Weight Loss Basics

You've lost so much weight Alex—have you been sick?

I get that a lot now, comments about my significant weight loss.

The compliments are great but then they start to pester me with questions about how I was able to lose so much weight so quickly. You know questions like, 'Was it':

Jenny Craig?
Laparoscopic Surgery?
high-carb diet?
diet pills?
high-protein diet?

I decided to write this article to help my immediate circle of friends as well as my wider circle of Internet friends.

Let me start with some basics.

I am a male, 5' 10 1/2" tall, with a big-boned build—that's the phrase my mom always used to describe me, basically meaning I could be quite heavy yet not show it.

In October of 2007 I hit the scale at 235 pounds. At my height and age I should have come in at 180 pounds. I was 55 pounds overweight!

To make matter worse my blood pressure was getting high, my back was constantly nagging me, and ,of course, I was wearing all my 'fat clothes' and not looking to good—not that I was ever fashionable but I certainly had dressed and looked better in the past.

This gain in weight had occurred over many years and started after I stopped doing regular exercise, started doing too much work on my ass (writing), and started to let my good eating habits go—chips, tacos, candy bars, pop, and other delightful munch foods became my constant 'buddies'.

I was in a rut, looked like crap, and had no energy.

Of course I had tried various diets, especially the high-carb one—got to love those carbs. Unfortunately my definition of 'good carbs' had nothing to do with the actual definition of 'good carbs' (re-read my 'buddies' list above) and I didn't lose a pound.

My revelation and true inspiration, to lose weight, came from an unexpected source—my dentist!

I was having a tooth ache and went in to see Norman. Norman is a great guy, has good hands, and actually tries to emphasize with his patients. However, like all dentists, he hates to see a patient jeopardize his work. In this case it was a couple of crowns he had put into my mouth years ago. Small cavities were developing around the crowns, cavities that could be fixed without replacing the crowns (thank God).

After taking care of business Norman says to me, 'Do you eat a lot of sugar Alex, with your coffee, or do you eat many candy bars?'

'Of course I do Norman, doesn't everyone?'

Well that's when the lecture started, the one about the absolute requirement to reduce my sugar consumption or he would have to replace my crowns—at a very hefty cost.

I was feeling bad enough as it was and I definitely didn't want to make matters worse by piling on thousands of dollars of unnecessary dental work—I'm too much of a Scotsman for that.

So I walked out of Norman's office a changed man.

I immediately bought an electric toothbrush, some 'Flurosine', and floss.

I also made a resolute promise to myself: NO MORE SUGAR!

The trouble with the 'NO MORE SUGAR' resolution is , of course, it seems that all processed foods have sugar—just look at the back of the boxes or on the packaging of your favorite food, there's a 90% chance that you'll see sugar listed. So to honor my resolution I'd have to stop eating food. Not too bloody likely!

Thank God I discovered 'Splenda'—zero calories and tastes like sugar.

The next thing I did was research the basics of weight loss. In this research I discovered BMR or basal metabolism rate. The BMR is the amount of calories your body burns when you are totally inactive as in sleeping, sitting on the couch, not moving a bloody finger.

It may surprise some of you that you do indeed burn calories by doing nothing. In my case doing nothing meant that I could consume 1600 calories per day.

It seemed obvious to me that if I ate less than 1600 calories, in a day, I would lose weight. Of course I could get off of my ass and do some exercise which would allow me to eat more but I'd still have to eat less calories than I burned. I opted for the no exercise route—surprise, surprise.

Here is an excellent BMR calculation site that you should check out.

Next thing I did was to do an Internet search on 'calorie content of foods'. There are literally hundreds of these sites on the Internet.

Armed with this information, my trusted electric toothbrush, and a rock-hard resolution to remove sugar from my diet, and I started the process.

To be honest, it was brutal that first month—a real agony with constant hunger pangs. I was absolutely miserable.

Thank God the weight started coming off really fast so I was able to maintain my focus and resolution. By February of 2008 I was down to 195 pounds (yes it really was that fast) and by June 2008 I had reached, and still maintain, my goal weight of 180 pounds.

Do I feel better now? Yes very much so—it was worth the pain!

I have written an article on weight loss surgery which you may like to read.

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com