I Want to Be a Loser! Successfully Tracking Weight Loss on a Low-Carbohydrate Diet

Start: Mar 23 2009; 322 lbs

Now: Jun 23 2009; 293 lbs

Weight Loss to Date: 29 lbs

Three months and nearly 30 pounds lighter. I have commented to several people that when I attempted the Atkins diet back in the late 90s, I lost 30 pounds in five months. I have beat that record by two months, and yet I'm actually eating in a more healthy manner and still allowing myself to have some "fun" foods. I celebrated my 52nd birthday and our 33rd anniversary nearly two weeks ago and yes, I had brownie and ice cream for several days. YUM! (You haven't lived until you've had my wife's homemade brownie, thick and dense and chocolatey with a layer of homemade chocolate buttercreme frosting on top as thick as the brownie...!) Yes, I gained back three pounds, but within just a few days I'd lost two of them, and the last one went bye-bye by this morning's weigh-in.

I've learned my best indicator of my progress, and my biggest motivator in changing my eating habits, is not the bathroom scale (well, actually the scale at the gym). It's my ketosis sticks. What, you may ask, are ketosis sticks? They're chemically-treated sticks that you can pick up cheaply at any pharmacy (like 50 in a package for $10). When the body burns fat, the residue is excreted through the urine. By inserting the treated end of the ketosis stick in the urine stream, it changes color to indicate how much fat is being burned. The darker the color, the more fat your body is burning. Colors range from a light pink (trace) to a deep maroon (heavy). I find that when I am eating reasonable amounts of good carbs, like some fruits and vegetables, I stay in the moderate range (a pinkish-purple).

Another good indicator for me is the fit of my clothes. In three months I've gone from wearing no belt at all with my jeans to putting the belt on the third notch in from the outside...and that's starting to get a bit loose. I've already purchased a new pair of denim carpenter shorts and dropped a waist size (from 48 to 46). My sport shirts no longer span across my stomach, and a few of the larger ones are getting positively baggy!

Of course, there's always the scale, but as you can see from an earlier paragraph, my gaining of three pounds didn't mean I was exploding out of my clothes again. That's what's cool. Changing my eating habits means I can occasionally "go off my diet" (ha!) and not have to feel guilty about it. Yes, I can allow myself the occasional serving of french fries with ketchup, or the brownie and ice cream, and not feel like I've "wrecked" my schedule. In fact, I'm finding out that adding some carbs back into my diet every few days actually helps me lose more weight. It's like burning those extra carbs revs the motor, so to speak, and when they're gone my body stays revved up as it starts burning fat again. I just have to make sure I don't go overboard. And with the results I'm getting, I'm not having much of a problem maintaining my new dietary lifestyle!