First off, if you really want to get rid of that bag of dog food you "drag around" with you everywhere you go (you know, those 10, 20, 30, 40 or more extra pounds that have somehow become attached to various and assorted places (UGLY places) on your body, then you want to have a look at:
That link takes you to where you can read FOR FREE the most important things you need to know about "dropping pounds" and keeping them off PERMANENTLY as well as being fit. Just click on the cover of that book at Amazon.com and you can read the first five percent of that book ... MY book ... without having to buy it. I purposely wrote the book so you don't have to buy it. Yea, I know ... WTF! I don't care about the money. I care about giving YOU the info/data/insights you need to lose weight and keep it off. Go check it out and you'll see what I'm talking about.
Okay, so let's get on with this ... which is part of what you'll find in that first five percent of my book ...
So just what does fitness have to do with being on or off the grid?
Fitness, as well as nutrition, has EVERYTHING to do with everything. No matter what you are doing, on or off the grid, the most important factor in anything you do, is YOU. And, if you don't feel well or you are "lugging around" blubber and bulges, it all has a negative impact on your life. As opposed to YOU being healthy, fit, and trim! That's the whole point here. You don't need a special fad diet or pills or gimmicks of any kind. You just have to eat less and exercise more.
The whole point of this section is to help you see how easy it is to lose weight and keep it off. You will need will power to begin with, but once you start seeing positive results (and just how easy it is to finally get control of your weight), you will be motivated and inspired.
What follows is a PRIMER to arm you with the information you need ...
Look around you. No matter where you are, you will see fat just hanging all over people, bulging outward in rolls and ripples. And, it isn't just adults either! There is an abundance of overweight kids, too. Do you think anyone with all of that extra weight really wants to look like that? Based on the volume of sales from diet books and weight loss "solutions," it is obvious people definitely want to do something about being overweight ... or, do they?
The real problem is that people are looking for "magic answers" when it comes to shedding extra pounds (and keeping them off). And, just about everyone knows what really needs to be done to lose weight and keep it off ... you simply have to eat less, eat smarter, and exercise - LOTS of exercise. While it is that simple, Americans pour billions of dollars every year into fads, gimmicks, quick fixes, books, nutritional "systems," and "special pills" - all aimed at helping "slim you down.
IT'S ALL BALONEY!
Losing weight and keeping it off is one of the simplest processes there is in life. That's the good news. The bad news is that getting ride of excess weight is also one of the toughest life-long battles each of us wages over and over again. To lose weight, you have to cut back on caloric intake. That means you have to EAT LESS and cut back on (or completely eliminate) snacking between meals. You also have to exercise to burn off even more calories than you consume each day.
It truly is that simple ... but just try and do it! As so many people learn, it is one of the toughest things they'll ever do. The reason for that is because, as adults, there is no one there to tell us "No!" when we decide we want to eat something. We either forage in the house or take money out of our pockets to buy whatever it is we want to cram into our mouths!
Each person has the will power (buried deep down inside, somewhere close to or even beyond the soul) to fight the urges to put things in her or his mouth. The problem is that several times throughout each day people just put things into their mouths to eat - over and over and over again ... and the direct result is all of those overweight people you see (yourself probably included, because you're "here" among the play of words looking for answers).Each of us does this all to ourselves in that we even pay to fatten ourselves up. We use our own money to buy the food, snacks, and everything else that we "shove down our gullets!" We create all of our own weight problems, because, in most cases, we don't think about the consequences (or we just don't want to or, in most cases, we just ignore them). Doing something about your weight is all about perspective and reorienting your attitude about food. Food is NOT your friend! Food should NOT be used to fill voids in your life! Food is fuel and that's it. Any excess food (i.e., excess calories) that your body doesn't use as fuel (i.e., to maintain your body and brain functions) will be stored as FAT. That's what your body is designed to do - store fat! And, by looking around you, you can see just how good everyone's bodies are at storing FAT! Lots of FAT!
First of all, you don't want to look at losing weight as a diet ... if you're going to be successful in dropping weight and keeping it off, then you need to look at eating less and exercising more as a way of life. You can change your life without spending a lot of money on "things" that otherwise won't work. What works is YOU eating less and exercising more. That is the simplicity of how you drop weight and keep it off - forever! You need to reorient your thinking in that food is NOT your friend, nor is it something to fill voids that exist in your life ... and that is what provides a framework so you can work to change things for the rest of your life. Yes, it will be hard work. Yes, it takes a great amount of commitment and will power. Yes, the pounds come off slowly (very slowly). Yes, most people are doomed to fail when it comes to being responsible enough to say "NO!" to cramming whatever they want into their mouths. But, YOU can successfully drop and maintain your weight .. if you really want to.You need to become your own "enforcer" and that will lead to YOU becoming a reinforcing resource to guide yourself through each step of dropping weight and keeping it off. The guidelines for doing this are quite simple:
You can eat anything you want, whenever you want it, with no limitations whatsoever.
The only catch is a very simple task you must perform twice daily (either by actually doing it or visualizing it) - Stand naked in front of a mirror and take a good, long look at yourself from the front, side, and back views!
Those stark, shocking images will then take care of numbing your appetite as well as altering your perspective on what/how much goes into your mouth over the course of the next several hours! The point here (whether you actually stand in front of the mirror or not) is simply to be sure you keep in mind:
YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR WEIGHT!
YOU KNOW YOU NEED TO DO IT!
ONLY YOU CAN DO SOMETHING TO CHANGE THINGS!
AND, IT IS GOING TO REQUIRE WORK ON YOUR PART!
No one is going to tell you, "No!" when it comes to eating and snacking. It is all up to you to make decision after decision to NOT eat whatever might be readily available to consume. Look at it this way: you can have whatever you want, whenever you want it, you just have to choose NOT to have or eat everything that you come across or that you feel like eating throughout the day.You really don't need to be eating as much as you have been and ARE eating (please don't eat while reading this text!). In fact, you can get by on MUCH, MUCH less caloric intact (i.e., food), especially if you eat smart!
So? Where to start?
Doing what we're talking about here - Eating less (MUCH less) and Exercising more (MUCH more) - involves work and conscience effort on YOUR part. You will need to work hard at not eating. You will need to work hard at exercising (start by just taking walks). And, you will need to work hard at keeping track of certain things. Mainly, don't lose focus on your mission to drop weight and keep it off. Also, keeping track of stats is what will help keep you focused on NOT eating and doing what you know you need to do anyway ... to drop the excess poundage and KEEP IT OFF!
Create a simple spreadsheet (no complex formulas here, just adding up columns and/or rows) to keep track of what you eat and how many calories you burn off.PROJECT: Naked Truth! Those stats will soon be your friend ... although initially, beyond the shock to find out just how much you really are eating, you will find that "keeping track of things" makes you more responsible, because the spreadsheet then becomes your conscience. The reason for that is because each time you "put down the numbers" in terms of how many calories you are consuming, you'll soon start to realize you are eating waaaaaaay too much. Also, with the "conscience factor," you will come to look at things answering one basic question, "Do I really want to enter this many extra calories on my spreadsheet?" That's the single most important factor about a spreadsheet, because it makes YOU accountable for what goes into your mouth!
Because you are tracking your own "what goes in your mouth" stats, you are constantly aware of what it is "costing you" for every item that goes into your mouth! Once you start tracking your stats, you won't even need the spreadsheets. You will quickly find that your knowledgebase of what you should and should NOT eat becomes permanently etched in your intellect ... which is the whole point of altering your perspective about dropping weight and keeping it off. Once you become aware of what YOU have been doing to yourself all these years, it becomes easier and easier to eat less, eat smart, and exercise.
The starting point in all of this is calories. Calories are what you consume. Calories are what your body stores as fat. Calories are what you burn off - either through your daily metabolic rate or exercising. Ideally, BOTH your metabolic rate and exercising are burning off a fair amount of calories each day - that means you are going to be exercising A LOT! Thus, you begin to zero in on calories. Not carbs. Not fat. Nothing but calories. You can keep track of those other things, if you want. However, it is those excess calories in your body that are stored as FAT ... and it is ALL of those calories stored in your body that you need to burn off to drop weight.
You need to know all about calories! A good starting point is with the definition of a calorie: "A single calorie is the unit of heat equal to the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree at one atmosphere pressure." This is used by nutritionists to categorize the energy-producing potential in food.
Food and drinks (yes, and even alcohol - you know, beer, shots ... all of that) contain calories. Almost every liquid we consume contains calories with the exception of water, coffee, tea, and diet soft drinks.A gram of fat contains approximately 8 calories. A gram of carbohydrate or protein contains approximately 4 calories. A pound of body fat contains approximately 3,500 calories. By reducing calorie intake (what goes into your mouth every day) by 500 calories per day, you will lose one pound per week. If you work out and burn an additional 500 calories each day, you will lose two pounds each week.
That makes it sound pretty easy, huh? Well, IT AIN'T THAT EASY ... anyone who has ever started "working" at losing weight quickly finds out that the numbers don't always add up ... at least, not at first they don't. The reason for that is because your body retains water to hold your weight. If you skip meals and eat less, your body then slows down your metabolic rate (i.e., the rate at which your body burns calories). That translates into the scale not showing the results you had hoped for. That then gets extremely frustrating and exasperating, because if you are keeping spreadsheets and tracking your numbers/stats, you quickly see that the pounds don't come off nearly as easily as they go on. But you have to stick with it, because eventually the pounds will come off and the simple math will work to your advantage (even though it doesn't look that way at first).
Okay, so one pound of fat equals 3,500 calories! So, let's say you decide you want to drop that one pound just to show yourself you can do it. You would, obviously, need to burn off 3,500 calories. We will come back to this point repeatedly because the heart of the issue in losing weight is burning off calories. The simple math, as mentioned above, translates into SIX HOURS of exercising being required to burn off that single pound! So, if you exercised an hour a day, you would need to exercise for six days to burn off that single pound. And, hopefully, during those six days you aren't snacking or over eating to add even more calories to the accumulated fat already stored in your body. You see how this all works?
So, YOU need to become an expert about just how many calories are going into your mouth and then being "dispersed" throughout your body in various and assorted FAT DEPOSITS! Because if you don't burn off calories, your body is designed to store them at fat! It really won't cost you much to arm yourself with as much information as possible about calories. In fact, the second hand book stores are a good place to get such "calorie count" books.The numbers really don't ever change much on calorie counts, so you don't need a "brand new book" to get this kind of information. And, if you have access to the web, there are plenty of web sites where you can just type in the food/snack item you want to find out about for the calorie counts.
The key point in learning as much as possible about calories is that you:
FIND OUT THE CALORIE COUNT BEFORE YOU EAT SOMETHING!
That way you can choose NOT to eat something, because you don't want to "pay the price" for it! And, that is exactly what you have to start doing - choosing NOT to eat or snack or drink all of those extra, mostly empty calories you have been "packing in 'der" for so long.
The basic rule of thumb is "if you eat it, you wear it!"
Whether you realize it or not, you have a daily budget for calories. And, that perspective about calories holds the key as to whether or not you will be successful in shedding excess poundage and then maintaining your reduced weight (so you don't gain back any "lost" pounds). You need to look at calories in the same way as you would budgeting to spend money. You have so many calories per day to spend. Go over your budgeted amount and you are going to store those additional calories as fat. However, if you exercise for the day, then you have more calories to spend (or not use, so you burn off more fat).
If you have a 500 calorie breakfast and an 800 calorie lunch, then you have used up half of your calorie budget for the day. Any snacks you have throughout the day and evening, along with what you eat for dinner must total 1,300 calories or less ... or you have ended the day consuming more calories than you have burned off. In other words, your body will have stored those additional calories as FAT!
Let's look at two scenarios for the rest of this day:
Scenario #1: (the good one you want to emulate)
You have a 700 calorie dinner and no snacks (not even popcorn) later in the evening. Your total calories consumed for the day will be 2,000 calories (500 + 800 + 700 = 2,000). Since you had 2,600 calories to spend for the day, you will go to bed having burned off an additional 600 calories. That translates roughly into 1/6 of a pound that you have burned off. However, keep in mind that you only had breakfast, lunch, and dinner - nothing else! Scenario #2 is much more realistic and eye opening (especially, if you haven't ever really tracked calories).
You snack on a bag of chips before lunch (280 calories - minimum, probably more). You have a dessert after lunch (400 calories). You have another snack in the afternoon (300 calories). Your dinner is a super-sized fast food meal with a regular (filled with sugar) soda "weighing in" at 1,600 calories. Then you snack while you watch TV that evening which accounts for roughly 500 additional calories.
Now let's look at your calorie budget for the day. Remember, you had 2,600 calories to spend. So with just breakfast and lunch (before the dessert) you have spent 1,300 calories. The chips, lunch dessert, and afternoon snack add up to 980 more calories! Now you're at 2,280 calories spent for the day. You still have 220 calories to "play with." Of course, your fast food experience for dinner was 1,600 calories, and that puts your daily total of calories consumed at 3,880. But we're not yet done tallying your total for the day! Those 500 calories you "put away" while watching TV (actually, it was probably more than 500 calories) bring your daily total of calories to 4,380!!!!!! Seem hard to believe? Well, that's how fast calories ADD UP ... and this is only one day!
So, you had 2,600 calories in your budget for the day to spend, right? You went 1,780 calories over your budget. If you divide 3,500 calories (which equals one pound of fat) by two, you get 1,750 calories. You spent 1,780 calories more than you had to spend for the day, so your body is going to store an additional 1/2 pound of fat, because those calories didn't get burned off. And, this is just one day! One day!
That's why you need to know and track what's going on with what you put into your mouth. The calories all add up, day after day after day. So, you have to constantly monitor where you stand in terms of "How many calories have I consumed?!?!?!"
What YOU Need to Do/Know about Calories - know 'em, eat 'em, wear 'em ... or burn 'em off. Stay under your daily budget for calories and you will drop weight. Don't go over your daily budget for calories and you will maintain your weight. It's that simple. Get a source (online or with books) so you know exactly the amount of calories you are going to consume BEFORE you consume them. And, keep a log of your daily intake of calories. Over time, you will be able to do this in your head, but, to begin with, use a spreadsheet or notepad to track what is going into your mouth.
It's the only way to STOP eating so much! Read Nutrition Labels - don't put anything in your mouth unless you know the exact amount of calories you are consuming (or not consuming when you choose not to ingest whatever it is because it has waaaaay too many calories). Just about all food products have nutrition labels so it isn't that hard to see how many calories the item contains. For anything that doesn't have a nutrition label, that's where your book(s) or online calorie count sources will come in handy. Also, remember that in a short period of time all of this kind of information will permanently reside in your head. And, be sure with nutrition labels that you check how many servings the item contains. One of the "legal games" companies play is to list what looks like a fairly respectable, "Oh, I can have that many calories," figure. However, when you check the number of servings, you find it is NOT one serving, but TWO servings or more. An example of this is the larger bottles of sodas and sports drinks. The 120 calories looks okay at first glance. However, when you check the servings and see "2 1/2 servings" (or more) listed on the nutrition label, and then start doing the math, the figure for the number of calories you are about to consume is, obviously MUCH higher (and probably NOT worth the price of admission).
Read nutrition labels religiously ... for anything and everything you put in your mouth! How to Read Nutrition Labels - For all you ever wanted to know about reading Nutrition Labels, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a wealth of information on their web site. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration web site for Dietary Supplements is
Congress defined the term "dietary supplement" in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994. A dietary supplement is a product taken by mouth that contains a "dietary ingredient" intended to supplement the diet. The "dietary ingredients" in these products may include: vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids, and substances such as enzymes, organ tissues, glandulars, and metabolites. Dietary supplements can also be extracts or concentrates, and may be found in many forms such as tablets, capsules, softgels, gelcaps, liquids, or powders. They can also be in other forms, such as a bar, but if they are, information on their label must not represent the product as a conventional food or a sole item of a meal or diet. Whatever their form may be, DSHEA places dietary supplements in a special category under the general umbrella of "foods," not drugs, and requires that every supplement be labeled a dietary supplement.
What is a "new dietary ingredient" in a dietary supplement?
The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994 defined both of the terms "dietary ingredient" and "new dietary ingredient" as components of dietary supplements. In order for an ingredient of a dietary supplement to be a "dietary ingredient," it must be one or any combination of the following substances:
a vitamin,
a mineral,
an herb or other botanical,
an amino acid,
a dietary substance to supplement the diet by increasing the total dietary intake, or
a concentrate, metabolite, constituent or extract.
A "new dietary ingredient" is one that meets the above definition for a "dietary ingredient" and was not sold in the U.S. in a dietary supplement before October 15, 1994.
What is FDA's role in regulating dietary supplements versus the manufacturer's responsibility for marketing them?
In October 1994, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) was signed into law by President Clinton. Before this time, dietary supplements were subject to the same regulatory requirements as were other foods. This new law, which amended the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, created a new regulatory framework for the safety and labeling of dietary supplements.
Under DSHEA, a firm is responsible for determining that the dietary supplements it manufactures or distributes are safe and that any representations or claims made about them are substantiated by adequate evidence to show that they are not false or misleading. This means that dietary supplements do not need approval from FDA before they are marketed. Except in the case of a new dietary ingredient, where pre-market review for safety data and other information is required by law, a firm does not have to provide FDA with the evidence it relies on to substantiate safety or effectiveness before or after it markets its products.
Also, manufacturers do not need to register themselves nor their dietary supplement products with FDA before producing or selling them. Currently, there are no FDA regulations that are specific to dietary supplements that establish a minimum standard of practice for manufacturing dietary supplements. However, FDA intends to issue regulations on good manufacturing practices that will focus on practices that ensure the identity, purity, quality, strength and composition of dietary supplements. At present, the manufacturer is responsible for establishing its own manufacturing practice guidelines to ensure that the dietary supplements it produces are safe and contain the ingredients listed on the label.
Body Fat Analysis - If you really want to know what's going with just how FAT you really are, then you want to get a body fat analysis done. You can get this done at a health club or at a medical facility. Two key factors from this analysis are that you find out your metabolic rate (i.e., how many calories your body burns per day - without any exercise) and your percentage of body fat versus lean muscle. It doesn't cost much to have your Body Fat Analysis done. Getting such an analysis done arms you with information. And, it is extremely important that you know your metabolic rate. That is what will help you determine your daily budget for what you can "spend" in calories.
The healthy range for body fat in men is 15% to 22%. The minimum should be nothing less than 9%. For women, the healthy range for body fat is 15% to 25%, The minimum should be nothing less than 12%.
BMI - Body Mass Index - The Body Mass Index is a fairly common standard used in determining where people stand in the range of underweight and recommended to overweight and obese. The recommended ranges for BMI are in the range of 18.6 to 24.9. A BMI of 18.5 or less is considered underweight. The overweight range for BMI is 25.0 to 29.9. A BMI of 30 or more is consider obese. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides a free, online BMI calculator (plus lots of other information) at this web address:
EAT LESS - Part of losing weight (and keeping it off) is a simple fact that you are going to feel hungry at many points. You will have urges to eat (or eat more), but you have to suppress and/or ignore such urges. You've gotten used to eating whenever you want and LOOK AT YOU NOW! The only way you are going drop pounds is to eat less - MUCH LESS! And, that just simply means you will feel hungry ... GET USED TO IT!
No whining, please! Are you serious about dropping excess weight? Then enough said! There are those who need to stop eating like a pig and those who eat minimally so they can drop weight. To which category would you like to have your name (and image) appended?
Suppress Urges to Snack and Munch - Just because you feel the urge to eat something doesn't mean you need to act on it. We are all conditioned to act on impulses. We feel hungry, we eat. That is what we have been doing all of our lives - while fat has been accumulating inside of us, adding to our girth! The naked truth is that fat can only be ignored for so long. Sooner or later the bulges reach such proportions that clothes just don't fit. You, most likely, know the rest of that story all too well.
Okay, so along come all of the companies with products and promises. There is also the surgical "route" which include liposuction, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And, we all, at one time or another, "throw money down a rat hole" looking for quick ways to "drop the pounds." The reality is that weight doesn't come off very fast. If it does, then you need to start worrying about that and probably see a doctor to find out what is wrong.
It is a long, slow process to accumulate weight. The problem is that we then "get our panties in a bunch" and want to get rid of excess weight fast ... and all without having to do much work or to endure any heartache. Well, the naked truth is that losing weight is work - hard work! No one can do it for you. YOU have to suppress urges to snack and munch and eat. That means while you watch TV or when you go to the movies, you don't want to EAT, SNACK, EAT, SNACK! You can have anything you want, whenever you want it. You just need to start choosing NOT to put anything in your mouth. This is where keeping in mind the NUMBERS ON THE SCALE from your daily "Weigh Ins" helps you stay focused.
Say NO to Anything Between Meals - While this might sound redundant (especially after the section above), it is important to repeatedly stress that you want to EAT LESS!
Here is how between meal snacks kill you when it comes to losing or maintaining weight. Say you have a regular soda once a day, every day (either with or between meals). Add to that the fact that every day you have a mid-morning snack (it isn't important what, we'll just say that snack is 300 calories as in a donut, cookies, or chips might be - actually, they would probably be more, but we'll just say 300 calories).Then in the afternoon, you have another snack. Let's just say that is 300 calories, too. Okay, and to top this off, let's include an evening snack (you know, the stuff you munch on while watching TV). We'll put down 300 calories for that, too.
Here is how all of those between meal snacks (and drink) add up:
Regular soda = 120 calories
Morning snack = 300 calories
Afternoon snack = 300 calories
Evening snack = 300 calories
TOTAL for the day, in addition to breakfast, lunch, and dinner = 1,200 calories
That 1,200 calories is 1/3 of a pound of FAT that your body will store if you don't work it off. To put these between meal snacks into perspective for the day, let's look at the entire picture for the day. Say you had consumed 2,500 calories for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then your daily total of caloric intake would have been 3,700. If your metabolic rate burns off 2,000 or so calories and you chose not to exercise that day, you would be "in the hole" 1,700 calories for the day. That translates into roughly 1/2 pound of FAT that will be stored somewhere in your body. Keep in mind that this is just ONE DAY! With 365 days in the year, start doing the math on between meal snacking and you quickly see just what KILLERS (in more ways than one) those "in between time" munching sessions are costing you!
Target Heart Rate - BEFORE you start exercising (which is the next item we will cover in this list of what you need to do and know), you want to be aware of what is happening with your body while you are exercising or participating in physical activity. You want to be most aware of your pulse rate while exercising. This is how you keep from overdoing it and, more importantly, how you avoid doing anything that might be harmful.
Your Target Heart Rate is the number of heart beats per minute that are acceptable and safe for your body to endure while engaging in physical activity (primarily exercising). To determine your Target Heart Rate, subtract your age from 220, then calculate 85 percent of that number. In other words if you are 45 years old, you would subtract 45 from 220. That gives you 175. That number is the maximum rate at which your heart should ever beat; and you don't ever want your heart rate at that maximum number. Thus, the reason for the Target Heart Rate. So, you want to calculate 85 percent of 175 which is 148.75. That means your target heart rate should NOT exceed 149 beats per minute.
Calculating your heart rate (beats per minute) is easy - even while you are working out. All you need is a second hand on a clock or a digital watch or stopwatch that counts seconds. Just put your index finger on your neck, just below your ear to check your pulse. You can do it on your wrist, too. Count your heartbeats for six seconds, then multiply by ten (there are ten six second blocks in a minute). That will give you your heart rate. If you are under your Target Heart Rate then you can accelerate your work out. If you are at your Target Heart Rate then you want to maintain that pace. If you are over your Target Heart Rate, then you will instantly know you need to slow things down until you reach your Target Heart Rate.
Exercising, Exercising, Exercising - If you haven't exercised in a while (especially if it has been a LONG while), then you need to go very, very SLOWLY getting back into exercising. If you have any kind of health problems (or think you might have health problems) talk to your doctor FIRST. If you start exercising and experience any kind of problems or strange feelings, TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR before you do anything else. You want to be smart when it comes to exercising. One of the biggest mistakes people make is jumping right back into exercising "going for it all." That approach leads to sore and possibly torn muscles or other injuries.
Take your time getting back into exercising. Start out by going for walks or hitting the treadmill at a very slow pace. Walk until you have had enough and then stop. Gradually work your way up to 30 to 45 minutes walking. Once you conquer that, then start looking at what exercise equipment you want to focus on. The stationary bicycle, especially the aerodyne models where there is arm movement, are one of the best, all-around pieces of exercise equipment. You work your legs and arms, as well as push your cardiovascular system. But START SLOWLY. Do five or ten minutes. Then build up your time from there. The same goes for other exercise equipment, too. And, don't forget about swimming and other sports activities like racquetball and tennis.
ANYTHING TO GET YOU UP OFF YOUR "ASSETS" AND MOVING IS GOOD!
Initially, just exercise once a day. But then, once you get into a regular routine of exercising, whenever you can, exercise twice a day. Exercising is important for many reasons (with one of the main ones being you are burning off calories), but one of the most significant aspects of exercising is that it not only burns off calories, it speeds up your metabolic rate - for as much as six hours after you exercise. That means you get the added benefit of burning off calories at a higher rate even after you have stopped exercising.
Looking at your daily budget for calories (i.e., how many you can "spend," based on how many you have burned off. The spreadsheet section of PROJECT: Naked Truth! provides a general listing exercising/activities and the calories burned off per hour for each one. This will help you figure out exactly how many calories you can afford to spend in any given day so that you end the day having burned off more calories than you have consumed.
One last point about Exercising ... EXERCISE, EXERCISE, EXERCISE! It is good for you and you will be surprised to see how your body responds to it (once you get past the initial soreness ... so keep the whining to a minimum!). And, exercise every day if you want to. Yes, EVERY DAY ... the more you exercise, the better it is for you. Keep in mind that each time you exercise, you are attacking the Fat Ass Monster!
Weighing In - One of the keys to staying focused on dropping and maintaining your weight is your bathroom scale (or wherever it is). If you don't have a scale, go buy one! You need to weigh yourself in the morning and in the evening. While there are many "schools of thought" on how often you should weigh yourself, the bottom line is that you need to weigh yourself regularly - at least twice a day. That way YOUR WEIGHT is always fresh in your mind and you know just where you stand, so to speak ... so however many times during the day that "temptation strikes" you will think long and hard before putting anything into your mouth!
Not getting on the scale at least twice a day can easily lead to you not being concerned about all of those bulges and marbled FAT that you are "carrying around" wherever you go. You need to be keeping in mind those numbers on the scale as well as the front, back, and side views of yourself in the nude! Oh, yes, IN THE NUDE! Such stark images are why you can GET SERIOUS about losing weight. Human nature being what it is, we all have a tendency to conveniently ignore the reality of things like our clothes fitting too snugly or the ugly fact that we have to start buying clothes one or two (or more) sizes larger! There is no reason, other than you are expanding in size and need to do something about it!u need to "weigh in" EVERY SINGLE DAY, TWICE A DAY!
If you want to stay focused and really jettison those excess pounds, by weighing yourself twice a day, you just can't forget or ignore those numbers on the scale that validate just how much extra weight you are burdened with ... and CARRYING AROUND EVERYWHERE YOU GO!
Play the Game of Keeping Track of What You Don't Eat! Staying on top of EATING LESS and EXERCISING MORE is all about reorienting how you think about food and what you put into your mouth. A little game you can play is to keep track of what you DON'T eat. This lets you track not only the calories you haven't consume (and, therefore, don't need to burn off), but you can also keep track of the dollar amount of each food item that you don't eat. So, there are two aspects to this game. The first is to KEEP YOU FROM EATING by letting you see just how many calories you don't have to burn off (or store as FAT); and the other one is to show you how much additional money you have in your pocket. Again, no one is going to tell you can't eat anything, so YOU have to tell you that you can't have it. That's what this game is all about. It is yet one more way to brainwash yourself into NOT putting things in your mouth (and in the process knowing what it would have cost you - in more ways than one!).
Don't Get Sanctimonious - Once you discover you truly can shed excess poundage, you are going to want to tell EVERYONE about it. You will want to help them lose weight, based on all that you have discovered ... no matter how great you feel, whatever you do, DO NOT DO THAT! Keep doing what you are doing, building on your success. If anyone asks or comments about the poundage you have shed, fill them in the details. But, otherwise, SAY NOTHING! People are quite happy in their little worlds of ignorance about just how fast calories are adding up inside of their bodies. So they certainly don't want to hear you spouting off the details of how many calories they are consuming (stupidly consuming, yes, but leave them to their blissful ignorance).
How you win the battle to lose weight You have excess weight (FAT) that you want to get rid of. The only way those extra pounds come off is by having your body burn them off. You don't need to do anything other than eat less and exercise more - that's it! Your body will take care of the rest! And, honestly, it is that simple.The wild cards in all of this are your mind and your stomach. Both will keep telling you over and over again (without any let up) that YOU WILL DIE if you don't get more stuff to eat. Remember that each time you feel hungry you DO NOT need to act on those impulses. Think about it this way: when you feel hungry that just means you are burning off fat. While that might not be exactly true, it is just one of the mind games you are going to have to play if you want to drop weight and keep it off.
The urge to eat is probably the single most driving (as well as acted upon) force that we humans must deal with. Add to that the fact that no one is going to tell us "No, you can't have that!" and you have a powerful combination that quite simply causes each of us to eat and eat and eat whenever we choose. And, therein lies the problem! We - each of us - eats waaaaay too much. That's how ALL of those extra pounds of fat accumulated in various and assorted parts of your body! And, that is why even if you "drop a few pounds" through crash diets and other means, you are doomed to "add it all right back" (and probably more).
So, now you stop all of the nonsense and just quit eating as much as well as starting to exercise on a daily basis. If you are already exercising, EXERCISE MORE! The only way you are going to permanently win in the battle to lose weight and keep it off is to eat less (even after you drop the excess poundage) and exercise more. You will also have to just get used to feeling hungry and NOT acting on the urges to eat, snack, munch, or down sugar-filled sodas, beer, and other oozing with sugar kinds of drinks! Skipping a meal now and then or not eating as much as you used to will not kill you!
The whole point of keeping track of your weight, watching what you eat, AND exercising is so it becomes all part of your conscience - to keep you from consuming excess calories that you will otherwise have to burn off or store as fat. There is nothing complex here. The formula is simply eat less, exercise more. The complex and perplexing part in all of this is that you will need to break several bad habits and you will need to reinvent yourself in terms of how you look at food.
Simply put: FOOD IS FUEL.
Excess "fuel" just weighs you down, quite literally ... and then you get to carry all of the excess, stored fuel around with you wherever you go, for all the world to see ... you don't want that, now do you?
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