On My Weigh

These tips work well because almost every tip is focused around completing a small goal. In my opinion, to stay motivated and lose a significant amount of weight, you should complete many goals in a short period of time.

10 Unconventional Diet Tips: How to lose 50 pounds in three months - lifehack.org

Follow the link above to find 10 tips for weight loss written by a guy at LifeHack.org who lost 50 pounds in 3 months. That’s a lot of weight really fast, by the way. More than four pounds a week? Wow. I heard somewhere that you shouldn’t lose more than 1% of your body weight per week. That’s where the often-heard 1 to 2 pounds a week comes in. Now, I’m excited for the guy, and lucky him that he’ll never have pregnancy to slam the weight back on again. But I digress.

The ten tips are great. He calls them unconventional because he never heard them before but he must have never looked for a real diet before.

1. Buy a digital scale. Well, okaaaaay. To me that’s a given. He suggests getting a scale that’s accurate to .2 pounds (that’s American pounds, obviously). I agree with this, just never thought to call it a tip. You kinda need a scale if you’re going to track your progress…
2. Weigh yourself everyday. I guess this is unconventional because most official weight loss places say weekly. I’ve always weighed daily. I think SparkPeople recommend dailly. Most “normal people” weight loss suggestions recommend daily. This makes more sense to me because you can get a feel for your trend.
3. Drink 8 glasses of water everyday. He suggests that not just for basic health reasons but because the water makes you feel more full. Again, not unconventional to me, but certainly a good tip.
4. Make your diet public. I hear this a lot and again, I think this is a biggie. Some people will try to sabotogue your diet. Some people will try to help. But regardless, just letting people know holds you accountable. When you’re staring at the candy machine and three people in the break room know you’re supposedly dieting… well, you tend to do the right thing more often than not. Or at least pause to think about it.
5. Don’t diet on the weekends. Okay THIS one is is unconventional, I think. The only other suggestion similar to this is from One Phat Man who ate what he wanted on Fridays only. The guy on LifeHack takes two days off. With all the problems I’ve had lately trying to get back to me again, I may just allow this. Better two days than seven…
6. Don’t sacrifice your life for your diet. This is basically saying to allow yourself to indulge on special events so you don’t feel deprived. Good advice, but that’s what SparkPeople and Weight Watchers are both about. Eat healthy but allow yourself those indulgences in moderation.
7. Make the small changes. This is another biggie for both SparkPeople and Weight Watchers. Making some steps to be healthier. Changing habits a little at a time. A great tip, but not “unconventional.”
8. Gain perspective by understanding the fractions. Umm.. what? Okay, I get it… Consider that this time that you’re dieting is only a tiny portion of your entire life and it will keep you motivated because of what great things you’re doing. Hadn’t heard this with this spin, but I disagree mostly because for me, I don’t believe in traditional dieting at all. His point of view says you’re going to stop dieting. I believe you need to make healthy changes and stick to those changes - forever. Heck, that’s been my whole problem lately. So… yeah, I don’t think this one was a good tip.
9. Rationalize your workouts. He does the fraction thing again. Points out that 1/2 an hour at the gym is only 2% of a 24 hour day. But I’ll buy that one.
10. Have a red flag weight. Yeah, NOW we’re talking! I don’t call it a red flag weight. I call it “critical mass.” But basically it’s the max weight that I ever want to reach. Of course right now I’d just like to BE critical mass again, but that’s not the point.

So there are his ten tips. Unconventional or otherwise. He also goes on to say that he basically followed the Weight Watchers plan and invites people to offer other tips in the comments. Darn, someone already mentioned SparkPeople in comments. Lots of great additional tips and of course he elaborates on his own tips more than I did. So I thought I’d share.

I have a new look for my blog now. I needed a change. I just didn’t care much for the old. With the theme change, I also cleaned out some stuff. I combined the two about pages and combined the two tools pages. I put the links in as actual links though you lose out on their descriptions that way so I’m not sure if I’ll keep it like that. And I added a blogroll. So if anyone has a weight loss blog that they want me to link to, email me. The address is my first name @ onmyweigh dot com. I think I have a spam thingie on there that may require that you respond to an email before it gets to me. Also, if you link to this page from yours, I’ll see it and I’ll link back.

Now back to your regularly scheduled day. Put down that donut!

Nathan, my nearly three year old, went to the ER yesterday because of his asthma. They needed to give him some steroids (at 4 o’clock in the MORNING!) and I didn’t know how much he weighed. So they carted him off and back. Anyway, he weighed right at 30 pounds. Now, I put my 31 left goal as 25 pounds. But 30 would be more accurate. Maybe more. I looked at my kid and thought - wow… that’s a lot of weight. At first I was discouraged a bit. Thirty pounds. My kid is heavy. If I have to carry him around the mall much, I’m feeling it. Then I realized how important it is to lose my kid - well, not literally, but the weight of my kid. Though some days he makes me wonder if losing him - okay, he’s two. I digress. I get tired lugging him around. How much more energy will I have when I’m not lugging around my OWN 30 pounds that I can’t just put down when I’m tired? So while I’m still frustrated at myself for getting back to this point, I realize that I need to do this. I *need* to.

I’m not sure why the site is called 31 Left, and if I weren’t swamped right now I’d research. But I’m going to post about it anyway. This is a great site to make those New Year’s resolutions and to help you keep them. Go to the site, create an account (free) and post your resolution. The catch is, you also post how much and to what charity you will donate money if you don’t reach your goal or keep your resolution this year. Ouch. Of course it’s on the honor system, but something about putting things in writing and then making a promise. Wow. I absolutely LOATHE one of the “charities” but you can add in whatever charity you want. So I’ve pledged to lose 25 pounds this year, or I will donate $50 to Catholic Charities. It’s kinda funny though because it’s all to a good cause so you if you make your goal, your charity loses out. Of course you can give anyway, but then what was the point of making the pledge. Okay, I’m going in circles.

I have more than 25 pounds to lose, but I figure 25 pounds will feel REALLY good. And I can do 25 pounds. And I’ll be in at LEAST one smaller size and that will open up a HUGE portion of my wardrobe. So 25 pounds. Or $50. But probably both. Definitely both.

I forgot I liked them! And I do! I love them!! Man, that tasted good!