Bernstein vs. Cleaver. A medically supervised diet without exercise against a self-directed diet with exercise.

My wife has lost 33 pounds since we both started this journey at the end of January. I have lost 26 pounds. My wife is within a couple of pounds of her target. I still have another 10 pounds to go.

I use CalorieKing Nutrition and Exercise Manager software. I track every single piece of food that I eat. And I track every single exercise session. My wife uses a paper form that Bernstein provides to track her food intake. She does not track exercise and she did not engage in any form of exercise.

My exercise program consisted of heavy aerobic spinning — I followed Troy Jacobson’s Spinervals program with my road bike and fluid trainer — 7 to 10 hours a week. I have been burning roughly 600 calories each day through exercise. I have been eating on average 1,400 calories per day. This does bring my net intake down to 800 calories which is borderline in terms of low caloric intake. My weight loss has been averaging 2.6 pounds per week.

Needless to say, I could not keep up to Bernstein. The fact that my wife has achieved such impressive results through diet alone is interesting. Her net daily caloric intake has actually been higher than mine although her food choices were very narrow. Primarily vegetables and proteins. I have been very sensible in terms of the quality of foods I have been eating but I have not followed Bernstein’s meal plans.

I thought that the combination of exercise and strict monitoring of calories would allow me to keep pace with the Bernstein program. It did not.

However, the base building that I have done over the past three months has put me in the best physical condition for riding since my days of racing over thirty years ago. I really do feel terrific.

And it does feel great to get back into 32-inch pants.