The battle has been won, but the war will continue

Last September I was 252lbs. and my doctor met with me to tell me the results of some blood tests. He said I was pre-diabetic. I have a strong history of diabetes in my family and he basically said it was a matter of time, possibly only a year or two, before it got bad. So I decided to go on a diet. I have NEVER gone on a diet before. My wife lost 40lbs. on a diet and her mother lost 60lbs on one so I decided to try that one. I can't mention the name of the place or the diet because of the forum rules, but it was a medically monitored program. On my initial visit they did a complete blood workup and an EKG.

Then I started. The diet basically consists of three phases, induction, weight loss, and maintenance. The first two weeks you drink 128oz. of water a day and have 5 shakes. You can have sugar-free popsickles and sugar free gum as "snacks". This stage lasts for a week or two, or as long as you can tolerate it. I managed to stick with it for 2 weeks. You're basically living on 500-600 calories a day with the shakes. They also give you 5 vitamin supplements to take every night. I lost 10lbs the first week and 8lbs the second week. They discourage exercise when doing this part of the diet for obvious reasons. The first day I was fine. Days 2-5 I was miserable and weak, but by day 7, like the doctor said, my energy came back and I was basically fine.

Then I started their 3 and 1 plan. That's 3 shakes a day, 8oz of LEAN protein (fish, chicken breast, turkey, or a beef fillet) and at least 6 cups of vegetables (preferably raw), along with drinking 64oz of water and the vitamins at night. This plan gives you around 800 calories a day. Doing this I lost about 6lbs a week at first, and that trickled down as the weight came off to about 2lbs per week as of last month. On this plan they encourage light exercise...which I quickly learned was about 150 calories maximum (walking about 1.5 miles). During this whole process you are encouraged to keep carbs to a bare minimum...you get some from the vegetables, and some from the shakes, but no fruit, bread, corn, starches, potatoes, etc.

Now that I have reached my goal weight (165 this morning) I am doing what is called maintenance. Basically they say that carbs can be reintroduced, but stay away from the complex carbs like potatoes, rice, pasta, breads, etc. If I have to eat bread, eat whole wheat and if I eat a potato, eat a sweet potato. I am now eating about 3 cups of fruit a day, am staying away from the bad carbs which are metabolized more slowly, and am exercising heavily. I now run 2-3 miles a day and am eating close to 2,000 calories. So far I am still losing a little, but I am slowly adding calories back into my diet.

Through this whole thing I have learned so much about dieting that I never knew. For example, I always heard exercise was good, and it is, but the main benefit in exercise is to keep your weight maintained. When I started the diet i was burning around 2,500 calories a day just sitting around doing nothing at 250lbs. Drop your intake to 500 and that's 1900 calories your body has to burn from itself each day. To lose the same amount of weight by exercising, I would have to run at 6mph for almost 2 hours straight, or 12 miles a day. So the more overweight you are, the more benefit you would get from diet. Now as your weight drops, you burn less calories a day being idle. At 165lbs. I burn right at 2,000 calories a day. That's 500 calories less than I burned doing nothing at 250lbs. This is why dieting is easy at first, but gets harder as you lose weight. The less you weigh, the more you CAN exercise, and the more benefit you get from it to help weight loss. In theory, if I keep running 2-3 miles a day, (which burns about 350-400 calories), I can eat around 2350-2400 calories a day and maintain my weight. Without the exercise, I need to consume right at 2,000 calories.

Some numbers:
Weight Lost - 85 lbs.
Neck down to 15.5 inches from 20
Suit size down to 42 from 52
T-shirt down to XL from XXXL
Waist down to 36 inches from 46 inches