 37 public profiles on PhysicsDiet.com. They all inspire me. I hope that list continues to grow. I look forward to seeing all of them reach their goals and maintain a healthy lifestyle for years to come.

A lot of people recommend that you drink a glass of water before you eat to fill your stomach so you don't eat as much. I've never understood this advice. Water, or any beverage really, just doesn't fill me up the same way food does.

Eat fresh fruit or raw vegetables first

Fruit and vegetables are bulky foods that have few calories. They are incredibly filling.

Try to stick to raw vegetables. Cooked vegetables aren't nearly as filling. And depending on how they are prepared, they may have a lot more calories than the same vegetables in their raw form. If you must cook the vegetables then steam them.

Drink a protein shake first

My daily protein goal is 195 grams. My normal diet usually doesn't come close to this so I supplement my diet with Whey protein powder. After I drink an 8 once protein shake I'm stuffed. If my meal include a protein shake I eat it first.