Wear a size 6

How I did it: I was a size 10 when I started this, just to give a frame of reference. It was only 2 sizes difference, but it went very quickly.

First and foremost, I reevaluated my eating habits. With the help of a friend who knows nutrition very well, I came up with a meal plan for all seven days of the week, based on my nutritional requirements for certain days of the week and certain times of the day. I ate 6-7 meals a day, each containing a full and generous serving of complete lean protein and the addition of either a healthy carb, healthy fat, or vegetable, or combination of these.

I used a casic carb-cycling plan which gave me 2 high carb days, 2 med carb days, and 3 low carb days to coincide with when my body would need carbs on my exercise plan. Any nutritionist worth their salt can help you with this.

I didn't stop indulging myself. I let myself eat whatever I wanted 10% of the time. I went for sushi, I had pizza, I went for beers and chicken wings... but not as often, and when I did, I tried to use what I knew about nutrition to choose a slightly healthier choice. Also, because I was eating so much more often, I was never very hungry so it was easy to keep from overindulging on treats.

In fact, it was hard for the first month to force myself to eat that much. By the time I was finished one meal, it had taken so long that I was about ready to eat the bext one. Push through, get your stomach and body used to being fed the way it was intended. It will pay off.

I joined a gym and started going every Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri. I did high intensity interval training on the treadmill for about 20-30 minutes before each workout and followed up with serious weight training. I was spending about 4-5 hours a week at the gym versus the 6-8 hours I had been spending walking before.

To summarize, I ate more and exercised less and lost the weight. This is possible by eating to fuel your body more efficiently, and exercising to work your body more efficiently.

Lessons & tips: The only fast way to lose weight is to put on muscle. The more muscle your body has, the more calories it burns just existing. In order to build muscle, you have to damage your muscle fibers with weight training, and the fastest way to do this is with heavy weights. Women are almost completely safe from becoming muscley without the use of hormone supplements, so do not worry about turning into a lumpy she-man. It won't happen.

Don't bother with the elliptical machine or walking on the treadmill unless you have an injury which prevents you from training more aggressively. Spending 20 minutes doing HIIT (high intensity interval training) will do much more for your overall health and weight loss than an hour of walking.

EAT BREAKFAST. Specifically, eat carbs and proteins and fruit for breakfast. Every day. Ideally within about 15-20 minutes of waking up. Your body has been starving for 8 hours while you sleep. If you don't feed it right away, it assumes it will not be fed regularly and starts preparing to make fat stores. I have 2 pieces of fruit, a chicken breast, and a bowl of quinoa for breakfast every morning. Yes, it is unusual, but you get used to it, and you will feel amazing and see great results.

EAT MORE. Do not let more than 2-3 hours pass between meals. Real meals, with a protein and vegetable etc. If you eat frequently, your body learns that food is always available and won't try to store fat. On my diet, I ended up consuming about 500 more calories every day than I was before, but because I was eating more frequently and eating the right foods, my body burned right through them.

All calories are not created equal. Neither are proteins or carbs or fats. Educate yourself on what a lean protein is versus a fatty protein. Things like carrots and corn are actually carbs, not vegetable, and are not good carbs.  Here's a quick cheat list:

1. Lean proteins are things like chicken breast, turkey breast, egg whites, and lean fish (whitefish).
2. Good carbs are things like whole grain brown rice, sweet potatoes (yams), squash, quinoa, split peas, black beans, and steel cut oats.
3. Good fruits are bananas, anything with a pit (peaches, nectarines, mangoes, etc) and berries. Don't bother with the rest, it's a wasted fruit serving.
4. Good fats are raw almonds and fish oil. Olive oil is also good, but only in its pure and uncooked form. As soon as you cook it, it's not good for you anymore.

Do not consume any fats within about 2 hours of your workout, with the exception of the milk fats contained in your whey-protein post workout shake, which should be consumed as soon as possible after finishing, and definitely within half an hour.

Resources: http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/ 
but more specifically:

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/women/doit.htm

http://www.johnberardi.com/updates/oct252002/na_fatimm.htm

http://www.johnberardi.com/updates/sep272002/lp_sep272002.htm

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/7habits.htm

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/complete.htm

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/leaneating_1.htm
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/leaneating_2.htm

Basically, the more you learn about how your body works, the better you'll understand how to positively impact your progress through better intake and more effective output.

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Dec 31, 2008, 09:20AM PST | 2 comments | 2 cheers