I had health scares.  And I mean REALLY scary, ambulance to the emergency room scary, heart pounding like crazy, hot sweaty, squeezing feeling in my torso, etc.  Three different times in a 10 day period.  Scared the absolut f*** outta me. 

Anytime now that I'm thinking about overdoing on the fat or the sugar or the sheer volume, I remember what that felt like and look at the medical bills I'm still paying and, ya know, that cookie just doesn't look so tasty anymore.

I'm aiming to lose 1 pound a week right now, but I'll dial that back to 1/2 pound per week once I lose another 10 pounds or so  I started losing well before this Challenge started, and I plan to keep at it afterwards as well.  So far I've lost 50 pounds, and I want to end up with a total 100 pounds lost, but I expect it will be well into 2017 or even early 2018 when I hit that mark.  I don't care about how long it takes because I'm doing this forever, not for some dressy event or other "important" milestone.

How I'm doing it: 

  • I eat limited amounts of grains/starches/root vegetables.  Not none, but limited.  Most days I have a slice of bread, perhaps some baked sweet potato, maybe a bit of rice.  I occasionally have a sandwich or a hot dog or burger, but seldom more than one a week.
  • I drink plenty of water, no sodas, very limited amounts of alcohol, 2 cups of black coffee in the morning.
  • I eat lots of green/yellow/red/orange vegetables.  Collards, greens, salads, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, summer squashes, winter squashes, beans (dried and green), okra, peas, peppers, tomatoes, etc.  I love vegetables and they love me back.  Woo-hoo!
  • I've cut down on my portion size of meat, and I eat very little beef, maybe once a week.  I have wild caught salmon (frozen) once a week and try to get in another fin fish (usually sea bass) once a week, if I can find a nice fresh fish.  Roast chicken, a small pork chop.  And I eat sausage meat fairly often, mixed into squash casseroles or sauces, because it has huge amounts of flavor for the small amount I use.  So, a marinara with cabbage and artichokes and mushrooms and some sweet Italian sausage is a fabulous meal.
  • I have almost entirely given up cheese......but that has as much to do with its, ummmm, binding qualiities as its saturated fat content.
  • I stay within my calorie limit most days, and try to stay near the top of it, but I do vary things up and have higher and lower days to keep my metabolism unaware.  Also because of the amount of vegetables and fiber and good quality protein I'm getting, I rarely feel hungry.
  • I cook with olive oil mostly, sometimes peanut oil, and only use butter in small amounts occasionally as a finishing touch for vegetables. 
  • I ingest very little processed sugar.  Right now, for instance, there are homemade oatmeal raisin nut cookies in the office kitchen.  I have one per day, most days.  Other days I skip altogether because I don't want the inflammation that sugar brings.

So, that's my story.  Good luck to me and much success to everyone here trying to lose weight