I’m a fashion/celebrity photographer based in Hollywood and over the years, my lifestyle caught up with me. I was 6′ tall and 185 pounds and I was going to parties and fancy dinners every night to meet and entertain current and potential clients. When the lockdown happened and I was 37 years old, I had an epiphany that I could not continue to eat and drink whatever I wanted and I decided to focus on my health.
After doing extensive research online, I came up with a plan. I would cook my own food so I knew exactly what I was putting in my body. I counted calories using the Lose it app and restricted my calories to the following.
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What I Actually Did to Lose 30 Pounds
The short version: At 6 feet tall I went from 185 to 155 pounds in about two months. I ate 1,500 calories Monday through Friday, 2,500 on Saturday, and nothing on Sundays, no food and no water. My eating window was about an hour a day, and I did cardio six days a week with muscle training every other day.
Sunday was the hardest and simplest part of the whole plan. Zero calories, and zero water too. That is a dry fast, and I have written up the full experience separately in my 75-hour dry fast if you want the details of what the no-water days actually felt like.
Calories I would eat
M-F: eat 1500 calories
Saturday: 2500 calories – I would do this each week to shock my body. I didn’t want my body to get used to ‘surviving’ on 1500 calories a day because that would mean that my metabolism would slow down.
Sunday: Each Sunday, I would have zero calories, no water either.
The only time I would consume food or water would be once a day. My eating window would be about an hour. I would get used to consuming absolutely nothing during the other hours, except for Saturday which I would eat all throughout the day.
2026 Update: How I Eat Now on My Cut
This post is from 2021. As of October 2026 I am cutting again, this time toward roughly 10 percent body fat, and the numbers look different because the goal is different. Back then I was chasing speed. Now I am chasing a look I can keep.
- Target: about 2,200 calories per day. My maintenance is roughly 1,800 plus 60 calories per 1,000 steps, plus 300 on lifting days, so 2,200 lands me in a steady 300-calorie deficit on training days.
- Protein: 180 grams or more per day. High protein is the reason I kept my muscle the first time around. The research has caught up with what I did by instinct: a 2018 meta-analysis of 49 trials found muscle gains level off around 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight, and trials in a calorie deficit show higher protein plus lifting preserves lean mass while fat comes off.
- Portions by hand, not by scale. I still eyeball portions, and my rule is to compare everything to my visible hand in food photos. One slice of my default bread, Inked Bread Co. organic sourdough, is 49 grams: 120 calories, 5 grams protein, 24 grams carbs, 0.5 grams fat.
- Daily stack additions since 2021: 5 grams of creatine monohydrate daily (see creatine safety, kidneys, and long-term use), plus whey isolate on days I fall short of the protein target.
My eating window is no longer one hour a day. These days I eat across a normal day closer to a 16:8 intermittent fasting pattern, because a one-hour window was a sprint tool, not a lifestyle.
Exercise
I did some type of cardio 6 days a week and on the Sunday, I would rest. I would exercise on an empty stomach without any food or water. At first, it was really tough for me to get through my workouts without water, but then I got used to it. Every other day, I would do some form of muscle training, working out my chest/tris, back/biceps or legs. The same cardio-plus-lifting split anchors our body fat reduction guide, which lays out the deficit and protein targets behind it.
Low Calorie Foods
Here’s a list of low calorie foods that I would eat so I could keep my calories down to 1500 a day.
Crepini – egg wraps at costco – 30 calories a wrap
Keto Bread – costco – 30 calories a slice – I toast the bread and put celery, peanut butter, cinamon, apples on it – delicious
Celery, Broccoli Rabe, water cress, cucumbers, kale spinach – these are amazing because they are low calories and very low carbs
Kim Chi – eat on the side
Eat Chinese Snow Fungus Soup
amazing for skin, low calories, packed with anti oxidants
Fruits: strawberries are 3 calories each so you can eat a ton of them
Cauliflower is low calories and will actually make you feel full so eat a lot of this. Eat Cauliflower rice
Broccoli is great to eat
Mushrooms – eat a ton of them!!!
Powdered Peanut Butter – barely any calories, way less than regular peanut butter
Nature’s Wild Berry– these are the berries that make citrus, tomatoes, hot sauce, and vinegars sweet. If you have a salad with this, it will have your tastebuds whirling. The sourness of it will make you feel full so you won’t feel like eating much. You will eat huge salads, not use any sugars and barely eat any calories
Don’t eat rice, and other bread, chips – stay away from carbs because they have a lot of calories
Shirataki noodles – brands: Miracle noodles or healthy noodles (available at Costco)
kelp noodles – these are available at whole foods
Nupasta – low calorie noodles
Mustard – barely any calories so use it for flavoring
Do NOT eat cookies, chips, bread, fruit juices, coconut water
Salad dressings – use apple cider vinegar, white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar – experiment with these because they have no calories
If you eat avocados, only eat a quarter or not that much. They are high in calories
If you eat nuts, only eat a serving as they can be high in calories
For muscle building, I would highly suggest Ohmino over protein powder. This is the stuff that the astronauts use. No calories, no carbs. I mix this with apple cider vinegar
Drink Fenugreek Seed water for your hair & digestion
Drink Ash Gourd (winter melon) juice for digestion/weight loss
Almond Milk Creamer to make smoothies creamy ( 5 calories a serving) https://amzn.to/3i23I8I
Since you are in the cutting mode, you want to just eat enough to feel satieted. Don’t worry about getting the nutrients..you have plenty of them!!!
When you workout, put this stuff on your body so you sweat like crazy and burn more fat: https://amzn.to/31jwHOH
Get a sauna waist band to sweat when you work out:
For hydration, you need trace minerals
Run the Math: Calorie Deficit Calculator
One pound of body fat stores roughly 3,500 calories, so your daily deficit sets your weekly pace. This calculator uses my math. A warning from the research: the 3,500 rule works as a rough estimate, but NIDDK researcher Kevin Hall showed it overpredicts long-term loss because metabolism adapts, so treat the timeline as a starting plan, not a promise.
For information only, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before changing anything.
I went from 185 pounds to 155 pounds at 6 feet tall in 2 months.
Now that I cut the weight, it was time to build muscle. I will keep you posted on my muscle burning journey! Good luck cutting weight. What has kept it off since then is not stricter dieting but better daily defaults, much like the Blue Zones longevity habits.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much weight did you lose and how fast?
I went from 185 to 155 pounds at 6 feet tall, which is 30 pounds in about two months. The weekday plan was strict, 1,500 calories Monday through Friday, with a 2,500-calorie Saturday and a zero-calorie Sunday with no water.
What did you eat on the 1,500-calorie weekdays?
Mostly high-volume, low-calorie foods: egg wraps, keto bread with celery and powdered peanut butter, big salads with vinegar dressings, cruciferous vegetables, mushrooms, strawberries, shirataki and kelp noodles, kimchi, and Chinese snow fungus soup. No rice, bread, chips, cookies, fruit juices, or coconut water.
Did you really drink no water on Sundays?
Yes. Sundays were zero calories with no water either, which is a dry fast. I covered hydration during the week with trace minerals. I would not recommend copying the no-water part without reading up on the risks first.
What are your calories and protein now, in 2026?
About 2,200 calories a day with 180 grams or more of protein. My maintenance runs roughly 1,800 plus 60 calories per 1,000 steps plus 300 on lifting days. I portion by comparing food to my hand in photos.
Is a 1,500-calorie diet safe?
It was aggressive, and it was a short-term sprint, not a lifestyle. If you are considering anything this strict, talk to your doctor first, especially if you take medication or have any metabolic condition.
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