Don Hyatt's Diet

I had tried diets before, but I was never very successful at counting calories. However, I finally did change my lifestyle. All I needed to do was learn to count to 5 (five). My 5-point plan is at the bottom of the page. It is simple to follow and judge for yourself. The weight came off, and I've kept it off. I feel much better and people say I look better. This simple plan has worked for me, and I don't think I'll ever be fat again.

Before:
August 1988     at SuperQuest

Statistics:     Age 41     Height 5' 10"     Weight 240 lbs     Chest 40", Waist 42", Hips 48"

After:

August 1996			August 1998	August 1999
Sixty Pounds Thinner			I've gained 4 pounds in the past two years.	Oops... I'm now up 10 pounds. Dropped off the diet as I worked on my ThinkQuest site and then I ate too much greasy food and NO vegetables while I was in England. No pictures right now.
Statistics:     Age 49    Height 5' 10"     Weight 180 lbs     Chest 44", Waist 32", Hips 39"			Statistics:     Age 51    Height 5' 10"     Weight 184 lbs     Chest 45", Waist 32", Hips 39"

The Portly Gentleman Story

One day, I overheard a very polite student referring to me as "that portly gentleman in the Computer Lab." Sure, I knew I was overweight, but somehow I had never personally connected with the term "portly gentleman". It was terrifying. The reality of that phrase cut to the bone. There I was, fat and old, the image of W.C. Fields. Although that certainly was not how I envisioned myself, it apparently was how others saw me. So, I decided I didn't want to be a Portly Gentleman anymore and this is how I lost my weight.

Don Hyatt's Count-to-Five Diet

1. I try to eat 5 servings of fresh vegetables every day. I don't like vegetables that much, but I realized that healthy people seem to eat them. While caring for my mother who was terminally ill with cancer, I noticed that she would often take the medicines the doctor prescribed, but then seemed to be too full to eat nutritious meals. So I decided to treat vegetables as though they were my medicine. Get those down first, and enjoy the meal later. I find it much easier now to eat vegetables, and I actually have learned to like some things. I also try to eat something really healthy each day, like raw broccoli. I have sometimes counted the tomato sauce on pizza as one vegetable, but ONLY one, no matter how much pizza I eat. I had to save room for four more servings of veggies before I can polished off that pizza.
2. I try to eat 3 to 5 servings of fruit each day. I like fruit better than veggies, so I usually end up eating five servings of these too, but I really only strive for three. I will usually have a glass of orange juice in the morning for that essential Vitamin C, and perhaps some more fruit on my cereal, and then a banana and/or pear at lunch.
3. I try to drink plenty of fluids, about 5 glasses of water (12 ounce) or other appropriate liquids every day. Part of this is in the form of low fat milk that I use on my oat bran cereal each morning. Oat bran is a good source of fiber, and the milk is an important source of calcium. Coffee or caffeinated drinks don't count since caffeine acts as a diuretic.
4. I try to do 5 types of exercise each day. The casual morning jog of 1.5 miles with the dog counts as one exercise, so then I have to find four more things to do during the day. I typically do some kind of light resistance exercises with free weights for part of it. The key is not much weight, but lots of repetitions. I also try to do the standard things to move my own body weight, such as pushups or pullups. At first I couldn't do a single pullup, but now I usually do 25 or more pullups along with several other exercises before I head out for the aerobic jog with the dog in the morning.
5. Once I've done the above four things, I am free to do (or eat) anything else I want. However, I do try to err on the side of low fat. The key is that by the time I eat and drink all that healty stuff, there is not much room to do significant damage. The exercise builds muscle which increases the metabolic rate, so the fat comes off more quickly. On the other hand, starvation diets slow down metabolism since the body is trying to survive difficult times. Such diets never worked for me or many others who have tried that approach.