• View
• Edit
• History
• Print

Weight Loss

FitDay is probably the most used online calorie calculating journal among the IOL forum. Another one, My Calorie Counter may suit you well, too.

Chris McClinch has provided this Caloric and Macronutrient Calculator for Microsoft Excel. It's very simple and self-explanatory; enter your height, weight, age and activity level and it will calculate your approximate daily calories for maintenance, weight loss or weight gain. You then enter the resulting number and the spreadsheet will calculate the nutrients in grams needed to meet some of the more popular bodybuilding diets.

• Forever popular, here's Chris' 10 Commandments of Getting Cut.

• Chris also suggests there's no such thing as a perfect diet, just one that's good enough.

• John gives us a down and dirty Velocity Diet spreadsheet here.

And here's a list of diet and nutrition software, along with users' comments.

In Dave's competitive days, most of the guys used the old tuna and water trick. Dave described it briefly there, and again here, and expands on the tuna gig here.

I did a pretty extreme and (too extreme?) well-documented version of ultra low-calorie, high protein dieting, and reading that long link will give you some insight into how easy it is to mess up your metabolism and throw off your hormonal balance.

• Here are a few reports from other tuna dieters:
  • Help, need advice!... and, wouldn't you know it? Here's another weight loss query.

  • Tuna Diet Experiences?

  • Tuna and water?

  • Diary of a Tuna and Water Experience

Diet is a huge percentage of any weight loss program, yet exercise is key to long-term success. This article will give you an overview of how to boost your metabolism forever.

• Over at Life Extension, let's take a look at their overview and strategy for reversing obesity.

• Will Brink is a big believer in whey protein; this report describes how whey protein contributes to weight loss.

• Hugo Rivera, the about.com Guide to Bodybuilding, offers this 14-page guide entitled, Lard to Hard. This is his overview of the big picture of physical transformation, and covers the basics from exercise program to nutrition, supplementation to rest and recovery.

The most important thing to learn about fat loss? Find a plan you can live with and stick to it for a long, long time. Three weeks is simply not long enough, and that's about the time most people give up and go back to "normal." Remember, you may have made massive changes in your eating habits, but there's a real good chance that was only enough to stop the fat gain. It'll take more perseverance to strip off the excess you put on over the past years of inattention to diet. Stick to the plan for the long haul!