…these guys took on the challenge, and wow, that must have been intense!

As you probably know, based on the premise of this blog, my biggest find over the last 10 years in my quest to eat & live healthy was primarily eating single ingredient foods (i.e. fruits, and vegetables, true fruit juices – thank you SunHarvest!, and sticking with grains, nuts, and so forth).

I do a fairly good job of sticking to that routine, but I’m realistic when it comes to eating out, or at parties.

It’s my goal to eat ‘real food’ at least 80% of the time…

With that in mind, I’m not 100% sure I could stick to a 28 day Real Food Challenge, could you?

Be sure to read the entire CNN article for more information.

I think that’s the biggest compliment I’ve been hearing in the last few months – and that makes me very happy.

You can see the difference when you compare the photo above, taken on a recent trip to DisneyWorld, to this one.

It’s refreshing to hear those comments, however, it was much more amazing to me to see these results –

Click to enlarge

That’s 15 POUNDS in one month!  No special pills, no diets, just eating differently.

Amazing (to me anyway) was the fact that I did NO exercise, purposely, during the first few months of my new lifestyle — just to see how much weight would naturally fall off.

I figured I’d restart my exercise routine to help me through any stopping points along the way.

I still can’t believe I did it – I found a way to really live and lose weight.  It’s amazingly inspiring, even now!

Not only did I lose a big chunk of weight, but I could tell there were other changes as well:

• I felt much more alert,
• I was able to focus more clearly, and for longer periods of time,
• At about 218 pounds, I didn’t have to do the fat man roll in bed.

Thinking about it, I think these changes were probably more from eating healthy, than from weighing less, as so much of the food I’m eating now is food for the brain, and fuel for muscles.

However, it’s pretty clear — eating more healthful foods definitely plays a big role in losing weight!

Feel like you’re ready to experience a new you?  Get started NOW!

“You can’t change what you don’t measure”

as a matter of fact, I’ve made some big life changes using it.  (I saved 50% on my car & boat insurance because of it.)

The most helpful change I’ve made, that has played a key role in helping me create & maintain my new lifestyle is…

…keeping track of what I eat in a daily food log.

The snapshot above is a typical day in loss mode for me.

When I stopped losing weight in loss mode, it helped me realize I was eating too few calories per day (1400!) and my body went into starvation mode.

Once I got back in the 1700 to 2000 calories per day range, I started losing weight again.  Whew!

Download my Daily Food Log Template (PDF)

Aside from my simple spreadsheet – here’s a few solutions for daily food logs:

• Prevention.com’s Health Tracker (click Foods Eaten)
• MyNetDiary (FREE iPhone Application)
• DietController (for the Mac)

DietOrganizer has versions for practically every mainstream device and computer out there –

• DietOrganizer (for the Windows Mobile)
• DietOrganizer (for the Palm)
• DietOrganizer (for the Blackberry)

…eating half of what you normally do!

It’s as easy as it sounds!

If you try it, and have the determination to make it work — it’s quite possibly the easiest way to lose weight.

Here’s how you do it:

You take whatever is on your plate (see above), half it (see below), and only eat one side!  (Save the rest for tomorrow!)

Not only do you:

• effectively reduce your caloric intake by half (remember 500 calories a day equals a pound a week),
• enjoy whatever you want to eat, without having to cut foods out of your life,
• stop chowing down & start to learn to enjoy each bite,

BUT you save money and lose weight at the same time!

It’s a total win-win situation, and I know of a few people who’ve done only that to get to their target weight.

So here’s a comfort challenge for you — try eating half for the next 3 days, and see how you feel.

Be sure to monitor your success by getting a scale and using it daily!

When you want to maintain your weight, you live in “maintenance mode”.

Once you start living your new lifestyle, you’ll live in loss mode, and when you arrive at your dream weight, you can loosen up a little (the KEY being “a little”), and live in maintenance mode.

The goal in loss mode is to consume 500 calories less than your body needs every day.  You really don’t want to go over this amount, because it can be considered unsafe to your body.

It’s a known fact that 3,500 calories equals 1 pound.  The general idea is to lose a pound a week, or 500 calories a day.

7 days a week times 500 calories a day is 3,500 calories a week.

You can figure out how many calories your dream body needs everyday by knowing your dream BMR, or Basal Metabolic Rate.  If you don’t know it, calculate it by checking out “Knowing your BMI & BMR“.

My loss mode lifestyle at 262 pounds consisted of consuming 2,300 calories daily (I was consuming well over 3,500 a day at the time).

That’s a difference of about four 20 Oz Mountain Dew’s PER DAY (each bottle is about 300 calories).

My maintenance mode lifestyle, at my dream weight of 178 pounds, requires about 2,000 calories.