All right, let’s talk weight loss, fellas. You may need to lose weight because you’re so heavy that you’re having trouble making it through your day (strained breathing, joint pain, chronic fatigue), or because your doctor recommends that you drop some to reduce the strain on your heart.  You may need to lose weight because your girlfriend or wife drops a comment about your “extra lovin’” around the middle or because you want to show some better definition at the pool this year. Maybe you need to lose weight because when you look down, you can’t see your belt buckle (or your, um, package).

Or maybe your pants are too tight and flat-out don’t fit anymore. That last one - that was me. I never really had weight issues in my life until my wife got pregnant with our second child. She ate. I ate. A lot. Large breakfasts, full lunches, complete dinners, whole desserts. I never ate like that before in my life so when I did, I didn’t really know how to lose those extra pounds after I realized my pants fit me like Playtex gloves. Plus when I checked myself out in the full-length, I looked a bit like I might be in my second trimester, too.

I will tell you this – after losing about 20 pounds, I’ve gained new appreciation for the difficulty and challenge in losing just one pound. I mean, how unfair is it that it seems to take a week or more of seriously hard work to lose a pound and just one weekend of a little extra beer and Cheetos to put it right back on? 

I’ve always been a relatively active guy -- I'm a former college athlete and I belonged to a gym and went pretty regularly. But I realized my regular exercise and diet plan wouldn’t be enough if these pounds were gonna go. I needed to make sure that I wasn’t skipping gym visits and that the workouts were focused and intense if I was ever going to get back into my pants. I was no stranger to working out and mixing cardio, strength training and even some flexibility work into my routine. What was new for me was now having to watch what I ate and closely monitoring my intake. Never had to that before. And I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to keep a journal chronicling every stinkin’ spoonful of sour cream on my potato or every martini I drink.

I knew what I had to do. A pound is about 3,500 calories and to lose one would mean intaking fewer calories by eating and drinking smarter (so long, regular sour cream and daily martini), exercising real portion control (particularly at dinner), and burning additional calories by exercising like I meant it (no more gazing around the gym looking for the next cute distraction).

Here’s what worked for me:

• Consistent cardiovascular exercise (30-45 minutes, 3-4 times weekly). Sure, you know about running, biking, the glider, the stair stepper, the rower, zzzzzzz.  It can be mind-numbingly boring.  But consistent cardio work is the foundation to weight loss by jump-starting your metabolism and burning the calories. Without regular cardio sessions several times a week, diet alone can greatly extend the weight loss process. Two things I did to make boring cardio work more palatable: whenever I could, I went to the gym at prime time because I feed off the energy of a full gym and I invested in the XM Radio MyFi.  That little “toy” made all the difference in the world as I cruised around different radio stations to keep me interested.

• Cardio work done in intervals. Intervals also keep things interesting by varying speeds and resistance over the course of the cardio workout.  Driving hard for 2-3 minutes on hills on the bike, then doing light resistance as fast as I could for 5, then moderate hills for 7 minutes, back to heavy hills for 2, etc.  It changes the workload on your heart and lungs and kickstarts your metabolism.

• Rotating between different machines. I don’t run, never did ( or at least never liked it when I had to run).  But I’d bike for 20 minutes and then move to the glider for another 20.  Or hit the stepper for 10 minutes, jump rope for 10, and finish on the bike. You work different muscles that way and it’s not quite as stale and boring as staying on one piece of equipment for the full 40 minutes.

• Weightlifting in supersets. Instead of my old method of getting under the bench, knocking out a set, then walking around getting water and looking at gym bunnies until my next set, I’d finish the bench, grab dumbbells and do a set of 8 –10 flyes, then bang out 10 pushups. Then I’d look at the bunnies (kidding, I’m kidding here).  Supersets are great when you don’t have two hours to kill in the weightroom; it actually moves your workout along more quickly because you reduce recovery time in between sets.  Supersets can be done with legs, arms, back, shoulders, even abs.

• Portion control. I just didn’t need that much food.  A16 oz steak, followed by the whole baked potato, and for fun, the crème brulee.  For the love of God, why?  It’s enough food to feed a full grown guy ‘till Thursday!  Remember, I don’t measure food.  But I did go with main courses that were about the size of the palm of my hand and no larger, and it made a big difference.   And no, portion control does not mean opting for the 18 oz steak as a reasonable alternative to the 24 oz’er. 

• Hold the seconds there, Tiger. I learned this, when you finish what’s on your plate, it can take up to ten minutes for your stomach to tell your noggin that you’re full.  I used to finish my plate, think I was still hungry, go back for more and keep on chowing.  To lose weight, push away from the table and let it settle a bit for five, ten minutes.  I’ll bet that you’ll realize you’re really not that hungry for seconds after all.

• Watch the clock for dinner. The later you eat dinner, the fewer active hours your body has to metabolize food and the more it can result in extra pounds. You don't burn calories as rapidly in your sleep, so If it got to be 9 pm and I still hadn’t had dinner, I went light (soup and salad, some light leftovers, or veggies and hummus). It ain’t sexy, but I slept better without a football-sized dinner in my belly.

• Put the right type of gas in the tank. Know why you’re eating what you’re eating. I started my days alternating between cottage cheese (good protein and calcium source) one day and high fiber cereal the next.  Lunch was usually tuna either on high-fiber bread or straight up to keep the carbs down.  Plus one or two fruits.  No dessert.  I would snack on yogurt (for calcium and those digestive-aiding active cultures) and a mix of nuts (healthy oils and protein).  Dinner was usually a small protein main course of meat, chicken or fish, plus a healthy side of veggies and no high carb sides like baked pototates or pasta.  I also bagged dessert…hey, I was serious about ditching these pounds!

• Cut back on the booze. Yeah, that’s the sad reality. I hated having to do that, but all that booze puts sugar into your system (loaded with empty calories) and screws up your metabolism. It collects in the fatty tissue, making it that much harder to get rid of. And guess what? Having to cut down on booze drove me to lose the weight fast so I could get back to my usual daily consumption levels.

So how’d it go? All in all, it took a little under three months. Not super fast, but also not a long time to get yourself looking and feeling better about yourself. Losing about a pound a week is a good comfortable pace. 

Now my pants fit fine again, which is good, because while I have no problem whatsoever in buying new clothes, I simply didn’t need to. I liked what I owned. Either the clothes were gonna change or I was. And it made me feel proud to have done it. 

Understand that I continue to keep an eye on what I eat and still work out regularly because I do NOT want to have to go back to monitoring my life with that degree of scrutiny until I"m at least sixty.  Maybe seventy.