How to lose weight: on losing 40 lbs in 4 months
Published on July 22nd, 2007
This essay is NOT about me attempting to convince you, the reader, that you should follow in my footsteps. I don’t want to engage in any arguments on how to eat right and proper exercise regime. Instead, this is merely a recap of my own experience. I AM NOT A DOCTOR, nor am I a nutritionist.
Back in December 2006, I published an article on this site, where I listed my New Years resolutions, one of them being getting my weight down to 175 lbs by the end of the year. At that time, my weight was 213 lbs. I started losing weight in February, and reached my goal in June. I plateaued for a while, but now my weight is down to 173.
When I was growing up, my weight problem was being one of the skinniest kids in class. But when I came to USA at the age of 16, it all started to change, especially in college: every day, I ate food that was available on campus - pizza, Burger King, Philly cheese steaks at student cafeteria, etc., and drank a lot of soda. When I graduated in 2003, my weight was 235 lbs (I am 5′ 10′’ tall). I also started losing breath if I ran for more than two minutes. It was really bad.
(I used to be very much overweight)
It was then that I decided some changes are in order. I started learning about dieting, and going to the gym. My eating habits became different (but not much better) - I started cutting carbs and going easy on the soda. Junk food became a weekend treat, instead of a daily occurrence. I also started eating home-made food again, instead of on-campus garbage. After about a year, my weight dropped down to around 215, which was good, but still very much overweight - ideal weight for someone of my height is around 160-165.
After my weight wouldn’t go down any further, I decided to go on a diet and exercise on a regular basis. In a dramatic move, I cut all the pastries, dessert and most carbs from my diet, and went to the gym twice a week for 1.5 - 2 hours. Looking back now, I realize how much of a fool I was thinking that was the answer. Low-carb/fat diet required tremendous willpower effort, as every time I saw somebody eating chocolate, I got a primal urge to rip the chocolate from their hands and devour it together with foil. Fortunately, I quit after a few months, as most people do, before that could happen. My gym experience didn’t last much longer. I went kept to the diet and gym religiously for four months, and I did lose a lot of weight - I was down to 195. But like it always happens with diets, once I stopped I gained all that weight back and more - soon enough I was back to 215. The same pattern continued for the next couple of years, with 0 results.
By the end of 2006, I’ve decided that this time, I REALLY was going to lose weight, permanently. And so I wrote my New Year’s Resolutions article, which got featured on Lifehacker and gained a bit of popularity out there. In that article, I stated that one of my goals for 2007 was to get my weight down to 175. I was too embarrassed to mention that at the time of writing, my weight was 213 lbs.
Three months after starting, I was down to 180, and by June I reached my goal of 175 lbs - what I thought was going to take me the whole year took only 6 months! I was, and still am, incredibly happy with that, and want to share what I did with the world.
I started by talking to my cousin Eugene, who’s a Sgt. in the Marines and knew a lot more about nutrition and exercise than I did. He told me a lot of very interesting things had no idea about, and that experience really opened my eyes at the fact that I was clueless in regards to proper nutrition. I realized that just like anything in life, I need to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and some research is in order. Eugene also told me, in the best tradition of old karate movies, that I needed to prove I was serious about the learning how to eat right - I had to pass the Raw Diet challenge.
(In order to gain the knowledge, you have to pass the test)
For five days, I had to eat nothing but raw fruits and vegetables, and drink nothing but water. Needless to say, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life. Fortunately, my beautiful fiancee agreed to take this challenge with me, and that made it a lot easier.
Still, it was helluva difficult. By day 3, the cravings for meat and processed sugar became almost unbearable. By day 4, I developed a supernatural sense of smell - I could smell meat all the way across the floor at work. By day 5, however, the cravings subdued and I started to enjoy it.
The experience was incredible. I went beyond my comfort zone and discovered some amazing things. For example, I used to think I wouldn’t last a day without meat. In reality, it turned out to be no problem at all. The first day after the diet, I rewarded myself with a huge meal (including lots of meat.) I never felt that bloated in my entire life - I thought I was going to explode!
Another eye-opener for me was the fact that you don’t have to restrict how much you eat to lose weight, if you eat healthy. We never ate so much as during the raw diet. Every time hunger would appear, I would eat a fruit - apple or orange, usually. We had humongous salads for lunch and dinner. And my fiancee was on seventh heaven, because she LOVES watermelon - and boy, we ate a LOT of watermelon in those five days!
Still, in my opinion, raw diet is not entirely practical for people whose time is limited. There’s only that many different ways to eat raw fruits and veggies. And using tools like dehydrator is against the spirit of the diet, because food is supposed to be raw and unprocessed by humans.
(I am in much better shape now)
After doing the raw diet, I started reading about what foods are good for you and what aren’t. I took nothing for granted and doubted everything that any book, web post or magazine article would offer. Soon enough, I got a clear picture of what’s the right way to eat - it’s easy, really. While I can’t, and don’t want to, recap everything that I’ve learned, here are some basic facts:
* Diets don’t work because they’re all based on the premise of denying yourself some kind of foods, be it sweets, carbs, etc., while still pumping away at food that won’t necessarily make you fat, but is bad for your health, and is highly addictive - such as red meat, chicken, turkey, sugar, coffee, etc. After a while, your willpower inevitably breaks, and you gain back all the weight that you’ve lost - and more.
* The main purpose of eating right is not to lose weight - it’s to LEAD A HEALTHIER LIFE. Foods like meat, eggs, chicken, milk, olive oil, fish are SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN to be bad for your health in the long run. (I’ve decided not to provide sources for any claims that I make in this article, no matter how outrageous they may seem to some people 
As I mentioned before, my goal is not to debate or convert anybody to my way of life. If you’re really interested, check out a couple of books I recommend after the article.) If you eat food that is good for you, your weight will go down to normal - as a side effect.
* The fact that most people cannot imagine their life without meat, sugar, white bread, and other harmful foods is because they are ADDICTIVE in the same way drugs are. That feeling of a rush you get when you have your first cup of coffee in the morning? You’re not actually getting any energy. That’s the feeling of relief because your body started to experience WITHDRAWAL after being without for the whole night. By the way, cocaine works the same way.
* Some good foods that are full of nutrients, vitamins, fibers, proteins and other necessary things are salad, fruits, veggies, legumes, whole-wheat bread, pasta, brown rice, nuts, berries and soy products.
* You can still have meat, chicken, milk, eggs, sugar, chocolate, white bread, etc. if you really can’t live without them - just in VERY small doses, on the side. If 90% of the food you eat consists of foods mentioned above, you will dramatically reduce the risk of getting cancer, heart attack, diabetes, stroke, and a whole bunch of other nasty diseases. Oh, and you’ll lose weight, too.
After I got it all figured out, the rest was easy. As me and my fiancee started to eat right, we really appreciated Eugene’s advice to do the raw diet before it. Compared to raw diet, it did NOT feel restrictive at all! Besides fruits and veggies, we eat potatoes, brown rice, whole-wheat pasta and bread, beans, nuts, soy products, etc. And thanks mainly to the magic of Internet, there are thousands of awesome recipes available that only include healthy ingredients - and some of those dishes taste better than a heavy, greasy cheeseburger ever did.
Some of you might say - wait a minute, didn’t he say that the whole problem with diets is that they are restrictive? And isn’t this “right way to eat” really restrictive too? Well, no. I THOUGHT it was going to be restrictive. But it is not, for two reasons:
1) You do not restrict the AMOUNT of food you eat. You’re SUPPOSED to eat as much as you can, and starving yourself is silly. In fact, you can gorge yourself and destroy everything in sight - as long as what you eat is good for you.
2) And more importantly… after a few weeks of eating the right away, after all poison leaves your body and your taste buds adjust, amazing thing happens. You actually LOSE YOUR APPETITE FOR BAD FOOD! Gradually, the idea of stuffing myself with a steak or a cheeseburger became less and less appealing to me - all because my taste buds lost the taste for bad food and reverted their natural state.
I’ve mostly lost craving for sugar as well - however, it was tough in the beginning, just like breaking any other harmful habit addiction. I quit smoking cold turkey a few years ago, and breaking the sugar habit was approximately just as tough. But it was most definitely worth it. In fact, if I had to pick just one most harmful food that humans eat, I would pick sugar. It has been a curse of our civilization ever since being discovered. There are thousands of people dying of diseases caused by sugar every day. For more details, check out the book “Sugar Blues” by William Duffy.
However, the tough part lasted only a couple of weeks. After that, amazing things started to happen. I was losing weight so fast, that I started to be concerned the pace was too fast to be healthy. I went from 213 to 175 in about five months. After that, I plateaued for a while, but now it’s down to 173. More importantly, my health is much better. The immune system is stronger, since my organism doesn’t have to spend energy on processing hard-to-digest food. The possibility that I get cancer, diabetes, stroke or a heart attack has been greatly reduced. And I just feel (not to mention look ) great.
I’ve lost count of how many people noticed I lost a lot of weight and asked me how I did it. Unfortunately, vast majority of them quickly lost enthusiasm when I told them about changes to my eating ways. Even worse, some people immediately start to argue and try to convince me I’m wrong and should go back to eating meat, eggs, sugar, and milk. I used to get into passionate debates over this that led nowhere, but not anymore. I don’t argue, and don’t really talk about my dietary changes to unwilling listeners. And for those that do really want to know how I lost weight, I put up this article.
Listen, if you want to lose weight, there is no silver bullet. All the diets that you hear about are B.S. Atkins, South Beach, Jennie Craig, the Mediterranean Diet, the Shangri-La Diet - they’re all really bad for your health. If something feels “too good to be true” - it probably is. As soon as you stop following a fad diet, you ARE going to gain all that weight back - and more. And the long-term effects on your health will be severe. The only way to lose weight is to eat right and exercise. And you can’t just take anybody’s word for what constitutes “eating right” - even mine. Do your own research. Only trust facts. Good luck!
Looking back at my weight loss experience, I can say that it was definitely hard - but it got much easier soon after beginning. Most importantly, it became NATURAL for me to eat right. As I mentioned in my working out article, once you get to the point where doing the right thing feels natural, and breaking it feels wrong - you’re golden and well on your way to achieve your goals.
If you want to ask me a question, feel free to post a comment or shoot me an email.
Recommended reading:
I don’t want to recommend too much, so just the two most important books:
“Eat to Live” by Dr. Joel Fuhrman
“Sugar Blues” by William Duffy
The way it worked for me is it was very tough to give up meat for a while.. but then, I completely lost the taste for it. After a few weeks, I stopped feeling the temptation for it, and nowdays I get disgusted at the thought of eating something heavy, like steak.
July 22nd, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Great post! I’ve been struggling with weight myself and this is a great motivation for me to get off my butt and do something. I think I’m going to do the raw foods for a couple days, I’ve tried a few times to cut out sugar and failed miserably but having quit smoking myself a few years back I understand that things get easier after you suffer. Either way thanks for sharing.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:23 am
Forgive me for asking, but how is the Shangri-La Diet (which I invented) “really bad for your health”? Just as you recommend, it doesn’t involve denying yourself anything. I do it using flaxseed oil and am sure that my health has greatly improved because the flaxseed oil is supplying omega-3 fat that I wasn’t getting enough of. For example, my skin and gums are in better shape.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:42 am
Hi Seth,
Shangri-La diet is bad for you because of it’s message: you can eat everything, and still lose weight. So according to this diet, you can eat tons of unhealthy food, like ice cream, cheeseburgers, soda, etc. - and still lose weight.
While that may be true (for some people), the long-term damage those foods do to your health is incredible. You’re much more likely to get cancer, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and a host of other things if you eat those unhealthy foods. And Shangri-La Diet does nothing to address that.
July 23rd, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I’ve made a similar “resolution” (life goal, not annual) to get to a more healthy weight. I did very little and set my goals well below what I should have. Here’s my break-down: 5′7″ 215 -> to 165. I’m at 185 after 5 months; and my plan was really just for 5 years (very low; baby steps was my thought).
How did I do it? Practically nothing changed except my consistency. I watched caloric intake and just tried to stay under 2000 calories for about a month. After I figured out what worked for my regular diet, I stopped tracking it and just avoided what I had learned in that month.
After losing 15 lbs in under 10 weeks, I started walking a couple of times/wk and eventually started bicycling and jogging out of pure love of the activities.
Now, I’ve decided just to go ahead and do a small triathlon this fall; small goals give you direction - stay the course is the key, though!
July 23rd, 2007 at 5:26 pm
I couldn’t dream about life without meat and bread, but after 2 months of this diet I surprised myself a lot: it’s possible and even joyful. Little individual change: I use more boiled vegetables (I’m from Moscow, Russia, so…). The results: I’ve lost only 8 lb (not too much but 1) before I coudn’t loose one single pound for years and 2) I’m not 25, 35, 45 and even 55 anymore); my holesterol became normal now; although I am still not very athletic but I turn my heavy hoola hoop round and round - minimum 500 revolutions as my morning exersise. So now I see some light in the end of the tunnel: I see that life is not over even if you are overweight and “overaged”!
July 24th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Great Experience!Just a question?I am trying to eat healthy!I have start using whole wheat flour instead of white flour,whole wheat bread instead of white bread also whole wheat rice instead of white rice.I was thinking if i start using brown sugar insted of white, is there difference or brown sugar has same calories as white sugar!thanks
July 24th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I don’t think the message of the Shangri-La Diet is that the laws of nutrition (the empirical rules about how what you eat affects your health, built up by centuries of research)are repealed. Of course not. Of course what you eat affects your health.
The Shangri-La Diet (or at least my book about it) is about how to lose weight — not about total health, which is far more complicated. The message is that you can lose weight without making any foods forbidden, without cutting back on certain types of foods. The Shangri-La Diet is about new ways of reducing appetite. When you are less hungry you eat less without trying and thus lose weight.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Seth - I think this is where we fundamentally disagree. You can not consider losing weight on its own - you have to think of it in terms of proper nutrition. You’re right - it’s a much more complicated topic than how to lose weight, but I don’t think it should even be a goal to lose weight without thinking about total health.
If somebody is fat - that means the way they eat is wrong. And that means they run a higher risk of getting a nasty disease, such as cancer, heart attack, or diabetes. If that person loses weight on Shangri-La Diet, that’s great - but the health problem is still there.
It actually could get worse, because the person now thinks he/she got a free ticket, a “magic formula” to eat whatever they want and not gain weight. I know I certainly felt that way when I first read your book (a year ago) knowing nothing about proper nutrition.
If people get fat by eating unhealthy food, and lose weight by reducing their appetite and eating less (while still eating unhealthy food) it’s bad for your long-term health. I know it wasn’t your intent when writing the book, but unfortunately, that’s how your message looks like.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Hi Naila,
Brown sugar is also very bad for you. Avoid it as well.
February 7th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Hey Alex,
I realize you havent posted in a while and so I am not sure if you will receive this message. However, I will post this anyway.
You mentioned you are cutting down on certain foods and even food groups when you say you dont eat meat, sugar, etc…but you never mentioned how you account for the loss of nutrition that these foods give you. It is undeniable that each of the food groups give you nutritional value and so I wonder whether denying yourself one or more completely would be healthy for you in the long run. I am not trying to disprove your theory on how to lead a healthier lifestyle, my question is simply for my own gain of knowledge.
The problem is - I am also from moscow, russia - eating certain foods, like meat, has been so ingrained in my mind that not only does it seem like I cant live my life without it, but it also seems that life would be unhealthy without it.
I guess what I am trying to say is that my weight fluctuates pretty often, mainly because I am only 21 years old and I go through periods when I exercise a lot and some when I dont, but the way I have been able to regulate my weight (and my health) is to not restrict myself ANY foods like meat, as long as I eat them in moderation, exercise, and avoid the unhealthy eating habits of those foods. For example, I can eat chicken as long as its not fried, or I dont eat the skin, and I can eat red meat as long as I dont eat it more than once or twice a week.
I realize you are not a nutritionist, nor am I, but its always interesting to see the perspective of someone who has gone through this dramatic lifestyle change so please let me know your thoughts.
February 8th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Privet Elena,
Yeah, I haven’t posted in a while… I wish I could post more but, unfortunately, right now I just don’t have the time with all the other projects in my life.
To answer your first question - there’s a lot of details, but generally, if you eat a LOT of greens such as lettuce, spinach, kale, etc. you will get all the necessary nutrients, protein, calcium, fiber, iron and other necessary stuff that you need. For example, 100 calories of greens contains much more protein than 100 calories of red meat. Of course, you’d have to eat a lot more greens than meat to consume 100 calories, but that’s the whole idea - eating as many greens as possible. Of course, that’s not the only part of it - for example, you need to eat nuts, or take supplements to get some necessary Omega 3 oils that are contained in fish. I also take a multivitamin every day.
I definitely know how that feels to have certain kinds of food “ingrained in your mind”. It also doesn’t help that traditional Russian parents seem to be hell-bent on feeding you as much жареная картошка as possible
The way it worked for me is it was very tough to give up meat for a while.. but then, I completely lost the taste for it. After a few weeks, I stopped feeling the temptation for it, and nowdays I get disgusted at the thought of eating something heavy, like steak.
I’m definitely not a nutritionist, and don’t pretend to be one
You should not believe anybody that’s trying to sell you anything, and most people that aren’t 
I’m a firm believer that everyone should do their own research and make their own choices. I still recommend you start with those books I mentioned. Good luck!
April 30th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Great article. Your exactly right about how to lose weight. It’s really pretty simple. Burn more than you eat. Which your approach of eat healthy and exercise advocates. I lost about 14 pounds this winter by simply doing that. I’m an avid squash player, so exercise was no problem. The problem is, I love junk food. Plus the fact, that I can’t seem to eat junk food in moderation. Once I have I little, I tend to gorge. So basically, I forced myself not to eat any. Zip Zero Zilch. I did it for about a month and a half, and combined with playing squash 3-4 times a week, the weight fell off. I went from about 182 to 168 pounds. Needless to say, I play squash a lot faster now.