This Time Next Year I’ll Be A Different Person: How I Lost 145 Pounds in 365 Days
By: Deandre Upshaw
Tags: Weight Loss, Body Image, Lose Weight, Body, Health

What I Ate

As I lost weight, my tastes and desires for certain foods waned and increased dramatically. I’m a firm believer that no food is wholly “bad”, and no food is wholly “good”. Food just is.

One thing I realized as I was on this journey is that every meal doesn’t have to be a life changing experience. Every forkful that I put in my mouth doesn’t have to be sumptuously orgasmic. Sometimes food is just fuel. And that’s ok.

This was pretty sumptuously orgasmic, though.

Making a shopping list and going grocery shopping revolutionized the way I approached food. Every Friday I take about 10 minutes and plan meals for the week. My fiancé and I have a shared calendar that we keep updated with when we’re working late, and when we won’t be around for dinner. I go to the grocery store on Saturday morning after my workout and pick up our groceries for the week.

Not only does this contribute to my weight loss goals, but it also cuts down on spending money eating out (which we do 3–4 times a month), and unnecessary food waste.

A typical day a few months into calorie tracking.

Meal prep was very important for me when I was starting out. Streamlining two out of three meals a day made a big difference for me. I more or less ate the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day for several months. Did it get a little boring sometimes? Yeah. But removing the stress and decision making out of figuring out what to eat during the day made the other choices I had to make easier.

A typical day, 145-ish pounds later.

As I got closer to my goal weight, plateaus became more common and long-lasting. Plateaus for me usually lasted two weeks or longer, and I generally regarded them as a necessary evil; it meant my body had gotten used to what I was doing, and it was time to switch things up a bit.

I realized that I was never hungry in the morning and was forcing myself to eat a banana or some oatmeal because I thought that’s what I should do. I began experimenting with light fasting during the majority of the day — I was always hungry in the evenings, so why not save my calories until then?

I look at my calorie goals as a debit card. Every morning I get about 2000 “dollars” loaded on my debit card. I can spend them on whatever I want, whenever I want, but if I use them foolishly, I’ll be overextended.

These days, I start my morning with several glasses of ice cold water. I have a 32 oz cup at home that I fill with water twice and chug. Throughout the day, every time I have to pee, I repeat the process.

Around lunchtime I’ll have a Fage yogurt. I’m deeply passionate about Fage yogurt, specifically the honey variety. All other yogurt brands can suck it. Later in the afternoon I’ll have a snack of some pretzels, grilled chicken or popcorn. This gets me through the day until it’s time for the main event — dinner!

Dinner is usually a protein paired with a vegetable and a carb. Think salmon, broccoli and mashed potatoes, or pork chops, roasted sweet potatoes and collard greens.

One thing I’m always careful to make sure I’m not doing is doubling up on carbs — if I’m having spaghetti, I don’t need a hunk of garlic bread to go along with it, as there are already carbs in the pasta.

Fruits and vegetables are important to me — I like to keep green grapes easily accessible, and I always have a gigantic bowl of cut watermelon chilling in the fridge. Broccoli is always welcome on my plate. Roasted cauliflower is a gift from God. I try to make sure I have something green every day.

Pro tip: Grilled onions literally go with every meat, and add a fantastic depth of flavor and additional texture to boring meats like grilled chicken. Side note: stop buying chicken breasts. They are dry and expensive. Skinless, boneless chicken thighs have a few more calories but taste so. much. better. And as an added bonus, they are cheaper.

Another thing you’ll notice if you thumb through many of the entries in my food diary is that I almost always save room for dessert. Having a little something sweet at the end of the day is a must, so I always allocate some calories towards a mini ice cream cone, a handful of chocolate covered nuts or some kettle corn.

With the exception of Skinny Cow products and the Halo Top line of ice cream, nothing I eat is packaged to be “low fat”. I don’t have anything against Lean Cuisines, but they aren’t food items that I plan on eating for the rest of my life.