No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

This is great and certainly don&#x27;t want to discourage anyone.<p>Some people need extreme transformations like this to be successful. Most people, however, don&#x27;t.<p>You&#x27;ll have a much higher success rate if you&#x27;re patient and change just one little thing at a time. Once you&#x27;re comfortable, you move on to the next.<p>I myself have lost over 30lbs and increased strength tremendously (power clean 250+).<p>I went about it by doing one small thing at time. First I got used to going to the gym a couple days at a time. Once I was used to going to the gym, I started a strength program. Once I was used to going to the gym and being on a program, I started crossfit. Then after I was used to that, I started omitting wheat from my diet. Once I was used to that...you get the point.

After attending hundreds of weight watchers meetings, and being involved with hundreds and hundreds of people losing a ton of weight, I still genuinely believe too many people make weight loss too complicated, which leads them to give up. Keep it simple (as the article did)<p>If you burn more calories (energy) than you eat, <i>you will lose weight</i>.<p>Obviously, you have choices. You can cut down on all the really high calorie stuff. You can increase your exercise to burn more. You can (ideally) do a bit of both.<p>Of the hundreds of people I&#x27;ve known that have lost life-changing amounts of weight, I would estimate less than 1% of them had any idea how calorie dense the foods they were eating (and drinking) every day really are.<p>For the majority of people that are severely overweight, all they have to do is cut out high calorie snacks like chips, soda and anything deep fried and they&#x27;ll lose significant weight, without even getting off the couch.

Exercise is wonderful, and (particularly strength training) can dramatically change how you look and feel. If you just want to lose weight though, just stop eating carbs.<p>It really is that simple. There are many ways to lose weight, but dropping sugar (in all it&#x27;s forms) is the most straightforward. It&#x27;s the closest thing to a &#x27;weight hack&#x27; I&#x27;ve ever seen.<p>If you are currently overweight, just cut out carbs completely for 3 months..don&#x27;t bother to count calories; don&#x27;t fret about nonsense like whether your food is organic, or free range, or locally sourced. Just stop eating sugar. No rice, no potatoes, no bread, no sugared soft drinks, no pasta.

I&#x27;m 31. A recent physical revealed that I have both high blood pressure and high cholesterol. They&#x27;ve put me on meds for the bp (which is now under control rather well) but they wanted me to try a lifestyle change before putting me on cholesterol meds. I was ~ 10 lbs overweight, nothing major - and while I wouldn&#x27;t say I am fit by any means I wasn&#x27;t out of shape either. But they wanted me to lose the 10 lbs and so they told me to stay under 2500mg of sodium per day, and less than 150g of carbs per day - no more than 50g per meal. And no red meat - all I can have meat wise basically is chicken, turkey and fish. Occasional lean pork.<p>I am two months into it - and have already lost 15 lbs, without any additional exercise. The carbs were rather easy to give up really - less sugar in my coffee, no pasta, few potatoes. Sodas were a little harder, but at 40g of sugar for a single Dr. Pepper, the choice between that or a whole sandwich is an easy one to make. The sodium is quite hard if not impossible though, unless you make every meal at home and only use fresh ingredients. If it is in a box, bag or can you can forget it. There is hardly anything at any restaurant you can get that is low sodium though. Even salads are absolutely loaded with sodium.<p>I will say I feel a little better, and not just from losing a couple inches around my waist. Water all day certainly helps. I don&#x27;t think my cholesterol numbers are going anywhere really, I think my genetics are to blame, but I hope not.<p>Just a short anecdote, but if you sit behind a desk all day and have put on a few lbs, its fairly easy to give up the fast food and watch your carbs. It sure didn&#x27;t seem like it at first though.

Interesting. A few months ago I was really ill one day. The night before I had drank heavily, but I think in this case I also got food poisoning from something. Anyway, I vowed to stop drinking that day, and have. What I realized is how much alcohol was affecting me. Even two days after drinking, I feel tired, less enthusiastic and more depressed. What I have found is that now I can exercise routinely (for several months now), where as before I would give up after a few days or weeks of trying. I think it&#x27;s important for everyone to evaluate what in their lives may be holding them back, even if they don&#x27;t realize it. Also, want to point out that I am not advocating everyone stop drinking, just that it seems alcohol affects me more so than others.

<i>I upped my exercise, cycling 30-40 miles a day, every day for the first couple of weeks.</i><p>Good to see!! When you are burning this level of level of energy every day, its actually &lt;hard&gt; to keep a stable weight. (Author must have had some base fitness, too so good for him.)<p>At its core, Weight change is simple input&#x2F;output math. The key variable is %deplete your glycogen levels (as % of full everyday.) That is the &quot;cache&quot; of energy from your daily diet. If you burn enough energy to deplete this, you will lose weight, as your body replenishes itself from non-dietary reserves (fat, protein en extremis).<p>Surprisingsly, these are highly realistic numbers (&lt;1lb&#x2F;day&gt;), even for relatively fit (height&#x2F;weight proportionate) people. Moderating the pace to emphasise endurance over power will lead to more loss of net-mass. Asympotically, you will reach a point of gradual returns, but it is not at all surprising to lose significant mass under such prolonged workloads.<p>TLDR: Glad to see this is not a crash diet.<p>edits: clarity

I dropped around 60lbs (5&#x27;10&quot; SW: 285) in first half of 2012 and have roughly maintained since (crept back to 235 - down to 230 again, still aiming for 200!).<p>I made two small habit changes that I feel made a drastic difference:<p><pre><code> * Bring lunch to work everyday (brown bag, leftovers) * If I want to watch TV, I must be moving on the treadmill </code></pre> I would still go out to eat at work about once every two weeks and I would sometimes sneak in an episode of Breaking Bad on the couch, but overall, I stuck to those rules and everything else seemed to fall into place.

While it&#x27;s always great to hear success stories, I think the broader point of this post (and others like it) is that there&#x27;s no &quot;great secret&quot; to weight loss. There&#x27;s no silver bullet and certainly no short cut. The simple truth is: people in the western world eat crap and don&#x27;t exercise.<p>The success stories all boil down to a few simple points: eat real food, cut down on alcohol, and do some exercise that you find enjoyable enough to do it every day.

Here&#x27;s the author when he&#x27;s heavy: <a href="https://www.everpix.com/public.html?id=cKG7XXCRD8BUu1tC" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.everpix.com&#x2F;public.html?id=cKG7XXCRD8BUu1tC</a><p>And at the 1 year anniversary of his epic hangover: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterjlambert/8753966380/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.flickr.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;peterjlambert&#x2F;8753966380&#x2F;</a>

Since this is another weight loss post on HN, I&#x27;ll tread out the old lines again[1]:<p>If you only care about weight loss: calories in vs calories out.<p><i>However</i><p>If you care about maintaining muscle while losing fat, the story is still pretty simple, and calories still count, but the macro ratio of those calories are very important. In this case, keep protein high and get the rest from carbs and&#x2F;or fat. I personally recommend a more Keto approach in this case because most people will be satiated longer.<p>The point being, weight loss is one thing, but muscle sparring while losing weight is another. Understand what you are going after and know the correct path.<p>[1] - When most people say they want to &quot;lose weight&quot;, they really mean fat. Really, who wants to lose muscle? Probably no one. That is why calories don&#x27;t tell the whole story. If, however, you absolutely don&#x27;t care about muscle (and if you say &quot;yes&quot; here, I would personally question that), sure, just pay attention to calories and ignore the macro ratios.

This person has rediscovered the William Banting original low-carb diet from 1863[1] : &quot;The emphasis was on avoiding sugar, saccharine matter, starch, beer, milk and butter.&quot;<p>Banting knew carbs made you fat over a century ago, but of course since the scientists couldn&#x27;t figure out WHY they discredited it. And so it ever was.<p>They also knew carbs should be avoided by diabetics, but when insulin was invented they chose to (more profitably) just shoot people up all the time and make them sicker. Do you know what shooting yourself up with insulin constantly does, by the way? [2]<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Banting" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;William_Banting</a> [2] <a href="http://garytaubes.com/2012/02/on-the-greatly-exaggerated-demise-of-the-insulin-hypothesis/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;garytaubes.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;02&#x2F;on-the-greatly-exaggerated-dem...</a> [ see disturbing picture ]

&gt;&gt; I’ve gone from a 42” waist to a 36”. I’m now buying t-shirts in a medium or maybe a large rather than an XL or XXL.<p>Clothing is not sized that way in the USA. 36&quot; waist fitting into a medium?

isn&#x27;t that rapid? it sounds awesome (and congratulations), but i would perhaps check w a doctor or something that you&#x27;re not losing weight too fast?<p>[edit: not to ask why you&#x27;re losing weight so fast (because you&#x27;re not eating, duh), but whether that rate is healthy.]

This insistence in demonizing food groups or finding quick fixes by eliminating some sort of magic food stuff is fascinating to me.<p>Isn&#x27;t it obvious this is incorrect?<p>I mean, go to Japan, where people live on white rice and wheat noodles and count how many obese people you see on the street.<p>You will also notice that consumption of bacon, butter, eggs and dairy is very low compared to western diets and even though they consume fatty fish they don&#x27;t eat it in the portions westerners consume meat.

I&#x27;ve lost a little over 40 pounds (272 to 230-ish) since February (and I&#x27;m still losing weight pretty steadily). Here&#x27;s what I do:<p>1. Bike to work (~5 there plus ~5 miles back for a total of ~10 miles per work day)<p>2. Stopped drinking soda (and most sugary drinks)<p>3. Switched to a standing desk at work (I pace when I think so it&#x27;s almost like walking all day)<p>4. Do minor exercise during down time at work (push ups, dips mostly)<p>5. Regularly asking myself if I have time to go to the gym and actually going when I find I don&#x27;t have a good excuse (I got this idea from that lucid dreaming trick).<p>6. Consistently trying to eat less in general (based on rough calorie counts) by asking myself if I need to eat more or cook that much.<p>7. Continually improving balance in diet (more fruits&#x2F;veggies is usually what I need to do)<p>8. Cooking as much as I would eat in one sitting, but saving half for lunch the next day (no more seconds)<p>I&#x27;ve always been pretty physically active, but I&#x27;ve also always had a tendency to eat as much as I wanted constantly. This led to rapid weight gain whenever circumstances had me exercising less. Restraining myself was a steady process, but now I actually can&#x27;t eat as much as I used to, and I find I actually eat less when exercising less, which is good.

I have never looked fat, in baggy clothes. In tight fitting clothes, years ago when I was at my grossest, someone called me &quot;the fattest skinny person i&#x27;ve ever seen.&quot;<p>I began to exercise a lot. <i>A lot</i> to lose that beer belly. Finally it mostly came off. Then I fell for the excuse of &quot;you need to eat more to gain muscle!&quot; and ate the amount of calories some online calculator told me i&#x27;d need to maintain a given weight.<p>I&#x27;ve never had abs, and I didn&#x27;t get them then. I could out-run, out-squat, out-jump any crossfit contender I met; and I was still kind of flabby. My motivation sank. I moved away and stopped my routine. I went back to drinking and eating a lot, without working out as much. I lost strength. The belly began to return.<p>Recently I arbitrarily decided to cut out drinking for two months, which helped a lot. Then I decided to cut out wheat. Not gluten, just wheat and products made from it. So far? I&#x27;m looking more cut than I ever did, and i&#x27;m hardly exercising. Eating smaller portions and less empty calories&#x2F;alcohol is giving me the body image I always wanted. (It&#x27;s probably just the lack of calories and not the wheat specifically)

OP probably has a gluten sensitivity. It causes inflammation and cuttiing it out of your diet like that can cause dramatic weight loss, even without exercise.

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat,_Sick_and_Nearly_Dead" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fat,_Sick_and_Nearly_Dead</a>

Reddit &#x2F;r&#x2F;loseit and &#x2F;r&#x2F;fitness have excellent FAQs for weight loss and becoming fit and they offer communities if you are looking to learn or for support.<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/wiki/faq" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;loseit&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;faq</a><p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/faq" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;Fitness&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;faq</a>

A couple diet strategies that have worked for me:<p>Drink a lot of calorie free, caffeinated liquids. I probably drink more diet soda than I should, but tea and coffee are great as well and healthier<p>I find eating small amounts of crap can actually help. If your diet wasn&#x27;t amazing in the first place, and your goal is to lose weight so you cut out all unhealthy foods, you&#x27;re fighting two battles at once - cravings for sugary&#x2F;unhealthy foods, and hunger cravings. Eating a small amount of ice cream or a few french fries can satisfy the unhealthy cravings, and work as diet foods as long as your calories are sufficiently low.

This is an excellent writeup, and one that I have a few friends that could benefit from. I try to tell people that it is the little things you do every day that add up to big change. My friends mostly have this idea that you have to make huge sweeping changes to your life to see any results at all, but that is simply false. Start going on a walk or jog every evening instead of sitting in front of the television. Start having nuts instead of candy bars for snacks. Stuff like that adds up quick to some pretty impressive results.<p>Excellent read, and keep up the good work!

&quot;But I made a decision to stop right there and then. I didn’t want to wait until Monday, or until we’d run out of crisps in the cupboard. I was putting an end to it.&quot;<p>This is so true... why do we always say we&#x27;ll start something on Monday? I&#x27;ll start eating better... on Monday. I&#x27;ll start my new workout routine... on Monday. Where did this come from? Why is it so hard to make the same commitment to yourself today? Congrats on making up your mind and following through! Super inspiring!

&gt;&gt;I’m 6’4” and I’ll never be slight in appearance, that’s just genetics<p>Maybe not - I bet somewhere in your ancestry we&#x27;re lean, ripped, warrior&#x2F;hunters who were like that due to the type of work they did, and because people didn&#x27;t bring donuts every time someone in their tribe had a birthday.<p>Serious congrats and well wishes to you in any case.

You should trade some of that fat with muscle gain (especially upper body), instead of shedding it all. Develop a consistent weight lifting routine at the gym. You&#x27;ll feel a lot better about yourself. Stationary cycling might make your legs great, but your upper body will probably start to look &quot;skinny fat&quot;.

You were riding 100-150 miles a wee kand you didn&#x27;t loose weight due to that? What was your caloric inputs...?

I once lost 140 pounds in a day. She was just weighing me down..

Great. This is going to turn into a weight loss show off site. Nothing wrong with that &amp; congrats but here?

That&#x27;s just badass