Okay, I am figuring the reason you are here is to learn what I did to lose weight so quickly. As I have often stated on this site and tell people who as me, I initially loss six pounds per week and sustained this rate of loss for six weeks. During those six weeks, it seemed that I could do no wrong when it came to losing weight. Faithful or straying, having cheat days or not having cheat days, rigidly going to the gym or slacking off, I continued to lose six pounds per week. While this felt great, it was not much of a learning experience simply because changing conditions did not result in changing outcomes. (The following ten weeks were golden, because changing what I did had huge impact on the outcomes each week. I will be elaborating on those weeks later to identify what has been most effective in my weight loss) Since I cannot identify the specific factors directly responsible for my six-pound per week weight loss, I will simply lay out what I was doing for those six weeks. Also, keep in mind what worked for me may not work for you. I developed this plan for me based on information I found in these products here. They contain much information about weight loss that allowed me to develop a plan for me.
Before you get started, you must know this will involve you performing strenuous cardio training, twice daily. First, check with a physician before starting any weight loss program. Secondly, if you have up to this point had a sedentary lifestyle, do not jump into cardio twice a day, you will shock your body and your motivation will plummet. What you should do first instead is a moderate cardio program for about a month, starting at 20 minutes per day, working up to 50. Once you are comfortable doing cardio for 50 minutes a day, then proceed ahead.
One of the first things I did was to eliminate all aspartame (an artificial sweetener) from my diet. I read in several independent reports stating aspartame has a severe negative impact on thyroid function, and thyroid function is critical to any plan to lose weight. Virtually all diet soft drinks use aspartame and unfortunately I love my soft drinks. Fortunately I found Diet Rite, which uses splenda instead, and splenda does not have any reports indicating negative impact on the thyroid gland. To enhance my thyroid output, I started taking kelp tablets, tyrosine tablets, olive leaves extract, and raw thyroid extract. My own research indicated combined these supplements would dramatically boost my thyroid output. If you are interested in trying out these supplements, you can find them for good prices here, except for the raw thyroid extract, which you can get for a great price here. While I enjoy a nice glass of port wine, during my weight loss regimen, I avoided all alcohol because of the double negative impact on fat burning. I also began to drink lots of water everyday. At the very minimum, I drank (and still do) three 24-ounce sports bottles of pure water, most days I drank four such bottles, and frequently would drink as much as five bottles, plus I drank sodas and fruit juice. Needless to say I am very well hydrated, and I could never sustain such a vigorous activity level drinking only sodas as I was doing before. Let me repeat that; on days I slacked off on drinking water I noticed significant increase in difficulty in sustaining vigorous activity. I still managed but it required much more mental effort. Here are the meals I ate for the most part everyday for the entire six weeks.
· Pre-cardio meal, 1 scoop (30 grams) of whey protein with 3 Hydroxycut Hardcore capsules. Post workout I took 5 grams of glutamine amino acid and ½ cup (4 ounces) of Welch's Concord grape juice.
· Breakfast #1 would consist of five egg whites with one or two yolks, and I alternated between organic whole-wheat toast and 1 cup of whole grain oatmeal with cinnamon powder - not sugar, for variety.
· Two to three hours later I had my second breakfast of 1 scoop of whey protein and ½ cup of raw walnuts.
· For lunch I ate two chicken breasts and a large, green, leafy salad, 1 ounce of raw apple cider vinegar for the enzymes, and a 12-ounce can of V-8 vegetable juice. I have about five flavors of Mrs. McDash's seasoning and I randomly applied a flavor each day on the chicken breasts to keep variety.
· Pre PM cardio meal was again 1 scoop of whey along with three Hydroxycut Hardcore, again followed by post workout 5 grams of glutamine and ½ cup of grape juice.
· For dinner I ate a steak, 8 to 10 ounces, fat trimmed, along with either a cup of broccoli or spinach, or sometimes I had both.
· Finally for good measure, just before sleeping, I would take one more scoop of whey.
This covers what I ate, while I did not stay completely true to this plan, I did for the great majority of the 6 weeks stuck with it. Now I will go over my training for the next six weeks. I used 140 beats per minute as my target, based on my age and my drive to push myself. This value equates to about 75% of my "maximum heart rate". You can calculate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. Take this value and multiply it by .75 and you will get an idea of your target heart rate. In my experience, anything above 75% does not yield additional results. In addition to the cardio, I also performed weight training, just a small amount, enough to keep my muscles from undergoing atrophy. You cannot stop atrophy brought on from lack of use simply by consuming more protein. Obviously I did not workout my legs.
· Week 1: AM and PM Cardio both 30 minutes each. This week 100% compliant with my eating plan and training, except on Saturday when I had my "free day". Lost six pounds, was totally shocked by that loss and figured it was a one-time occurrence and the following weeks I would lose 2 to 3 pounds. However this outcome did highly motivate me to stick with it.
· Week 2: Pushed myself to 40 minutes for both AM & PM cardio, but on a Tuesday I seriously injured my leg. Determined the cause was brought on by insufficient potassium intake and lack of stretching before cardio. For three days, did only one session per day - PM cardio. Implemented a stretching routine prior to each cardio, and took three 99mg potassium tablets prior to each workout, and post PM cardio, and just before sleeping. Doing this prevented any future injuries. Except Saturdays again, was 100% compliant with my eating plan. In spite of the injury and reduced cardio, I was shocked to see another 6-pound loss. Another scale confirmed the loss. By Sunday, leg was fine and resumed twice daily cardio.
· Week 3: Being excited about losing another six pounds in a week, I decided to eliminate my "free day", and Saturday I was to be compliant with the eating plan as well, figuring I could lose even more pounds this week. Pushed up my cardio sessions to 50 minutes. But I skipped several sessions that week. Additionally, I strayed from my eating plan a couple of days eating small amounts of junk food, and on a Friday I ordered a "Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger" from Jack-In-The-Box, loaded with calories and unhealthy fats, and a large order of French Fries. With nervousness I stepped on the scale the following Monday, I was shocked that I still loss six pounds!! I could not believe it! At this point, people who knew me well were beginning to see my changes. They saw that I noticeably lost weight, and I had to admit looking into a mirror there were visible changes. My size 40 pants that I squeezed very tightly into now were somewhat loose. I realized; this is working! That motivated me to press on.
· Week 4: Yes, I upped my cardio sessions to 60 minutes each. At this point, because I was receiving positive feedback, I was highly motivated. For the cardio sessions, I am proud to say I was a 100% compliant, but this would be the last week I could say that. My eating was another story, however my transgressions were not too terribly bad that week, eating a candy bar on several days that week. Probably a signal I was not eating enough carbs. Even so, another six pounds loss that week, I was on a roll.
· Week 5: Now things were becoming harder. I was up to 70 minutes for each cardio session. Three sessions I skipped entirely, and another four I quit just over half way into them. But determined not to let that stop me, I took it out on my eating. I cut back to one chicken breast, went down to a ¼ cup of walnuts, and eliminated the grape juice and night time whey. This week, and the next two weeks, I stuck to these meals like a religious fanatic. This worked out to a little more than 1600 calories per day. In spite of my failure to stick with my training plan, I still loss another six pounds.
· Week 6: The last of the six consecutive weeks of six-pound losses. Other weeks I would lose six pounds (and even more on some weeks), but this week was the last of the consecutives. I was up to performing 80-minute cardio sessions. Again I did skipped several sessions, quit several more, but was actually more persistent this week than last week. Still 100% compliant with my reduced eating plan. Here I admit this was beginning to wear on me mentally. I started getting some burnout last week, and this week it was becoming more prominent. Still, five weeks so far of losing six pounds kept me going. I celebrated again when I saw yet another six pounds gone. Of course at the time I had no idea this was going to be the last week I lost 6 pounds, so I progressed to week 7
· Week 7: I am including week seven to show that although I continued the progression, it did not result in the same outcome. I was still 100% vigorously adherent to my reduced eating plan. I upped my cardio to 90 minutes per session, however I was miserably compliant. There were only three days that week I did two, full 90-minute sessions. Two days I quit at only 45 minutes - for both sessions, and I skipped several sessions entirely. Clearly this was a powerful sign I was emotionally burned out on this plan, not to mention physically tired. I only lost two pounds this week. The golden period was over.
Nothing to be sad about though, I did lose 36 pounds after all. Still, I was significantly overweight, even after this loss. I wanted more. I took a few days off, and came up with another aggressive, though less physically-based plan of attack. Over the next ten weeks, including week 7, I lost another 44 pounds, averaging 4.4 pounds per week. I say averaging because some weeks I lost a large amount, some less. This was a very educational period, where I learned more of what brought better results and what was simply garbage. As I sort out my experiments, I will be placing them on this site, those that worked that is. When I reached 160 pounds, I still continued for a month, but would not lose any more pounds. So I trained to maintain, and I did manage to get down to 154 pounds, but moved back up to 160, but because I was weight training, much of that was probably muscle, which would explain how I dipped from 12% to 11% body fat since March of 2007.
There you have it! This is what I was doing that resulted in me losing six pounds per week. Please, continue to explore this site. I provide useful weight loss information, as well as providing links to products that supplied me with the knowledge I needed to craft a weight loss plan customized for me, and they can do the same for you.