How to lose two pounds per week, guaranteed.

Three weeks ago I noticed that I was overweight again, but I’m doing something about it again.

I’m not quite sure what did it.  Maybe it was the almost-nightly bowl of ice cream or maybe those french fries weren’t really counteracted by those side dishes of broccoli.  Whatever it was, three weeks ago I noticed that bad eating habits had kicked my weight more than 15 pounds over my usual weight.  Those 15 extra pounds I was carrying around weighed as much as a bowling ball.

I’ve had to lose weight before. Five years ago, I decided that I was tired of carrying around lots of extra weight.  Back then, I noticed how bad things had gotten after a friend showed me a photo of that 194 pound version of myself at the beach.  Back then, I decided to see if I could lose 10 or 15 pounds.  After doing a bit of research, I implemented a series of the eating and exercise strategies that worked well for me.  They worked extremely well.  I’m going to share them in this post.  I dropped more than 4 pounds per week, week after week, until my 194 pound carcass melted into 159 pounds, a swing of 35 pounds. After I got going with my program, it was almost painless.   I found myself feeling better and I looked better.  Based upon well-established statistics, I knew that I had substantially decreased my chance of being afflicted with heart disease, stroke and various kinds of cancer.  I was comfortable wearing my clothes again and I was no longer obsessed with food.  What was not to like?

I’m 5’ 11”.  For most of the past five years, I have carried about 163 pounds. When I recently noticed my scale rise to 178 three weeks ago, then, I declared war.  I’m fighting that war right now.  I calculated that my approach will take me back at my normal weight in about 5 more weeks, a steady weight loss of about 2 pounds per week. It’s working like clockwork. In three weeks, I’ve lost 6 pounds.  To give myself even more incentive, I’m making my weight loss ambitions public here!

This weight loss story is the sort of thing that has been told many times, of course.  But I’ll continue.

Over the past year, I fell into some bad habits about eating well and working out.  And to accelerate my weight gain, I haven’t exercised much.  I normally commute 10 miles/day by bicycle, but extremely cold winter has hindered that.  Also, I haven’t been getting enough sleep, a factor that is associated with weight gain. During the day, I work at desk job and I’ve been hovering over my computer several hours each night (much of it writing this blog).  Further, I take care of my two young children quite often; it is hard to work out vigorously when one is with them.  They just can’t keep up (although that is changing rapidly).

Now that we’ve had our winter thaw, I’m back on the bicycle almost every day.  I don’t belong to any health club.  My exercise program is virtually free. In addition to riding a bike to work (which saves 1/3 gallon of gas every day), I do floor exercises several times a week.  I do these floor exercises for only 10 minutes, in accordance with many of the suggestions of a pretty decent book, Eight Minutes in the Morning, by Jorge Cruise.

Here’s a short version of my “secrets” for losing weight: eat reasonable amounts of good food and exercise.  There’s no substitute.  Don’t tolerate excuses out of your own mouth.  Excuses are a dime a dozen and all of us have thought of all of them ready.  Here are a few of my favorites.   We live in a toxic society, nutritionally speaking.  It’s really tempting to eat all those sugary fatty salty foods.  It does take more effort to chop up some zucchini and stir fry at then to eat a big bowl of potato chips.  I could go on and on.  Tell your excuses to get lost.

When I try to determine a workable series of rules five years ago, I focused on several things.  My number one rule was that my approach to eating could not require any daily menus.  I wasn’t going to buy expensive concoctions or prepared foods.  My approach had to be an approach that I could use anywhere, whether at someone’s house or a restaurant.

Substituting nutritious food for bad food at home was a terrific jump start for dropping pounds.  In my case, I became sold that eating lots of whole grains (carbohydrates loaded with fiber) was a critically important basis for eating well.  I work whole grains into my breakfast, lunch and dinner (here’s why).  It’s really easy to swap out crappy cereal for cereal loaded with fiber.  There are many delicious whole grain breads available for purchase (look for bread that has at least 3 grams of fiber per slice).  I learned much about whole grains by reading Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, by Walter Willett, of the Harvard School of Public Health.

When I decided that I needed to lose weight three weeks ago, I didn’t realize how many bad habits I had gotten into over the past year.  It’s really easy to overlook all of one’s own bad habits.  I started noticing that I was grabbing food for numerous reasons having nothing to do with hunger: anxiety, nervousness, stress and boredom.  Many times, I was eating food when I was really thirsty and I should have been drinking water instead of eating. 

What’s amazing though, especially this time, is how hard it is to turn around one’s habits.  When we get into old eating habits, they are really hard to break.  It’s like trying to turn around an ocean liner.  One’s habits, especially one’s food habits, are quite personal.  To change one’s food habits is to change one’s self; it is to reject one’s (own) self.  The problem is that we tend to get used to ourselves and make lots of excuses for ourselves.  We humans are capable of liking ourselves the way we are, no matter who we have become.

I’m three weeks into my better eating campaign, and I notice that I’m starting to rediscover the good habits that I initially learned five years ago.  I’m eating more nutritious foods and staying away from processed foods.  I’m staying more conscious of my food while I am eating it and I’m enjoying it more.  Because I am again focusing on eating nutritious food (again, avoiding refined and over-processed foods lacking fiber) my metabolism has settled down.  Before I decided to get with it again three weeks ago, I was finding myself looking forward to my lunch break even when I wasn’t really hungry.  Now, because I’m eating well, I often find myself working straight through lunch, forgetting to eat.  Sometimes I feel “fatigue” at one or two in the afternoon, and then I remind myself that I haven’t yet eaten.  It’s not really fatigue that I’m feeling, but real hunger, something that I haven’t often felt during my year of bad habits.

I’m not suggesting that eating can’t be fun while eating well.  I’m really enjoying those extra doses of vegetables (I usually stir fry them) and whole grains.  I’ll still have a small cup of ice cream several times a week.  Sometimes, when I crave sweets, I grab a small piece of good quality chocolate—I’ve found that a small piece of good chocolate (I use Dove chocolate bars these days) is much more satisfying that large amounts of waxy cheaper chocolate.  The point is not that people need chocolate to lose weight–everyone will have their own favorite foods.  The point is that a bite or two of highly craved foods often extinguishes the craving and, if one deprives oneself of those favorite foods entirely, one might “compensate” for the un-extinguished craving by eating huge amounts of food one doesn’t really want or need.

During my past 3 weeks improved exercise and better eating, I find that I’m sleeping better–when I’m working out, I feel refreshed after getting only 7 1/2 hours sleep each night, rather than eight.  I’m happier.  I think faster and remember more, it seems.  And I’m losing weight.

Imagine if someone came up to you and said that they had an amazing drug that would make you feel much better, sleep better, enjoy life better and provide immunity from many horrible diseases.  Imagine that the price of this proven life-lengthening drug was $10 per day, more than $3000 per year.  Imagine all the people nonetheless clamoring to get their hands on such a drug!  Well, there is no such drug, but there is a free way to get all of these same benefits.

As I’m writing this, I keep thinking that I’m saying nothing new at all.  People know all these things.  But maybe it’s worthwhile to share a story like this so that others who want to drop 15 or 30 or 50 pounds can be reminded that it can be done.  A long journey begins with the first step, but that first step is the hardest of all the steps one will take.

So, without further ado, here the tips that I’ve used and I am again using.  This is the list that hung on my refrigerator.  After about a week, though, I knew these tips well.  These are the same tips I’m now offering to anyone else who wants to drop some weight. I’m offering this program free of charge.  If you are overweight, just follow this advice and you will lose weight.  I guarantee it.  It happened for me five years ago and it’s happening again.

So here is the information that worked for me.  It starts with a declaration that reminded me that my quest was not so much about weight loss as much as attaining a state of health.  Being at a healthy weight is not about not eating. Rather, it’s about eating well.

DECLARATION OF HEALTH

When Health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot become manifest, strength cannot be exerted, wealth is useless, and reason is powerless.

Herophilies, 300 B.C.

How Much to Eat

  • A well-tuned body is potent mental medicine. Your mind will follow the body’s lead.
  • Articulate your specific reasons for committing yourself to an energized existence, now and for decades to come. For instance, become a savvy eater to show that you really care for loved ones.  Do you really want to be around for your children/grandchildren?
  • 65% of Americans are overweight. A healthy BMI is less than 25 and closer to 21 (at 23 we are still 3 times at risk for adult onset Diabetes). Think like a thin person. Become a believer that your body is well-tuned only when your BMI is in the low 20’s.
  • Eat only until you are “70% full” (the European approach, as to the American approach (eat until you’re full).
  • Consciously identify seductive marketing and incessant social pressures to eat poorly and to eat when you’re not hungry. Clocks and other people are incapable of telling you when you are hungry.
  • Eat only when you’re hungry, not when you’re thirsty, bored, frustrated or trying to be polite.
  • Put the fork down when you’re no longer hungry. Food is much better off in the Tupperware (or even the trash) than in your full stomach. Praise yourself for leaving unneeded food on the plate.
  • You would never tolerate it if someone else forced you to eat food you didn’t need.  Don’t do it to yourself.
  • Choose small portions & beware huge desserts.
  • When dining out, think seriously about splitting a single meal.  My wife and I do this sometimes, and I’m always surprised that I am perfectly satisfied eating only “half” a meal.
  • Spoil your appetite, so not to eat ravenously later.  If you’re really hungry an hour before a planned meal, have a snack.
  • Starving yourself slows metabolism and burns muscle tissue. Starving, then, is not a sustainable approach to losing weight.
  • Slow down and eat consciously. Enjoy each bite. Eating should be pleasurable. Overeaters are always thinking of food, except while eating.
  • Focus on eating well, not on avoiding bad eating.
  • Don’t beat yourself up for eating lapses. You’ll use bad judgment here and there.  Don’t make an enemy out of yourself.  That makes it much harder maintain your enthusiasm.
  • Get enough sleep, or else you’ll reduce your metabolism and affect your levels of leptin, the hormone that makes you feel full. When levels are low you crave sweets and starches. Sleep deprivation also reduces growth hormone, which affects your body’s proportion of fat to muscle and repairs muscles.
  • Beware eating too much on while traveling away from home.  Exposure to too many large restaurant portions, and the fatigue of traveling, encourage weight gain.  Also, I have an often-recurring thought that taunts me on the road:
  • Don’t eat a little extra just because you are not at home, where food is easily available.
  • Be good to your carcass. You are your body. Treating it poorly is self-mutilation.

Exercise

  • Strength training increases your metabolism by 7-12% for 15 or more hours. Do it each morning for 10 minutes to add a bit more muscle.  It is really effective, though it doesn’t sound possible.  A pound of muscle burns 50 cal/day more than a pound of fat.  Here’s a book I recommend on short daily sessions of exercise:    8 Minutes in the Morning: A Simple Way to Shed up to 2 Pounds a Week Guaranteed, by Jorge Cruise
  • Cardiovascular exercise increases metabolism for an hour after activity. This burns extra calories and is essential for your heart and lungs. Briskly walk or bike whenever possible.
  • Track your progress once per week by getting on a good scale.  Don’t weigh yourself every day.  You’re body is telling you how much food it really needs, if you’re eating good food and staying away from starches and refined foods.

What to Eat & Drink

  • Here is my “Bible” on how to eat:  Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, by Walter Willett, of the Harvard School of Public Health.  Willett is an innovator, having argued way ahead of the crowd of the dangers of trans fats and of the need to drastically renovate the “food pyramid.”  The pyramid has been changed drastically, adopting many of Willett’s suggestions,  though many of Willett’s recommendations were ignored.
  • Substitute whole-grain carbohydrates for refined-grains (e.g., amaranth, barley, brown rice, bulgur, corn, millet, oats, rye, spelt, tritclale, wheat berries, and wild “rice”).
  • Beware the starches: white rice, potatoes, pasta and highly processed bread. These cause insulin to spike. Eating these is like eating pure processed sugar.
  • Replace saturated fats (e.g., meat & dairy) and trans fats (i.e., “hydrogenated” processed foods) with unsaturated fats (e.g., flax, canola, and olive oils).
    “Cholesterol free” does not mean lack of trans fats.
  • Do eat good oils, including omega-3 oil, and smaller amounts of omega 6 and 9. These oils suppress the appetite by activating brown fat (as opposed to white fat), responsible for 25% of the fat calories burned). For an easy source of omega 3 oil, grind up flax seeds and throw a tablespoon or two on your cereal.
  • Use liquid oils (flax, canola, olive) in lieu of butter or margarine.
  • Eat plenty of a wide variety of fruits and vegetables (lean toward the dark leafy lettuce).
  • Eat flax, fish, nuts, canola, and soy. Soy, however, acts as a phytoestrogen. Limit it to 4-6 servings/week.
  • For protein, eat a healthy mix of nuts, beans, chicken and fish.
  • Nuts contain fat, but it’s mostly good fat.  Eating fat doesn’t make you fat.  In fact, taking fat out of one’s diet can do much more damage.
  • There’s no privileged place for dairy products in a diet, many of which are linked to prostate cancer. Calcium can be found in many foods other than dairy. Consider soy milk.
  • Use alcohol in moderation.
  • I take half of a daily multivitamin.
  • Drink lots of WATER. Reduce caffeinated drinks;
  • For snacks consider nutritious food.  Don’t overlook the great taste of real fruit & fruit smoothies (but avoid fruit juice), whole grain cereal in soy milk, brown rice,  beans, seasoned whole grains, stir-fried veggies (e.g., spinach or bok choy), whole wheat breads, popcorn.
  • Have healthy food & water easily accessible (e.g., in kitchen & backpack) and avoid bringing home processed or refined food products, to maintain positive momentum.
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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 154 Comments

  1. Avatar of projektleiterin
    projektleiterin

    He looks surprisingly cute (I read somewhere that he got some cheeks implants though, but whatever). I'm guilty, as a lot of other people I assume, of not being able to see fat people as potentially attractive people who are stuck in a fat body, but simply as fat people. I want to go out now and convince everybody I know who is overweight to lose weight.

  2. Avatar of HUH?
    HUH?

    about time for a weigh in from erich.

  3. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    Huh?: You remind me a lot of TMOL. Do you guys know each other?

    As a matter of fact, I weighed in a couple days ago at 168, which relieved me, given that I've had to curtail working out for several months due to a back problem. I'm exercising again, though, and I plan to bring it back down to about 163 soon.

    Thanks for checking.

  4. Avatar of Ben
    Ben

    I was at 177 last week. Since then I have "celebrated" a bit by eating haagen dazs. Not sure where I am right now.

  5. Avatar of HUH?
    HUH?

    so, erich, in other words you gained five pounds, yet you say this "relieved" you? maybe you should gain another five, and then another, and triple your "relief."

  6. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    To Huh?: My point was that in the context of doctors telling me to not ride a bike or work out strenuously for more than a month, I was pleasantly surprised that I hadn't gained much weight.

    You seem really focused on my need to lose weight. If I were to lose so much weight that I entirely disappeared, would that make you ecstatic? Or would I just become a singularity in another dimension?

    Time to end this late-night comment . . .

  7. Avatar of Rit
    Rit

    Erich, I just stumbled on this site today and want to thank you and the other commenters for a great weight loss post. I am 52, and weight loss/muscle building is nowhere near as easy this year it was 10 years ago for me. But I am going to follow in your footsteps, and try and work the same basic plan. I too have just come through a tough winter and beltline creep. Thanks!

  8. Avatar of Lacy
    Lacy

    I find that although I know everything you have stated here, it is nice to hear that you slipped and are able to get back into the routine. I dont have a problem starting a plan and losing weight, i tend to slip on occasions and feel like it will be impossible for me to ever stick with it. Less about the info you shared and more about hearing about a similar issue and seeing that it is possible to return to ones better habbits. I gained 70 lbs in my pregnancy this, i deliverd my baby 2 months ago, and now i've given myself until her first birth day to lose it all. Being health is important, and being a rolemodel is even more so. Thanks for the inspiration.

  9. Avatar of Kishman
    Kishman

    To all. This is crazy. If you want to lose weight, look at your caloric intake needed to maintain your current weight on any of the 1000s of online calculators, then reduce that by 500-1000 calories, then burn 500-1000 calories through cardio exercise each day, and lift weights three or four times a week for 30-45 minutes. Make sure to eat plenty of protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats. There are great supplements bodybuilders use like protein shakes and bars that are nutritionally balanced. This will require some discipline, but it is going to work for you, and at the same time teach you how to eat healthfully. It's hard, but it's really the only way to consistently lose weight.

  10. Avatar of Ben
    Ben

    I recently tried riding the path to work. Its a beautiful winding path through a creek/park with smooth pavement. It is a long route though, because it isn't direct (took about an hour the first time, guessing it was 10 miles). I could ride on the streets (about 5 mi), but i'm not keen about sharing the road with cars. I'm gonna keep trying to find an ideal route (mix of trails and street), and get myself and my bike into Touring shape, which will improve travel times.

  11. Avatar of alyssa
    alyssa

    well, i'm going to start this today. i hope it works. i'll keep telling you how much i've lost each week. thank you.

  12. Avatar of 20 lbs too many
    20 lbs too many

    Hi, I'm not sure if people are still checking this but I am DESPERATE to lose 1-2 pounds a week for… 10+ weeks until I lose 20 pounds. I graduated college over a year ago where I was an athlete and weight was never an issue for me. However. I have discovered my love for food and restaurants and have packed on 20 pounds since graduating, its a terrible feeling. All of my new friends are chefs and servers, love food, and are all overweight. I couldn't help myself from falling into the same group and gaining weight. I love the ideas presented in this plan and its similar to what I am trying, eating less, eating better, exercising more, which seem basic but it has not been easy. I'd love either advice, or someone to scream at me and demand weigh ins and express their disappointment when I'm failing (which I have been).

  13. Avatar of Erika Price
    Erika Price

    20lbs: would keeping a food blog of your own help? If you had to report your habits and your current weigh in for potentially the world to see, would that help snap you into shape at all? I don't know if the open-reporting had any influence on Erich's results, but the tactic does seem to help some people stay on track.

    I've never lost a super-significant amount of weight, but I'd venture that both the evidence and anecdotes I've witness suggest a slow-but-steady way of things. I think the pointers Erich shares here and elsewhere in the blog are great- overall habitual changes, not totally banning any food, learning to eat thought fully and responsibly and not giving in to social or other pressures that beg you to eat when not hungry.

    My only additional tip would be to focus on health, not weight.

    And here comes the yelling part: If you want to lose weight, do it! You've clearly looked into it, you understand how the problem began, and you know some of the ways to get started. So go for it! Start right now! There is no reason to wait, and there is no reason to give up once you've started. An occasional slip-up does not invalidate all of the work that you've done in the past. And that's all I have to say!

  14. Avatar of LMK
    LMK

    This website is so inspiring! I lost 25 pounds through Weight Watchers and have gained 10 back since going on paxil. I am going off this week and look forward to losing 10 again! I want to lose it in 4 weeks. I know 2 pounds a week is hard but can be done. I weight 170 today. I will check in once a week…

  15. Avatar of kjem
    kjem

    Love this website! It was great fun to read. We all need a tmol in our life. Sometimes people sugar coat things to much for us. I have a lot of weight to lose. After my third child my body was like Erich's the weight always came off so easily but being now 35 and 3 children later my body is fighting me big time. I work out 6 times a week. I love my workouts and I have started charting my food intake in a way to keep track and see exactly where my calorie intake needs to be so that I can lose 2lbs a week. I am 205 and my goal is 150. I also want my BMI back down to 21. I am tall and have more of a bigger bone structure. Thank goodness there are no more babies going to be happening in my life. I look forward to getting to goal and maintaining.

    Thank you for all your wonderful advise!

  16. Avatar of alyssa
    alyssa

    hello, i just started a diet last week and i was 186 pounds. this week i weighed myself and i weigh 178.5 pounds. i have been eating so for those of you who are sitting there saying it's unhealthy, don't tell me because i am doing this the right way. not the wrong way.

    i'm going to keep going.

  17. Avatar of Ed
    Ed

    I am a male who started dieting 18 days ago. I wanted to share my plan to those it may help. I do not exercise, it's easier for me to reduce calories than to burn them off.

    Starting weight 202.6 pounds.

    Starting BMI 32.7

    Current weight 193.3

    Current BMI 32.2

    Target weight 154.8

    Target BMI 25

    Using the Harris-Benedict principle for calculating my calorie requirement, I require 2,273kcal per day to maintain my weight of 202.6 pounds. I took 500kcals per day from this and it left 1,773kcal per day.

    Rather than only drop 500kcals per day, I decided to set a personal target of having a fixed 1,500kcal per day (no less than 1,200kcal).

    Each week I weigh myself and recalculate, using the Harris-Benedict principle, my calorie intake requirements. It is important to do this because as you lose weight, you need LESS CALORIES to maintain your new current weight. Here's my example:

    Starting weight: 202.6

    Kcals required to maintain weight: 2,273

    Kcals required to lose weight: 1,773

    Current weight: 193.3

    Kcals required to maintain weight: 2,204

    Kcals required to lose weight: 1,704

    Eventually, should I reach my target, it will be as follows:

    Target weight: 154.8

    Kcals required to maintain target weight: 1,916

    So as you lose weight, eat at least 500kcal less calories than the Harris-Benedict formula shows you need to maintain your weight. When you get to the weight you want to maintain, eat no more than the number of calories that the Harris-Benedict formula shows you need.

    Over the 18 days I have averaged a calorie intake of 1,520kcals, about 700kcals less than required for my height/weight. I have lost 9 pounds, but realise that this is probably water loss.

    Every week I weigh myself and recalculate (it's all in a spreadsheet) my intake using the Harris-Benedict principle. So due to losing weight, I now only need 2,204kcals to maintain my current weight, or 1,704kcals to lose weight. I will continue with my plan to eat 1,500kcals.

    The great thing about this method is that I do no exercise and continue to eat what I like as long as it is less than my daily target. Your weight is gradually and safely reducing and your calorie intake also gradually and safely reduces in parallel. Because you are still eating enough calories, your body does not starve and it is likely to be a sustainable weight loss.

  18. Avatar of maggie1044
    maggie1044

    i am over leight by 15 to 20 pounds. play basket ball but i keep getting hert… so i gave it up. i try to eat healthy but i whent to tim hortens today and ate 2dounuts and a ice capechione, but i try to eat healthy. i suggested to my bro tonight to go for a jog with me he said no and i couldent go coz it was way too dark! do you have any suggestions???@!!

    I NEED YOUR HELP!!!!!!!!! 😀 : ( <3

  19. Avatar of Ed
    Ed

    Update: Current weight 190.0 pounds. So I've lost another 3.3 pounds this week.

    I am still expecting the weight loss to slow, but it appears to be a linear 3 pounds per week since I started, based on my calorie intake of 1,500.

    I've lost 12.6 pounds in a month or so, still a long way to go, but at this rate I should be 155 pounds by April, as if! LOL!

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