I decided to write up my story, in case it might be helpful to some. Especially those of you who think they might lose this bet or next and feel down. My message is: don't - we just need to find our way through. 

This is not my first diet bet,  the first one was in 2013 and while i initially lost some weight, i didn't win then, and i haven't ever won a single one since then (i've played some 3 or 4 more). Needless to say, i regained all my weight lost during the first diet bet and then some.

Anyhow,  I actually expect to win this bet. (197 pounds, with 2 pounds over the goal, down from 220 in the beginning of the year. This is the lowest weight i've been in more than 10 years, and i don't feel like i will stop there, i've signed for another diet bet, and if i win that it will be the lowest weight for me since 90s. I don't even feel like i need that bet for motivation, only to satisfy OCD streak in me. 

To give a short history. With a few short periods I was overweight my entire life.  When i graduated from high school i weighted 200 pounds, 5'9''. Freshman year in college saw me at normal weight  at about 165 for a few months, then it stabilized  for a little while around 180, and was steadily growing ever since. In 17 years since college  my weight reached the maximum ~22X. As i said my attempts at losing weights usually just followed byregaining it.

What didn't work.

Exercise.

Last few years i decided to do something about it, hence diet bet... Well, actually i hate diets, most of us do. So I decided to do it the exercise way - aren't we told that if we exercise more we will get thinner. I certainly thought so. So about 4 years ago i picked up endurance trail running - i worked my way to a few trail marathons and countless half marathons and 20-milers.  It helped that i liked running in college and graduate school... (though never more than 10k then). Initially I saw weight go down about 10 pounds in the first 8 months...  12 months later and some 1200 miles of trails, it was well.. it went back to 220. Ok, I thought, maybe running is not that helpful when it comes to weight reduction.

More exercise

Meanwhile i started developing back pains... I thought, maybe i should do some strength training. You know "build some muscle to boost your metabolism", mantra.  About 2 years ago i added HIIT to my workouts. HIIT stands for high intensity interval training: an hour long sessions of intense cardio intermixed with weight training. So one can say i was quite fanatical - average 25 miles per week of running (lot of uphills and some speed work too) and 2 hours of intense strength training per week + some swimming/biking added for a good measure.

The story repeats, in first 6 months I lost about 10 pounds of fat and gained about 2 pounds of lean mass, but then ... well you guessed it crept right back, I ended up considerably stronger, but just as fat as before. One other thing i noticed that I was always hungry, or, if i tried to limit my intake, very tired wheenver i was not exercising. 

What did work

Change in food composition

So here we are, Jan 2016, new year resolution, and the starting point?  Well you might have guessed: 220.6 pounds. I've joined this transformer bet, because i liked the idea of continuous loss weight with the "keep the promise" month at the end. This isn't how it actually worked for me, but that was what attracted me in the first place.

I lost the first round (215 instead of the goal 213), but then the weight loss stalled with forays to 217 and 219 - we all know how THAT feels. :/

Fast forward to april, my weight is STILL 215, with no sign of progress. In the meantime a friend mentioned a book on paleo eating, and training (mostly on benefits of low-heart rate training regime). I started reading it but didn't get too far, though i liked some ideas, and it also mentioned a book on carbohydrates (Gary Taubes' Good Calories/Bad Calories), that did a lot of meta analysis of nutrition studies and investigated the reasons for obesity epidemic.  It was not a diet/lifestyle book it is actually a popular science book, thick with references and historic remarks.

The main thrust of that book is that fat accumulation is the result of metabolic disfunction that is usually triggered by high-carb diet. Or to put it the other way - if we have this disfunction, we will frist accumulate fat as a primary goal of our metabolism. What's not used will be used to fuel our body and activity. So if we don't eat enough calories we will just become lethargic while still accumulating fat, also if it progresses long enough the body will further reduce it metabolism rate. The book then proceeds to explain the evidence behind this hypothesis and how refined carbohydrates might be causing this disfunction.

That book actually matched my experience very precisely: all the periods when i did lose significant amount of weight, coincides with significant changes to my menu, so in the hindsight i should have thought it myself.

What did you change exactly?

So i've bought the theory fully and switched to a very low carb diet, or as I prefer to describe it, no bread, no sugar, limited fruit, unlimited everything else (vegetable, meat, cheese, nuts...) food policy. Why, yes, hello atkins/paleo hybrid! 

For packaged food, anything that has more than 10g of carbs I don't eat. Anything that's less than 5g I eat without giving it a second thought. 5-10g is something that i avoid but still eat sometimes. That includes dark chocolate or plain yogurt for instance...

This  "0 bad food allowance" policy actually turned to be a useful way of thinking about it. When  you say *zero*, you can't play tricks with youself - i want a piece now, I will credit it for the next day  or whatever.  Also, ability to eat some items without restriction, helped to pacify my brain and adjust my habits.

After a few days of feeling awkward, (not bad, just strange and badly craving something sweet, and eating a piece of cheese instead), i actually started to feel great. Hunger subsided dramatically - i can basically control when to eat. I don't feel like I urgently need to eat, I can be present at a party surrounded by foods that in the past i couldn't resist (sweets, home baked goods, you name it). But i don't actually care if i eat them, so i don't.

I find it very important, that despite the urge to restrict yourself to consume less, it is much more important to not eat few bad foods, and other foods for as much as you care. If you feel hungry, whether it is mental or real, your body is telling you something, you can't fight it forever - we evolved to listen to our body.  Just  don't eat  the food that will cause you to feel even hungrier - that is anything carbohydrate rich: breads, sweets, chips, etc.  Nuts are a perfect snack for me, but so is a boiled egg or a piece of cheese or anything else that contains fat (which, thankfully, has recently been exonerated for its affects on health disease). Also, if you are doing it right, you should feel satisfied most of the time. In fact, amazingly, now i feel much more in control of my food consumption - i can eat, or i can skip a meal, or simply forget about it. It is like refueling a car, i don't have to top it off every few hours. 

Results

The results are actually amazing. It feels like cheating! I am never hungry, i don't have a mid-day low point where i desperately need to eat something sweet like i used to. Further, overall energy levels increased and became independent of when I last time ate. I can run 20 miles without a breakfast (or previous dinner for that matter), nothing but water during  the race, and still not be particularly hungry at the end. Though I do enjoy post race snacks (usually fruit/nuts/bbq). But most importantly  many vital health indicators started to go in the right direction. My blood pressure has become normal (from high pre-hypertension levels). I've been losing on average about 1.8 pounds a week  for the last 10 weeks and, according to the most recent dexa-scan, i've lost about half of my visceral fat (that's the fat that's most predictive of metabolic syndrom and other health issues) and about 10 pounds of belly fat (which is benign but unsightly).  

Oh and all that while doing considerably less  physical activity. Though by most people standards i am quite fanatical. Anyway, exercise is still good for you, just not for weight loss. The common wisdom truly had it backwards - we exercise because we have spare energy to utilize, rather than we get fat because we don't use our spare energy. I was fanatically exercising and yet my weight was stable (at high levels): I had an option of eat even more (i was always hungry), to keep up with my exercise routine,  or just be letargic whenever i am not exercising... 

Hope this story might be useful for some.