Right now though, I am using carbohydrate restriction. I've used this method in the past with good success, though like all ways of eating, there can be issues with how to deal with maintenance and what to do if you "fall off" the plan. I have read a fair amount about low carb diets, with books such as "TNT Diet: Targeted Nutrition Tactics" by Jeff Volek, PhD RD and Adam Campbell, "Good Calories Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes and "Protein Power" by Drs Michael and Mary Dan Eades being added to my library.
The nice thing with low carb diets for me is that it pretty much eliminates, at least initially (for the first few months) the desire for high carb foods. Given that I work I sit right next to, and I mean literally, the things that tempt me the most: Snickers, Kit Kats, M&Ms and the like, this removal (or suppression) of desire for these foods is a big factor. Another is that it is extremely good at controlling appetite. When I have tried losing weight just by "eating less and moving more", it often took conscious effort to keep my calories to whatever level the plan recommended. With low carb, that doesn't seem to be an issue.
While I used to plan out my day's eating ahead of time to make sure I got my numbers in the right place, I now usually just make note of what I'm eating and input those numbers into FitDay at night so I have a record of it. So I just eat what I feel like eating (just keeping low carb in mind) and let the numbers fall where they may.
The graph below is the result of this for the last month or so. The blue line is a rolling 7 day average of calories taken in as best I can determine. I used the rolling average just to smooth things out a bit and get a sense of an average intake. So over the first 5 weeks or so of eating this way my intake of calories has dropped about 18%, without my planning on it or feeling hungry, because if I feel hungry, I eat something.
You may be wondering what I do for exercise. Up until now, this time around it hasn't been much. Maybe 15 or 20 minutes of tai chi like exercises and the very occasional bike ride of between 30 and 45 minutes, most often riding to and from work. So not a heck of a lot. I've long felt, and my recent reading has backed up, that intense exercise can often be counterproductive when trying to lose weight. This is because you quite often simply "work up an appetite" and sooner or later will consume more calories to compensate for what you've burned off. I think it is a much better idea to get accustomed to whatever you are doing to correct your diet and then add exercise once your body has adapted.
For example with myself and low carb, I would guess that this time it took me about a month to become adapted fully to the diet. That is when you see the rather sudden drop in my daily calories in the graph which tells me my body is taking more from my fat stores so my body isn't craving as much energy from food sources.
So I've now started to add back in some strength training exercises, primarily body weight movements. I really like "The Five Essential Movements" from Mark's Daily Apple (a great blog in my opinion for health and fitness). While I don't think exercise is particularly helpful in an of itself for weight loss or maintenance, I do think it is needed for what Mark calls "LGN" or looking good naked, and who doesn't want that? I am starting slow because I haven't done a lot of strength training in about six months. I am also including a protein shake before and after the workout as per the "TNT Diet" to help get the most results out of the workouts.
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