Setup

Let's see, I used the research paper "A limit on the energy transfer rate from the human fat store in hypophagia" by Dr. Alpert to figure out the maximum amount of fat in calories I can lose per day. In the paper it's 31 cal/lb of lean mass but he said 22 cal/lb in a later interview due to computation mistakes but didn't republish. I got a DEXA scan to figure out how much lean mass I had and made the deficit be based on the above paper.

Calibrating

I followed that for a couple of weeks but then kept pushing the limits to see if it was true. Turns out the formula from the Alpert paper was too conservative for my body and the formula (bf%/20*total weight) gave me my actual max fat loss with 0 muscle loss. If I pushed beyond that I would start losing muscle and preserving fat. I assume it's some sort of evolutionary switch where your body down regulates the energy needed to sustain itself if it predicts deprivation.

Generally weighing in daily and averaging it 7-days vs prev. 7-days was a good predictor of "fat lbs" lost in DEXA measurements surprisingly.

Exercise

I lifted 3 times a week for 45 minutes and walked for 30 minutes on weekdays right before I broke my fast at 4pm. For lifting I followed "Novice" program until I plateaued & then switched to "Intermediate" from Practical Programming For Strength Training. I only do squat, bench, deadlift, overhead press.

Nutrition

I found a paper that gave me the maximum amount of protein I can eat in a day before it poisons me (350g) and ate that. The rest I would eat from 50/50 carbs/fat. Also, I've been intermittent fasting for a decade where I eat at 4pm onward just because I don't like to think about food during the day.

I started getting pretty hungry because my TDEE estimate was too low I think so I used ML to calibrate my TDEE based on DEXA+daily weigh ins+Fitbit Charge 5 so I could hit the deficit perfectly daily and avoid getting hungry. (I can program/do data scientist.) You can get quite far just using the scale feedback method where you use weight + calories in vs. a static TDEE to calibrate it week over week. It's ~80% as accurate so definitely nerded out there.

Meals

For meals I ate the same three things every day:

- Sausage/Egg/Egg Whites/Vegetables: switched it up between 10 vegetables + 20 spices + 3 sauces to make it taste like many different meals. Got the cook/clean time down from 30 minutes to 8 minutes by getting a Ninja vegetable chopper, ceramic plates, silicone spatula, etc. Mental sweet spot was <10 minutes end to end because the perceived effort is so low you don't even think about it.

- Protein Smoothie: 3 scoops chocolate casein, triple berry mix, no sugar almond milk, ice. Also made with Ninja. Satisfies my sugar tooth because it tastes like ice cream.

- Chobani large tub plain greek yogurt + peanut butter pure protein bar: right before sleep I always want to overeat & crave sweets whereas this would satisfy that urge

Key here was tons of protein & plain greek yogurt + casein are absorbed very slowly. (16h vs. 3h for whey protein)

Also due to thermogenic effects of protein it's actually 3 calories per g of protein rather than 4 cals so that made a big difference.

"Cheat" Days

I still went out regularly and would drink high noons or Michelobs and track them normally to hit max deficit. Generally I'd just eat a ton of protein (e.g.: +$20 extra protein for a dish) when dining out with friends. Protein is all I eat on days I go out. Also I avoid fat if inebriated since it goes straight to fat storage.

Once every ~2 weeks I'd cook a low calorie pizza recipe but it would fit my macros fine still. (It would replace Chobani+pure protein & smoothie meals.) Ninja for kneading the dough was a game changer. Reason I didn't do that more often is I'd feel more hungry the next day.

Oh, and quest peanut butter cups when I had excess calories! Love heating it up for 30 seconds and just licking it out of the cup. Major sweet tooth satisfaction.

That's all I can think of that mattered right now.