How I lost 32 pounds and still eat Pizza Hut

[Almighty Colin]

I’ve lost 32 pounds this year. It was pretty easy. Here’s my formula.

1. Count calories
2. Work out every day

OK, so that doesn’t sound so easy. That's what everyone always says to do and it sucks. I had to make it easier by working with my own psychology. I know I'm lazy and prone to "relapsing". ;-)

I work out 20 minutes per day. 7 days per week. Sometimes up to 45 but never less than 20. Sometimes I walk, sometimes I jog, sometimes I lift weights. On days where I really don’t feel like working out I walk for 5 minutes, bike for 5 minutes, jog for 5 minutes and lift for 5 minutes. Anything to break the monotony. Anything to reach that 20 minutes. I workout 7 days a week because I know skipping weekends or any other days increases the chances I will never work out again. Every day I think about not working out I view as possibly the first day of many that I will not work out. I know myself.

Working out can be really boring for me. On really bad days, I walk 10 minutes away from my house knowing I have to get back. That way I only need 10 minutes of motivation.

Counting Calories. I used this calculator to figure how many calories I need to take in every day to maintain weight. http://www.caloriecontrol.org/calcalsm.html

All other things being equal (sometimes they are not), you need to burn or not eat 3500 less calories than what the above calculator gives in order to lose one pound. What I did is to subtract 500 calories from what the calorie calculator gave me and so then I expected to lose 1 pound a week (7*500 = 3500). That’s a pretty steady pace and I figured I didn’t want to overdo it. 1 pound a week is great. Since I’ve been working out and my metabolism is a little higher I’ve actually been losing weight faster than that.

Every time I am going to eat I go to google and type in “calories chicken” or whatever. Pretty soon you have most of the foods you normally eat memorized (many foods have the info on them). There is lean hamburger that is very low in calories. Pizza Hut cheese pizza is about 300 calories a slice (med. Pizza) . I had 4 slices for dinner last night.

The most important thing I’ve found is that soda is the nectar of the devil. I used to grab a 20 oz. soda from the store all the time. 250 calories! A few of those and you’re about done for the day. Diet Dr. Pepper has 0 calories and so does diet iced tea (Comes in a 2 liter, tastes sweet sugary).

Really, a lot of it is about portions and staying away from sugar which is calorie-laden. There is no food I’ve had to give up. I just eat smaller portions. If I get really hungry I drink a big glass of Diet Dr. Pepper or Diet Iced Tea.