The Teen and I have a bet. :) She confidently taunted me that I simply couldn’t diet. That I couldn’t lose any weight whatsoever as long as I kept up frequent blog entries. So we have a wager. I said I would lose 8 pounds by March 8, and she (smile/smirk ringing through her voice) said that that was a pipe dream. Soon after that deadline we will hopefully be heading to Northern Palawan, the site of my last James-Bond-emerging-from-the-sea photo that was only momentarily posted on this blog, and I intend to swim in the crystal clear azure waters with a minimum of visible fat. Heeheehee. If I fail, I can never mention a diet to the Teen ever again, and she will have perpetual rights to smack me around verbally if I do…
So since last week I have done a brisk early morning walk of 4 kilometers 5 days out of 7. I will attempt to stick to a workout schedule of at least twice a week. And if particularly good, maybe get in a game of tennis or swim a few laps once during each week. I can’t suddenly cut out half of my food intake, which I need to do for serious weight loss, but I have adjusted my diet to include far more fruits and vegetables than normal. Today’s lunch, for example, IS a pull back from my normal lunch intake. But it isn’t SUFFERING, by any means. Some leftover red rice from lunch yesterday was taken out of the fridge, and to that I added chopped unpeeled cucumbers, some grape tomatoes, some chopped artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, bottled chilies, chopped Italian parsley, olive oil a bit of lemon juice and some salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly and put about 1 cup or so on your dinner plate. I also had a large salad of greens, tuna flakes and a lime dressing. Lots of roughage, more complex starch, a little protein, and lots of sharp and bright flavor notes. A low fat milk, frozen strawberry, whey, wheat germ and oatmeal shake this afternoon and a light dinner this evening probably means I have cut out some 600-800 calories out of my normal daily intake of say 3,500 calories. Add the 200-300 calories in exercise and that’s a 1,000 calorie reduction per day, just enough to lose a pound a week. But it’s early goings and I am already waking up with nightmares featuring steak and lechon… hahaha. :)
43 Responses
Best of luck MM! =) Hmm…thinking of making a side bet with the Teen…kidding ;-)
tna, I was gonna join that side bet of yours with the Teen but I told myself never underestimate MM’s willpower. so, at this point, I don’t know how to call it yet. hahaha! MM, good luck from a fellow dieter! ;-)
I also need to lose 10 pounds MM. Hey, I will go on a diet and see if I can lose 8 pounds by March 8:) This way, I won’t feel alone…
The Teen and my hubby are thinking along the same lines….when he sees me reading your blog, he teases me I’ll never be able to diet as long as I READ your blogs! Shall we prove them both wrong?! hehehe
Wowza. 3,500 is a really high number in the Philippines. 3,500 calories a day very close to the daily intake of the average American. And we all know that most Americans are tabachoy ;-)
goodluck to us! ive also trying to lose at least 10 pounds by march but its hard esp if the friends you have are foodie friends. will be following the walk -fit regimen featured in the guardian: https://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/11/28-day-walking-course-joanna-hall and eating more yoghurt and fruit to quell the hunger pangs
The photos look so appetizing that it doesn’t seem like a diet at all!
“…If I fail, I can never mention a diet to the Teen ever again, and she will have perpetual rights to smack me around verbally if I do…”
That’s very brave of you, sir. Good luck with the diet and workout routine! Ãœ
If you are interested, I came across this 3 days diet plan, promised 10lbs in 3 days, that is combined with your normal activities. I tried it and only loss 5 lbs but it felt really good (or maybe i just lost a lot of water). This is not a full solution but its a good start…
hey that does NOT look like diet food to me! Looking at it actually made me hungry
good luck with the diet ^_^
you should have done this bet during lenten season, just to set the mood of fasting and abstinence
Hubby and I tried the GM/Cabbage Soup diet last year and were extremely happy with the results. In 7 days, we both lost about 7% of our pre-diet weight. But more importantly, it changed our eating habits significantly such that we continued to lose weight even if there were no longer any restrictions on what we could eat. For me, the best thing was getting rid of my tummy flab which no amount of exercise could do before! The diet seemed to have reset our palates. We ate less and didn’t crave for sugar/starch as much as we used to. We gained some of the weight back with the barrage of holiday eating. Understanding how it worked for us, we went back to cabbage soup for a week (without the rigors of the full diet) to reset our appetites. So we’re back to sensible eating (and regular exercise). You can search for the GM or Cabbage Soup diet on the net. As with any diet, results vary. But this one worked for us and several friends. Good luck!
Okay, MM, you’re on. Since I have to lose 15 lbs. ASAP to lighten the load on my knees I will join your diet plans. You might want to cut down further by removing the carbs for a few days. You might have suffer a few headaches and crankiness but losing weight is not easy with the access we have to food. Tell the teen she’ll be ten lbs heavier by June 1st, ha, ha.
You’ll have to buy her a whole new wardrobe for next term…
Nrs. A, I think you neglected to mention the unfortunate side-effect of his diet. Not condusive to being around a lot of people at all, flatulence.
Ok so this is diet time. I will gladly join in. I’m 115 lbs today and need to go down to 110 lbs by feb 25. Let’s all update each other on our progress every few days. My regimen consists of a 30 minute walk on the treadmill daily and a serious cutdown on fat intake, chips and rootbeer.
My money’s on the Teen, MM, hahahahaha.
You will not lose weight, but I know you will go down in size. There was one time I worked out for a month just to get into a size 10 skirt. I was size 14. I didn’t lose any weight, but was able to wear the skirt. Right now, balik ako sa size 14, hehehe and I eat like a Barbarian. Mas masarap kasing kumain kesa mag-diet at mag-workout.
A little over 2 months to erase approx. 3.6 kg? You can do it, MM! Just keep your metabolism up and walk away after each meal. Run your dog so you have company. Also drink more water and totally cut off sodas and fried stuff. Pretend you are running for a marathon, I know someone who started running and you can see the fat melted away from her. Good luck!
i’m with you on this MM :) Also trying to slim down and be healthier this year. I’m trying the Special K 2 week challenge as a start. Also adding more greens and fruits to my daily intake.
Mr MM(James Bond) do not forget to drink plenty of water… Good luck!!!!
Geez…after the holidays, we all are dying to go on a diet. I will try to join you MM as I really do need to lose weight too…maybe if I am going to think that you and the teen have dared me to lose weight…it might work. Good Luck to you and hopefully by March 8 both of us have lost weight…
Thanks for the push…
Good luck! (you can send me your share of the lechon ;))
Footloose, you’re right, there were gassy moments although nothing that seemed too bothersome at the time. Now that I think about it, it was most noticeable on the fourth day. The other days were ok. Nonetheless, we did the diet during holy week so no danger was posed to the general public. :)
Good luck MM!
An item in one of the local newspapers noted an upsurge in sales of Alli (the Glaxo OTC of the brand diet cap Xenical (fat pill), active ingredient: orlistat. Disclaimer: I’m a retiree of Roche, the original developer/manufacturer of Xenical) – means a lot of folks are trying to shed the extra pounds gained from the holidays (Thanksgiving > Christmas > New Year)!
But then here comes Superbowl Sunday – & all that dieting will be for nought with all the junk food consumed then! You should see the snack aisle (not to mention the beer & soda isles) of the supermarkets on the week & Saturday before Superbowl – they can barely keep them stocked! Chili & Buffalo wings are a favorite too! And pizza take-outs do stellar business! I couldn’t care less – nobody is interested in football in my house!
For flatulence, try eating a lot of green leafy vegetables. For those who have been on the South Beach diet, this is something that the diet has addressed.
Good luck MM and all you folks who love to eat but have decided to go on a diet. In my household, I already hid the sugar canister and stopped buying snackies.
Y’ong mga hindi tumataba maski kain nang kain……maiinggitin daw y’ong mga y’on, so my hubby’s aunt says.
3500 calories! whoa! 3500 calories is equivalent to 1 lb. A guy about 6’2″, 185 lbs doing moderate exercise/activity daily will need around 2200 to 2500 calories a day to maintain current weight. The 3500 daily calorie intake will translate to 7,000 excess calories per week
or a weight gain of 2 lbs a week. Btw, sure you can go on a diet – the healthy eating diet – and blog at the same time.
OMG, I was flip about my 3,500 caloric intake. At least I thought I was being flip. I just did the numbers, and my basal metabollic rate is 1,839 calories per day. And if moderately active as I walk frequently and now work out, I should multiply that by 1.55 for a caloric intake of roughly 2,850. Now if I want to lose weight at 1 pound per week, I need to eat closer to 2,100 calories per day (or 600 calorie breakfast, 100 snack, 700 calorie lunch, 100 snack, 600 calorie dinner). Egads! A cup of rice is 205 calories, axe most of that! A cup of buckwheat noodles is 583 calories! Yikes. A large serving of french fries is 539 calories! 350 grams of steak, grilled is a whopping 680 calories! If this site is to be relied upon, then 1 ensaimada the way I make it is probably 7-900 calories, pancit malabon is 400-450 calories per cup, 200 grams of leche flan is 460 calories, and one measly cup of pork sinigang is already 300 calories! OMG, what am I going to eat??? :(
Eat everything MM but the rice and buckwheat noodles for 2 weeks only and see what happens. You may find less craving for the carbs.
That’s why I am putting my money on the Teen, MM, hahahahaha.
You really have to cut back on a lot of things and give yourself and your body ample time to metabolise and lose that weight. I weighed 85 kgs back in early 2006 (2 years after my son’s birth), my heaviest was 95 kgs during my last trimester). But I decided to cut back on a lot of things. I stopped spreading butter on my bread; stopped eating or drinking dairy products; ate meat just during the weekends; fish and veggies during weekdays; stopped eating chips and other fried foods; no more chocolates and candies and cakes and waffles and jams. The result, I went down to 70 kgs within a year without exercising. Hanggang ngayon ay 70 kgs. pa rin ako; hindi na talaga kayang hapitin pa sa 65 kgs, but who cares…Good luck on the diet, MM, kaya mo ‘yan!
btw, the method I used was Bailine Method. Sinunod ko lang ang advice tungkol sa cutting down on everything.
Marketman, I will be watching this battle with great interest.
I agree that staying away from the rice for two weeks might help with the carb cravings.
Good luck
Jody
The way to do it would be to eat a balanced diet but with decreased servings on everything except fruits and vegetables. This will reduce your caloric intake and at the same time keep any cravings at bay. That’s the way I did it anyway. I unintentionally ate less of everything and I lost around 10-15 lbs in around 2 months without exercise. I didn’t exclude any food group, meaning I still got my rice and pasta. And regarding exercise, it doesn’t help you lose weight according to an article in TIME magazine a few months ago, since the food that you eat after exercise because of the increased appetite negates the little amount of calories that you lose while exercising. Do exercise though to keep your cardiovascular system healthy but watch what you eat or drink after you do so.
I checked out the link you posted, there seems to be something wrong. It said Arroz Caldo had 500 calories but did not have any carbs, fat, or protein. Go figure.
eat moderately daw, mm … use a bowl instead of plate for smaller proportion and no second serving !!! cut on carbs, sugar, salt, soda & greasy stuffs … use garlic, onions n herbs for a tasty dish … and drink lots of water para madaling mabusog : )
Hahaha… I have a Belgian client who skips breakfast, eats heavy lunch and eats a small serving of bread and soup for dinner. No meals/snacks in between. In his early 50s, he is slim and healthy looking. According to him, the stomach will get used to his kind of diet and we don’t need that much food anyway. If we follow this diet, am sure we will lose weight.:)
MM, don’t worry about what you’re going to eat… Anyone who is fit knows the secret is exercise :) I eat everything in moderation but I run — guaranteed results without sacrificing food completely.
https://running.about.com/od/getstartedwithrunning/ht/getstarted.htm
“…OMG, what am I going to eat???”
“…the dew of a single Ginko leaf and the energy of the universe.” ^_^
It seem like a lot of your readers, me included, want to lose weight and would want to join you in your “diet”. How about foregoing with the lechon and other super delicious blogs while we are at it. Maybe you can instead come up with equally delicious but healthier food alternatives like your post above to help us in our “diet”. How about it”?
Hi MM,
Don’t buy into that “low-fat diet” BS that mainstream nutritionists have been peddling. The main cause of obesity is the excess in carbohydrates. Lower the carbohydrates (sugar and starches) and most likely, within two weeks, you will find your pants too big for you. Hey, it worked for me. :)
Among the macronutrients, eat more fat and protein and lower the carbs. In practical terms, kumain ng mas maraming ulam at bawasan ang kanin, tinapay, cake, at mga may asukal na inumin. Too much carbs increases insulin levels which increase fat storage in the body and prevents body fat burning. By the way, excess carbohydrates are converted by the liver into palmitic acid (a fatty acid) and so increase fat reserves.
No need to starve while slimming down. Just change the macronutrient proportions. Although you may have carbohydrate withdrawal symptoms …
PS
Among the starch sources, contrary to some information out there, rice is better than wheat as wheat is a gluten grain containing a lot of pernicious anti-nutrients. A lot of the anti-nutrients are contained in the bran and the wheat germ. You may want to look up the terms, gliadin and wheat germ agglutinin.
good luck mm! i’m trying to get rid of some holiday poundage as well…
I lost 20 lbs in the first 4 months after I moved to China….
Seriously though, try adding a more rigorous aerobic exercise (boxing? those crazed cycling classes burn about 500 to 600 calories per hour) and add weight training. Cut out rice for a month and you’ll drop the weight if you don’t add any other substitute carbs. Men find it a lot easier to do that than women and all my male relatives who removed rice from their diet lost an average of 20 lbs in 3 to 4 months.
Good luck MM!
Yes MM, imagine yourself as Ed B says, the dragon warrior who can survive on the “dew of a single ginko leaf and the energy of all the universe”…… of the netizen’s who visit your blog. Good Luck with your diet.
Hi,
I’m on a diet too, because of all that eating I did from T/giving to New year. I have some tips for you that came from my internist doctor. Eat a lot of vegetables, fruits, skinless chicken breast, small portions of red meat and fish (not shell fish). Do not skip breakfast. Eat throughout the day but control your portions (“Portion Control”). By 6:00 p.m. you should already be done eating. This means that by 6:00 p.m. you have already eaten your dinner. According to my MD, after 6:00 p.m., our metabolism usually slows down in preparation for our nocturnal sleep. Eating dinner (a heavy one—steaks, etc.) after 6:00 p.m. will just turn to fat because our activities have already slowed down and so is our metabolism. This has worked for me. So far, since January 2, I have already lost 5.5 pounds for eating my dinner by 6:00 p.m. However, when I get hungry before I go to sleep, I drink a glass of non-fat (skim) milk or eat a banana or a snack of no more than 100 calories. I find it difficult to sleep on a hungry stomach. Hope this little tip would be of help to you. Good luck on your diet. I think you’ll win the bet.
Let me share with you Marketman how I lost weight many years ago. I used to wear a size 12 and went down to a size 5 and weighed 117 lbs. on a 5’5″ frame (I tried but could not go back to 98 lbs. when I was single), losing 45 lbs. in 3 months. This is what I did – I ate only 1 full meal a day which was lunch and had a cup of yogurt for lunch and another cup of yogurt for dinner snacking on bananas and drinking lots and lots of water when I got hungry and I did high impact aerobic exercise in the morning and jogging in the afternoon everyday. After losing 45 lbs., I went back to eating 3 full meals but switched to a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet (could not give up cakes and ice cream) and continued exercising regularly and I did not gain a single pound even if I occasionally binged on desserts. I’ve also noticed that as the months went by, I lost my appetite for meat. After 2 years, I went back to eating meat but mostly seafood and chicken and lots of rice. Of course I went up to a size 8 and gained 20 lbs. and then I changed my diet again. Here it is – banana for breakfast, apple for lunch, salad with very little meat, if at all, for dinner, fruits and almonds throughout the day and exercised on weekdays. I lost 15 lbs. in 2 months. My triglycerides went down from 190 to 80, the doctor had to ask me what I did. I don’t like taking medication and I knew I could beat it by losing weight and eating healthy but I think the apple and almonds helped as I have researched online. I made this my emergency diet which I switch to when I need to lose a lot of weight. I have changed my lifestyle since then and this is my regular diet now – oatmeal for breakfast, lean chicken and 3 tablespoons of rice for lunch, and green salad topped with tuna or skinless chicken breast strips for dinner. Rice is really fattening for me so I limit it to 3 tablespoons. Btw, I feel very satisfied even with just a green salad because salad greens like lettuce are actually very filling. I went down to a size 6 and I have stuck to this diet for 2 years now. To be able to stick to this diet, here’s the trick: I go off the diet on weekends and eat whatever I like in moderation like callos (using your recipe of course which is so delicous) and cakes (I love to bake). I also work out in the gym everyday except weekends and pump heavy weights – 70 lbs. (it is supposed to burn calories plus the fact that it gives me beautiful muscles). The key is not to deprive yourself. When I feel like eating cinnabon on a weekday, I do eat one but that gets to be my lunch already. I also snack throughout the day on almonds and drink lots of water so come lunch or dinner, I am not really hungry so I don’t crave for calorie-laden food. When I see luscious food in your blog, I quickly chew on almonds and it takes away hunger pangs.I am sharing my experience because it really works. Determination is also very important. People were amazed how I lost 45 lbs. in 3 months and that was because I kept looking at myself in the mirror and did not like what I saw (I love to wear bikini in the beach and I had to stop when I gained weight) and convinced I had to do something about it. It is also not a temporary thing. It is a lifestyle change. You can’t simply go back to eating what you like and expect to remain fit and healthy. It is not going to happen. Don’t worry, it is hard at first, but after sometime, you get so used to it that after eating whatever you like in the weekend, you’re just longing to go back to fruits and vegetables on weekdays. I even get upset stomach if I eat too much meat on weekends. You will also have more energy to workout in the gym. Another bonus is the fantastic results of your lipid profile even if you binge every now and then. I definitely ate lots of unhealthy food during the holidays and had my lipid profile this month and doctor said it was still fantastic! Hope this helps.
gee, everyone seems to be on a diet including me. thanks to all for their tips. It will be sooo difficult to cut back on the rice. :(.