I like the practical way John Walker looks at losing weight and would like to use a similar strategy to shave my own excess pounds:

Calories in—calories out: both readily calculated. You get calories in by adding up the calories of everything you eat in a day: good old “calorie counting.” Calories out, the calories you burn in a day, can be initially estimated based on your sex, height, and frame size using the above tables for men and women. Later, you’ll be able to refine this estimate as you monitor your weight.

To determine whether you’ll gain or lose weight—whether the rubber bag will grow or shrink—just take the number of calories in, what you eat, and subtract the number of calories you burn. If the number’s positive, you’re eating too much and the excess calories will stay in the bag; you’ll gain weight. If the result is negative, you’re burning more calories than you’re putting in; the bag will shrink as the reserves stored in fat cells are drawn down to meet the body’s energy needs; you’ll lose weight.

You’ll find on that page linked above a table with calories burned by height and weight. It then boils down, according to Mr. Walker to counting the calories of the food being consumed each day and subtracting from the calories burned daily number and then reducing by the amount of calories burned through exercise. All sounds pretty logical to me.

Tonight for dinner I skipped eating a full salad with dressing and instead went with cucumbers, carrots and vinegar, a favorite of mine. I had one piece of french bread, but no butter and water to drink. Lunch today I had a quarter pounder from McDonalds and a few fries (not even a quarter of the full large fries) and a large coca cola. This was all I ate today, no breakfast. Had a couple breath mints too. I rode the bike for 10 miles this evening and weighed myself.

182 pounds.

That down two more pounds from yesterday. I talked to our oldest son and suggested that he begin keeping a log of what he’s eating every day so we can compare against the calories burned chart. The chart indicates I’ll burn 2003-2503 calories per day based on a medium frame and 5′11 height. I’m going to focus on 2250 calories per day as a ceiling and try to eat 1750 per day or less.

3500 calories = about 1 pound
By shooting for 1,750 per day I should lose 1 pound a week (500 calories per day x 7 days = 3500 calories per week). If I can keep this pace going mathematically I should be at 170 pounds by the end of the year (12 weeks = 12 pounds - 182 = 170 pounds) which would put me back in the normal category for body mass index.

In the case of our oldest son, I’m going to see if he’s willing to shoot for 1,750 calories per day too. Losing a pound a week minimum might not seem like a great goal, but over the course of a year that would be 52 pounds. And once the weight is off, remember we could return to eating the full calories (2,250 per day) and not gain the weight back. We’d have to eat an additional 500 calories per day, every day, to add a pound a week back. The weight control and calorie counting doesn’t really ever stop.

Where to find how many calories in food?
On the packaging calories are provided but there is a website from about.com called calorie-count.com (pictured at top of post) that shows the amount of calories for different food items. You can search by food item, recipe and even activity. For example, my wife was eating some cashews this evening. I let her know that a 1/4 cup of cashews was 180 calories or about 8% of her daily calorie count.

One cup of peeled, raw cucumbers (pictured at top) only amounts to 16 calories compared to a cup of carrots which equals 52 calories.

Looking for a low calorie snack? One medium, low sodium dill pickle is a mere 12 calories.

By signing up for a free account at calorie-count.com you can add additional information to get a better picture of your health and track your daily meals. I’m there and giving it a try.

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