I got a pack of sausages for $3.99 from Trader Joe's the other day for my daughter.  Obviously, I got the wrong sausage; she hated it.  So I was going to eat them this morning and found it to be healthier than I thought.  The sausage I bought was made with chicken and natural ingredients such as : skinless chicken meat, pure maple syrup, evaporated cane juice, dried apples, salt, lemon juice, and spices.

These are fully cooked, so all you need to do is heat them.  Since there's no microwave in our house, I pan fried them with a tiny amount of coconut oil.  I noticed that these sausages were a bit sweet for me, but it was delicious.  I could've eaten the entire package if I wanted to.

I was thinking maybe eating sausages is better than some of the protein bars I used to eat.  After all, these sausages have only 120 calories with 11g of protein.  The calories is substantially lower than the protein bars I eat.  Only thing I'm worried about is sodium, which is 340mg.  But some protein bars have relatively high sodium content, such as CLIF bars which has 240mg of sodium.  Also, this sausage has only  7 grams of carbohydrate, which is significantly lower than some of the protein bars I usually eat.

I may have to do more research on this, but based on price and ingredients, eating healthy sausages could be better than protein bars as protein source.  If you have any thoughts on this, please let us know.

After losing over 20 lbs over the last 8 weeks, I came to a conclusion that there's no default answer for this question. The simple answer is "depends"

If you do some research on the web, most of them say that female should stick with 1500 calories per day and men should stick with 2000 calories to lose weight. This is nonsense. Everybody has different BMI and different metabolism. I'm not pretending to be an expert in this, but from my experience, the perfect formula comes after few weeks of testing and tweaking.

Everyone has different magic formula when it comes to losing weight. This is what I've done to find my magic number.

How Many Calories Should I Eat a Day to Lose Weight?

1. Find out your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) - I highly recommend that you visit a fitness center and have them check your BMR professionally.  That's what I've done.  I've done my BMR test at a Life Time Fitness center.  My body burns about 2099 calories each day and I burn extra 630 calories by processing food and through normal daily activities.  That's about 2729 calories day that my body burns.
2. Set your weekly weight loss goal - My original weight loss goal was to lose 1 lb a week.  So how many calories in a pound of fat? According to reliable sources, 1 lb of fat is equal to 3,500 calories.  That means, if I lose 500 calories each day, I will be able to lose a pound in a week (of course in theory)
3. Calculate your magic number - So in my case, it will be 2729 - 500 = 2229
4. Tweak your magic number WITHOUT any exercise - After few weeks, see if how many pounds you are losing.  If you are losing too much, eat more.

In my case, in theory, if I eat only 2229 each day, I should be losing a pound a week.  But after eating about 2200 a day for few weeks, I've noticed I wasn't losing any weight at all, but I wasn't gaining either.  After tweaking my daily calorie intake, I was consistently losing weight at around 1900-2000 calories without any exercise.

Some may not agree with me on this point, but I don't put my exercise calorie burn into my formula.  I take it as bonus burn.  I think that's why I'm losing 2-3 pounds of weight each week in average during last eight weeks.  This is just how I do, you don't have to follow my plan.  If you wish to, just add your regular exercise calorie burn into the formula.  Your tweaking period will sort everything out.  Eventually, you will be able to adjust your daily calorie intake as you want, exercises included or not.

So there it is.  That's how I found out my calorie number to lose weight.  I hope you found it useful.

There are two drinks I think I'm addicted to; diet soda and coffee. I drink at least two diet sodas (cans) and about three cups of coffee each day. I know I know... too much caffeine and diet drinks are bad..

So what should I do about my caffeine addiction? Although I usually put a tiny bit of cream and Splenda in my coffee, I can probably drink coffee without those. I will probably have to cut it to a cup a day. I once tried to stop drink diet sodas and coffee completely and failed miserably. This time, I'm going to reduce gradually.

I can survive with a can of diet soda and a cup of coffee each day. I know many of you are laughing! but it is a big challenge for me. I usually drink a can of Diet Pepsi MAX (the best!) in the morning and one at night when I'm working on my computer (I need some boost). I can drink a can at night instead of morning.

Well, these are my plans on my diet soda and coffee addiction. I've already done this successfully yesterday and I'm sticking to the plan today as well.

When I began dieting, I wouldn't think it was going to be this challenging. If I stuck with my original plan, I should've already lost 40 lbs by now. I made myself a good excuse for not continuing the weight loss plan with my new born baby, but I've realized that it was just a terrible mistake.

I'm a bit depressed on the fact that I failed twice already with my weight loss journey. I was determined on each try, but couldn't sustain my determination for a long time. Here comes my third try. I'm not as motivated as I was, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Even if I fail once more, I believe it is better than doing nothing. Oh God help me :) I truly have respect for the people who have accomplished weight loss goals. And I now understand why people say "if you manage to lose weight, you can accomplish anything you want" It's hard!

My new week 1 begins today. Wish me a luck.

It's been sometime since I updated on my progress. I'd like to tell you that I'm still working hard on it. I've failed to keep up with my plan once already in the past, and I blogged about it. Since then, my weight went up to record-breaking 214! I started with 200 and lost down to 195. Then gained almost 20 pounds. That was very weird to me. I didn't over eat or anything, but once I changed my diet plan just a little bit, I gained weight like crazy.

It was very frustrating, but I was keep eating healthy food, and exercise. I'm eating often. About 5 small meals each day. Over the past few months, I got myself back to 202. I got down to around 199 in the morning, but I think 202 is more accurate at this point. So I'm back to where I started in the first place.

It feels as if I can't get pass under 200 pounds mark anymore. I was hitting between 199 - 203 pounds a few weeks even with carefully watched meals and regular exercises. Losing a pound a week take so much patience. It's hard, but I will do it no matter how many times I stumble.

Thanks all for your comments and supports.

Since my goal is to lose 40 lbs in 40 weeks, 1 pound a week, I needed to figure out how many calories to burn to lose a pound of fat. There are roughly 3500 calories in a pound of fat. That means, if I reduce my intake by 3500 calories per week, I can expect to lose a pound each week. That's 500 calories per day.

I think this is a great starting point for me.

I didn't expect to fail this fast but I have to admit and move on. I'm completely being honest to myself. I just stopped eating healthy and got off from the track. No excuses. I have start from week 1 again and keep my words, lose 40lbs in 40 weeks.

I know I disappointed my friends and readers, but I'm not giving up.

But there's more challenge ahead. Because my wife is pregnant and I can't cook from home (at least for now) because of her morning sickness. We go out and eat and I gained even more weight than I started from. Shame on me!

Anyway, with more challenges, I'm restarting my 40 week diet plan once more. Will I fall this time? I don't intent to, but it will be challenging.

Please pray for me and keep following my progress.

I was listening to my favorite fitness podcast yesterday while working out at the gym.  I forgot the name of the person who was being interviewed, but for fat loss, he recommended to have protein before and after exercises.  Usually I take protein drink before the exercise session, and eat carbs after for my body to recover.

So I'm going to cut my carbs little more and stick with protein drinks even after my workout.  I expect to lose more weight this way.

I have this huge urge for a icy cold coke today.   It is incredibly humid and hot.  The weather is just killing me and my diet!  I might end up getting a bottle of Coke Zero instead of the regular one.  But today is tough.  I hope I don't end up drinking too much soda today.

I will be out all day today with my wife hunting for some old mantels at architectural salvage yards.  To prevent myself from drinking too much soda, I will have to carry with me a big bottle of icy water with me.

I've been doing great with exercises.  I know I don't have to work out for 2 hours everyday, but I've been at the gym for at least 2 hours each day.   I had a full rest day yesterday.  So I'm going back to the gym tonight.   The only challenge is that I end up going to the gym in the night.  When I exercise in the morning, I feel little dizzy.

Ok, I'm heading out now.

Luckily (well in some sense...), my father is not in the states at the moment.  My father is in Mexico as a missionary.  This means no big family meals today.  It would've been a disaster for my diet if he was here in the US.

Today,  I had a super shake that I came up with, and shrimp as my lunch.  The only food that I had outside of my plan was a Coke Zero... although it says there's no calorie in the drink, I think it's doing something bad on my body.  I need to find some information about diet drinks.  Are they ok to drink or what?  hmmm  if you know, please let me know.

I think I drink 1 Coke Zero per day although it's not in my diet menu.

Other than that, I did pretty well today sticking to my diet plan.  Again, no change in my weight or my waist line.  lol.