I just read a question on Yahoo! Answers. Some girl wanted to know how much weight she would lose if she starved herself for 10 days. She told us not to preach to her about how unhealthy it would be. Well, first off, I'm gonna say good luck to her and I hope she makes it out alive. Secondly, I'm going to preach to you guys why it's really bad to starve yourself or barely eat anything to lose weight.
Please remember that 1200 calories a very good guideline when it comes to the minimum amount of calories you should EAT a day.
If you starve yourself or deprive yourself of calories for a long period of time, you will lose weight. However, that comes with a lot of luggage. Not only will you lose weight, your body will have eaten it's own muscle for sustenance. Also, you'll lose a lot of water weight because your body uses water molecules to break down fat and muscle for energy. You'll be incredibly frail and weak, and you'll most likely hate your life...assuming you come out of the starvation alive. Once you do reach your goal weight, and decide to eat again...your body will so far into starvation mode, that anything you eat gets stored immediately to fat because your body thinks it is still starving, so it's going to conserve energy and store fat to use later on. You won't get the muscle back, you gotta work even harder now to restore that.
So please, folks, leave starvation mode to the poor people in third-world countries. Remember to eat at least 1200 calories a day minimum and don't try to lose so much weight in so little time. "Rome wasn't built in a day."
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Losing more than 2 lbs a week can backfire later on
I always read a lot of questions on the message boards about people wanting to lose 10 lbs in one week, or 20 lbs in 2 weeks.
There are many problems with this. First off, it is possible to lose that much weight in time, but it's going to be very hard. It's going to involve a highly calorie reduced diet, and lots of exercise. Basically, imagine going through Hell. Instead of Fire, it's pure exercise. The normal American, no matter how badly they want to lose weight, doesn't have that kind of time in the world.
Secondly, and probably the most important reason, is that if you do lose more than 2 pounds a week, you are going to lose muscle mass as well. That is why health professionals recommend you lose 2 lbs at most a week. Anything more and it's considered unhealthy. Plus, if you lose more than 2 lbs a week, you will eventually hit the dreaded "plateau" of weight loss. This is a point where people who work hard at losing weight just can't lose weight anymore, even though they are doing the same intensity exercise or even raising the intensity level. Why does this plateau start? Because that person has lost so much weight and muscle mass that their Resting Metabolic Rate has decreased so much that they are not hitting the high negative net calories daily they were hitting earlier on in their program.
Did you know that 1 lb. of muscle mass burns an extra 50 calories daily? If you don't then I suggest you google it...it's true. The saying "Muscle burns fat" is true.
And don't think that gaining muscle is easier than burning fat. I thought burning fat was really hard when I was doing it last summer. Once I burned off 50 lbs in 3 months, I hit a plateau where I didn't lose a single pound for 2 weeks. People were telling me I looked so anorexic, which in some ways was complimenting me on my fat loss, but criticizing me on my muscle mass loss. I have been currently trying to gain muscle mass for the past 8 months. I've only been able to gain about 5 pounds of muscle mass so far. Gaining muscle is just as hard as burning fat.
So if anyone really wants to lose more than 2 lbs. a week, please reconsider. You need muscle to burn fat and avoid the plateau. If you don't do this, you won't look anything close to the models on television. You'll just be a skeleton and skin, and look just as bad as you do being overweight.
I saw someone post an answer on Yahoo! Answers about fat loss. He said that the formula is different depending on how obese you are.
Obese: Diet 80%, Cardio 10-15%, Weightlifting 5-10%
Overweight (closer to ideal weight): Diet 80%, Weightlifting 10-15%, Cardio 5-10%
I could not agree with him more.
Update: I just found a great link that can explain the 2 lb per week rule. It's written by Tom Venuto, who is the author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, which is a gem of a book for anyone wanting the dream body.
http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/news/two-pounds.htm
There are many problems with this. First off, it is possible to lose that much weight in time, but it's going to be very hard. It's going to involve a highly calorie reduced diet, and lots of exercise. Basically, imagine going through Hell. Instead of Fire, it's pure exercise. The normal American, no matter how badly they want to lose weight, doesn't have that kind of time in the world.
Secondly, and probably the most important reason, is that if you do lose more than 2 pounds a week, you are going to lose muscle mass as well. That is why health professionals recommend you lose 2 lbs at most a week. Anything more and it's considered unhealthy. Plus, if you lose more than 2 lbs a week, you will eventually hit the dreaded "plateau" of weight loss. This is a point where people who work hard at losing weight just can't lose weight anymore, even though they are doing the same intensity exercise or even raising the intensity level. Why does this plateau start? Because that person has lost so much weight and muscle mass that their Resting Metabolic Rate has decreased so much that they are not hitting the high negative net calories daily they were hitting earlier on in their program.
Did you know that 1 lb. of muscle mass burns an extra 50 calories daily? If you don't then I suggest you google it...it's true. The saying "Muscle burns fat" is true.
And don't think that gaining muscle is easier than burning fat. I thought burning fat was really hard when I was doing it last summer. Once I burned off 50 lbs in 3 months, I hit a plateau where I didn't lose a single pound for 2 weeks. People were telling me I looked so anorexic, which in some ways was complimenting me on my fat loss, but criticizing me on my muscle mass loss. I have been currently trying to gain muscle mass for the past 8 months. I've only been able to gain about 5 pounds of muscle mass so far. Gaining muscle is just as hard as burning fat.
So if anyone really wants to lose more than 2 lbs. a week, please reconsider. You need muscle to burn fat and avoid the plateau. If you don't do this, you won't look anything close to the models on television. You'll just be a skeleton and skin, and look just as bad as you do being overweight.
I saw someone post an answer on Yahoo! Answers about fat loss. He said that the formula is different depending on how obese you are.
Obese: Diet 80%, Cardio 10-15%, Weightlifting 5-10%
Overweight (closer to ideal weight): Diet 80%, Weightlifting 10-15%, Cardio 5-10%
I could not agree with him more.
Update: I just found a great link that can explain the 2 lb per week rule. It's written by Tom Venuto, who is the author of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, which is a gem of a book for anyone wanting the dream body.
http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/news/two-pounds.htm
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
How to get six-pack abs for guys or that flat stomach for women
If you haven't read my previous blog post "How to exercise...and Burn the Belly Fat as Well", I suggest you do so now.
It is a myth that a person can reduce fat in a specific area of the body. When the body burns fat, it takes it evenly throughout the fat stores of the whole body.
You cannot burn belly fat by doing a million abdominal exercises. There's a difference between strengthening the abdominal muscles and burning the layer of fat covering the abdominal muscles. You need to do both abdominal exercises as well as Cardio to get muscle and burn that layer of fat covering it, respectively, in order to show off the six-pack abs.
Ladies, if you're wondering "I just want a flat stomach, not a six-pack", don't worry. You would have to purposely do a LOT of abdominal exercises in order to have a woman's six-pack. Women are different from men, women don't gain muscle as easily as guys, so the following workout tips is useful for both genders.
The key to getting a six-pack or men and or flat stomach for ladies is to combine both Cardio to burn the fat and Abdominal exercises to build up the muscle to fill the void left by the fat.
Here is a website that shows a list of abdominal exercises you should be doing:
http://exercise.about.com/od/abs/ss/abexercises.htm
You can't rely on crunches or sit-ups alone. VARIETY is key to building the abdominal muscles. If you do a million sit-ups or crunches, your body will get used to that movement and you still stop gaining muscle in that region of the body. You need to do a variety of exercises so your body has to continually adapt. A typical abdominal workout session is about 300 or more repetitions. Do abdominal workouts on alternate days. So in one week, the least number of sessions you should be doing is 3 sessions, the most in one week is 4 sessions. You need that day of rest in-between so your abdominal muscle can grow.
The second factor in getting the six-pack or flat stomach is burning the layer of fat covering the ab muscles. This can only be achieved doing cardio. Use your imagination. As long as you are raising your heart rate, getting the blood pumping, and sweating, you are burning fat. Make sure these cardio sessions last more than 30 minutes. From a previous post, I said that cardio sessions lasting less than 30 minutes only burns up glycogen. Once the glycogen stores in your body are depleted, your body switches to fat-burning mode. I recommend at least an hour of cardio along with the abdominal exercises. If you have no idea what to do for cardio, here's a list:
Treadmill
Arc Trainer
Elliptical
Stairmaster
Jogging/Running on track or through the neighborhood
Martial arts, kickboxing, dance
Sports: Swimming, soccer, basketball, tennis, raquetball, the list goes on and on
It is a myth that a person can reduce fat in a specific area of the body. When the body burns fat, it takes it evenly throughout the fat stores of the whole body.
You cannot burn belly fat by doing a million abdominal exercises. There's a difference between strengthening the abdominal muscles and burning the layer of fat covering the abdominal muscles. You need to do both abdominal exercises as well as Cardio to get muscle and burn that layer of fat covering it, respectively, in order to show off the six-pack abs.
Ladies, if you're wondering "I just want a flat stomach, not a six-pack", don't worry. You would have to purposely do a LOT of abdominal exercises in order to have a woman's six-pack. Women are different from men, women don't gain muscle as easily as guys, so the following workout tips is useful for both genders.
The key to getting a six-pack or men and or flat stomach for ladies is to combine both Cardio to burn the fat and Abdominal exercises to build up the muscle to fill the void left by the fat.
Here is a website that shows a list of abdominal exercises you should be doing:
http://exercise.about.com/od/abs/ss/abexercises.htm
You can't rely on crunches or sit-ups alone. VARIETY is key to building the abdominal muscles. If you do a million sit-ups or crunches, your body will get used to that movement and you still stop gaining muscle in that region of the body. You need to do a variety of exercises so your body has to continually adapt. A typical abdominal workout session is about 300 or more repetitions. Do abdominal workouts on alternate days. So in one week, the least number of sessions you should be doing is 3 sessions, the most in one week is 4 sessions. You need that day of rest in-between so your abdominal muscle can grow.
The second factor in getting the six-pack or flat stomach is burning the layer of fat covering the ab muscles. This can only be achieved doing cardio. Use your imagination. As long as you are raising your heart rate, getting the blood pumping, and sweating, you are burning fat. Make sure these cardio sessions last more than 30 minutes. From a previous post, I said that cardio sessions lasting less than 30 minutes only burns up glycogen. Once the glycogen stores in your body are depleted, your body switches to fat-burning mode. I recommend at least an hour of cardio along with the abdominal exercises. If you have no idea what to do for cardio, here's a list:
Treadmill
Arc Trainer
Elliptical
Stairmaster
Jogging/Running on track or through the neighborhood
Martial arts, kickboxing, dance
Sports: Swimming, soccer, basketball, tennis, raquetball, the list goes on and on
How to Exercise...and Burn the Belly Fat as well
Let's start out by saying the title of this post is a lie. You cannot target fat loss in a specific region of the body. So anyone who wants to burn fat in just their belly and show abs, or just their thighs only, I'm sorry to say that's impossible without surgery. You'll have to accept that when you exercise, fat loss comes from all over your body.
Secondly, you cannot burn fat from your belly doing a million abdominal exercises. Abdominal exercises help build the muscle in your abs to get that six-pack, but it's still covered in layers of fat. There's a difference. You have to combine both strength training and Cardiovascular Exercise if you want a flat stomach and to lose weight. Remember Fat loss is 'Calories in - Calories burned' being negative.
There are two types of exercises: Anaerobic and Aerobic exercise.
Aerobic exercise is Cardio. This is the main contributor to fat loss. When I lost weight, I would run on the elliptical machine at the gym for 1.5 hours per day. I burned over 1000 calories each session. Remember, any exercise that gets your heart pumping and your heart rate up is considered cardio and can be used for fat loss. Here is a list of exercises for you to do if you don't have access to an elliptical machine:
Running/jogging around the neighborhood or track
Arc Trainer
Stairmaster
Treadmill
Sports: Tennis, Swimming, Soccer, Basketball, Raquetball
Martial arts
Just use your imagination. If it gets your heart rate up, it's cardio.
Anaerobic exercise is resistance training with weights. This can contribute to fat loss. How? By building muscle, you increase your metabolism (your daily calorie burn) because your body must burn more calories to sustain more muscle. This means you will have a higher negative net calorie intake daily.
Also, muscle can make you look less fat. When you burn fat, that leaves a void in your body. You need to fill that void with muscle! Also, the models you see on TV and magazine with that body you crave...they didn't get there by diet alone. They worked out with both Aerobic and Anaerobic exercise.
Personally I added 15 minutes of weight training along with my 1.5 hours of cardio everyday.
The best time to do Anaerobic training is before Aerobic training. Why? Because when you lift weights, your muscles need glycogen in order to lift the weights. If you did cardio before weightlifting, all that glycogen is burned out. That results in a less efficient weightlifting session. And, if you do weightlifting before cardio, you will have used up a lot of glycogen that it'll take less time for your body to switch to fat-burning mode when you do cardio.
So the best solution to weight loss is to combine weight lifting and cardio.
Remember to only exercise 5 days a week at most. Why? Because your muscles need to recover. You need break days so your muscles can grow and get stronger. So the best schedule of exercise to go on is 3 day, rest, 2 day, rest.
And remember to eat within the hour after you finish your workout. Why? Because after you finish working out, your muscles demand energy to replenish all they lost. If your body doesn't get that energy, it'll start feeding off the muscle you have. Yea, your body will literally eat itself.
I made that mistake of not eating after I did my cardio and I lost a lot of muscle mass along with fat. Now I'm paying the price because I am currently weightlifting to gain back all that lost strength.
I hope you enjoyed my posts. Please read them from earliest to latest post. That is the most effective way to learn how to lose weight and keep it off for good.
Secondly, you cannot burn fat from your belly doing a million abdominal exercises. Abdominal exercises help build the muscle in your abs to get that six-pack, but it's still covered in layers of fat. There's a difference. You have to combine both strength training and Cardiovascular Exercise if you want a flat stomach and to lose weight. Remember Fat loss is 'Calories in - Calories burned' being negative.
There are two types of exercises: Anaerobic and Aerobic exercise.
Aerobic exercise is Cardio. This is the main contributor to fat loss. When I lost weight, I would run on the elliptical machine at the gym for 1.5 hours per day. I burned over 1000 calories each session. Remember, any exercise that gets your heart pumping and your heart rate up is considered cardio and can be used for fat loss. Here is a list of exercises for you to do if you don't have access to an elliptical machine:
Running/jogging around the neighborhood or track
Arc Trainer
Stairmaster
Treadmill
Sports: Tennis, Swimming, Soccer, Basketball, Raquetball
Martial arts
Just use your imagination. If it gets your heart rate up, it's cardio.
Anaerobic exercise is resistance training with weights. This can contribute to fat loss. How? By building muscle, you increase your metabolism (your daily calorie burn) because your body must burn more calories to sustain more muscle. This means you will have a higher negative net calorie intake daily.
Also, muscle can make you look less fat. When you burn fat, that leaves a void in your body. You need to fill that void with muscle! Also, the models you see on TV and magazine with that body you crave...they didn't get there by diet alone. They worked out with both Aerobic and Anaerobic exercise.
Personally I added 15 minutes of weight training along with my 1.5 hours of cardio everyday.
The best time to do Anaerobic training is before Aerobic training. Why? Because when you lift weights, your muscles need glycogen in order to lift the weights. If you did cardio before weightlifting, all that glycogen is burned out. That results in a less efficient weightlifting session. And, if you do weightlifting before cardio, you will have used up a lot of glycogen that it'll take less time for your body to switch to fat-burning mode when you do cardio.
So the best solution to weight loss is to combine weight lifting and cardio.
Remember to only exercise 5 days a week at most. Why? Because your muscles need to recover. You need break days so your muscles can grow and get stronger. So the best schedule of exercise to go on is 3 day, rest, 2 day, rest.
And remember to eat within the hour after you finish your workout. Why? Because after you finish working out, your muscles demand energy to replenish all they lost. If your body doesn't get that energy, it'll start feeding off the muscle you have. Yea, your body will literally eat itself.
I made that mistake of not eating after I did my cardio and I lost a lot of muscle mass along with fat. Now I'm paying the price because I am currently weightlifting to gain back all that lost strength.
I hope you enjoyed my posts. Please read them from earliest to latest post. That is the most effective way to learn how to lose weight and keep it off for good.
What I should Eat to lose Weight
Now here comes the most important question: What diet should I be on to lose weight?
Don't trust the fad diets how there people. There's a reason they're called fad diets, because they're fads. They don't work long term and you can't live on it the rest of your life.
Here is a diet I went on when I was losing weight: Lots of lean protein and lots of fiber. Both protein and fiber help fill your stomach and keep you filling full longer. Protein also helps build lean muscle, and muscle burns fat. Why? Remember in a previous post I told you your RMR depends on your weight among other factors? If you have more muscle, your body burns more calories to sustain the muscle. The burned calories add up to more fat loss. Here is a list of lean proteins you can eat:
Chicken
Turkey
Lean Beef (loin or round)
Fish (any kind of fish will do)
Seafood such as shrimp, crab, lobster
Beans, peas, and lentils for the vegetarians
Egg whites
Low-fat Dairy (which included skim milk and cottage cheese for me)
Foods with Fiber:
Vegetables! Have all the vegetables you want! They are very very low in calories and have lots of fiber to fill you up. Plus fiber helps your digestion by cleaning your system out. Fiber is also a natural fat blocker, it slows down digestion of fat and carbohydrates. I recommend dark, green leafy vegetables:
Broccoli and spinach are the best because they are packed with vitamins and minerals which you will need since you are on a reduced calorie diet.
During my weight loss I ate a salad packed with spinach and broccoli everyday for lunch. It filled me up without hurting my calorie allowance for the day that much.
What about Carbohydrates and Fruit?
Carbohydrates are something you want to stay away from if you want to burn fat on this diet. Why? Carbohydrates are the body's main source of energy. Our liver stores unused carbs as glycogen. When we exercise, our body burns glycogen and carbs. However, after 30 minutes of exercise, your body uses up its glycogen stores and starts using fat as a fuel source. That is how you lose weight, by having your body burn fat. By eating limited amounts of carbs, you are forcing your body to start using fat as a fuel source. Your body is in a state of ketosis. If you must eat carbs, have only one serving of carbs a day. One serving of carbs has about 200 calories.
The second thing about carbohydrates you should know about: Try not to eat carbs near bedtime. Why? Any unused carbs in your body get stored as fat when you sleep. Your body tries to be very efficient, that's why it stores it as fat...just in case you go into starvation mode. It doesn't want anything to go to waste. The best time to eat carbs is to eat any carbs you plan on eating by lunchtime. Past lunchtime, avoid the carbs.
The third thing about carbohydrates you should know about: There are good ones and bad ones. 'Good carbs', sometimes labeled 'Slow carbs' are scientifically known as complex carbohydrates. The 'Bad carbs', the ones you should avoid, are sometimes labeled 'Fast carbs', or scientifically known as simple carbohydrates. If you decide to eat carbohydrates, eat the good carbs. Why? Complex carbohydrates take longer to break down in your body. That means your "engine" stays on longer and you burn more calories. Also, this means you have more sustained energy because your body doesn't digest all the carbs at once. Bad carbs are digested really quickly. They give you a spike of energy, followed by a crash. Ever heard of a sugar rush and sugar crash? This is where the term comes from. Sugar from candy is a fast carb. It's a simple sugar that gets digested quickly. When you eat simple carbs, you actually can get more hungry because it gets digested so quickly
What foods are good carbs, and what foods are bad carbs? Basically anything that is "white" is bad carbs. White bread, white rice, any "enriched" foods as it says on the label. The food has been processed so much that all the nutrients have been taken out. The "enriched" part is just chemicals that have been added for flavor. These chemicals are bad for your body.
Foods that are good carbs are darker foods. These have not been processed as much and contain fiber and nutrients. Wheat bread, whole grain bread, buckwheat pasta, brown rice, wild rice are among the good carbs.
On my next post, I'll show you what exercises I did to burn fat.
Don't trust the fad diets how there people. There's a reason they're called fad diets, because they're fads. They don't work long term and you can't live on it the rest of your life.
Here is a diet I went on when I was losing weight: Lots of lean protein and lots of fiber. Both protein and fiber help fill your stomach and keep you filling full longer. Protein also helps build lean muscle, and muscle burns fat. Why? Remember in a previous post I told you your RMR depends on your weight among other factors? If you have more muscle, your body burns more calories to sustain the muscle. The burned calories add up to more fat loss. Here is a list of lean proteins you can eat:
Chicken
Turkey
Lean Beef (loin or round)
Fish (any kind of fish will do)
Seafood such as shrimp, crab, lobster
Beans, peas, and lentils for the vegetarians
Egg whites
Low-fat Dairy (which included skim milk and cottage cheese for me)
Foods with Fiber:
Vegetables! Have all the vegetables you want! They are very very low in calories and have lots of fiber to fill you up. Plus fiber helps your digestion by cleaning your system out. Fiber is also a natural fat blocker, it slows down digestion of fat and carbohydrates. I recommend dark, green leafy vegetables:
Broccoli and spinach are the best because they are packed with vitamins and minerals which you will need since you are on a reduced calorie diet.
During my weight loss I ate a salad packed with spinach and broccoli everyday for lunch. It filled me up without hurting my calorie allowance for the day that much.
What about Carbohydrates and Fruit?
Carbohydrates are something you want to stay away from if you want to burn fat on this diet. Why? Carbohydrates are the body's main source of energy. Our liver stores unused carbs as glycogen. When we exercise, our body burns glycogen and carbs. However, after 30 minutes of exercise, your body uses up its glycogen stores and starts using fat as a fuel source. That is how you lose weight, by having your body burn fat. By eating limited amounts of carbs, you are forcing your body to start using fat as a fuel source. Your body is in a state of ketosis. If you must eat carbs, have only one serving of carbs a day. One serving of carbs has about 200 calories.
The second thing about carbohydrates you should know about: Try not to eat carbs near bedtime. Why? Any unused carbs in your body get stored as fat when you sleep. Your body tries to be very efficient, that's why it stores it as fat...just in case you go into starvation mode. It doesn't want anything to go to waste. The best time to eat carbs is to eat any carbs you plan on eating by lunchtime. Past lunchtime, avoid the carbs.
The third thing about carbohydrates you should know about: There are good ones and bad ones. 'Good carbs', sometimes labeled 'Slow carbs' are scientifically known as complex carbohydrates. The 'Bad carbs', the ones you should avoid, are sometimes labeled 'Fast carbs', or scientifically known as simple carbohydrates. If you decide to eat carbohydrates, eat the good carbs. Why? Complex carbohydrates take longer to break down in your body. That means your "engine" stays on longer and you burn more calories. Also, this means you have more sustained energy because your body doesn't digest all the carbs at once. Bad carbs are digested really quickly. They give you a spike of energy, followed by a crash. Ever heard of a sugar rush and sugar crash? This is where the term comes from. Sugar from candy is a fast carb. It's a simple sugar that gets digested quickly. When you eat simple carbs, you actually can get more hungry because it gets digested so quickly
What foods are good carbs, and what foods are bad carbs? Basically anything that is "white" is bad carbs. White bread, white rice, any "enriched" foods as it says on the label. The food has been processed so much that all the nutrients have been taken out. The "enriched" part is just chemicals that have been added for flavor. These chemicals are bad for your body.
Foods that are good carbs are darker foods. These have not been processed as much and contain fiber and nutrients. Wheat bread, whole grain bread, buckwheat pasta, brown rice, wild rice are among the good carbs.
On my next post, I'll show you what exercises I did to burn fat.
Why Eating will help you lose Weight
Imagine your body as a steamship. How does the steamship keep moving? By burning fuel in a furnace. If you stop feeding the furnace, the ship stops moving. This is exactly how our bodies work. The KEY TO LOSING WEIGHT IS TO EAT. It's called a metabolism folks. If you starve yourself, your metabolism slows down. You want a fast metabolism because the higher the metabolism, the more calories are burned.
If you don't know by now, but there have been studies shown that people who skip breakfast are more likely to be overweight. Why? You might have thought skipping breakfast would mean a lower calorie count at the end of the day. WRONG. Because by skipping breakfast, their bodies are not in a state of "fuel burning". Your body has already gone into starvation mode when you sleep, so the "engine" has shut off. You need to turn on that engine by eating breakfast. Also, those who skip breakfast tend to eat a lot more later on, which means they consume more calories daily. So don't skip breakfast, it's the most important meal of the day.
Here's another trick to weight loss: Eating more meals....WHAT? Yea, by spreading out meals throughout the day from 3 to 5-6 smaller meals, you keep your engine on and it burns calories. By having 3 meals throughout the day, there is way too much time between meals. Your body thinks it's starving during that time and starts holding on to anything it can. Your body starts storing the food you ate previously as fat. It doesn't want to burn anything off because it fears that it won't get anymore food. So when you do decide to eat, the body is thinking that this meal is rare to come by, so it does its best to store the food as fat.
When you eat smaller meals throughout the day, your body is "tricked" into thinking that it will keep getting fed on a regular basis. It finds no need to store fat because it expects another "energy parcel" to come in just another few hours.
Get it now?
So find out how many calories you can eat a day. Find out how many hours your awake each day and divide your daily calorie allowance evenly throughout the day. Your last meal will be 3 hours before bedtime (this will be explained in a future post). Let's use an example:
Our old friend Bob has 1500 calories for his daily calorie intake. He goes to bed at 11pm and wakes up at 6am to get ready for work. So his first meal of the day will be at 6am, his last meal will be around 8pm. That leaves 14 hours that he can eat. That is about 3.5 hours between meals. Here is how he will divide his meals:
6 am: Breakfast (400 calories)
9:30am: Snack (100-200 calories)
1pm: Lunch (300-400 calories)
4:30pm: Snack (100-200 calories)
8pm: Dinner (400 calories)
If you don't know by now, but there have been studies shown that people who skip breakfast are more likely to be overweight. Why? You might have thought skipping breakfast would mean a lower calorie count at the end of the day. WRONG. Because by skipping breakfast, their bodies are not in a state of "fuel burning". Your body has already gone into starvation mode when you sleep, so the "engine" has shut off. You need to turn on that engine by eating breakfast. Also, those who skip breakfast tend to eat a lot more later on, which means they consume more calories daily. So don't skip breakfast, it's the most important meal of the day.
Here's another trick to weight loss: Eating more meals....WHAT? Yea, by spreading out meals throughout the day from 3 to 5-6 smaller meals, you keep your engine on and it burns calories. By having 3 meals throughout the day, there is way too much time between meals. Your body thinks it's starving during that time and starts holding on to anything it can. Your body starts storing the food you ate previously as fat. It doesn't want to burn anything off because it fears that it won't get anymore food. So when you do decide to eat, the body is thinking that this meal is rare to come by, so it does its best to store the food as fat.
When you eat smaller meals throughout the day, your body is "tricked" into thinking that it will keep getting fed on a regular basis. It finds no need to store fat because it expects another "energy parcel" to come in just another few hours.
Get it now?
So find out how many calories you can eat a day. Find out how many hours your awake each day and divide your daily calorie allowance evenly throughout the day. Your last meal will be 3 hours before bedtime (this will be explained in a future post). Let's use an example:
Our old friend Bob has 1500 calories for his daily calorie intake. He goes to bed at 11pm and wakes up at 6am to get ready for work. So his first meal of the day will be at 6am, his last meal will be around 8pm. That leaves 14 hours that he can eat. That is about 3.5 hours between meals. Here is how he will divide his meals:
6 am: Breakfast (400 calories)
9:30am: Snack (100-200 calories)
1pm: Lunch (300-400 calories)
4:30pm: Snack (100-200 calories)
8pm: Dinner (400 calories)
How to Start Weight Loss: Cleaning up your environment
Most people who struggle with being overweight or obese live in a "poisonous" environment. You can't live healthy if you have poison in your life, am I right? Here are some tips on cleaning up your environment to make losing weight easier.
1. Throw away all junk food. This includes chips, cookies, candy, ice cream, buttery fat popcorn, bacon, anything with lots of sugar. If you think it's junk, it probably is. When I was trying to lose weight, I found myself snacking on any junk food lying around. I decided one day to throw it all away. If it's not there, you don't eat it! Plus you save money from not buying junk food. WIN WIN. In today's economy, saving money is good, right?
2. Get yourself the notebook and hold yourself accountable to counting calories. If you read my previous posts, then you know how important this is.
3. Get support from family and friends. I know some people are not able to buy or cook for themselves because they are minors. If you can convince your family and friends to help you, it makes things so much easier. Why not show your family this blog to convince them that you need help losing weight.
4. Surround yourself with the right equipment. You will need to Exercise to lose weight, there is no way around it. I suggest you get a membership at the gym and allocate at least 1.5 hours each day to exercise. If you can't afford anything, there is no harm in running around the neighborhood.
5. Get the right attitude and state of mind. You will not see results right away. At the earliest, you might see results in 3 weeks. Remember: losing weight and living healthy is a life choice, not some choice you make for a few weeks just to look good at the beach for a week. And have patience. People with no patience give up and stay fat forever! I've seen far too many people do that.
On my next post, I'll point out foods you should eat and what times you should eat it.
1. Throw away all junk food. This includes chips, cookies, candy, ice cream, buttery fat popcorn, bacon, anything with lots of sugar. If you think it's junk, it probably is. When I was trying to lose weight, I found myself snacking on any junk food lying around. I decided one day to throw it all away. If it's not there, you don't eat it! Plus you save money from not buying junk food. WIN WIN. In today's economy, saving money is good, right?
2. Get yourself the notebook and hold yourself accountable to counting calories. If you read my previous posts, then you know how important this is.
3. Get support from family and friends. I know some people are not able to buy or cook for themselves because they are minors. If you can convince your family and friends to help you, it makes things so much easier. Why not show your family this blog to convince them that you need help losing weight.
4. Surround yourself with the right equipment. You will need to Exercise to lose weight, there is no way around it. I suggest you get a membership at the gym and allocate at least 1.5 hours each day to exercise. If you can't afford anything, there is no harm in running around the neighborhood.
5. Get the right attitude and state of mind. You will not see results right away. At the earliest, you might see results in 3 weeks. Remember: losing weight and living healthy is a life choice, not some choice you make for a few weeks just to look good at the beach for a week. And have patience. People with no patience give up and stay fat forever! I've seen far too many people do that.
On my next post, I'll point out foods you should eat and what times you should eat it.
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