As my son points out repeatedly, this is not actually a diet, but rather a weight loss program. But the title is more catchy with the word “Diet”, which could easily add a couple of zeroes to the size of my book advance when I am finally discovered.
Here’s the Rusty Luhring weight loss program simply put:
Post your weight on FaceBook every day for 30 days. Eat less and/or healthier than you’ve been eating recently. Exercise more. Adjust dietary and exercise habits after 30 days, and re-up.
Eat whatever you want. Just remember that every day, you must post your weight for all your friends and family to see on FaceBook. I found that it kept my mind on the “diet” all day, and helped me make better decisions about food intake and exercise.
I did this for the last 90 days, starting on April 8th, 2009. I lost 15 pounds. I did a lot of bike riding. My weight was volatile. I decided that counting calories was too much of a pain, so I didn’t. I drank too much alcohol. I traveled three times during that period – during which I couldn’t weigh myself – and found that I lost weight during each trip. One included a 9 day trip to Rotterdam where I stayed in a hotel that charged 18 Euros (around $25) for breakfast. I lost 5 1/2 pounds during that trip, cheapskate that I am.
The premise is that once you give visibility to something – a performance measure, or a goal – it keeps your attention focused on improving the measure or attaining the goal. When you back that up with commitment – by actually going public with your daily performance – good things happen. The FaceBook community is a great place to make it happen, because you have friends and family urging you on, telling you to keep it up, even when the numbers are going in the wrong direction.
In the interest of full disclosure, this is not a painless diet. It’s a pain in the butt trying to make your weight posting sound interesting or anything but self-absorbed. My brother Hank asked me if I could post the number of miles I ride on my bike each day, so I started doing that mid-way through the 90 days. Sometimes I upload a photo taken during my bike ride to try to make it less burdensome on the reader.
Hank also suggested I try abstaining from alcohol for a week, and see what impact that might have. Older brothers can be a pain in the butt, too. I’m trying to make this an honest analysis, and yes abstaining from alcohol made it “easy” to lose weight. Hey – I was just thrilled that I could stop drinking completely for 10 days. So I can say to myself, “I am not a total addict.” But I still like the stuff. And after 10 days of abstention in mid-April, I decided make alcohol part of my daily nutrition.
This first 90 days was a time of experimenting and adjusting. I created a few charts in SurvivalWare to show what happened.
Rusty Luhring's daily weight: April 12, 2009 to July 10, 2009
Here’s a look at the last 30 days. The blue line is the day by day weight. The green line is a 7 day moving average.
Rusty Luhring's daily weight and 7 day moving average. 30 days to July 10, 2009
It was interesting to look at the change from day to day. In the last 30 days, I showed a weight GAIN on 10 days, a weight LOSS on 13 days, and stayed the same the rest. The lesson here is: don’t get discouraged by the gains or too excited by the losses. Just keep at it over a long period of time.
Rusty Luhring's daily weight change, last 30 days to July 10, 2009
I tend to push up the bike riding when I feel like the weight is going in the wrong direction. It doesn’t necessarily help right away, but sure does over time. Here’s the riding log from the last 30 days. My seven day average is just above 30.
Rusty Luhring's bike riding log for last 30 days, to July 10, 2009.
My plan now is to try to stay steady for the rest of this month, and then do a major push in August to get below 200. When I get below 200 pounds, it will be the first time since high school. I’ll drink to that!
