i tried not to eat more than 1000 calories a day.
For an active male 1000 is a bit of a risk, and might slow your diet down by putting your body into "I'm starving!" mode.
It will also be very tough for new or unsuccessful dieters to stick to. And finding a diet you can stick to *consistently* for the weight loss period is the key. No point losing 4lbs in a week if, by the end of that week, you are a complete mess, hating every moment, and craving all the stuff you can't have.
That's why I settled on a two meal a day (plus fruit as snacks) strategy for my (relatively trivial) periods of weight loss. One decent sized bowl of porridge a day, made with lots of semi-skimmed milk, sweetened with a good fruit & nut (for nutrition and satisfaction) muesli and even a touch of sugar is a really satisfying meal that sets you up for the day. Then, in the evening, something like a wholemeal tuna sandwich stuffed with *loads* (and I mean as much as you want) of mixed salad, peppers, tomatoes, and whatever other salad you fancy. Very satisfying and increasingly tasty as your palate gets used to "proper" food rather than all the junk we like to eat.
My "emergency volume" food is a veg soup made out of all sorts of veg straight from the freezer. Thicken the cooking water with a packet soup and you have a thick, satisfying meal which fills the stomach and satisfies, especially if eaten with a shredded slice of wholemeal bread for added substance and taste.
By the way, liquid passes through the stomach/system very quickly, which is why drinking loads of water with a meal isn't always a help. Thick, soupy material settles in the stomach for longer and provides more satisfaction.
While I'm in essay mode, a few more things which might help someone.
1) Eat half your meal as quickly as you like (to satisfy the glutton in us all!) Then take a five or ten minute break and eat the rest as slowly as you can. One mouthful at a time chewed thoroughly. Your system takes a bit of time to register the fact it's being fed, so the longer you take to eat, the better.
2) To satisfy the chocolate/sweet craving try the Options hot drinks. The Belgian chocolate one is very tasty, and (made as instructed) "only" about 50 calories a mug. Throw in a couple of extra aspartame sweeteners if the craving is bad. [Aspartame's not necessarily great, but neither is being very overweight... choose your poison!
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3) Brush your teeth after eating. It really does (for me at least) cut down on the urge to keep going once you start eating. And I often find that I can resist food for hours easily, but once I *start* a meal I just want to keep going... which I guess is why we end up putting on weight despite all our good intentions.
4) If you can, exercise while watching things you enjoy on TV. You don't have to be exercising like a body building demon, just doing *something*.
5) If the food cravings are really bad, eat an apple. If they're still bad, go out for a walk. Go anywhere, even if it's just round the block. Do not pass a shop or takeaway though. Why tempt fate? :->
6) If you're a gamer, save some games you want to complete for a diet period. Getting "lost" in something for a while can really distract you from eating.
7) Try to get others you live with to realise that having tempting snacks etc in the cupboards is not helpful. If they must keep such things around, try to persuade them to hide them where you won't see them. Out of sight, out of mind!
8) If you have a bad meal, eating things you shouldn't, don't give up and turn it into a bad day. Recovering from a bad meal is easy. Recovering from a bad day is much tougher. It's surprising how many calories you can stuff into 24 hours, especially after a period of being very well behaved and building up a long list of things you miss badly.
9) When in doubt, re-read long, rambling posts like this. Hopefully they'll put you to sleep so you can dream about eating rather doing it.
Good luck everyone. Modern lifestyles, constant clever marketing, and cheap sources of mega-calories make it very hard to stay at a healthy weight, especially if you have a complicated or stressful life. That's why I settled on a pattern of ignoring what I eat (within reason!) for most of the year, then correcting back to a baseline as soon as I hit a certain notch on my belt. It's worked for me for over 15 years... though I do have the advantage of an active job.
However you have to work very hard to burn calories off at a decent rate. Most weight loss comes from simply eating carefully and allowing your body to burn off weight naturally, which is does simply by keeping your body warm.... though I'm obviously not suggesting you do nothing! Exercise is important.
There was actually an interesting 'Bang Goes the Theory' about this in the last series.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0103wks/Bang_Goes_the_Theory_Series_4_Episode_4/
I'd better shut up. Rumours that I'm typing this as a distraction from food as I near my target weight are entirely true.
Andrew McP
