No-Starbucks Diet

The title says it all. I've given away my best secret. The key to losing weight is to cut out Starbucks...mostly.

As reported earlier, I began a Calorie Restriction diet on my birthday two months ago. In that short time, I've lost nearly 20 pounds. That's a bit faster than one is supposed to lose weight (5-6 pounds a month is recommended, at most), but I was afraid that if I didn't see results quickly, I'd give up. I don't know what my caloric intake was before Halloween, but since then, it's been only about 1600 cal/day. I'm guessing that I had 3,000 calories a day beforehand, and a lot of them came in the form of fats.

When I was teaching, my days were excessively long. I awoke at 6:30, tutored a student before school, taught from 8:30 till 3, and then tutored straight from 3:30 till about 6:30; I unicycled to and from work each day. My days were pretty exhausting. I self-medicated in order to stay awake in the afternoons, and my medication was available right down the block at our local Starbucks. In a typical day I had a vente latte and a huge chocolate chip cookies. Simply by knocking out this trip, I avoided 1,130 calories a day including many grams of fat.

Starbucks drinks are hard to give up. Thankfully there's Shirra, a fellow addict, to help out. These days, a couple times a week, I'll buy her a small or medium pumpkin spice latte, take a few sips, and give her the rest.

I have lost 20 pounds, but one thing I have kept is... lots of cash. Starbucks is high in fat, calories, and cost. Eliminating my daily treats has saved me over $100 in a short time.

How does all of this relate to New Paltz? Well, there is a Starbucks in town, and the people who work there are really nice, but I don't see as much of them as I used to.