Ed. note: This post discusses the results of two months of eating real food in moderation. If you would like to know more about what I’m eating and how I’m doing it, check out articles like this one. If you enjoy what you’re reading, please consider subscribing to my feed. Thanks.

This weekend marked month 2 in my diet experiment: to lose weight and improve my health using only the basic concepts of eating real food in moderation. No low fat products, no low carb products, no paid plans or programs - in fact, as few “products” as possible, in favor of whole foods. My emphasis has been on eating more fruits and vegetables, but at the same time making sure to take in high quality meats, cheeses, nuts, grains, and so forth.

The Rubber hits the Road: Month 2 results

Here are the results: As of 1 March, I’ve officially lost 16 lbs over two months, which is exactly where I want to be pace-wise. I’m shooting for 1-2 lbs a week for essentially the rest of this year, using nothing but eating real food in moderation (and adding regular exercise in - soon).

The best part is: I’m still eating most of the foods I enjoy. For example I’m still eating:
- Good quality pizza (meaning “gourmet” style at a local restaurant, but with things like vegetables, prosciutto and good quality pepperoni)
- I often have a fresh croissant with some Camembert for breakfast (as we did in France)
- Reasonably priced wine with dinner (between $5 and $8 a bottle, which lasts us an average of two meals between my wife and I)
- A small portion of the best quality ice cream (the real stuff, with the fat) I can afford, nearly every night. For me, my favorite is the chocolate and pomegranate haggen daas reserve
- Chocolate (dark, in small amounts)
- More almonds than I think I should
- Bacon and sausage on occasion, but only high quality nitrate-free Nieman Ranch meats (its more expensive, but if you eat less of it, it works out to the same price meal-wise)
- A couple of cupcakes at a special occasion
- Whole butter and sour cream - absolutely no low fat poor quality fake dairy.
- Whole plain yogurt (cream top)
- The best quality cheeses I can afford. This is my indulgence - I may spend $5-10 on a small wedge of cheese, but I eat it slowly over a period of days, sometimes longer. Definitely not low fat cheese.
- Sour cream (full fat)
- Real half-and-half in my coffee
- Real sugar in things like iced tea

The exceptions to the “eating the foods I enjoy” category are:
- I’ve all but eliminated fast food, although I did have a burger at Wendy’s a couple of weeks ago, which made me feel sick
- I’ve virtually eliminated regular consumption of beer (I was having a beer a night for a while, which made my scale tremble in fear when I approached). I stress “regular” because I have had a few beers over the past couple of months, but mostly out to dinner with friends. Essentially I’ve traded a beer with dinner for a glass or two of wine.
- Soda. This is gone from my diet altogether right now, including diet soda (which I actually think is nearly as bad for you on a holistic health level as their sugar-filled sibling)
- Two or three slices of toast in the morning. It was my habit to eat 2-3 slices of whole grain toast in a morning, along with whatever else. I love toast. After I reach my weight goal, I’ll likely add back a slice or two of whole grain toast, as I think it has value nutritionally.

Goodbye Fast Food, dear friend

On eliminating fast food, the idea is to try to re-train my tastes away from things like sugar-coated processed french fries or mystery beef with processed “American” cheese wrapped in chemically produced sauces and a well-preserved refined white bun (but there are sesame seeds, so it must be healthy, right?). I’m seeking a higher level of flavor and quality, because in a nutshell I think fast food, particularly coupled with a bucket of soda, is going to put me squarely in the sights of diabetes, heart disease, and who knows what else.

Sidenote: Isn’t it a sad state of affairs that reduced fat processed imitation poly-cheese wrapped in individual plastic sleeves and then rewrapped in another plastic wrapper is what we have accepted as “American Cheese”? Couldn’t we get some high quality sharp cheddar made by midwestern American farmers as the American cheese? But I digress.

Over on IowaAvenue, I wrote this in response to a comment regarding fast food:

For me fast food = comfort food for two main reasons: 1) growing up, when something good happened/we accomplished something, heading to McDonalds was often the “reward” [it was the cultural norm at the time], and 2) the refined, processed nature of fast foods (even the “healthier” components) make you want more of them - Soda being the most egregious example. Fast food joints don’t offer 48oz high fructose corn syrup sodas because there’s no demand and they want to give more away - our bodies crave sugar, and when we give it to our brains in such refined dosages, its like mainlining a drug into our system - and our systems just want more of it.

The good news to me is, I firmly believe this is a retrainable thing - I can retrain my physical body from craving it, and if I can deal with the emotional/comfort side, I think I’ll have a handle on it.

I think more than anything else, fast food has been the biggest contributor of my habits that got me to where I was two months ago, weight and healthwise. Even the healthiest of options at mainstream fast food restaurants are designed to last for longer periods of times through a) inserting chemical additives to preserve them, and b) removing the critical nutrient combinations that we need so that they don’t oxidize as quickly (spoil). If you remove the nutrients, bacteria doesn’t want it!

Couple that with the addictive, incredibly high sugar and salt content in most fast food offerings, and you have a recipe for sheer disaster. That disaster being namely type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Not to mention, I don’t buy the quantity-equals-value marketing dribble anymore that the fast food industry has sold us wholesale. In fact, the more I see it, the more “worked over” by the greed of an industry that systematically gives us less quality food so that our body will seek out more of it, looking for the nutrients and whole foods we’re not getting.

In the end…

The bottom line is I’m eating really well, spending a little more on a little less food (buying the best that I can afford, just eating smaller portions), and really paying attention to what I eat - not as a means of losing weight per se, but as a way to enjoy every bite of every meal and not feel stuffed to the gills afterward. All of which is for the ultimate goal: to improve my overall health so that I can hang out on the planet for a little while longer. The weight loss for me just sweetens the deal.

With diet seemingly in hand for the most part, my next goal: reintroducing regular exercise into my routine.

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Related posts:

1. Real Food in Moderation: Weight loss results for month 3
2. 23 benefits of eating good food in moderation
3. Time for a recommitment - to weight loss
4. Managing weight loss while on vacation
5. 33 tips on how to lose weight without dieting