Time for diet and exercise!

[Aractus]

The long procrastination over me loosing weight this year is finally over.

Last year (2012) I went on a diet in the winter, I did no additional exercise, and over about 12 weeks despite still snacking way too much I lost 9 or 10 kilos.

This year there will be a similar crash diet that actually began today. FYI those who think crash diets are bad, don't work, unhealthy or otherwise unhelpful either do not understand how they work, or haven't tried them.

The meal plan.

Last year I effectively eliminated lunch, and eliminated energy drinks (red bull, etc) and eliminated alcohol, and eliminated fast food.

Next year will be similar, but with a more focused plan. I am again eliminating all energy drinks, soft drinks with sugar, alcohol and fast food (well most fast food anyway), and additionally throughout Jan I will trial eliminating bread too (even though I eat wheat bread), I will also eliminate unhealthy snacks which I didn't do last year. 7PM will be my final cut off time for food (so no snacks, etc after 7PM/dinner).

So very similar to last year, but this time I'm counting the calories. Consequently I will be consuming significantly less calories. Last year I did it in the dead of winter, as I consume about 2kg water per day more in summer, this will make it even easier.

This year I'm going to stop drinking Large Flat Whites altogether (224 calories), and permanently substitute it for Long Blacks (2 calories). I don't even really like Flat Whites, so it'll be easy.

The diet:

Breakfast: bowl of cereal with skim milk (avg. 210 calories). Glass of water.
Morning Tea: 2-3x hardboiled eggs + (large) glass of skim milk (300-380 calories).
5x Glasses of water.
11-11.30: Cup of coffee (2 calories).
2x Glasses of water.
Afternoon Tea (/lunch): piece of fruit (avg. 105 calories).
5x Glasses of water.
Dinner: whatever (~500 up to 1000 calories).
3-4x Glasses of water.

Calories before dinner not to exceed 750. Yep, that's what a full crash diet looks like. So with a regular "healthy" dinner, I'll be consuming 1200 calories, which is less than 1/2 the average daily requirement for men.

Before you ask, no, you don't get hungry on a diet like this, it's incredibly easy to maintain. The number of calories I ate yesterday were about 900 or so (at the most), and I wasn't even officially starting my diet. If you drink as much water as I do (avg 5 kilos/day in summer) then you'll find it fills your stomach (it also stretches it out and makes it easy to binge-eat when you want to as a bonus).

Exercise regime:

Last year I did no additional exercise. This is because the diet is easy and takes care of itself, you don't have to assign any additional time to it, and you need to make little-to-no effort. It's difficult to keep motivated for this, so I am fully aware that I may fail at following my plan here, but I already know I don't need to do it anyway, so for the moment it's the plan and if I give up on it, well, I'll still loose at least 1kg/week for the next 3 months.

This year will be a weight-training regime at home for 1 hour a day (I'm pretty slow at doing it, so I need to allocate 1 hour). I started on this yesterday. I will be trialling doing it in the mornings and seeing whether I prefer this to the evenings.

The Goal:

Last year I slimmed down to 72kg, and then maintained my weight at around 74kg. This year I'm starting slightly heavier (since I procrastinated), my starting weight is 84kg. The goal weight will be 68 kilos, and the timeframe expected to reach this is 3 months (approx 13 weeks). Whatever my weight stabilizes at again, I don't care!