I went to Sweden for 7 months last year and came back in March 15 pounds heavier. There, the ugly facts have been put down in writing. I figured they'd magically fall off when I came home, because in my experience weight loss has never seemed under my direct control, it just sort of spontaneously happens sometimes. But this time the magic didn't happen.So, about six weeks ago I bought a bodybugg and started tracking my calories in and out. I learned a lot about where my calories tend to come from (hello, booze) and found that just the act of keeping track of what I eat tends to help me make better choices at each meal. So, since I got the bodybugg, I've lost 4 pounds (and I had sort of organically lost three pounds before that, which brings me to 8 pounds shy of my pre-Sweden weight).
But looking at the numbers, 4 pounds in 6 weeks is not very impressive. I've reduced my daily average caloric intake by just 250 calories—the equivalent of a single cocktail. Today, after another unimpressive weekly weigh-in, I decided that just tracking what I did eat isn't cutting it. I need to plan what I'm going to eat.
I was talking this idea over with a friend from work, who mentioned that Timothy Ferriss blogged about his simple plan for fat loss recently. Ferriss is the author of The 4-Hour Work Week, and kind of a professional life-hacker—he has shortcuts for everything, ranging from brilliant to kind of profane (he sends his jeans to India to be broken in by an outsourced worker), depending on your outlook. I saw him speak at South by Southwest a couple of years ago and the audience was literally gasping at some of his audacious suggestions.
Anyway, his concept for simple dieting goes like this: Choose a limited number of options for each meal and mix-and-match them. That way there's no guesswork and no meal planning. You can create categories of foods like proteins, legumes and vegetables and then put together stuff like (and this is just off the top of my head):
Free-range chicken, lentils and kale
Salmon, mashed chickpeas and asparagus
Carne asada (made with grass-fed beef), black beans and spinach salad
This is a little boring, but if you stick to your plan for just one month, you'll lose weight. Ferriss photographed his meals and they look horrible (sorry, dude—I'm not eating canned refried beans and frozen veggies), but the idea of templated meals is a great one. So is his idea that you should avoid drinking calories, avoid refined carbs, stick to clean proteins and copious amounts of vegetables, and use legumes as your carbs. Obviously this isn't a long-term solution—I personally would die of boredom if I did this for more than a month or so, but after you cut the fat, you can go back to your maintenence diet, consuming just slightly less calories than you burn. Can't hurt; might help. I think I'm gonna give it a try.
