How to Lose 1lb per Day: A Success Story

Alan Dill lost over 123 lbs in 119 days.

That's over 30 lbs per month!

How?

With the help of a desk bike.

Seem to good to be true? Read on to find out the details of how he did it. You don't need to do back-breaking exercise, or take time out of your busy schedule to exercise. Losing weight can be as easy as pedaling while you work (something you have to do anyways).

You can think of it as getting paid to exercise. Or getting paid to lose weight. What a win-win situation!

Don't work a desk job? Don't have the time to exercise? Alan has you covered. Read below to see his awesome tips and tricks so you too can drop the pounds as quick as possible.

Alan is living proof that you don't need to go to the gym to lose a substanial amount of weight in a short amount of time.

So what are the details?

Alan outlines three cruial steps to his success:

Consume a low-calorie diet of fruits, veggies, and lean protein

Alan's diet consisted of healthy and low-calorie, water-rich vegetables and fruits and small portions of lean meat, poultry, and fish, while avoiding added salt or sugar. He recommends that if you are vegan, you should replace the lean meat, poultry, and fish with legumes instead. He says if you eat these kind of foods you will stay full as they are bulky and nutritious and will give you a greater advantage than eating smaller portions of the same unhealthy foods you are already eating - as those types of foods will lead to greater hunger and an increased likelihood of binging.

Rather than three large meals, Alan preferred to eat smaller portions of the healthy foods listed above throughout the day. He would plan his daily diet ahead of time and use a food scale to accurately weigh out his portion sizes so that he would always know how many calories he was consuming. Although it may seem daunting to weigh and track every morsel you eat, since most foods these days have calories readily available online, "keeping track of calories can be one of the easiest things to do on your weight loss journey." During the duration of his weight-loss journey he kept his total calories to approximately 1200 a day. Despite dieting on minimal calories, he insisted you never have to starve yourself on a highly-nutritious and water-rich diet based on fruits and vegetables - in fact, he says starving yourself is one of the worst mistakes you can make when trying to lose weight. While a diet rich in fruits and vegetables may seem expensive, he suggests that you buy in season and on sale, check markdown sections of your grocery store, and/or price-match ahead of time by looking through the fliers or downloading an app such as the "Flipp" app to compare prices of yoir diet staples between retailers.

When Alan would have any cravings, he would reheat a bag of frozen green beans, and eat them, one by one, until he no longer had the urge to snack. Other tips to quelch cravings include raw veggies, a cup of tea, sugar-free popsicles, or sugar-free gum.



Burn maximum calories throughout the day

Alan's main form of exercise included cycling on a stationary desk bike for 4-6 hours, 7 days a week while he worked. "It didn’t take too long for me to forget that I was pedaling while I was working." he said. "That’s the beauty of the plan. I was constantly working the most powerful muscles in my body which consistently resulted in me burning a huge amount of calories. Working on the laptop was a great distraction that kept me going". Not only is low-resistance cycling an easy way to be productive while burning calories, it is also easy on the joints and light on the muscles - so you don't end up sore and tired. Since low-impact aerobic exercise is easy to maintain over longer periods of time, you are able to burn more total calories than you would if doing shorter, higher-intensity workouts. And, since it is easier to recover from, you can do it daily. Choosing low-impact endurance exercise you can easily do for hours a day adds up. Even if you don't work a desk job, you can use a desk bike while you do other leisurely activities after work - for example, surfing the web, reading, watching TV, studying, or browsing your social media. And one of the best parts is you can do it all in the comfort of your own home! The key to success here is to set the exercise bike’s tension to a level high enough to burn a huge amount of calories but not high enough to interfere with your work or cause excessive muscular fatigue.

In addition to daily cycling, Alan also incorporated movement into the remainder of his day as much as possible. For example, he would walk or cycle instead of driving and do his own house cleaning, yard work, gardening, and snow shovelling. If he did have to drive somewhere further away, he would park his car at the far end of the parking lot to get more steps in for the day. "Keeping yourself moving every day with activities like walking, running, biking, swimming, tennis, yard work, weight resistant workouts, etc." is one of his keys to success, Alan says.

As his weight decreased and his strength increased, Alan would decrease his daily calorie alotment and increase the length of time he spent exercising each day in order to maintain his deficit. He states "what many dieters fail to do on their weight loss journey is to adjust the number of calories they consume and the length and intensity of their daily workouts" because "as our bodies become leaner and stronger, they also become more efficient at burning calories".



Maintain a positive mindset

Alan believes one of the most important steps to achieve and maintain weight loss is by keeping a positive, determined mindset throughout the whole process, even once you achieve your goal weight. He says this is what will keep you focused and motivated, and if you do that, "everything else will fall into place". "In life, whether we believe we can do something or not, we will be proven right so keep your thoughts positive and your determination strong. You are 100% in control of the outcome, so throw away all of your excuses and do what you need to do to succeed. You are the only one who gets to decide if you will win or fail on your weight loss journey." So what can you do to lose weight right now if you are feeling hopeless? "You probably can’t." says Alan, "however, if you were to tell yourself that this is the best time for you to lose weight, things could quickly change."

Alan was very specific about his thought processes. "I took the mindset of a World Champion. I was 100% positive and I believed without a doubt I could do it" he said. With that, he decided that he would only think, speak, and write about his weight loss in a positive manner. Every day he told himself that he was among one of the greatest of all time. He says that, because of that decision, "[he] knew without a doubt [he] was going to lose a lot of weight and was going to do it very fast".

For accountability and motivation, Alan joined a support group and weighed himself daily. By joining the local chapter of a TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) Support Group, he had an officially documented weight in to give him the accountability he needed, while the support from other TOPS members kept him motivated and inspired. Whether you join a weight-loss group or not, Alan says to keep weighing yourself at least weekly so that even after you achieve your goal, you can make sure your weight stays where you want it to be.

Alan also says to not let emotions get in the weight of logical weight-loss progression or compare yourself to others on their own journies. "I am a logic-based person so I didn’t allow my emotions to distract me from what I was about to do. I’m a man of math and science so I absolutely believe with all certainty that if I create a calorie deficit of x amount for the month that I’m also going to lose about y amount of pounds during that same time period". Alan never worried about hitting a plateau because he knew as long as he continued to apply the correct mathematical formula he would lose weight. He mentions how important it is to stay logical, as getting caught up in a rollercoaster of emotions instead of logic can backfire into an erratic starve and binge cycle, preventing long-term success.

Rather than luck or skill, Alan credits his work ethic as a major factor in his success. "I like to do hard things" he says, "and by doing hard things, I can reach my goals much faster and even easier than the person who doesn’t enjoy doing hard things. It doesn’t matter how talented you are because if someone is willing to way outwork you, they are probably going to beat you."

To start, Alan recommends committing just 5 minutes daily to your dream. Usually you will end up doing more. But just commit to 5 minutes. Just start. Get the ball rolling. You will thank yourself later. He recommends everyone keep dreaming and beleiving in his or her big dreams, believes the best days are ahead of you, are grateful for everything, and keep going with your routine. If you dare to keep going, he says, you will continue to do amazing things!

But what about if family or friends do not support or believe in you? Well, even with his own wife trying to bring down his dreams, Alan would say: “In spite of anything that you do, I’m going to win”. He proved her wrong. And you can do it too.

For Alan, "it was very easy and I enjoyed my routine". That is huge. We want our routines to be as enjoyable and as easy as possible to maintain in order to achieve the coveted long-lasting success we all desire. So choose healthy foods you love, exercise that you look forward to, and keep an optimistic outlook on your future in as many areas of your life as possible. Dream big. Follow your dreams. And never give up. And to close, some final words from the man himself, Alan Dill: "My best to you on your weight loss and fitness journey. KEEP BELIEVING AND KEEP GOING"

Hope you enjoyed this motivational success story of how weight loss can be easier than you could ever imagine!
Amanda

All information summarized from Alan Dill's Quora posts and answers.