How I lost 80 pounds in about 5 months

I’ve had several people reach out to me privately over the past year asking what I did to lose weight, what I ate, how I went about it etc. In fact, I’ve had three more people ask in the last few days alone – possibly with New Year’s resolutions in mind maybe.

So I sat and tried to remember the things I did, my go-to meals, foods and more and typed it all up and threw it onto my little-used blog. I am no doctor, I am no athlete or dietician or nutritionist or expert of any kind at all. This is just what worked for me. I have no idea if it’ll work for someone else – but if you’re one of the people who wanted to know what I did, this was basically it.

Things I bought to help with my diet change:

– air fryer

– kitchen countertop scale

– bathroom scale

Figure out how many calories a day

I used a free online TDEE calculator to figure out approximately how many calories I needed a day just to stay the same, and how many to lose weight – based on my age, weight, lifestyle etc. I settled on a target of consuming no more than 1687 calories per day.

Get a calorie tracker app

I installed the myfitnesspal app on my phone. I used the free version – the paid subscription is stupidly expensive and the free version will give you what you need most. The secret is to make it an obsessive religious-type habit to measure and enter every single thing that you consume into the app. Everything – even condiments. It will then automatically track how many calories you’re bringing in that day, but only if you are obsessive about using it.

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Drinks

I don’t drink alcohol (I haven’t for 40 years) so it wasn’t a consideration in losing weight. I was however addicted to chocolate milk and pop (especially Coke Classic), and coffee with a ton of sugary creamer.     I haven’t drank milk now for almost two years. And for pop, I drink only Dr Pepper Zero Sugar (zero calories) or A&W diet root beer (zero cal).

For losing weight tho, WATER is massively important so I tried to shoot for drinking 3 litres of water a day. I bought a giant thermal insulated water bottle, and to make it more enjoyable I added some Mio water enhancer for flavour (zero cal)  

Coffee

I’ve never been a breakfast eater, so my meal planning was based on 2 meals per day and just coffee and or a protein drink in the morning.  For my coffee, I used to be addicted to the International Creamers (like hazelnut or Southern Butter Pecan) and would dump like half a bottle in to an XL size coffee cup. When I started my ‘diet/lifestyle change’, I switched to a zero sugar version of creamer, plus a zero-sugar/zero calorie coffee syrup. In my XL cup of coffee, I measure exactly 30ml of zero sugar creamer, and 30ml of zero calorie syrup.

Alternatively, I sometimes would instead add a Premier Protein shake instead of the creamer and sugar, then it would also give me 30g of protein with my coffee.

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My Go-to meal

• a sliced chicken breast, 
• 10-20 shrimp (thawed),
• Green Giant Veg/Pasta side dish
• Some fresh veg like green onion, cucumber, tomato and/or side salad

Chicken breasts.
I buy a pack of seven boneless skinless chicken breasts, and I pre-cook them in my air fryer with no oil or sauces. I just cook em all up (takes two batches in my air fryer to do all 7)  I then pack them into Rubbermaid containers and put them in the fridge. At meal time I take one out and slice it then heat it up in the microwave. 

For flavour, I use various seasonings to taste (lemon pepper for the win) and for sauces I generally limit myself to either a bit of salsa (low cal), Franks Red Hot (zero calories), lemon juice, or Dijon mustard for dipping (zero calories). If I feel like a change I’ll buy a marina pasta  sauce and have a half cup of that as a sauce on my chicken


Shrimp
I buy a bag of precooked/deveined 71-90 count frozen shrimp and keep them in the freezer. 20 shrimp are only like 50 calories and almost ALL protein so I often count out 20, thaw them under running water and have them with my meals. Filling and tasty (if you like shrimp). Just don’t ruin it by adding butter/margarine cuz while that’s tasty, hello to a million calories. Instead, I usually add them INTO my side dish (below)

Side dish
I buy 500g size bags of Green Giant Cheddar Pasta or Savoury Garlic.   I measure out half a bag (250g) and that’s only 200 calories for the Cheddar version, or 230 for the garlic version. Gives you lots of broccoli, carrots etc and spiral pasta so you’re getting a nice starch side and veg in one while staying low calories.

Fresh Veg
I happen to love green onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes. So I chop up a green onion for flavour and crunch and add it to almost every meal. And I usually have about 85g of sliced cucumber on the side and often a sliced-up Roma tomato as well.  Sometimes I’ll buy a package of 50/50 spinach/spring mix and make a salad with that and 30ml of Kraft Fat-Free Italian dressing which is only 10 calories and have that with my meal as well if I’m really hungry but don’t want to add a ton of calories.

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Alternate GO-to meal
(a bit higher calories but you need a LITTLE variety)

Much the same as above: 

• a sliced chicken breast, 
• a chopped up green onion, 
• some finely chopped cucumber, and 
• 10-20 shrimp (thawed),

•  But instead of the veggie pasta I serve it OVER a package of A-sha Hakka Noodles. I’ll also add a few teaspoons of soy sauce to taste. These noodles are only 300 calories per package instead of the nearly 400 or more of other ramen-style noodles, and they have 11g of protein per serving.

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Snacks / desserts

My favourite dessert/sweet snack is Danone Two Good Yogurt. I find them super delicious, and one serving has 8g of protein with only 60 calories/2g of sugar.

I also buy a bag of apples each week and will have an apple when I feel snacky. Sometimes with my apple I may have ONE tbsp of sugar-reduced peanut butter for extra fun and flavour. I enjoy the mid-size gala apples best.

For a salty snack, I’ll treat myself to 7 or 8 Crispy MIni rice chips and/or maybe a half-cup of 1% cottage cheese.

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Exercise

In addition, I also joined a gym. For the first 8 months, I went 7 days a week. Every day, I would do 100 ab crunches on the Ab machine (3 sets of 33), and do an hour on the treadmill at about 3.5 miles per hour. 

Three days a week I also do 30 minutes of weight training – a mix of upper and lower body (each exercise 3 sets of 12 to 15 repetitions). I’m not trying to become a bodybuilder or anything, just to build some lean muscle to replace some body fat.

It also happened that at the same time I embarked on my weight loss/exercise plan I also moved into a new home which turned out to be a fifteen-minute walk to my office, so I NEVER drive to work – even in minus 40. Between the walk to work and the daily treadmill, I targeted 10,000 steps per day.  

I now have cut back on the gym to only those three days per week of weight training and ab crunches.  I instead bought a small treadmill/walking pad for my apartment to help me keep my steps up at home in addition to the walks to work.  

None of this would have been possible if I hadn’t quit smoking about a year before I started my weight-loss plan.   Had I still been smoking over a pack a day, I’d never have been able to exercise AT all.

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The one ‘weird’ thing I did do as well

I have no idea if it helped or not, but I was trying so hard to give myself every edge I could to succeed, so I downloaded to my audible audiobook app, a couple of “Sleep Learning” subliminal weight-loss books, my favourite of which (I think) is “Sleep Learning System: Rapid Weight Loss & Appetite Control“. Did it really actually help? I don’t know. But I put it on at bedtime every night and listened as I fell asleep.

A year after reaching my goal – keeping it off.
 

It was January of 2024 I reached my goal weight-wise, losing over 80 pounds in about 5 months without starving myself or using drugs of any kind. I’ve still kept it off for a whole year by sticking mostly to these same meals (and my now weekly ‘grilled pork and spring roll on vermicelli noodle bowl’ at Red Pepper). But I also will occasionally now indulge in a previously ‘forbidden’ meal, like pizza or a burger, but maybe once a week at most, and even then not go overboard by getting a triple patty baconator lol or deep-dish with extra cheese. I still try to a bit sensible about my food choices, even when indulging in a non-sensible meal.   

It’s now just about sticking to the good habits I’ve built over the last year and a half, but knowing its ok sometimes to be a little naughty.