What's a Youatarian? It's my own phrase I have used when people ask me how I have lost my excess weight. I'm a Youatarian and live the youatarian lifestyle. Simply put, a Youatarian is someone that follows YOU On a Diet. For any YOAD followers out there that would like to adopt the phrase
for themselves, please feel free.

- Marshall (aka Orlando Tek)



Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog!

My Story

In July 2006, I visited the doctor for a multitude of
ongoing medical problems and when I weighed
in I remember being 305lbs. That was the heaviest
I could ever remember weighing on any scale in my life.

My wife, also overweight, started some small changes
in her diet at that time and those changes made its way
through into my diet as well.

In September 2006, I watched my mother undergo
triple bypass surgey. And I always believed her
to be of modest health although she had passed
on a few of her problems to me including high blood
pressure and acid reflux issues. In her early 20's,
unaware of her high blood pressure problem, she
actually had a stroke, although not very severe.

My dad is a bit healthier even though being
12 years older than my mom, but he has borderline
adult onset diabetes and he had a stint put into an
artery a few years back.

Taking in all this information, It was then I decided
I needed to make some serious changes in my life
or I will be the next one on the heart ward not too
long from now.

It was Novemeber, 2006 and I was already following
the few changes my wife had made to her diet and we had
both lost about 15lbs in the last few months. Any
change at this point was a good change. We watched
a Discovery Health special called YOU: On A Diet featuring
the YOU docs and a few families incorporating YOAD
into their daily lives and showing their amazing progress.

The very next day, November 7th, 2006, my wife and
I went through every cabinet and cupboard in our
house and got rid of ALL the bad foods. We then
went to the grocery store and bought foods that
met YOAD and from that day we have not looked back!

We could not find the book at any local store so we
ordered it off Amazon. It took a few weeks to arrive
but we started cooking with only YOAD approved foods
using YOAD approved methods and we WERE seeing
results even before the book arrived.

From there it has been all downhilll. I have lost 110lbs
since starting on YOAD in November but about 125lbs
over the last 18 months total. Wahoo!

And most of my medical problems related to my weight
have now vanished including high bood pressure, acid
reflux and sleep apnea. I have much more energy and
I feel better than I can ever remember!

And its all thanks to YOAD!



Thursday, September 6, 2007

I'm a Hybrid :)

Having this blog is great and its enabled me to go
back and view my diet and what I write and I came
to a realization about how I am losing weight.

I think I am using two different weight loss methods,
both proven to help anyone lose weight. I follow YOAD
about 90% of the time. This helps me to not store fat,
to quickly burn more of what I am eating and more
imprtantly, making me much healthier.

I am also following just a calorie reduction method.What
this means is that I count my calories, and I know
exactly how much I need to sustain my current weight.
Which is about 2250 calories per day right now. To
lose1 pound per week, I should reduce my calories by
about 3500 calories per week or 500 per day. Which is
1750 calories per day.

Right now I am using a program called Calorie King and
it keeps track of everything and gives me cool bar graphs
of my calorie history and helps me stay on track.

Right now my daily calorie intake varies between 1500
and 1800 calories per day staying on the 1500 side more
days than not. This is taking into account my daily walking
and other exercise but NOT counting normal daily activities.
Just times that I set aside and dedicate for exercise.

So, I normally take a 50 minute brisk walk at work which is
about 250 calories that I burn. I put that into Calorie King and
it deducts it from my total calories and gives me my net calories
for that day which is between 1500 and 1800 calories.
Very cool!

Using the 2 methods works for me.

6 comments:

Chari said...

Ok maybe I do need this calorie king thingy, looks like they have a 30 day trial. I am doing ok counting myself, my problem is a recipe I make..how easy is it to add? I have Master Cook, but the database doesn't know some of the healthy stuff we eat Marshall, like agave nectar. I haven't figured out how to get it into the database...thoughts?

I wanna make this process as easy on me as I can. Spark People is cool, but the recipe thing is not ideal. We are a lot alike Marshall, I too have discovered I need to count calories, first time ever in my life. Who knew.

Thanks for your help....I wanna get fit and stay that way.

Chari

Vinyl Bozz said...

Using the program you can create
a "meal" or "dish" by selecting
the ingrdients and amounts and
when you are done it will give
you the total calorie.

The program's database is extensive
but I do find things that it
doesn't have.

For those items, it allows you
to add a custom item and you
tell it the serving size and calories and next time it's there
when you need to account for it.

It has very much kept me in line.

To get into the datanase, click on Foods and the search for it in
the search box. If it has it
than it will show it.

A great resoure I use a lot is
just Google if I need to program
something in that is not in the
database. Somewhere on the web you can hunt down the calories.

Let me know if I can be of further help. :)

Marshall

Chari said...

"Using the program you can create
a "meal" or "dish" by selecting
the ingredients and amounts and
when you are done it will give
you the total calorie."

Then do you have to figure out a serving? In Spark People I was always entering 0.25 for 1/4 cup and so on , but it got tricky figuring out what a serving was. Does your program let you do that with ease?

Thanks for all your help Marshall, check back later

Chari

Vinyl Bozz said...

I think you do just ad the portion size.

I know the software can be used in that fashion but to be completely honest with you I don't use that part of the program.

I find it too time consuming.

I put EVERYTHING under "Custom Foods". If it is a dish I seperately figure out the calories
by looking up each ingredient in the program or on the web or from the food packaging. Once I have the total calories I decide what a typical portion is and use that with whatever its calorie count is.

Like for the meatloaf. I figured out it was approx 1800 calories total . And I figured out
1 serving was 450 calories. So, I just have "Meatloaf" under Customer Foods with 1 serving
being 450 calories. I think I weighed the serving and put the ounces in but you don't even have to do that. You can put "1 slice"
or whatever you like.

Have a great evening.

Marshall

Chari said...

That sounds easier Marshall, maybe I am making all this harder than it needs to be. I will check out the program and see if it's something I can use forever.

My Aliens are back with full force, I only had 1 serving of php this morning. I think I am just gonna quit taking it all together, this is crazy!

Talk with you tomorrow.
You and wife have a great night!

Chari

Anonymous said...

Just found your blog via a posting on the YOAD site. It's great!

I'm also using a combination of YOAD and CalorieKing and doing better than I'd expected. I use the same name at CK.

My husband and I also like bison and get some very good meat from a bison farm here in upstate NY.

Take care,
Marcy