Lose Your Gut without Hating Your Life

When the producers of TLC’s Virgin Diaries—which documents the lives of adult virgins—called 35-year-old Carey Ahr to be on the show, here’s what was in front of him: a bottle of wine, Chinese food, and a big cookie. Holy crap, he thought. I need to lose weight. He made a fast goal: lose the 10 pounds the camera adds by the time the show filmed. Five weeks later he’d lost 17. Today he’s lost 31. How’d he do it? The Twitter-lover (@careyahr) describes it in 140 characters:

“Choose your calories. Eat what you want. Choose your exercise. Burn how you want. Splurge Day once per week. Lose 10 lbs/mo. #HolyCrapDiet”

In slightly more than 140 characters, here’s his advice to other regular guys trying to lose their gut.

Choose Your Calories
The first thing Ahr did was cut his daily intake to 1,200 calories a day. After week one, he started 1,500-calorie days dropping 10 pounds in 14 days. You’re probably wondering: Cravings? (Doesn’t he miss the Chinese food?) Ahr says he drinks water to stave any urges off, but doesn’t crave much. “My body has gotten used to how full I get off of my daily calorie intake,” he says. For an easy calorie-counting tool, click here.

Eat What You Want
At friends' birthday dinners, Ahr still orders pasta. For home-cooked meals, he’ll make macaroni and cheese. The catch? “I eat half of what I used to. I take leftovers home and have them the next night for dinner,” he says.

Choose Your Exercise, Burn How You Want
When TLC called, Ahr made a pact with himself: no more wimpy workout attempts. He was going to run or walk 2 miles every day. “I’d been running before, but I wasn’t losing weight and I couldn’t make it 2 miles. Eventually I stopped caring,” he says. Here are a few healthy pasta recipes to try at home.

You can make it easy for yourself, too. Ahr runs around his company’s parking lot every night when he gets out of work. It takes less than a half hour, and he doesn’t need a gym membership. Recently, Ahr completed his first 5K race.

More from MensHealth.com: Beginning Runners' FAQ

Splurge Once Per Week
Every Sunday Ahr says that he doesn’t count calories. (He doesn’t go buck wild either. He is a virgin.) “I found it’s easier to look at Doritos or ice cream and think I can have them on Sunday, instead of I can’t have them at all. Plus, by the time Sunday rolls around, you may not even want them.” See our picks for healthier junk food choices.

A few other things that have worked? Ahr posts his weight-loss progress to his Google+ account. His goal is to sink below 200. (As of the time of this post, he’s at 215.)

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