Towards the end of last year, I looked in a mirror and noticed that my fat had grown fat on top of it. I looked around at work and quickly noticed I wasn’t the only one who could classify themselves as “pleasantly plump”, so I asked my colleagues if they’d be interested in having a little weight loss competition. Before I say much more, let it be known that I am by no means a diet/weight loss expert, but I had a game plan and for two months I stuck with it, and 32 pounds later here is how Hot Pockets (and Lean Pockets) helped me lose my weight.
Before the competition started, when I would eat lunch at work, I would order from anywhere and everywhere. Fast food, pizza, hoagies, cheese steaks, cheeseburgers, calzones, strombolis, chicken, or anything that would be classified as crap was par for the course for my lunch entrée. So this got me thinking, what if I mix the best of all worlds and started eating Hot Pockets for lunch, as this would cut my lunch calories at least in half, if not more (I estimate I probably use to eat between 1000-1500 calories for lunch on any given day, possibly even more). One other thing people reading this should know about me is that I have a huge appetite, to the point where I have done several competitive eating competitions, and even have a profile on Eatfeats.com (the foremost website on competitive eating).
So I went to the super market, and started stock piling all different types of Hot Pockets and I would guess I probably bought between 30-35 boxes of Hot Pockets over this time. Thankfully the refrigerator at work could easily accommodate 5-6 boxes at a time, as I would store them in the freezer and would have them ready for when lunch time came. Another thing people should know about me is I’m not a huge fan of vegetables, so my choices for Hot Pockets instantly gets cut in half, but there are more than enough choices to keep me interested. Being that I have a huge appetite, my daily lunch would consist of two Hot Pockets and usually I would mix and match not having two of the same. My favorite thing to do was to have what I like to call a Hot Pocket brunch which would consist of having some sort of egg and cheese Hot Pocket along with whatever other regular Hot Pocket I’d would want for the day.
Besides eating Hot Pockets, I also started drinking a lot more water throughout the day as I am a big diet soda drinker, but I forced myself to drink a cup of water before I would engage in my daily diet soda habit. I’ve become so accustomed to drinking diet soda, that I like to consider my super power the inability to tell the difference between regular and diet soda (even though flying or super speed would be a much cooler super power, but I guess those just weren’t in the cards for me). In addition to that, I also would eat significantly less for dinner and not too much on the side items anymore (just a normal meat or chicken dinner), and pretty much cut out all sweets and desserts entirely for the two months of the competition. I wish I could say that this was something that came easy to me, but honestly, this was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
Less anyone think I am some sort of workout junkie, my normal routine on a weekly basis involved roughly a half hour, either two or three times a week, on the elliptical machine we have in our house. I can’t really recall any week I did more than three times on the elliptical machine, and a week or two where I only did it once. I think the biggest thing to my success was that I cut my overall daily calories to 1200-1500 calories per day, and I believe that mostly to be because of my lunch switch to Hot Pockets. There were a handful of work days over the last two months where I did not have Hot Pockets for lunch, but I’m guessing that over these last two months I ate between 60-70 Hot Pockets (as I also have some at home I would also occasionally eat on weekends as well).
I realize that my diet might not be for everyone, but what I can say is it’s hard to argue with results as hopefully the picture here would help you show how much weight I truly lost (I wholeheartedly realize I didn’t get much better looking as between my beak nose and the kind of posture that makes me pass as a hunchback, I am still not exactly GQ material). As a 6’1″ man, I started my journey at 239 lbs. and finished it at 207, which per the government’s BMI scale, I’m still considered overweight, but thankfully I gave up being obese a couple of weeks into the competition. My ultimate goal is to get to somewhere in the 185-190 lb. range, where the government’s BMI scale says I am at a normal rate, and also to score an endorsement deal as a new spokesperson for Hot Pockets (I work fairly cheap if the Hot Pockets people are reading this, at the very least I’d love some more free Hot Pockets).
As I said before, this kind of diet is clearly not for everyone but it did work for me, and I can’t thank the delicious people of Hot Pockets enough for their 250-300 calories per product, which really changed my life for the better. As a husband and a father to an almost three year old daughter, I’m hoping that my weight loss will help me to live a longer life because I’d really like to be there for all of my daughter’s important events, and want to be a good husband so my wife can continue to nag me for years to come. I’m hoping I can keep the weight off this time, as it was really hard to find the time to work out (even just three times a week for a half hour) and even harder to eat the amounts I was eating, being that I’m the same guy who once at a 11.5 hot dogs in an 8 minute span. In closing, if there was anything I learned from my Hot Pocket diet, it’s that the best way to lose weight is to simply eat fewer calories, and to have a reason for doing it, in my case, the two people who never stopped supporting me. I dedicate this article to my wife and daughter for their unconditional support and love because without it, none of the 32 pounds I lost would have been possible and can’t thank them enough for wanting to make myself the best father and husband I can possibly be.
