I want to touch on some other random things but wanted to separate the post. First–weight loss and weight control.

I recall that perhaps 5-10 years ago, I was in very good shape. I won’t say the best shape of my life because I think that was during college, but for my 30s, I was in good shape. The old adage is “diet and exercise” and, to be honest, it really is true. What may or may not be discussed as much is how emotions and willpower play into this.

Diet and exercise, it’s that easy? Yes, yes it is. What’s not easy is the tracking and accountability involved to enforce this, and this is primarily lead by your feelings. I’m not sure if that is well known. When I was in good shape, my diet consisted of skipping breakfast, perhaps having a cup of coffee with reasonable cream/sugar as a meal replacement. The less cream/sugar, the better. I brought a lunchmeat sandwich for lunch with some baby carrots, a pickle, yogurt, and a drink for lunch. This was one of the harder parts of the diet, especially in the beginning. When you start dieting after not dieting, your body tells you that you are not eating enough and you will be hungry. The reality is that this is expected–your body has to adapt to the new diet, as with any new diet. People who go through even more extreme diets, such as juice fasts, are well aware of this. It’s going to suck–you will be hungry, and it will impact your mood. Here are some things that I found helped–snack small throughout the day. Normally the coffee carries up through 11 AM, when I go straight for the sandwich, drink, and pickle. Then I try to snack on the carrots and yogurt a bit later in the day. I can bring something else to snack on as well, perhaps some crackers or the likes, if I need a little more–just be sure to review the nutritional facts. The goal is to tide you over until dinner time. You can eat a “normal” dinner–if you do, you can almost look at it like 1 meal a day, minus fasting throughout the entire day. I know folks who have done similar but substituting juice for their meal replacements. Some will substitute juice up to dinner and eat a normal meal, and some folks only drink the juice, which is again, the more extreme of these. The outcome ends up being similar for both.

As I stated, it is going to suck, especially at first. You may even get headaches at some point through the day–be sure to drink plenty of water. Your body has to adapt to the new diet, and I’ve found that takes about 1-2 weeks. After the first week, your body starts getting full with the smaller meals you eat. After the second, you should not only feel better, but honestly, you’ll feel better than even before you started dieting. Dieting alone should net you results in 2-4 weeks due to the calorie deficit, but if you include exercise in with this, it will improve your metabolism, speed up your weight loss, and you will feel even better than just dieting alone. I was dieting like this to improve my blood pressure, including exercise, and it definitely worked. Just like most diets, it did eventually end–but I did spend many months (perhaps over a year) with this.

The hard parts of this process are…

  1. When you feel hungry, it is easy to fall back. There is no magical cure I am aware to this feeling of hunger, you just have to trust the process. Snacking small throughout the day, and snacking healthy (avoid candy, chips, and snack on nuts, fresh fruits) does help a bit. You can even think of it this way–the feeling of hunger let’s you know your diet is working. If you trust the process, you will eat the same portions and no longer be hungry. I am aware that being hungry sucks–everyone is aware. It is only temporary…
  2. Exercising consistently is a lifestyle change. As such, it is easy to fall back, just like dieting. Set reasonable limits–maybe 2-3 times a week. I know the doctors tell you 30 minutes, 5 days a week, and if you can pull that off, it really does help. But keeping reasonable goals like 2-3 times a week is more attainable. You can even start there and if you start feeling good, bump it up to 5 times then.
  3. To expand on the lifestyle change, the people around you impact this. Do you have coworkers that invite you to eat out regularly? Does your spouse want to eat out frequently? This becomes a bad influence as it leads to temptations–they will eat burgers, pizza, etc. Do you have the willpower to say no? If you don’t, you don’t want it bad enough. Not saying you need my lunchmeat sandwich diet, but you would need to see the healthy alternatives available if you eat out. Are salads available? Sandwich and soup? Fruit salad sides available? Baked fish? As with any diet, willpower is necessary.

Now for the good parts… my recommendation is to weigh yourself daily for the two weeks you start the diet. I am confident that after two weeks, you will lose weight. The good part is that the weight loss is motivation in and of itself. Once you see the results, it will reinforce the process–which will lead to more health and weight loss.

I like the idea of nutritionists and personal trainers because of the accountability aspect. Nutritionists keep you accountable to avoid “secret eater” situations. Similarly, personal trainers watch you perform the exercises which will keep you accountable. Some personal trainers may give you a plan and say ‘have at it’ which I imagine is much less effective because it does NOT keep you accountable. If I were a personal trainer, I would not like this because then they could come back to you complaining that it does not work when they in fact are not following the plan. I would prefer to put eyes on them doing the exercises.

These days, I have been tracking my weight with Withings smart scale. I have several years worth of data and found that my weight does not fluctuate too much these days. Back in 2023-2024 timeframe I was 180-185 lbs. I started dieting and got down to the low 170s. By early 2025, my weight started creeping back up to 175 or so and it has been circling that weight for the past 6 months. My diet has been relatively poor and I sporadically exercise–maybe 5-10 times a month.