So, I’ve hit a wall again when it comes to my weight. I’m not sure exactly how heavy I am, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a scale said 300 pounds. The heat of the start of the summer, and the increasing difficulty in trying to find suitable clothes has made me re-focus on my size.

Now that I feel relatively stable in my job, and I feel like I’ve got most of the rest of my life figured out, I’m going to tackle my weight.

This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to do this. I’ve even had a blog dedicated to weight loss before. And while I’ve failed in my previous attempts, I am hoping that this time, I will be able to achieve the goals I set out, and a year from now I will be fifty pounds lighter than I am today.

My Approach

• Exercise 30 Minutes Per Day
• Home Made Fruit and Veggie Juice Cleanse 1-3 days per week *1
• Zero Calorie Drinks Only *2
• Start consuming a daily multivitamin
• Drink 1 liter filtered water each day minimum
• Low Sodium Soups as often as possible
• I can have as many fruits as I want
• I can have as many vegetables as I want
• Salads as meals a minimum of 3x per week
• Eat more Lean Turkey or Chicken, but otherwise avoid meat
• Weekends are cheat days *3

My approach is rather simple, and a good start for any healthy lifestyle, in my opinion. As I work on these “easier” goals, I hope to push myself to increase my intake of water, veggies, and exercise.

One thing that might stand out for some people is the fact that I’m going to give juicing a try. I’ve recently watched a documentary about juicing and while I’m not ready to do a two month juice only commitment, I think the idea of vegetable juice cleanses is interesting, and something worth attempting to train my palette towards.

Starred Notes
1 – I’ve already ordered a juicer from Futureshop, and I hope to receive it in the next week or two.

2 – I have a sensitivity to Aspartame which means most diet drinks are pretty much off the table. I get very strong cravings for sweet things, and I hope fresh fruit juice, Nestea Zero, and other healthier ways of taming my sweet tooth will help.

3 – Of course, I hope to be reasonable in my cheat days, but I am a bit of an emotional eater, stress eater, and binge eater, but if I can convince myself to wait for the weekends, not cheat during the week, and do a little calorie counting, I hope I can still meet my goal of one pound per week.

Tools

Some of the tools that I’m getting or already have got includes a Breville juicer, a bathroom scale for monitoring my weight, a Brita filter system for water (still have to buy), and a water bottle to keep by my side (still have to buy). I also need to figure out the best multivitamins to buy, and some easy low calorie, minimum cooking/dishes meals that I can work into my schedule.

Of course, my personal blog is also a handy tool. I can use it to record my successes and failures, get support from the people reading, and have a chronicle I can look back on for potential inspiration.

Calories and Exercise

So a quick set of tools online has stated that my current basal metabolic rate is somewhere between 2300 and 2600 calories per day. While I don’t want to become a calorie counter just yet, a quick double check of the packaged foods I’m eating will hopefully help me decide the value, and help me with portion sizes a bit more. Things like, do I really want to eat that 440 calorie Snickers bar that is only 100 grams?

Since it is approximately 3500 calories in a pound, I’ll need to cut my caloric intake to around 1800 calories.

Adding to this, I’ll want to put in a decent 30 minutes of exercise per day. At first, I’ll start easy, with walking (easier now that I’ve gotten rid of my car), basic weight lifting with the free weights I have, and just simple things like standing while watching a movie or television show. These things combined will hopefully allow me to burn an additional two hundred to five hundred calories per day and contribute towards my goal.

As the summer rolls out, I’ll also be doing more photo walks, or walking to events to take pictures. This will help contribute to the calorie deficit that I need to create, and engage my muscles so that my body hopefully uses my fat as an energy source instead of my muscles.

Juicing

While I’m not sure how much I’ll like vegetable juices, the research I’ve done on it says that it can take as much as two or three months to train a palette, more for those that love really sweet things versus those that enjoy salty things. I am willing to be patient with it. Also, getting the supplies, since I no longer own a vehicle, will mean near daily trips to the grocery store, an easy twenty minute walk round trip.

I’ve been researching recipes online, and have found some great fruit juice, veggie juice and mix juice ones that are reasonably healthy, and either sweet or mild in taste. I’m hoping starting with things that are sweeter or milder will help get me in the habit of juicing, and start to train my palette as I add new vegetables that I wouldn’t normally eat.

At the end of the day, I’ve seen tons of research about juicing, as well as watching a great documentary which has me excited for its potential results. I definitely need to find low calorie ways to feel satiated, and this could really help.

Conclusion

I’ve set up files on my computer, alerts in my Google Calendar and phone, and now a category on my blog. I’m ready to try this again, and while my weekly goal is modest, I’m hoping that it is easy to achieve and as such, it will help encourage me to continue. Either way, I can’t keep being this heavy, as it is an easy to continue downward spiral.

Once I get the scale, I’ll put up my first weigh in, and this project will begin. Each week I will put up a post about how I’m doing, and please, if you have any success stories regarding long term weight loss, please feel free to comment. I know this won’t be easy, but the easier it is to integrate healthy eating and exercise into my life, the more likely I’ll be able to stick with it as a lifestyle choice in the long term.