MFP 365

In the interest of science (and practicing what I preach in my book), I recently finished one full year of tracking every single bite of food I ate and every sip of liquid calories I drank. I learned quite a bit about myself during that time, and now I’ll share the most salient stuff with you. Because I care.

Because I wrote a book on the subject of weight loss, and because of my station in life in general, nearly everyone who comes in my office who has lost a considerable amount of weight, and then maintained that loss, tells me about it. They all have one thing in common.

After my year of tracking, I saw how true this one thing is.

That one thing? Being honest with one’s self.

Before I started tracking, I had gained some weight while trying to get stronger in the gym. Muscle needs fuel to grow, and for most of 2014 I went after it hard in the gym seeking to hit the elusive thousand pound total–that is, between one rep of a squat, a deadlift, and a bench press, the total amount lifted would equal one thousand pounds.

For some power lifters, that number is laughably small, but for your average 40-something dude like myself, it’s no small feat. In the process, I gained quite a bit of weight. So, when all the gym abuse was over, I started following my program to shed the extra fat I had picked up in the process.

In the book, I encourage people to track their intake for one month to develop caloric awareness. I tend to take things to the extreme, so I can tell you about it here. Hence the full year.
The results? I didn’t do anything different outside of simple diet observation for several weeks. Predictably, nothing changed.

I did get a good look at where the problem was, though. Shockingly, I was eating too much. Can you believe it?

Specifically, I was eating too much at night in the form of crackers and cheese and nuts and such. This type of eating paired with the liquid calories that accompanied it in the form of red wine was the obstacle. So, in the name of science (and looking better), I stopped drinking altogether for about ten weeks, and since then I only indulge on rare occasions.

Once I stopped the majority (but not all) of the late night snacking the needle started dropping fast on the scale. I went from the mid 180’s to the mid 160’s over the course of the ten weeks. I decided that was a little too light for doing what I do in the office all day (a little extra oomph helps with the low back move I have to do 20 times a day). Also, my strength numbers were dropping in the gym. I expected that to happen but was pleasantly surprised how much strength I could retain at a much lower body weight. Staying strong at a lighter weight is the sweet spot–I was losing mostly fat and keeping the muscle I worked so hard to put on the year before. As a matter of fact, just last Sunday I set my all-time bench press record at a much lower body weight than I was at in 2014.

So if you want to lose some weight, my suggestion is that you so some tracking, find the weak link in your daily habits, and find some reasonable workarounds to get you through that part of the day without overindulging.

My go-to evening snack was to mix up some chocolate PB2 (it’s peanut butter with the fat removed that comes in a powder. Mix with water to get the desired consistency, and you’re off to the races). I’d then spread it over a low carb (which equals high fiber, nothing against carbs) tortilla that I’d get crispy in the oven. Sweet, salty and crunchy all at the same time and the whole snack is only around 160 calories. That one strategy helped me shave a good 400 calories a day off my total, and the dropping of weight came quickly as a result.

Now that I’ve finally finished the year I’m enjoying the freedom of not tracking anymore. I’ve learned how to approximate how much I’m eating, and I feel like I’ve become sufficiently calorically aware. But if I catch the needle moving up again I can always “recalibrate” my brain with a quick week of tracking.

The bottom line is we all have to find the balance between enjoying our food and not letting our enjoyment get the best of us. Keeping track of intake for a short (or even really long as in my case), can help you get your mind right about what’s really going on.