I recently shared a story about losing 100 pounds. In that post I shared that Slimfast was the main tool that I used for my weigh loss. This was not the first time that I have lost a significant amount of weight although it is the most that I’ve ever lost at one time (Its probably worth noting that this was a time when I had the most to potentially lose). It was the first time that I had used Slimfast. During previous diets I’ve lost 40-60 pounds depending on what I weighed at the time. On those earlier diets, I had a consistent plan that had me losing weight at about 2.5 pounds a week, the same that I saw on Slimfast. I thought I would share the details of that diet plan here as an alternative to my most recent success.
On my previous diet plan, I started each morning with a bowl of cereal with skim milk. At the time there was a cereal called Clusters that was my go-to. I think its now called Honey Nut Clusters. When I couldn’t find Clusters, I would eat Great Grains, usually one of the nutty varieties like Crunchy Pecan. I would not eat anything until lunch time. In prepping for my lunches, I would grill hamburgers every weekend. My lunch consisted of a grilled hamburger on a low-fat bun heated up in the microwave then a dollop of mustard added. This is why I usually refer to this as my Hamburger diet. With this, I would drink a large glass of water. I didn’t eat anything else for lunch. One of the reasons I had started this diet in the first place was my blood pressure was boarder line high. To address this, one of the rules that I established for my diet was that I would avoid overtly salty foods. This meant that rarely if ever ate chips. I also never added any also to any food, preferring to trust the cook had salted it appropriately.
For the evening meal, my rule was to eat a reasonable sized plate of food. This meant I never went back for seconds, and I never piled up food on my plate so high that it needed sideboards. I rarely if ever ate dessert and when I did, I only did it as part of the meal. I wouldn’t wait until later in the evening to have more dessert as a snack. On the rare occasion that I ate more later in the evening, I would limit myself to one apple or orange.
When I was doing this diet, I found that what I was eating for breakfast was just enough to tide me over until lunch. My lunch did the same until the evening meal. By breakfast, I was usually ready for something to eat again. This was different from my experience with Slimfast, where I didn’t really get hungry between meals. I had been afraid that Slimfast wouldn’t keep me satisfied but I was pleasantly surprised.
When I started this last diet, I had considered trying my hamburger diet again instead of Slimfast. I thought I needed to try something different. I thought that going back on the Hamburger diet would have been too easy to quit. I also wanted to do something where I would see results quickly. In the long run, I lost weight on both diets at about the same rate. I feel that the key to any weight loss plan is finding something that you can stick with. More times than not, my weight loss plan has been just to weigh myself each day and hope that the weight went down. As of this writing, I have been maintaining my new target weight for nearly 3 months.