How to Win a Weight Loss Challenge - Without Starving Yourself

This is my story of how I lost 30 pounds and kept it off. I did not starve myself, nor did I workout for hours a day. I am not willing to not eat, that is never going to happen.

I am way too lazy to exercise my brains out. I didn't join any expensive weight loss program. Sorry, but I refuse to spend money on something I can do myself.

I just signed up for a healthy weight loss challenge at work and I took it seriously. I did some research which gave me some ideas that would work for me. I ate normal food, even desserts. I just searched for food that I could eat that did not have as many calories, but would allow me to still feel satisfied after eating my meal.

I knew I would need to exercise but doing the same thing everyday wouldn't work. Your body responds better to having a variety in your workout, plus I wouldn't like doing the same thing every day. I also know I am fairly lazy, so long workouts were not going to happen. Most of the time when I exercised it was 10 -20 minutes tops.

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In the past I hadn't thought about what I ate or how many calories I was supposed to have as opposed to how many I was actually consuming. So I thought I should do some research.

The Insanity workout video package came with something to help you calculate how many calories you should have per day to maintain your weight based on height, weight, age, and what your activity level was.

Then it would show you to reduce 500 calories to lose weight and add 300 calories to gain weight. I have found this calculator on the web you can find it here. To change the numbers in the form you have to download it (you do this by clicking the file button that is right above the excel form). When I calculated mine I should have approximately 1500 calories a day, if I wanted to lose weight.

An important thing to consider during a weight loss challenge that is more than 5 weeks is that if you keep doing the same thing you will hit a plateau and stop losing weight. So even though the kit says that I should have 1500 calories per day to lose weight, I might actually be able to eat more at the beginning.

If you get advanced notice of a weight loss challenge try to figure out how many calories that you normally consume. If I was already consuming 3000 calories per day and not exercising at all, I could just cut it back to 2000 calories, start exercising a little and I would start to lose weight. As the time went on I exercised more and cut it back to the 1500 calories per day. This enabled me to keep losing weight throughout the competition.

The Insanity program suggests eating 5 separate meals a day which would be 300 calories per meal. With my work schedule I found this too hard to do, so I stuck with 3 meals per day at approximately 500 calories.

If I cook a meal I have no idea how many calories are in it. So what I found worked for me was to buy TV dinners or other prepackaged food that have the amount of calories right on the labels.

When it comes to TV dinners there are a variety of brands with many different flavors. Just be aware they also have a huge range in the number of calories in them. Before I just figured they were all in about the same size box, so same amount of calories. I was way off on that assumption.

For example in Stouffer's Herb Grilled Chicken it has only 160 calories. Whereas the Stouffer's Bistro Crustini Turkey Bacon Club box it says 330 calories but that is if you eat only 1, there are 2 in the box, so it really has 660 calories. This is where I learned the importance of reading the labels.

The most important discovery for me as I believe it had the most impact on my weight loss was looking at my liquid calorie intake. At 1500 calories per day that would mean I could have 10500 calories per week.

I was drinking a can of Coke or Pepsi at lunch and dinner time. There are 150 calories in a can. At 150 calories twice a day is 300 calories. Now times that by 7 days it equals out to 2100 calories. If I just eliminated that, I would remove almost a day and a half worth of calories every week.

For me diet soda is out of the question as to me it tastes disgusting. However I have read reports, although I don't know how true it is, that what is in diet sodas may actually cause you to eat more. So I don't think that would been a good alternative anyway.

I know I am not the type to just drink plain water all the time. So I found a couple of drink mixes that have either 0 calories or 5 calories and they both taste really good. There is a Selection brand (this is possibly just local) that makes Fruit Punch. It only has 5 calories but somehow it actually tastes sweet. The other one I really liked was Propel Zero Grape and it has 0 calories in it.

Before the first weigh in for the weight loss challenge I highly recommend that you indulge in the "bad" foods that you crave. My team ordered in a pizza for our last meal before the competition started. This will help you start at a higher weight and it makes sure that during the competition you can remember when you had your last "bad" food, so it won't feel like you have been denying yourself treats forever.

I am not a health nut. I do not know how weigh foods and I don't want to eat just salads. What I found easiest was foods that came with calories listed on them.

It wasn't really about changing what I was eating as much it was about changing how much I was eating. I started paying attention to how many calories were in what I was eating.

For breakfast I would have a bagel that was 200 calories (read the package they can vary in calories). On the bagel I would have Philadelphia Herb and Garlic cream cheese.At only 45 calories a tablespoon I knew I could put on lots and not worry about still being under my 500 calories per meal.

Another option I choose was an English muffin at 120 calories per muffin. I would eat one and half of them totaling 180 calories. This low calorie count gave me room to have different toppings like peanut butter or jam or honey.

If I wanted something filling I would soft boil some eggs and have them with my toasted English muffins. I could have three 90 calorie eggs and the three halves of English muffins and still only be at 450 calories.

Photo by Whatsittoyou. of a bagel with cream cheese.

I was working afternoon shifts (3:00 pm to 11:00 pm) at the time so lunch was at home and the biggest meal of the day. One of my favorite prepackaged meals I could make and eat when I was at home were stuffed breaded chicken breast cutlets.

The two flavors I like are Broccoli & Cheese and Chicken Parmesan. The packages come with 2 in a box. The Broccoli & Cheese are 260 calories each, so 520 calories for both. The Chicken Parmesan are 250 calories each, so 500 calories for both.

Another option that I liked was Chicken with vegetables. Green Giant Simply Steam Cut Broccoli & Cauliflower with cheddar cheese sauce is only 140 calories if you eat the whole box.

I would prepare a chicken breast (120 calories) with Calorie Wise Kraft Zesty Italian Salad Dressing. This would give it some flavor and still be low calorie Get the recipe here.

I would make a bunch in my crockpot. I could use the extra chicken breasts I made for the next day or to eat with a salad.

Photo by Whatsittoyou. of the Chicken Parmaesan

Dinner was the meal I would have to take and eat at work. There is no oven available, only microwaves. This is when I found the TV dinner option very convenient.

Here is a list of the TV dinners that I found cooked well in the microwave, filled me up, and tasted good:

Lean cuisine Chicken Parmigiana at 240 calories.

Stouffer's Meatloaf at 300 calories

Healthy Choice Grilled Balsamic Chicken at 320 calories

Stouffer's Chicken Alfredo at 340 calories.

Stouffer's Veal Parmigiana at 390 calories.

An added bonus to the TV dinner plan is that with Stouffer's they have a promotion where you collect pins (located on the inside of the box) to get points. Then you can cash in the points to get gift cards for stores, or movie passes, or products they offer. In case you are interested, I have placed links to the USA and Canadian websites at the bottom of the page.

Yes, I included chocolate in my diet

With the TV dinners each one left me with at least an extra 100 calories. I don't want to give up dessert so I found things that were lower in calories to have for dessert.

I would buy the Halloween treat size chocolate bars. If I ate an Aero and a Kit Kat bar, that was only 100 calories and I got my chocolate fix.

Thinsations also has 100 calorie snacks. I like the Cheesecake and the Fudge Dipped bars as they taste good and are also filling.

I find participating in a sport and getting exercise from it is enjoyable. However, like most people, I am not a fan of just plain exercising. So I found ways to make exercising fun. I like playing video games and with the Wii you actually get up and interact to play.

I found that Wii boxing was one of the better games to play for exercise. You get a great upper body workout and some cardio. I had almost forgot about this game until I had tried a workout video that was too tough for me and ended up hurting my legs.

It was near the end of the weight loss challenge and I still needed to exercise, but my legs were way too sore. Wii boxing was perfect. I could still exercise without too much strain on my legs.

The Wii Fit Plus also has a variety of games that distract you from the fact you are actually exercising. One of my favorites is a game where you are like a bird flapping your wings trying to get to the next island. That provides a good upper body workout.

There are also work out routines and Yoga, if that is something you like. You can also use the Wii to track your weight loss progress. It acts as a scale and keeps track of how much you have lost.

I also know that one of the ladies on my team for the weight loss challenge liked to exercise using the some the dancing video games that w

Doing the same thing day after day would become boring so I tried to do different types of exercises to keep me interested. I went online and browsed through the different exercise DVDs available.

Some were way to complicated for me to follow (they were already onto the next move while I was just figuring out the first one). Others were way above my fitness level and some just bored me too tears.

I tried the Insanity workout DVD, not the whole thing, just the fit test. I couldn't even finish all of that and it still kicked my butt. However, it did have the great system for figuring out the number of calories you should have and it was very good at explaining the exercise they wanted you to perform. If you are already at a higher fitness level and just not getting results I would recommend this DVD package.

The one that worked for me was The 10 Minute Trainer DVD. He is very good at explaining how to do the exercises. Most of the exercises were not complicated. Any that were complicated or became too difficult, I just walked or jogged in place until they moved on to the next one.

They do around 10 different moves in each of the ten minute segments so I would only be waiting for about a minute. This also would give me an opportunity to catch my breath and get some water. As I got better at it I was able to last the whole minute of the exercises that I did.

Here is a video from YouTube of a woman doing about half of the Cardio 10 Minute Trainer video that I thought was very effective for me. She is shown using the resistance bands that you attach to a door, but you don't need to use them (I didn't). It may look easy, but try it. See if you can get through the whole thing.

I started slowly, as I hadn't really exercised in a long time. At the beginning, on my elliptical machine I found it tough to last for 5 minutes. I would exercise every other day.

As time progressed I built up my stamina. At the end of the weight loss challenge I was able to last for 20 minutes on the elliptical and do one of the 10 Minute Trainer videos in one day.

I think the starting slowly and building into it helped. For instance I started by cutting back on drinking Coke/Pepsi, and then I completely quit . I gradually increased my exercise amount. If you keep doing the same thing your weight loss will plateau and you will get stuck. I was able to keep losing weight.

I have a Total Gym and a Horizon Elliptical machine. The Total Gym is great for muscle toning or building. You want to work on your muscles as they help you to burn calories.

The great part about the machine is it can grow with you or can be shared with people at different fitness levels. It is a weight resistance machine. So if you want an easier level you set it near the bottom. For a more challenging workout you set it near the top. You can also workout different body parts with many exercises.

The Total Gym came with a video that shows different exercises you can do. My favorite is where you lying on your back in a sit up position with you arms over your head, you then pull your arms over you and do a sit up.

It works out your arms (when you make a muscle, the part underneath, that can sag) and your stomach at the same time. You can also use it to do moves you would do on a rowing or a Pilates machine.

I like my Horizon elliptical better than a treadmill. I find there is less wear and tear on my body. They had a treadmill when I went for physio for my ankle. I found the pounding motion you get from running on a treadmill was not comfortable. Since an elliptical is more of a gliding motion it does not seem to bother my ankle at all.

I found when I first tried to use the elliptical, I didn't last very long at all. Probably because I wasn't distracting myself from what I was doing. So all I thought about was the fact that I was exercising and I was tired from exercising.

Listening to music helped to distract me. I found it was good to have uptempo music, but also music that changed its tempo. That way you were always at least at a jogging pace but then you could switch to a running pace when the song picked up the tempo.

I had gained weight over time. It started with the normal weight gain after high school, but it wasn't that much. I gained a little more after I started working after finishing college. Both those combined was maybe 10 pounds. Then it seemed to balance out for awhile. I started to gain weight again after I broke my ankle. This weight gain was worse. It didn't happen all at once but over the years I ended up gaining another 25 pounds.

I hadn't really paid that much attention to it until I went away on vacation. Now I was going to be on a beach in a bathing suit. You can cover up your weight gain with clothing, not so much with a bathing suit. This was when I really took notice of how much I had actually gained and realized I needed to make a change.

When I got back from my vacation there was a posting at work to join the healthy weight loss challenge. You would compete as a team and as an individual. Top team each member got $100, $75 each for second, and $50 for third. The Individual prize was $500 for the top man and $500 for top woman. Now there is some added incentive! I got my group of four and signed up. Since we thought we would not be eating any junk food once the contest started we would have one last hurrah and ordered in pizza. The next day I began my journey and started the change.

It has been 2 years now since I completed and won the healthy weight loss challenge at work. While I find my weight fluctuates about 5 pounds. I have kept most of the weight off. Yet I hardly ever exercise anymore.

I believe that keeping the calorie control for the 12 week contest period retrained my body for what was a proper meal portion. I no longer have to stick to prepackaged food as now my body recognizes it is full at the proper portion size.

The one thing I kept was not drinking soda pop 2 times a day. I have one maybe once or twice a week. I believe this is the biggest factor in my being able to maintain the weight loss for the long term.

Health Warning

Before you start any diet or exercise program you should consult a physician.

Have you had long term success with another program, if so which one?