About a month ago, I realized two things.  First, heavy physical exertion was resulting in entirely too much regret and recovery time.  Second, even moderate activity was starting to seem like a chore – as if it was harder than it should be.  So, I dragged out the old bathroom scale.  What I found wasn’t really pretty – I was heavier than I’d ever been by about five pounds.

Ah, then.  A diet, it seems, was called for.

I hate diets.  I especially hate the diets with names, that prescribe exactly what one must eat and exactly when one must eat it.  Besides, I cook not only for myself, but for my wife.  Just because I needed to shed some extra tonnage was no reason to make her miserable in the process.

What to do, what to do?

I decided that I would take a conservative tack, and limit my calories while maintaining a substantial bulk of food.  Maintaining food volume is important at first, because it staves off hunger.  The key is making sure the bulk isn’t high-fat, high-sugar, calorie-laden stuff.

The first thing I needed to look at were beverages:  beer and wine are about 110-120 calories a serving, a bottle of non-diet soda can have 250, and fruit juices are nearly as bad at around 110-125 calories per eight ounce serving.  I rarely drink sugared sodas any more, but fruit juices and sweetened iced tea are favorites.  All of the calories from these drinks is sugar (or alcohol, which metabolizes into sugars).  Water, tea, and coffee are great alternatives, and flavorful.  Diet sodas are good for when I really want sweet and fizzy things, as are fruit juices diluted 2-to-1 with soda water, the majority being the water.  A great, refreshing summer drink that’s nearly calorie-free is the juice from a half lime, 2-3 dashes of Angostura bitters, and lemon-lime seltzer over ice.  If I want a cocktail or glass of wine, I enjoy sparingly and keep in mind the hidden sugar.

One of the better lunch joints near work is the California Tortilla in Laurel.  The food is fresh, tasty, and fast, and they have a wall of hot sauces for your food.  Alas, I fear that my regular intake of their menu has helped lead to my condition.  So, on a hunch I checked their nutritional info. calculator.  To my surprise, in most cases holding the cheese and the flour tortilla (turning a burrito into a bowl) while retaining the salsa, beans, rice, chicken, and sauces turned a fattening lunch into a sub-500 calorie option.  I double-checked this against NutritionData.com, and – holy crap – a 12″ flour tortilla is 350+ calories!  Minus that gut-buster, I can still chow down on over a pound of food for as low as 370 calories (regular Sunset Chicken burrito bowl).

At home, it’s more of the same – bulk without calories.  It gets easier with time.

Meals become centered around the vegetables and grains with meats as the bonus.  Instead of two grilled pork chops and some sides, I have one smaller chop and all of the veg I can eat.  Seriously – unless it’s something loaded with fat like an avocado, stuff yourself with non-starchy vegetables.  Season them with interesting spices instead of butter, and pile ‘em on.  Make cool summertime dinner salads, with small portions of meat sliced thin on top.  Reacquaint yourself with lower-fat white fleshed fish, and broil or blacken it with hearty seasonings.

Beans are also excellent sources of dieting protein.  I look for Mexican and Indian preparations (being careful about overuse of lard or ghee), where beans and other pulses are cooked with lots of flavorful spices long and slow.  They’re great crock pot foods, and beans in general have about 220 calories per cup, are very complete sources of protein, and are loaded with thiamine, folate, and trace minerals.  Worried about the after-effects?  Soak your beans in the refrigerator a day before cooking, changing the water 2-3 times.  Also, your system will adjust over time and the noisome side effects will dramatically decrease.  Until then, Beano can be your friend.

But what about snacking?

Well, it’s hard at first because mindlessly munching had become a really bad habit.  At 225 lbs and anything above a totally sedentary lifestyle, you need about 3100 kcal a day to maintain your current weight.  I cut that back to a USDA-standard “2000 calorie diet”, and can lose almost two pounds a week while still eating plenty.  A cup of coffee (or tea, or diet drink, or water…) and even a small breakfast – a cup of low-fat vanilla yogurt or 2% cottage cheese – starts me off with about 130 kcal.  Keeping lunch at 500 kcal or lower, I’ve got 1300-1400 kcal to play with for the tough evenings sitting around the house.  Controlling my portions and concentrating more on veg than meat, I can sit down to a 1000 kcal dinner, which is pretty substantial and usually holds me through the rest of the night.

Sometimes I’m still jonesing for a tidbit after dinner.  I try to stick to fruit to satisfy a sweet tooth.  Grapes – 100 kcal per cup, and the 3-4 cups you can eat is a pretty sizable snack.  Watermelon is a dieter’s friend – mostly water, less than 50 kcal per cup of diced melon, and a pretty good dose of vitamins A and C.  A large apple isn’t much more than 100 kcal, and its relatively high fiber content is filling.  Italian ices are great, too – sweet/tart, mostly water, satisfyingly flavorful, less than 100 kcal, and they take a while to eat.  Which is a good thing.

If I really want the salty-crunchies, I no longer take the whole bag out to the couch.  At the risk of sounding diet-nerdy, this is the one thing I’ll weigh out according to the nutritional info on the package.  Take two ounces of Terra chips, pretzels, or blue-corn tortilla chips and put them in a bowl.  You’re going to hit 250 kcal for this, so savor them – eat slowly.

The results so far?  Fourteen pounds lost in six weeks – over two pounds per week – while eating pretty damned well, and not being a slave to a formal diet.  It’s all about making better choices, not about regimented menus and starvation.

If you’re feeling a bit tubby, if you have no energy, or if moderate activity is leaving you drained, look at how much you’re eating.  Not what, but how much.  Read the labels.  Total up the numbers.  You may be surprised.