The short answer: diet and exercise.
The long answer: I had a plan. It started simple and grew more complicated. That plan is below.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional nutritionist or a professional physical therapist. This is not intended as advice, but to document what I did to answer others' questions. What worked for me might not work for you.
Disclaimers aside, let's make way for:
Morty's Weight Loss Plan
General weight loss
- The big rule: don't try to do everything at once. Start small and build.
- Don't lose weight too fast. For the first week or two, it's OK to lose a lot of weight, but after that, it should be 1-2 pounds per week. If you're losing weight faster than that, back off. Do less exercise and maybe relax the diet a bit.
- You're not just doing this until you lose weight. If you go back to your old bad habits, you're just going to put the weight back on. The goal here is to make lifestyle changes that will let you lose the weight and then keep it off. And you need to exercise even if your weight isn't a problem. So your mindset should be "what can I live with for the rest of my life", not "what can I live with until I drop the weight."
- NB: you do get to back off a little bit when you reach your goal weight. It's easier to maintain weight than to lose weight. Homeostatic equilibrium, baby.
Eating
- Eat at least three meals per day
- Eat at least 5 items of fruit per day. Usually a banana, two apples (fuji and something else), a pear (bartlett, d'anjou, forelle, or other green pear or red pear, but not packham) and a citrus (minneola tangelo, valencia orange, or other)
- Eat at least one serving of vegetable per day. [Mom would be so proud.]
- Eat at least one serving of fish per day. Canned fish works well. Examples: tuna salad (suitable for work), sardines in lemon sauce, sardines in mustard, smoked trout.
- Watch out: don't bring "stinky" fish to work. Some people didn't grow up eating this stuff. Poor them.
- Avoid starch. That includes bread, potato, pasta, or rice. A little won't hurt, but don't overdo it. (I eventually added a daily whole wheat bagel.)
- Eat at most one "meat" meal per day. The other meals should be just fruit and/or vegetables and/or fish
- Meal idea: stir fry. Use 2 pounds of veggies for every pound of meat.
- Meal idea: grilled steak and grilled veggies
- Meal idea: Maiwand Kebab (21044, by the Safeway, not one of the other ones). Lamb kebab, substitute eggplant and chickpeas.
- Eat fruit and veggies *before* "fun" food
- If you're hungry, eat. If you're thirsty, drink. If you're tired, sleep.
- While eating, pay attention to your hunger. If you're not hungry any more, stop eating. Eat slowly, so your body has time to adjust.
- It's OK not to finish everything on your plate.
- You can eat food that's healthy. You can eat (some) food that's tasty, even if it's not healthy. If the food isn't healthy and isn't tasty, don't eat it! This is especially a problem at restaurants, which tend to bundle "bad" foods with "good" foods. I don't much like french fries, and they are not healthy, so why do I eat them when they are served in restaurants as a side?
- Tricks for dealing with restaurants: "hold" and substitutions. I tend to eat whatever is served to me, even if I don't like it -- I don't want to waste food. So, get them to "hold" it, so it won't be wasted. Or substitute for something healthier. Most restaurants are happy to substitute salad for french fries.
- When eating out, partition your food. Don't eat more than you think you should. Remember, it's OK not to eat everything. The starving kids of the world won't be any more fed if you overeat.
- When you want to drink juice or other sugar waters, drink just a small amount. The best part is the first swallow. Then slake your thirst with water.
- The above works with most tasty+unhealthy food. Ice cream? Have a spoonful, and then eat something else.
- You are allowed to make occasional exceptions. The bread at Maiwand 21044, for example. Just don't do it too often.
Exercise
- "No pain, no pain." If it hurts, stop the exercise or decrease the weight.
- Watch TV on an exercise machine (treadmill, exercise bike.) No TV watching from the sofa unless you are also keeping up with your exercise.
- Never run two days in a row -- intersperse with bike work.
- When you have time, spend extra time walking/biking at low intensity. This helps you lose weight. Keep it slow.
- Split the weights into muscle groups. Do different groups on different days.
- Gradually increase the load over time. I increase one setting per visit, gradually rotating through all settings. Since I use 12 different weight machines, that means I stay at a given setting for about 2 weeks before I increase it.
- Don't increase by more than 5 pounds at a time. For machines that only go up by 10 pound increments, use 5-pound add-on weights.
- If you are scheduled to increase the load but are having a lot of trouble with it, DO NOT increase the load. See "no pain, no pain" above.
- Even if you are scheduled to stay at the same weight you have done before, if you are having trouble with it, decrease the weight. See "no pain, no pain" above.
- Exercise every day if possible while trying to lose weight.
- Missing one day occasionally is OK. Do not miss two days in a row. [When you're done losing weight, you might be able to back off to exercising every two days as a matter of course.]
- High-speed exercise is good for the heart. Low speed exercise is good for weight loss. The border is at a pulse rate of about 180 - $your_age. Above that threshold, you don't burn fat. Do both kinds of exercise.
- Per the above, you need a heart rate monitor. Be sure to get one with a replacable battery.
- Normal exercise sequence: half an hour of swimming followed by half an hour of running/walking or biking followed by weight work.
- Exerise every day. If you can't do every day, do every 1.5 days.
- I try to exercise 7 times in a week. Sample schedule: Monday morning: run, group 1 (abs and arms). Tuesday morning: bike, group 2 (chest, thighs, legs, shoulders). Wednesday: repeat Monday.
- Note that the above was not an all-at-once deal. When I started out, I was just going the running. After more than 5 months, I started the group 1 and group 2 exercised. A few months after that, I started the exercise bike. I phased in swimming about 15 months after I started, then dropped it a few months later.
