Week 0: 250 pounds

[javasaurus]

Need to lose weight. I'm not terribly self-conscious about being fat, but I recognize that it's not healthy. It can also be expensive and frustrating when buying clothes!

I am determined to do something about it. No, I'm not looking for advice (but thank you anyway).

My starting weight (today) is 250 pounds. My goal is to be down to 200 pounds by one year from now. (my ideal weight is supposedly 180 pounds, but I'll settle for where I was 10 years ago).

I'm not crash-dieting. I'll be replacing most soda with water, and replacing fast food with diet shakes or healthy homemade food for lunch. The only way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you burn, and by dropping sodas and fast food, I'll be dropping between 750 and 1000 calories per day.

Comments

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Here are lunch meals that are representative of what I eat, with their calories. The calorie counts come from the restaurants' own web sites, and at-home foods are based on this calorie site.

At McDonalds, I’ll eat 2 hamburgers, or 10 nuggets, with medium fries and drink (with refill).
That’s 1390 to 1430 calories.

At Wendy’s, I’ll get a taco salad and drink (with refill) or single burger meal (with fries, and drink refill)
That’s 640 for the taco salad meal, or 1080 for the single burger meal.

At Taco Bell, I’ll either get a 7-layer burrito with two taco supremes, or a nachos bell grande with taco supreme, or other similar combination. The range (including drink refill) is about 1300 to 1400.

If I have two PB&J sandwiches, pretzels or fritos, piece of fruit, and can of soda, that’s still 1200 calories.
(drink water, drop to one sandwich but add second piece of fruit or a vegetable would make it about 700)

Diet shake, piece of fruit and some crackers: 420

Coffee (black) has no calories! And only 50 if you ad cream/sugar. Of course, coffee has other problems…

[xpioti.livejournal.com]

One thing I've discovered is that I can't drop something I like cold-turkey. So rather than craving, I give in every now and then. But you seem to have a very good plan, there! The other advantage to home-cooked stuff is it's much cheaper. Actually, have you tried Healthy Choice frozen meals? I can't eat most frozen meals, but the Healthy Choice stuff is quite good. It's of sufficient food-quality that it doesn't sit poorly with me, it's not spiced out the wazoo, and there's a nice variety of meals that are extremely convenient.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

I'm not really dropping anything cold-turkey. I'm modifying certain elements of my diet. I drink a lot of water already, so changing some of my sodas to water won't seem that strange to me. I'll still snack sometimes and still go out to lunch sometimes.

As for frozen meals, I enjoy a number of different brands, and even the non-diet ones are better for you, and cheaper, than many fast foods. Check out the label on a Marie Callender frozen dinner sometime. Very tasty!

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Ummm, I meant the M.C. dinner is tasty, not the label...(though I suspect the label is low in calories)

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

Probably high in fiber as well.Ï