I’ve dieted and lost weight many times. I’ve lost over 30lbs since January and there is no way it’s coming back, I’ve made a lifelong change to watch what I eat. I’ve become obsessed with reading about fitness/diet research studies and success stories. And I’ve become obsessed with being healthy, losing weight, and gaining muscle. I’ve also learned a lot through trial and error and through helping my wife along — she’s lost over 25 pounds on the first diet she’s ever been on.
Also, maybe this is pathetic, but I often fantasize about helping obese people lose weight. I think about motivating them but most importantly teaching them about nutrients, the body, and how to lose weight. What would I tell them about losing weight? I’ve turned it into a three part post. This is my manifesto for losing weight, I’m sure some of the finer points will grow and change but these points I’ll never alter.
I think there are many facets of losing significant amounts of weight but only three stick out as being key for everyone. In this (long) article I’ll talk about each key in detail. I’m not claiming that I’ve discovered anything new or a magic bullet, just relaying what has worked best for me and what, based on research I’ve read, seems to be best. I apologize for the formatting of this article. I have been sitting on it a while and getting all the HTML correct is tedious and boring so I decided to just post up my rough draft that I’ve been piecing together for months.
The 3 keys to weightloss:
1. Maximize your metabolism
2. Count and limit calories
3. Banish white carbs
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Look who decided to make a blog post!
I’ve pretty much lost my will to post lately, nothing seems worthy (worthy of the blog or worthy of my time, I’m not sure). However, I will make an update on my progress losing weight and getting fit.
I missed my goal of 155 lbs this month but I’m sure I’ve put on some muscle and that if I could measure fat loss it would be more than 5lbs. This morning I was at 156 lbs and my waist measurement is down 1″ from last month.
In the past month I’ve made a several changes and learned some new things which I’ll summarize in this post. I’ll also talk about my future goals and the future of this blog.
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A medical journal published study from last month gave great news for people looking to lose weight.
Ninety-four women were put on caloric restricted diets and lost on average around 25-30 pounds. They were divided into three groups:
- Aerobic training
- Resistance training
- No training
In addition to body fat their resting energy expenditure (their metabolic rate, how many calories they burn a day doing nothing) was measured. The result? The no-training and aerobic-training groups lost significant amounts of muscle and their metabolism decreased. The resistance training group not only didn’t lose any muscle but they gained muscle. And the icing on the cake is that their resting energy expenditure went up!
Bottom line, you MUST weight train when you are trying to lose weight if you want to maintain muscle and your metabolism.
Hunter et al.Resistance Training Conserves Fat-free Mass and Resting Energy Expenditure Following Weight Loss.
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I’ve lost 25 lbs after three months. I met my 5 pound goal for March.
Early January I weighed 185 and I’m 160 pounds now. I think this is the first time I’ve weighed 160 since my sophomore year in college — 2001. My upper abs are showing through and since I’ve concentrated a lot more on weight training I’ve have put on some muscle so my fat gains are likely more than 25lbs.
In March I made a few changes to my diet and exercise which I’ll outline in this post. I’ll also summarize how I got to this point for anyone new to the blog.
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Pre-order I Can Make You Thin and receive 5% off
The first episode of I Can Make You Thin aired last night on TLC here in the US. The program was popular in the UK although it’s hard to discern how popular due to marketing hype. I was excited about watching it. Beforehand, I didn’t think it would necessarily help me lose weight but I thought it was a great idea and could help a lot of overweight people.
The two hardest parts of eating healthier are focus and motivation. My hope was that this show would give some no-nonsense direction and weekly motivation to people. And although I disagree with some of what was promoted during the program I think it did these two things well.
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“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” - Thomas Edison
If you’re brave enough to regularly set challenging diet and fitness goals for yourself you’re bound to fail at some point. Despite your best efforts you missed your 5K time, your monthly weight loss goal, or your cholesterol level goal.
How people deal with failure is a key difference that distinguishes the successful from the unsuccessful. A lot of people experience a feeling of “I’ll never get it right”, “It is not possible!”, or “It’s not fair!”. A feeling of no control clouds the mind.
I always feel this way initially. I have to give myself some time to wallow in self pity then shake myself and try to take something positive out of the situation. The past is over and the future hasn’t happened, what are you going to do right this moment to mold your future?
In this post I’ll summarize three actions I take whenever I fail that might work for you. These recommendations are clearly not confined to fitness goals and failures, I use them whenever I miss the mark. You should write your responses down and carry them out as systematically as possible — hit the Stand By button on your emotions.
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Everything you do gets you closer or farther from where you want to be.
Nothing is neutral. You are either getting better or you are getting worse. Everything you think, say, and do moves you toward or away from your goal. And taking care of the small things can lead to greater confidence and willpower to achieve your goal.
One of my favorite authors, Larry Winget, put it perfectly:
“When you stop letting things slide and start taking advantage of every moment amazing things happen.”
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There is a very interesting article over on the fantastic GetFitSlowly.com today.
It summarizes a study that looked at 6,000 successful dieters who lost on average 70 pounds and kept it off six years. It’s the only large scale study of it’s kind and I think we can learn a lot from it.
From getfitslowly.com:
The study has identified seven elements that characterize the diet and exercise of these “losers”:
- They eat a low-calorie diet.
- They eat a consistent diet from day-to-day.
- They eat breakfast.
- They’re very physically active.
- They weigh themselves frequently.
- They watch only a limited amount of television.
- They don’t let a small weight gain become any bigger.
Basic stuff but it’s the opposite of what a lot of people promote for weight loss. (more…)
I set weight loss and fitness goals back at the beginning of the year, as many of you probably did. And a very important step of goal setting is to review.
So, here it goes.
I met my goal and now weigh 165 lbs for the first time since 2004.
That means I lost 6lbs this month. I also met my — updated — cardio and weight training goals. I did cardio at least two days a week and weight trained three. My diet continued to be the one outlined in my original weight loss goal post but I have made a few tweaks. The reward for my efforts are glimpses at my upper four abs and a yet to be determined body fat scale.
In this post I’ll detail the changes I have made to my diet/fitness plans and goals and my progress thus far.
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In the last couple weeks I’ve switched from drinking several diet soft drinks a day to water.
I’ve wanted to do this a while because of all the scary sounding ingredients in diet drinks and because the mere taste of something sweet may spike insulin levels slowing fat loss and interrupting satiety.
But I found two reasons that are new to me on the web that I wanted to share. They are not silver bullets for weight loss — nothing to get too excited about. But they are interesting little hacks that pushed me over the edge to drinking much more H20.
- Ample water indirectly ensures the liver can concentrate on breaking down fat for energy
- It takes 1 calorie of energy to heat 1 ounce of 40 degree water to body temperature
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