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

You all know the scenario: inspired by reading, seeing or hearing how great and useful something is, you decide to incorporate it into your life. Be it going to the gym, learning how to play golf, writing a page of your novel a day, it’s going to make you healthier, make your life better, it’s good for your teeth, etc.

Bursting with enthusiasm, you set bold goals for yourself, faithfully following your new schedule. Until one day, you miss it. You might have a perfectly good excuse, but it really doesn’t matter. You missed a day, and then another one. You know where this is going – soon enough you stop doing that activity altogether, felling pretty bad about yourself. You might make up elaborate excuses as to why it didn’t work out. You might do the opposite and get depressed, thinking that you’re a weak-willed person, since you can’t follow through with something that is beneficial for you.

Does any of this sound familiar? It certainly does to me. With my lifestyle being for the most part, sedentary (a big change since college, when I had a part time job doing student security that required walking outside for 8 hours), regular exercise is important, since dying of a heart attack at 40 is not an option.

Over the last few years, I attempted jogging, exercising at home, going to the gym, etc… with varying results, at the longest lasting four months. I was even able at one point lose 25 lbs, gain muscle, and feel pretty good about myself. And then… I got sick, so I stopped. After getting better, something else came up, and lo and behold – I was back to my schedule of not exercising while steadily gaining all the weight back.

So what happened? I tried to analyze the situation from many angles. Two or three times a week, I was putting in a big effort, finishing work at 6, then heading over to the gym, home by 9 PM. I would then skip dinner, because eating before bedtime counteracts the exercise. So what happened? In my mind, I understood the reason for exercising, and had no problems psyching myself up to go… but wait a minute!

Why did I have to put in effort – i.e. force myself to go? Isn’t going to the gym supposed to be exciting, not a chore you drag yourself through? And isn’t it supposed to provide you with energy instead of draining it out of you?

That’s when I realized my problem. I was excessively tired after work, dragging myself to the gym, and resenting every minute of it. Plus, I was coming home at a late hour, and didn’t have the time or energy for anything else. So, the problem was right in front of me – going to the gym after work just didn’t fit into my schedule!

Having understood that (not that the realization came immediately… it took a while), I decided to try out a different routine by going to the gym at various times of the day. I also considered different gym locations, in Brooklyn where I live and in Manhattan where I work. I tried a few combinations, but what ended up working for me was going to the gym close to my job in the morning.

I got up early, and went to the gym. Upon finishing my workout, I was filled with such incredible amount of energy that I came to work pumped, ready to take on the world. In the starting weeks I got tired by the end of the day, however after some getting used to it, the fatigue went away. Most importantly, it just felt right. I didn’t have to force myself. I didn’t come home later than I normally did. I did have to sacrifice something – I had to wake up one hour earlier, but I came home at the same time as before.

Now, I know some of you are saying: “there’s no way I can do that, I can’t wake up that early, I have to drive to work for two hours, etc.” That’s a valid point; it’s not the intention of this article to tell you that going to the gym early is the right way to live. My point is: make sure the time fits your schedule. Make sure the place is convenient for you. Do everything so the activity becomes a normal part of your day. Banish the thought that you’re doing something extraordinary. If you get into the territory where NOT doing the activity feels weird – you’re golden!

Here, for instance, this very website. I wanted to start this blog for a long time. But I never got to it, not because I considered it less important than my other projects, but because I could never find time for writing. Call me old fashioned, but I can’t write at the computer. I need pen and paper; otherwise it doesn’t feel like ‘real’ writing to me. I can’t write at work, for obvious reasons, and at home there are always more important things to requiring my attention. So what’s the solution? I started writing on the subway, during my daily commute to and from work.

Actually, I’m writing this on the subway right now! I don’t have a PDA or a laptop; instead I use a trusty old pocket-sized spiral notebook. My total commute time is just under two hours every day, so I get to do quite a lot of writing.

If there’s one thing I’m trying to say in this article, it’s the following: you CAN find a way to introduce any activity in your life and practice it regularly, eventually making it a habit, as long as you find a way to fit it in your schedule. You don’t have to force yourself to do something you’re uncomfortable with. All that is needed is to make an effort to figure out HOW the activity could fit into your schedule (use trial and error if necessary), and incorporate it into your routine.

Good luck!