How I Saved $500 While Losing 52 Pounds in 136 Days |
3 Comments |
A Baby Boomer Says Enough
The following is a guest post from ToughMoneyLove.com. You can subscribe to his RSS feed here.
I am 57 years old. I am 6 feet tall. In high school and college, my weight fluctuated between 165 and 170 pounds. I am careful with my money.
But……
On January 16, 2008 I weighed 218 pounds. I work in an office (I am a patent attorney) and was spending on average $7.50 per day eating lunch out. I owned three pair of pants that I could barely squeeze into. Hundreds of dollars of pants and suits hung in my closet - neglected – because they no longer fit. I couldn’t stand to look at all of my belly fat in the mirror any more. I kept reading that abdominal fat is a strong marker for bad health in the second half of your life.
I had enough. I decided on that day that the weight had to go. I set a goal of weighing 175 pounds on May 31, 2008, the unofficial beginning of summer. Being a technology guy, I also decided that I needed a highly structured, mathematically sound plan for getting there.
My 1500 Calorie Eating Plan
I did some research and learned that for an average person, a 3500 calorie consumption deficit will result in a loss of one pound of body weight. I found a free website, Fitday, that allowed me to enter in my weight loss goal. It then calculated and tracked how much weight per week I had to lose to reach that goal. I determined that I could reach my goal by a combination of a reasonable amount of exercise and eating no more than 1500 calories per day.
Fitday had other important helpful features. After entering in my personal data and activities, Fitday calculated my daily baseline caloric expenditures. It added extra calories burned each day based on the specific exercise (walking, weight-lifting) and other activities (yard word, household maintenance, etc.) that I selected from pull down lists. As I weighed myself each morning and entered that weight into Fitday, it re-updated what I needed to do to reach my goal.
Fitday has an extensive built in database of food items with nutrition data. You can also enter and save custom food items if you can’t find them in the database. All of this data is saved online so that you can access it from any internet-connected computer. That is important. Between January 16 and May 31, not a single morsel of food passed my lips without being entered in Fitday. No cheating. None. That required easy access to my data which Fitday provided.
What and How I Ate
My basic rule was this: I ate until Fitday said I had eaten 1500 calories that day. Then I stopped. During the 136 days, I went over 1500 calories approximately 6 times but my worst day was only 1780 calories. Did I eat out? Yes – I even traveled to my nephew’s wedding out of town – but I managed to eat to my calorie goal. On the few days I went over, I either did extra cardio that day or cut back on the eating the next day.
It is not easy for a 6 foot baby boomer to limit himself to 1500 calories and not feel like he is starving. What I did to handle that was to eat something every 2-3 hours during the day with each little meal in the 150-300 calorie range. The work part of the day was critical because believe me it is hard to concentrate on the job if you are starving.
My typical workday eating went like this:
- Breakfast: - fat free cottage cheese with fruit or 1 cup Kashi GoLean Crunch cereal or 6 oz. cup fat free fruit yogurt.
- Morning snack: - 1 ounce raw almonds (very healthy for guys my age and an awesome appetite killer).
- Lunch: - 19 oz. can of Healthy Request Chunky Soup (gotta be chunky or you will not feel full) or 1 can tuna plus a few multigrain, high fiber crackers.
- Afternoon snack: - Balance Gold protein bar (the caramel nut blast is great) or Trail Mix fruit and nut bar
- Dinner: - Grilled chicken breast/grilled fish plus a salad with low fat dressing or a steamed vegetable High fiber bread (one serving)
- Evening snack: - Red grapes or raw cut carrots/broccoli and a low fat dip or a handful of Kashi GoLean Crunch
- Bedtime Dessert: - Fruit popsicle
This routine kept me satisfied and within my 1500 calorie goal. I was surprised about not being hungry but it worked.
My Exercise Plan
I did cardio almost everyday. Usually this was 30 minutes on a treadmill, 4 MPH at varying elevations of 4 to 8 degrees. (Education bonus benefit: I usually did this first thing in the morning while watching the History Channel. I learned a lot.)
I also did circuit training (upper body, lower body, core) three days per week at the local public recreation center, 30 minutes each day with stretching after.
That’s it.
My Money Savings
My work lunch routine cost me about $2.00/day compared to the $7.50 I was spending each day eating out. I ate lunch out a few days (but I didn’t eat much). Over the 136 days of my plan, I saved $5.50 per day over 96 workdays, for a total of $528.00. Not bad. I am still eating soup and tuna for lunch each day. I enjoy visualizing five dollar bills in my head when I do that.
The Results
I actually hit my 175 pound goal on May 13. I decided to keep going because there was still some loose stuff around my midsection that I did not like. I went down to 166 pounds. The loose stuff was still there so I figured that is extra skin that is not going away. (No lipo for me!) I went off the diet. Now I watch what I eat. I probably average 2500 calories per day. I still weigh myself everyday. My weight fluctuates between 166 and 169. That’s where I intend to keep it.
Other benefits: I am sleeping much better. My nasal allergies seemed to have disappeared. (Can’t figure that one out but I am not complaining.) My energy levels in the evening and weekends are way up. Unfortunately, I still don’t have a lot of clothes that fit me because my waist is now a 32. All of my old clothes were 34. I’m not complaining about that either.
My wife compliments me. (’Nuf said about that.)
My 40 year high school reunion is next summer. I have challenged some of my high school buddies to match me. I hope they do.
If you want to contact me about what I did, or learn some hard truth about money and personal finance, you can find me at ToughMoneyLove.com. You can also subscribe to my RSS feed here.
Featured Information
This post deals with:diet, Exercise, save money, weight loss goal
... and focuses on:Weight Loss
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Del.icio.us
PropellerNext: The Cookie Diet
September 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am
Well done. It takes quite a lot of determination to stick to that.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:57 pm
The best part of your story is that you looked back to your high school and college years to determine an ideal weight. Too often, we set a weight goal that is still decidedly overweight, thinking it will be easier to achieve.
But there is little motivation to lose only half of what we need to lose. Congratulations not only on the weight loss, but on the significant, meaningful weight loss.
September 8th, 2008 at 4:56 am
[...] around, those extra pounds pile up all too quickly. Perhaps this is what Tough Money Love before he lost 52 pounds and turned his health around. While there is a common consensus among many people that middle-age equals weight gain, this does [...]