The Score

Now that I've identified the objectives of my diet, it's time to set goals to fill those objectives.

1) Contains significantly fewer calories than I plan on expending.

In this department, a little math is called for. My BMR is estimated at 2323 Cals per day. If I maintain ketosis most of the time, I can count on an average of 950 Cals per day expended in the extra effort of utilizing fat instead of glucose for energy. In addition, since my glucose load is going to be low, I can assume that more of these resting calories are coming from my fat stores as my body is going to reserve the glucose it is receiving from digestion/ synthesis for my brain in the insulin poor environment I'm going to create. I'm also going to estimate about 700 Cals of energy expenditure from my activities of daily living. This is based off of the USDA's "MyPyramid" plan to maintain my current weight, which recommended an intake of 3000 Cals to accommodate for my activities of daily living along with BMR. So all in all, I can consider my energy expenditure to be roughly 3950 Cals per day in a ketotic state. A diet containing 1000 Cals per day leaves an energy deficit of 2950 Cals per day. A pound of fat contains 3500 Cals, so I should lose .84 lbs a day in fat.

Obviously this is more than the 1.4 lbs per week outlined in my plan, but rapid weight loss in the first segment of my diet is going to do a couple things. Firstly, it's very encouraging. How many times have you started a diet, watched the scale for 2 days, not seen progress, and quit? How would you feel if you looked at the scale after 2 days, and noticed you've lost nearly 2 lbs? You'd have a lot more faith in your diet wouldn't you! Secondly, rapid weight loss is going to put me at the 200 mark that much quicker, and that's the mark at which I'm going to begin exercising, which is essential to maintain my body weight once I'm done dieting. Because exercise induces hunger, it's going to be important to do all the weight loss I can through diet first so I will be better adapted to restricting my eating habits when that hunger hits.

2) Takes advantage of a ketotic state.

This means I will avoid refined carbohydrates as much as possible, particularly in the first couple days. Basically to accomplish this, any carbs I eat need to be difficult to access by my gut, meaning they enter the bloodstream more slowly than say a hunk of milk chocolate. Whole grains that have been minimally refined have their carbs locked behind layers of tough fiber, which means the gut has to work that much harder to get at them. After the first 48 hours, I'll be looking to consume less than 30% of my calories in carbohydrates.

3) Increases overall body metabolism.

This means keeping my gut busy: an empty gut is a lazy gut, and lazy means FAT. Therefore, I want to be constantly eating to keep that gut busy. Remember that the GI tract accounts for 20-25% of your BMR. After I hit the 200lb mark, I'll be exercising, and building lean muscle which burns calories at a higher rate than non-conditioned muscle.

4) Keeps me full/ decreases hunger.

How do you stay full when you can only eat 1000 cals/day? Easy, eat foods that don't have calories. Here's my magic list:

Celery: estimated 6 cals per 8" stalk. Additionally, those cals are buried behind cellulose and fiber, which means that the gut is going to use more than 6 cals per stalk digesting it. That means a net energy loss. How much do I believe that... enough to eat lots and lots of celery. At the very least, it keeps the gut busy, which maximizes my BMR.

Pickles: Most of the dill pickles I've seen have 0 calories per serving. That is because during the pickling process, bacteria eats the glucose and leaves lactic acid behind, hence, 0 cals.

Carrots: Baby carrots to be precise. Ok, so carrots have calories, like 35 per 3 oz. The thing is, they fill you up pretty good, and they're yummy if you're going to be snacky, you might as well snack on these because they're convenient and the chances of you eating 500 calories of carrots in one sitting is dang slim. Besides, all that energy going into digesting the celery offsets the carrot cals, right?

Butter: Hah, gotchya there, obviously butter is not a good snack choice.

Basically I keep huge bags of cut up celery and baby carrots in the fridge always. BYU creamery makes an awesome light ranch dressing that has 50 cals per 2 tbsp, and tastes like it's made with butter. Nothing says love like pampering yourself with ranch dressing. Typically, half a serving is enough to get through like a pound and a half of roughage.

By eating small meals, and never gorging, one's stomach shrinks, that means that over time you will feel hungry less often, and full more quickly. Where you could once eat an entire large pizza on your own, you will be stuffed with 2 slices. That equates to fewer calories, and that means you lose weight.

5) Few restrictions on the food I can actually eat.

The great thing about a calorie plan is that you can eat anything you want to, as long as it falls within your calorie guidelines. The super nice thing about this is that it doesn't require one to abstain completely from their preferred foods, which develops the all important talent of portion control. You can still eat pizza, just not 800 cals worth of pizza. Chocolate is great! just not 800 cals worth of chocolate. In fact, Dark chocolates are shown to be rather good for you, it's the sugar and fat added into the chocolate to make it more edible that packs the pounds on. Chocolate decreases appetite and is rich in antioxidants. I prefer chocolates with at least 70% cacao. Again, calories are calories, and 800 calories in chocolate is still 800 calories. The great thing about dark chocolate is you don't need to eat as much to get the feeling you have a lot of chocolate in your mouth, because the flavor is intense.

So there it is! My road to success, my compass, and musical score to weight loss. From here on out, I'll be recording my morning and night weights, what I ate, the calorie count, and general comments. I expect this to be a fantastic ride.