One of my hopes in becoming a locavore was that it would help me lose weight. After all, nutrition experts say that, instead of eating french fries, hamburgers, shakes, cookies, candy, chips, etc, we should be eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. That's pretty much exactly what happens when you become a locavore.
Think about it: If you had to make your own potato chips, how often do you think you would eat them?
Counting Calories
I've always found that it is very difficult for me to lose weight during cold weather. For whatever reason, when it's cold outside, I tend to eat more. So I decided that I would start trying to lose weight on the first day of Spring, which was March 20 this year.
I've never done any sort of fad diet (e.g. Atkins, South Beach, etc). All I do is count calories. It works pretty well.
On March 20, I weighed 256.2 pounds.
By May 20, I was down to 248.2 pounds, a loss of 8 pounds over the course of nearly 9 weeks. I'm 6'1" tall, so my BMI went from about 33.8 to about 32.7. I averaged a drop of 0.9 pounds per week.
I steadily lose weight when I count calories, but the actual mechanics of counting calories is a pain! Inevitably, I always eventually stop counting. Have I found a better way?
Not Counting Calories
May 20 was the official beginning of our locavore challenge. From that point on, I stopped counting calories. By June 20, I was down to 241.2 pounds, a loss of 7 pounds over the course of 4½ weeks. My BMI dropped to about 31.8. I averaged a drop of nearly 1.6 pounds per week.
In other words, I lost weight at nearly twice the rate without the tedium of counting calories!
Of course, whenever I would "fall off the wagon" — going to a picnic, or travelling out of town — I would gain weight. And unfortunately, there have been 2 picnics and 2 trips out of town over the past 3 weeks! If not for them, I would probably have lost another 8 pounds by now! Instead, I'm only down to 240.3 as of this morning, a drop of 0.9 pounds over the course of 16 days.
Even with the non-locavore setbacks, since May 20 I've lost an average of nearly 1.2 pounds per week. And I haven't exactly been starving myself — eggs, sausage, broccoli, green beans, tomatoes, potatoes, salads, homemade ice cream, cherries, strawberries, blueberries, peaches, sweetcorn, whole milk, butter, etc. Do you think you could survive on that?
The lesson I would draw from this is not that you can stuff yourself and still lose weight. Rather, it's that by becoming a locavore, it's easier to avoid stuffing yourself, which allows you to lose weight without the tedium of counting calories!
Tomorrow the boss is bringing pizza to work. No, it's not local. I think I'll be bringing some local blueberries to share, but I'll also be eating some pizza. (I never turn down pizza!) And I know I have some other non-local eating in my future as the summer activities get underway. However, if I can keep the non-local eating to a minimum, I hope to be back to losing over 1½ pounds per week soon — without counting calories!
Our doctor is a really healthy eater. He says to get off sugar completely because it is a single biggest factor in health problems in our nation.
Posted by: arizona carpet cleaners | July 11, 2009 at 11:36 AM
Sounds like you are doing great Wally, keep up the good work. Krissy has really kicked it into high gear now, and Bill is still losing a lot, lost 4 lbs the week of the mission trip. We were working hard, but I was drinking milk shakes so I stayed the same. ;-( Good job though, that's awesome!
Posted by: Mary Cockrell | July 18, 2009 at 07:14 AM