I lost over 100 pounds with this simple Microsoft Excel spreadsheet

This will be a bit of a personal article, and then if that's not your bag, feel free to skip over. However, I wanted to share some of my experiences, with the view it might assistance a few people out here and at that place. This is how I've lost 100-plus pounds with Microsoft Excel, and a scrap of old-fashioned willpower.

I've struggled with my weight for as long as I tin can think. As a kid, I but didn't really accept the "I experience full" machinery that other people seem to have, basically eating until I hit a wall of nausea to know whether or not I wasn't hungry anymore. This is something I carried with me through my teens and my developed life, made all the more worse by getting a work-from-home job. Coupled with the pandemic, and disposable income to spend on daily junk food, my weight went all the way up to effectually 420 pounds (probably higher — it was only when I dropped to 415 pounds that I could find domestic weighing scales that would really weigh me).

The pandemic has a lot of people re-evaluating their priorities. The data around the world suggests that obese people are more than susceptible to getting seriously ill with COVID. Even beyond that, I'd been dealing with a mysterious stomach disease for the by couple of years that fabricated me want to meliorate my health in general.

So, here's an overview of how I lost 100-plus pounds in around 10 months by simply using Microsoft Excel, and good old calorie counting.

My spreadsheet and weight loss methodology

Essentially, all I've done here is create a range of tables that allow me to input what I've eaten, and roughly how many calories per twenty-four hours, by tallying upwardly all of the calories eaten throughout each day. I've done it on a weekly rolling basis, then created a weekly average at the end of each seven-day block.

I also have a line graph at the height where I log my weight every Sabbatum for the past year, which offers an overview of my progress every bit before long every bit I open up the spreadsheet. The first time I was able to weigh myself was when I'd already dropped to 415 pounds (and when the scales stopped returning an error bulletin for being too heavy). In the commencement, losing weight was incredibly easy, but as you lot tin can see from the chart, it dropped down a bit over time every bit my trunk got more used to the new diet plan, and the (fairly minimal) do I was doing.

Excel has seen me steadily and gradually lose weight over the course of a year, to a point where I'm almost beneath 300 pounds for the first time in decades.

Since Christmas, I've stopped tracking my food intake so aggressively considering I'm trying to build up habits without having to log everything down. Admittedly, for me, it has certainly been a chip more difficult to consistently lose weight without actively counting, and then I may go dorsum to counting once more this week. Either way, actively counting and measuring helps y'all effigy out where to create a deficit. I find that if I swallow around 1,600 calories per day on a weekly rolling average, I will probably maintain my weight. If I want to lose weight, I need to create a deficit that goes beneath one,600 calories, which accounts for my relatively sedentary work-from-home lifestyle. I could certainly do more exercise to increase the number of calories I can eat, sure, just this is what works for me, and has worked for me thus far.

I've tried all of the restriction diets like keto and just institute that none of them really worked for me. This method allows me to account for "crook days" similar going out for a pizza and drinks with friends, considering I can average out the extra calories by eating less the adjacent few days, as I target around 1,200-i,500 daily average for the week. It besides helps me target calorie-sparse foods that are filling but contribute fewer calories overall to the average, such every bit lettuce and salad with a low-calorie dressing for flavour. Elementary tactics similar switching from bread to low-calorie crackers, or swapping out cheese for tuna on pasta has likewise helped immensely. What may otherwise seem like modest changes do add up, contributing to a big overall departure.

Excel has seen me steadily and gradually lose weight over the course of a year, to a point where I'chiliad almost beneath 300 pounds for the beginning time in decades.

The psychology of direct involvement

I've tried a lot of dieting apps like Noom, for example, which encourage you to build habits using psychology. Weirdly, none of these kinds of apps or services has ever worked for me. I call up Microsoft Excel works for me because it feels like I created the project, and am fulfilling the project, using my own system and my own information. Excel even has a more granular diet plan template you tin can use, but it didn't requite me the flexibility nor the weekly average tally I wanted to account for social events and cheat days.

Jez Weight Loss Tshirt Source: Jez Corden / Windows KeyThis T-shirt used to exist tight.

There are no doubt technical methods I could utilize to ameliorate my spreadsheet, like creating a database of food that will practise calculations for me. I am most definitely an Excel novice, merely I feel like my setup gives me a level of interest that I experience some apps remove from the procedure. Calculating calories has been a fleck harder in Germany, since their packaging often lists calories per 100 grams, forcing me to exercise annoying calculations and weigh food out. U.Thousand. packaging more oft lists calories per portion, which is far more friendly to this kind of method. Having to make those calculations somehow contributes to the sense of participation, though, in a mode I'm not really sure how to explain, even to myself. In that location'south something near building your own plan that existing apps and services don't really account for — at to the lowest degree for me, and my unique mentality around nutrient.

Evidently, everybody will have something unique that works for them. Weight issues and overeating represent circuitous medical problems that governments and scientists around the world are fighting to empathise. The intersection of social and genetic factors tin can make weight loss hard to achieve for many, despite how debilitating it can be. I can't express how good it felt to be able to get on a plane without needing a belt extender for the first time in well over a decade. And sure, I still take quite a means to become, but it's a great feeling to have made this progress. Unproblematic things like getting upwardly the stairs, or standing up in the shower are now pleasant tasks, rather than backbreaking missions.

If you lot're struggling with similar issues and would like to requite my calorie-counting method a become — you tin utilize my spreadsheet as a base of operations with this bare version. If you lot don't have Microsoft 365, Excel and Office on the web are free to use via OneDrive.com.