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My previous blog posts about my current attempt to lose weight have been mostly positive and optimistic. But not every day is a good day. I’m writing from a Virgin America flight (it has Wi-Fi) from DC to SF. I’ve been on the road for three days and it’s been a struggle.  I think I’ve done OK in terms of calories, but I haven’t been able to exercise other than taking a couple of short walks.

It’s been hard eating out and it’s even hard on the plane where I’m in the economy plus section where they bring you all the free food you care to order.  Its about 5:00 PM and I’ve consumed almost as many calories as I’m allowed today. I’m not actually hungry but I’m so tempted to order some more “free” food. But it’s not really free, it contains calories which will undo what I’ve accomplished during the past three weeks.

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I got what I consider to be pretty good news when I stepped on the scale today. I’m down five pounds.  Normally a five pound weight-loss in 17 days would be too much. It’s not good to lose weight too quickly. But my experience (and unfortunately I have too much experience) with dieting is that the first few pounds are mostly water.  I don’t expect to stay at this pace.

If I’m successful in taking off the next 15 pounds and reach my goal, it will be my first successful diet that’s not supervised by some type of weight-loss counselor.   The reason why a weight-loss counselor has always worked for me is because I need that authority person to follow my progress and give me feedback. It’s not that I need dieting advice — I know exactly how to lose weight. It’s the personal attention that makes a difference which is also why I think programs like Weight Watchers work for those who follow them.

So, instead of a person, I’m invoking a larger community.  In addition to updating my progress here on NoBellyPrize.com, I’m also Tweeting my progress and posting it to my Facebook account.  I’m sure it’s annoying some of my followers and friends, but it’s helping me a lot because it’s making me accountable.

If I were to give this diet a name I’d call it the Twitter Diet or perhaps Social Weight Loss.

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by Larry Magid

It’s now been 10 days since I “hit bottom” and decided it was time to get back on track. Since then I have been careful about what I’m eating and — perhaps more important — have hit the gym every day.

What’s working for me is keeping track of everything I’m taking and and all my exercise. There are lots of ways to do this ranging from pencil and paper to a spreadsheet to plenty of websites. I’m using Lose It which I like because it’s easy to use.

I’m still about 17 pounds from my goal but am in no hurry to get there as long as I keep making progress.  What’s great is that I’m already feeling a lot better even though it’s only been a bit more than a week.  I have more energy, I feel “lighter” and when I wake up in the morning I don’t feel bloated.

I’m writing this not just for my readers but for me too as a way of reminding myself how good it feels.

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LoseIt website helps you track calories consumed and burned

When I tweeted that I was on a new weight-loss regime, I got a reply from @JimFenton telling me about @Lose It App.  LoseIt is both a free website and an iPhone/iPad/iPod app that helps you track food intake and exercise.  I haven’t tried the iPhone version (I have an Android which they don’t currently support) but I am very impressed with the web version.

The site takes a no-nonsense approach to track the calories you consume and burn. It recognizes that 3,500 calories equals a pound of body fat and sticks to the science of weight control rather than relying on fads, points or other techniques that sometimes work but aren’t really necessary if you count calories.

I’m not going to do a comparison with other sites or apps in today’s post (may do that later) but what I like about LoseIt is its simplicity.  Type in a food or exersizse and it makes it simple to enter in the amount of food or time and it just logs it for you without undo work on your part.  It also has lots of reporting mechanisms and, for those of us who need reinforcement from our friends, it has a social aspect. You can email reports to friends or have the app (or site) send tweets or Facebook status updates with reports on  your exercise or changes in weight.

Lose It also works with the Withings Wi-Fi Body Scale to automatically track your weight. I have a scale on-order and will review it after I have a chance to try it out.

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Today was a good day but it’s only the third day of my diet. I was a bit hungry in the afternoon so I sliced up a banana and added come grated apple and a t-spoon of peanut butter.  Did the trick.

My neighbor brought over some tortillas and meat left over from the Taco bar at a weekend party.  Had a small tortilla with a bit of chicken and beef. Not really bad and tasty.

Worked out on the elyptical for a half hour and did about 20 minutes of strength training.

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I hate to call it a diet because so many of the experts say it’s not a diet but a change in the way you approach food. OK, I’ll buy that, but diet works too.  It’s about what you eat and how much you exercise and it’s remembering the simple science that 3,500 calories equals a pound of body fat.

So, today is day 3 for me.  I woke up  and weighed myself for the first time in several months. A bit shocked that I tipped the scale at 186. I hoped it would be closer to 178 but I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised.  So, now I have a goal. I need to lose 21 pounds.

Day 3 is an important day because, from my frequent weight-loss experience (yes, I’m a “yo-yo” dieter), I know that on the 4th day you actually start to feel some results.  You won’t see them on your body or even on the scale but you wake up feeling just a bit less full.

Here’s how I did yesterday

From LoseIt.com

I didn’t starve myself yesterday. Not at all.

Breakfast — whole wheat toast, an egg and a bit of avocado.

Snack: Apple

Lunch: Taco meat, no tortilla, salad, fruit salad, grilled veggies

Dinner:  Sashimi, salmon, salad –

Glass of wine

I also exercised 40 minutes on elliptical which probably burned about 200 calories.

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As I was working out on the Elliptical  at the YMCA today, watching the TV screen to pass the time, I saw a commercial for FullBar.  The spokesperson was Dr. Michael Snyder, a bariatric surgeon who said that he developed his product to provide results similar to bariatric surgery without the surgery.

His theory actually makes sense.  As a bariatric surgeon he knows that shrinking the stomach can cause people to feel full faster on less food.  His bar doesn’t shrink anything but it does fill you up on relatively few (150-180) calories and when you drink water with the bar, the high-fiber grains in the product expand to fill your stomach.

The key to why this would work is that you eat the bar and drink the water a half hour before a meal.  Dr. Snyder knows that it takes the body about 20 to 30 minutes from the time you eat until your brain turns off hunger pangs so by putting something in your stomach 30 minutes before a meal you’re likely to eat less.

It’s a brilliant idea but you don’t need a FullBar to feel more full before meals.  Another strategy would be to eat a plate full of vegetables or perhaps a slice of bread or a celery stick with a bit of peanut butter.  Some cereal with yogurt will also do the trick.  What’s important is that you wait that half hour for your brain to know that your stomach is full.

Web MD reviewed Dr. Snyder’s FullBar and came up with the same conclusion.

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About ten years ago I lost 50 pounds on a medically supervised diet.  I felt great and I kept all of the weight off for a couple of years and most of it off for probably about five years.

One of the things that helped me keep the weight off was that after I lost it, the local paper The Palo Alto Daily News, asked me to write a weekly fitness column.  Suddenly I was writing about fitness and health every week and, of course, thinking about it all the time.   I was also a bit of a role model for the community which was an enormous incentive to stay in shape.

Well, after a management change at the paper, the column came to an end and. gradually, so did my sustained efforts to keep my weight under control.  Over the years since I’ve put at least 25 pounds back on — maybe 30, but the good news is that I haven’t put it all back on because I still try to exercise as much as possible and I haven’t completely lost control.

But it’s time to seize control again and get rid of about 20 pounds.  I don’t want to get as thin as I was 10 years ago — some people said that I looked a bit anorexic.  But I do want to get down to about 165 pounds and stay there.  That will not only help me look and feel better but — most importantly – will help maintain healthy blood sugar and blood pressure.

So I’m publicly declaring that I’m back on a diet and exercise routine in the hopes that this will be a further incentive to do the right thing.

My intention is to blog about my progress here at NoBellyPrize.com.

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