Acai Berry

My back pain was worse than ever. I was overweight. I lost sixty pounds in five months. This is how I did it.

For most of my adult life, I've struggled with my weight. I've got the stretch marks to prove it. One summer, my parents even sent me to Fat Camp (fun, but not entirely effective). I love eating, always have and most likely, always will. In fact, I still spend most of my days thinking about food but it used to be much worse.

The worst part was -- I knew what I was doing was bad when I did it, but it made me feel good. Bad food choices? Check. Double helpings? Check. Midnight snacking? Check. It was all horrible for my body and would make me feel horrible too. So when the scale tipped 280, I got pissed off at myself and decided to make a change.

I decided that I would make a set of ten rules for myself that I would not break in order to achieve my goal. Ten rules may seem like a lot at first, but once you give them a once-over, you'll see how easy they are to follow:

Rule #1. I weighed myself daily. I didn't have a scale, so of course, I had to go buy one. Every morning after emptying my bowels and bladder, I'd weigh in. Then every night before bed, I'd weigh myself just to get an idea of the difference. Oddly enough, it was usually around 5 pounds.

Rule #2. I posted my weight publicly at work. This was a difficult thing to do at first. You never know how people are going to respond to the chubby guy on a quest, but I worked up the courage and did it. After a while, people would ask me about it almost daily and give me encouragement. Of course, you don't have to do it this way. Any public place will work -- even your blog, Twitter or Facebook. The point is that you have more incentive not to slip back into your own routine. Trust me, this works.

Rule #3. I never ate after dinner. Officially, 6:30PM is dinner time in our house, so after that I wouldn't eat anything until breakfast the next morning. Before that, dinner used to be when the REAL eating began. After second helpings of dinner, I'd have a nice big dessert. Then, I'd have another helping of dessert. Then later on if I was still hungry, I'd find crackers or fix myself a bowl of cereal. Looking back, it's scary to talk about what I was shoving down my pie hole on a daily basis. But the good news? If you set this rule, it's hard the first week but after that, it makes everything MUCH, MUCH easier.

Rule #4. I never had second helpings. As I said, I used to have at least two helpings of dinner. While I was eating the first plate, I was thinking of my next plate. If there wasn't enough food for a second helping, I'd start eying the plates of my family members to see if they were done eating. "You gonna eat that?" No one wants to be around that guy when they're eating.

Rule #5. I never ate sweets. Okay -- "never" is a stretch. I had sweets rarely (at birthday parties and the like), but for the most part I stopped. Instead of having sweets around, I made it a point to buy apples, bananas and oranges, etc. After a while, I stopped craving super sugary things and actually started to CRAVE fruit. You might find that hard to believe, but it's true. The best part is, once you cut sweets out of your diet, fat just starts melting away. This was my actual A-HA moment.

Rule #6. I avoided carbs. Some people like to say that cutting carbs (which, if you're late to the party, is short for Carbohydrates) is the only way to go. Well, I wasn't lying when I said I love food. Once in a while, I want a bowl of pasta or a piece of bread --- so I'll eat it. But I make it a once-a-week type of thing. You want a bowl of cereal once in a while? Limit yourself to just one bowl. My big thing at the time was eating sandwiches at lunch every day. I decided to replace that with wraps (or a salad, if I could muster the courage). At home, I had a lot of eggs and cheese.

Acai Berries: Small but Effective

Rule #7. I used Acai Berry to speed up weight loss. I heard about the acai berry from a friend who recommended it after shedding 30lbs over the summer. He looked great, so instead of the normal hatred I feel toward people who actually do lose weight, for some reason I felt inspired. I asked him where he got it and he mentioned Acai Berry Now. I took a look at the site and after reading some of their reviews, I decided to go with TriOxi because I'd heard about it before and I knew it included a bunch of good stuff (acai berry, resveratrol and goji berry).

These products aren't magical though as their marketing would have you believe. What they are is simple: packed with fiber, vitamins, amino acids, omegas, antioxidants and flavor. So that means two simple things: more pooping and increased burning! What I would do is always take the TriOxi supplements right after a meal to mark the end of eating for the night and the beginning of burning. That was the only thing that got me through it at first and why I recommend this method.

Rule #8. I only ate delicious things. Hey, if you're only going to eat a few meals a day, they'd better be amazing, right? Right. I'm not the kind of person who can handle boiled chicken. I like GRILLED chicken, bacon, eggs, cheese, burgers, steaks, etc. So that's what I made for three meals a day for five months straight and have continued to make almost every night. It took some encouragement but the family loves it too.

Rule #9. I exercised once a day. Of course, this is where people will tell you that exercise is what made the difference. For me, it didn't make a difference whether I exercised or just made it a point to park further away from the store and walk. In fact, that's what I do now any chance I get. I just make it a point to walk more. Overall, exercise didn't do much; what mattered more was cutting down sugars and carbs to minimums.

Rule #10. I stopped drinking the booze. This was a small but important step in weight loss. I used to drink a beer (sometimes two) every night after work but what I didn't realize was that each beer is full of carbs. It's pretty much like liquid bread. It's not just beer either -- wine, hard liquour, the whole nine. What I drink now is light beer but not every night and I've gotten used to it.

So that's what I did for five months and eventually it just became my routine. I started out at 280 five months ago and I'm down to 218 (and decreasing). My "normal" weight is about 180, so that's my goal and I will definitely shoot the guys at Acai Berry Now an e-mail when I reach my secondary goal!

What I didn't mention in the list of ten rules is how much my life change has helped my family. Since my kids all look up to me and my wife will -- with some encouragement -- pretty much support me once I decide to stick to something, this has changed their lives as well. Not only will their dad be around for a lot longer but they'll be around a lot longer too.

I hope this helps you and I wish you all the best of luck!

-David H.