Summer Shape Up: Practical Weight Loss Strategies (That Even a Foodie Can Follow)

A good friend of mine was recently in an aerobics class where the instructor barked, "summer's coming, and he's gonna get your fat asses." God bless the genetically gifted among us who don't feel that statement acutely. For the record, we don't like you very much.

Bathing suit season is amazing for its ability to sneak up on a (beer swilling, cookie-eating) person. In January, we all make resolutions to eat nothing but sea vegetables and soy protein, imagining our heads pasted on Giselle Bundchen's bikini-clad body. "This year" we smugly think to ourselves, "will be different."

Unfortunately, "all new year's resolutions to lose weight will fail" is an absolute truth in a world full of conditionals. But, don't despair yet&mdashBehind the Burner has searched high and low to bring you a practical weight loss strategy. Fair warning: none of these tips will turn you into an eighteen year old Czech supermodel, but we guarantee that no one will mistake you for a beached sea-mammal either.

Getting Started

Before you choose a diet plan, you must purge yourself of illusions—there is no quick fix or magic pill that will allow you to fit back into your prom dress by the middle of June. Even if there were, you wouldn't want it—the diet drug Fen-phen worked wonders until it started to cause something the medical community liked to call "sudden death syndrome". So, put down the water bottle of lemon juice, maple syrup and cayenne pepper and face the (not so harsh) reality that you will have to do this the old fashioned way: reasonable portion sizes, lots of fruits and vegetables and hardly any processed crap.

Obviously, though, different bodies call for different plans. To figure out what suits you best, you need to determine your ideal weight. Luckily, you can do this right now in front of your computer with only the aid of the calculator on your cell phone.

The Formula for a Woman: add 100 pounds for the first five feet and 5 pounds for each additional inch. So if I am 5'6 (100+5*6), I should weigh around 130 pounds.

The Formula for a Man: add 105 pounds for the first 100 pounds and 6 pounds for each additional inch.

Once you have that number, you can determine the amount of calories per day that will bring you to your ideal weight. There are many online resources that will do this for you. If you're either masochistic or math-loving (which as far as I'm concerned are synonymous), you can also find plenty of formulas that allow you to calculate the number on your own. We thought about providing a formula here. Then, we remembered that math has not traditionally been our strong suit and, in the spirit of Behind the Burner, decided to leave it up to the experts.

The Basics

Amid all of the high protein, low-glycemic, vegan and raw diets that float around the cultural ether, there is only one proven method to lose weight: you must burn more calories than you consume in a day. For example, if you only ate a thousand calories of carrot cake and red wine a day, you'd lose more weight than someone who was eating two thousand calories of fresh fruits and vegetables. You'd also end up with a mean case of rickets and a mouth full of rotting teeth.

To stay healthy, you should give consideration to the nutrition tips that you either learned from your grandmother or Michael Pollan: eat your vegetables and learn to cook. Heeding this advice benefits you in two ways. First, studies have demonstrated over and over again that it will make you pretty. (Fine, these studies deal in specifics...but that's the gist of it). Second, it will keep you from being the anal-retentive at the table that checks the caloric content of dinner on her iPhone (I actually saw someone do that recently at a restaurant. Has technology completely eliminated manners?).

If you're really dedicated to losing weight, you might have to do some dull calorie counting at first. But, once you get into a new eating routine you can stop crunching numbers. Eating a diet of whole grains, fruits, vegetables and home cooked meals in reasonable portions will give you an intuitive idea of what you're ingesting that eliminates the need for constant calorie counting.

Although there is nothing show-stopping or sexy about the following tips, they will help you drop weight both for the summer and in long run.

Quick Tips

1. According to our nutritionists on the Behind the Burner, the best way to stay healthy and to lose weight is to eat mainly fruits, vegetables and whole grains. You can supplement these things with meat, dairy and even sweets. Just don't go overboard.

2. As an amendment to the former rule: nutritionist Natalia Rusib, from the hotspot Belgian restaurant Rouge Tomate suggests that eating should be 75% nutritional and 25% hedonistic. In other words, enjoy food. The delayed gratification will make the times you indulge even more satisfying.

3. Avoid processed foods. Advanced processing techniques and new additives have removed the food chain so far from nature that we no longer know the exact health implications of the things we eat. Theories suggest that artificial sweeteners can do everything from disrupt metabolic function to make you crave the very sweets they are designed substitute. Genetically modified crops have been subjected to little study, but they may be responsible for the mysterious surge of allergies among young people today. Unsubstantiated claims aside though, we know with absolute certainty that processed foods contain far more sugar, fat and sodium than any human being needs. Stick to real food whenever possible.

4. Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason. It doesn't take an enormous cognitive leap to understand that overeating will make you unable to wear a bikini this summer, not to mention its relationship to obesity and diabetes. Unfortunately, we live in a culture where it's difficult to avoid eating more than one should. Contemporary American eating habits woefully resemble those of domestic animals: we will eat until the food runs out or we explode, whichever comes first. Don't believe American chain restaurants when they tell you that twelve hundred calories of Chicken Parmigiana is dinner for a single human being—eat half (or even a third in some cases) and bring the rest home for lunch the next day.

5. Also, exercise caution with snacks. When nutritionists suggest eating a bit between meals, they mean a small handful of nuts or a rye cracker with a cube of reduced fat cheese (frankly, I'd rather just eat three meals a day). If you don't trust yourself to abide by those rules, don't snack.

Classic Pitfalls to Avoid

The French marketing professor Pierre Chandon did an interesting study recently in which he showed people on the street in Park Slope, Brooklyn (an affluent, liberal neighborhood) a picture of an Applebee's salad and a large non-diet soda. When asked how many calories the meal contained, most people overestimated the caloric content. However, when Chandon showed people the same meal accompanied by crackers that were prominently labeled "trans fat free" people drastically underestimated. Chandon showed these same images to people who weren't familiar with Applebees or New York City's ban of trans fat and they correctly estimated that the image with more food would contain more calories.

The outcome led the researcher to conclude that dieters are often duped by a so-called health halo. People eat larger portions of things that claim health or diet related properties even if they have more calories than the foods that do not. Don't allow yourself to be tricked—just because something is fat free, organic or low sodium does not mean that it is low in calories or that you can eat more of it than you ordinarily would. In fact, if it's touting all sorts of bombastic health claims, you can assume it's probably not good for you at all—Snackwell's cookies, anyone?

Finally, don't set your expectations unrealistically high—you'll doom yourself to failure. Be patient and know that if you follow a diet that emphasizes whole foods, restraint and a little bit of indulgence every once in awhile, you will lose weight.

Be a Foodie

It should have been clear from the beginning that Behind the Burner was not going to suggest that you stop eating well in order to look good. That said, I do not believe in Splenda laced cookies, butter substitutes, reduced fat cheese (I mean, what's the point?) or baked potato chips (again, why?). In fact, I do not believe that these Franken foods allow you to continue enjoying food at all. Have you ever tasted a Splenda cookie?

However, I do believe that seasonal, locally sourced food simply prepared can give you an appreciation that isn't possible with processed junk (no matter how much you love Chips Ahoy). Think about all the lovely things you can make around this time of year when spring vegetables start to appear at all the market stands. Ramp pesto. Steamed asparagus with homemade mayonnaise. Fava Bean Puree. Pasta with morels and artichokes. The possibilities make my mouth water.

Plus, if you aren't regularly filling up on nutrient-free, calorie dense foods, you have a little more space to indulge when you go out to eat. For example, cutting out the billions of empty calories in a Starbuck's Frapuccino will allow you to eat pulled pork sandwiches and full-fat cheese plates every once in awhile.

Don't Worry

On that note, it was our hope in compiling these tips that none of it would appear too daunting. Eating smaller amounts of healthier foods does not require you to spend more money or (much) more time than processed food does. Furthermore, there's nothing particularly complicated about it. It's how your ancestors ate for thousands of years before this whole industrialized food chain thing burst onto the scene. You don't have to remember a point system or the glycemic index, you just have to resist the urge to reach for the cellophane wrappers.

It's much easier to do this in the summer months when sweet corn, tomatoes, eggplant and basil are out in abundance. Plus, the wiggle room for treats will allow you to eat an ice-cream cone without the self-loathing encouraged by the South Beach Diet. And, if everything works out as planned, you'll enjoy the benefits of this diet so much that you'll never have to make another failed New Year's resolution to lose weight ever again.

— Written by Cecilia Estreich

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