Are you familiar with the philosophy behind the Reward Diet(TM) program? If not, click here.

The Shot in the Dark:
 
The program itself is very simple. First, you need to determine at what level of calorie intake per day you will lose weight. This is done through trial and error. For example: when I started out, I decided that I would have two meals a day: lunch and dinner. The reason I decided to skip breakfast altogether was because I generally don’t have breakfast anyway. (More on alternatives to Subway® for breakfast later.)

Since I had no idea how much food I had been consuming up until that point, I had to find the magic number in terms of calories per day that was going to allow me to lose weight. I decided that I would let myself pick any sandwich on the menu with all the fixings including oil and mayonnaise. In addition, I would also purchase a bag of chips with each meal, but I would always have either water or a diet soda to wash the food down with.

My plan was to keep with this level of intake of food for two weeks and see what happens. As it turned out, I ended up losing 2 pounds each week. I wasn’t expecting this, of course. Two footlong sandwiches are a lot of food even for a guy like me (I am 6’ 1”, and weighed 210 pounds at the time). I was full after each meal, and my desire to have something sweet for a quick burst of carbohydrates greatly diminished after the first week.

Now, for you personally, this may be too much or too little food. It will be up to you to determine where your “sweet spot” is. Your goal here should be to cut back on your food intake just enough so that you start losing weight. There is no need to do too much too soon. You will only increase your chances of failure that way. Just enough is the way to go.

If you find that you are not losing weight, you might want to consider cutting out the chips, the mayonnaise or both. Alternatively, you could also just eat one and half sandwiches a day. You could ask your friendly subway personnel to cut your footlong sandwich at lunchtime in fours, and you could save a quarter for dinner when you would only purchase a 6-inch sandwich in addition.

Here are a few sample diet plans you might want to consider. Change them around as you wish to suit your particular needs.
 
 
Go to Sample Diet Plans
 
 
Taking It to The Next Level

Once you start losing weight consistently, you will know that you are on track. If your weight levels off eventually, but you have not reached your goals yet, you will need to make further modifications to your diet. When I wasn’t happy with the rate with which I was losing weight after about three months, I cut out the chips from my diet. It saved me an average of 300- 500 calories a day. The ordeal turned out to be a lot more effortless than I expected. In the beginning, I couldn’t have done it without the chips. Chips contain a considerable amount of fat, and they are a great source of energy. I just had to have it! But now that I have gotten used to my diet and it has become effortless, taking it to the next level was no problem at all. Eventually, I could do without mayonnaise, and even further down the line I cut back to one and a half sandwiches a day. Folks, if you were to plug these numbers into the Subway® sandwich calculator, you would find that it is the equivalent of 1500 to 2000 calories a day. This was possible, because I have made incremental changes to my diet over time and allowed those changes to become a fact of life before taking it any further.
 
 
Your Day Off

Breaking away from your routine on a regular basis is very important. I cannot emphasize this enough. I don’t care how healthy your diet is for you physically, if it cripples your spirit, in my opinion, it is not worth it. Don’t get me wrong. I like sandwiches and Subway® makes a great sandwich. But I look forward to my day off. It helps me get through the week and, boy, do I make the most of it. There is no holding back. I indulge in huge and elaborate meals and ridiculously sweet desserts - you name it.

Don’t worry, no matter how hard I have tried to undo the progress I have made during the week, I have never succeeded. I believe it is partly due to the fact that when you binge most of it is just bound to go through you due to its shear volume; but also because your stomach eventually shrinks preventing you from eating even close to the amount you were used to.

However, it gives you something to look forward to and hold out for during the week. Knowing that you have a day coming up when you can go crazy if you wish leaves you with no excuses to cut corners on diet days.
 
 
What About Breakfast?

If your local Subway® does not offer breakfast sandwiches or if you think that eating Subway® three times a day is just a little too much, it is okay to have something else. The key here is to keep what you have outside of Subway® constant as much as you can. Is your choice of breakfast a bowl of cereal? That’s fine. Or, do you prefer a couple of toasts with the jam? It is perfectly okay. It is up to you.
 
 
Maintenance

Let’s say you have reached your goal. Your old clothes fit again; and when you look in the mirror, you like what you see. Now what? Again, it’s up to you. Now that I have reached my goal of losing 30 pounds, I have at least two days of no Subway® sandwiches and sometimes three. But, I have come to appreciate the sensation of feeling light after each meal. When it’s time to return to my routine, I actually look forward to it just as much as I am looking forward to my days off. One thing you should keep in mind, though, is that the longer you break away from your routine the harder it will be to get back on it again.
 
 
Vegetables

Vegetables are your friends. They can increase the volume of your sandwich a great deal while adding very little or no calories - either in form of carbohydrates or in form of fat - to your diet. Some of them even represent negative calories, meaning they will require more calories to digest than they contain. Your friendly sandwich artist will be glad to max out your sandwich with any or all vegetables free of charge.
 
 
 
Ready to get started? Here is how you do it:
 
 
Step 1: Create an account
 
In order to get started with the Reward Diet™ Program, first you must create an account. Go to the Sign Up page.

Watch a short video tutorial on how to sign up. (Will open in a new window. If you have a popup blocker, you might have to press ‘Ctrl’ before you click on this link.)
 
 
Step 2: Change your password.

Change your password to something you will actually remember. First, go to the Login Page, and enter your username and the password we have sent to you in the registration confirmation e-mail. Once logged in, go to the My Account page and change your password to whatever you like.
 
 
Step 3: Familiarize yourself with the software.

Watch a video demonstration of how the system works. (This will open in a new window. If you have a popup blocker, you might have to press ‘Ctrl’ before you click on this link.)

 
 
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