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Posts Tagged weight loss
How To Lose Weight
Mar 8
Sari Keeps On Changing
Oct 8
Sari Max is a new person
Sari Max is just melting away, and it’s having a huge effect. She wrote earlier in March about how she’d lost over 60 pounds. Now she has dropped another 15! And she has brought fitness and athletics into her life. She is biking for the first time in maybe 15 years, kayaking, which she hadn’t done in at least 20 years, and sometimes adding running spurts to her fast walking.
Sari with son Ben
She is a changed woman, with her new hair style and a bit of color. “I am full of vigor, she tells me proudly.”
I know it takes a lot of discipline to exercise when you haven’t been. But Sari is even doing floor exercises at home, including push ups and 25 sit ups at a time. Way to go, Sari!
We See This Guy On TV Alot
Aug 21
do you recognize him?
He’s got a pretty good set of abs and body in general…right? But there is something very unusual about him. His name is Jeff Life, and he is a 72-year-old doctor. See him working out below, something he does at least six times a week in the gym.
In an LA Times article , it says his regimen includes hard cardio, heavy weights pushed to the max, martial arts, Pilates, a strict low-glycemic carb diet and lots of supplements. It has also, for the last seven years, been hormonally enhanced by a program that includes testosterone and human growth hormone—a therapy Life views as entirely appropriate, even necessary despite the medical evidence questioning both its effectiveness and safety…
Like most people, Life didn’t give a thought to his testosterone level, his HGH or his fitness as he built his career as a family practice doctor in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. A lapsed Masters swimmer who became inactive in his mid 40s, the father of five became fat and borderline diabetic—”a typical stressed-out middle-aged doctor who ate, drank and didn’t practice what he preached. It was years and years of sloth.”
Dr. Jeff Life–2010
That changed the day Life, then 60, picked up Muscle Media magazine and read about “the Challenge,” a 12-week, before-and-after fitness contest. His competitive fires lighted, Life sent in his before photo and hit the gym.
Three months later, he’d dropped 25 pounds, cut his body fat from 28% to 10%, got genuinely ripped and was named one of the contest’s 1999 “Body for Life” 10 grand champions…
But by age 64, Life found himself shrinking.
His muscles didn’t respond to workouts like they did a few years before. Abdominal fat started piling up. He began feeling mildly depressed. And he wasn’t waking with an erection as often as he used to.
It was a condition he would soon know as andropause, the insidious creep of declining testosterone.
It was time for his second epiphany—and the photo that would change everything…
the whole Dr. Jeffrey Life
Dr. Jeff's ad for the company he works with
In June 2003, Life became a Cenegenics patient, ultimately taking daily shots of HGH along with once-a-week testosterone shots, a regimen he still maintains.
“I could feel the difference quickly. Clarity of thought, a new, sharper focus, increased sexual function, bigger muscles.” He was so impressed that he packed up, moved to Las Vegas and joined the company.
After six months of seeing clients, Life had an idea to keep them motivated: Show them his body.
“They needed to know that I walked the walk.”
That might have been the end of the story—until a year later, when a writer from GQ magazine, in to do an anti-aging story, walked by Life’s office. His eyes bugged out at the sight of the glossy 8 by 11 of the buffed, bald, jeans-wearing guy hanging on the wall.
The shot ended up in his article in the January 2006 issue of GQ….Now it’s been seen by millions. An old, bald head on the young beefcake body. The claim is that this is not digitally modified. Whats your reaction?
90 Stories Of Weight Losers
Aug 10
Ryan Norton at 305 pounds—1/15/2012
Just bumped into a slide show (at bottom of the page of this link) of 90 people who lost weight, showing the before and after pictures. Amazing. Also included are the stories of how they gained and lost weight and what it took to finally start dropping the pounds. Pretty inspirational. Check ‘em out And here are photos from one of the stories by an ex-marine who lost 74 pounds when his buddies forced him to prepare for a Tough Mudder obstacle course challenge that I have mentioned in an earlier post .
Ryan at 231 in the Tough Mudder—Summer 2012
He lost 200 pounds in 19 months
Here is a really inspiring story about a kid who weighed 405 and finally decided to lose some weight. I always wonder what clicks to get someone to overcome their inertia—whether weight loss, healthy living, starting a new career—and choose a new routine. His father had died of a heart attack, but that didn’t prevent the son from gaining all that weight.
J. Roundtree, 21, from Lancaster, Ohio, lost 200 pounds in 19 months in order to join the Army, the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette reports. In November, he will begin basic training at Ft. Benning in Georgia, and he eventually wants to become a police officer.
So how’d he go from 405 pounds to 205? Roundtree started with P90X and then stuck to a strict 1,500 calorie-a-day diet and adopted an active lifestyle—spending his time jogging, playing basketball, swimming and using home workout DVDs. When hand and foot injuries threatened to hinder his progress, Roundtree persevered.
“There’s going to be days where you’re like, ‘Oh I don’t want to do it’, but you gotta keep doing it,” Roundtree told the station.
As a child, Roundtree played football, baseball and basketball, but eventually picked up video games as a hobby and began to gain weight due to lack of exercise. He went on to play in gaming tournaments when he was in high school.
Roundtree comes from a family of servicemen and women. His father, mother, and sister all served in the Army, according to the news outlet. But while he always had his sights set on serving himself, Roundtree found his poor health seemed to pose an insurmountable problem.
“I never would have imagined that he would do that,” Roundtree’s mother explained. “But when J. sets his mind to something, don’t tell him he can’t do it…because he’ll prove you wrong.”
And this attitude is exactly what has led him to where he is today. “I want to be better than I was today,” he said. “I wanna look the best I can. I wanna feel the best I can. I wanna run the farthest or the fastest.”
Fitness Trainer Drew Manning gained weight (middle) and then lost it (right) to better understand his clients
Here are excerpts from a story about a fitness trainer who gained 70 pounds on purpose (then lost it) to better understand what his clients go through. His journey allowed him to empathize more with his clients and suggest new ways to become fit.
Always a fitness junkie, staying in shape comes naturally for Drew Manning. He’s that guy at the gym the rest of us love to hate. But his wife says he was a “judgmental” trainer who would look at someone who was overweight and say, ‘They must really be lazy.’ ”
In order to better understand the struggles his clients were facing, he had to face them himself. He gave up the gym and started consuming junk food, fast food and soda. In just six months, he went from 193 pounds with a 34-inch waist to 265 pounds with a 48-inch waist.
Manning says he didn’t realize the effects of his weight gain would be more than physical. It altered his relationships and his self-confidence. The fact that he had to do push-ups on his knees was almost humiliating.
Manning suffered through soda deprivation headaches and food cravings on his way back to fit. The journey was easier for him than for most, he’ll admit, but he’s eager now to provide tips for others to follow in his footsteps.
“The biggest thing [I learned] is that it’s not just about the physical. It’s not just about the meal plan and the workouts and those things. The key is the mental and the emotional issues. I realized those issues are real.”
How Actively Do You Relax?
Apr 21
I relax by writing, watching TV, surfing the internet, reading a book, looking at the grass grow. This morning I played 1 1/4 hours of squash games, lost every one, and am exhausted. I need to “relax.”
The other night I met a man who said he can only relax by being active. He said that he had hunted EVERY single Saturday for a solid year. Pheasants, quail, chukars, deer. If he couldn’t hunt near his home up north, he “hopped” a plane and went to Georgia or South Carolina. On Fridays or Sundays, he takes a golf lesson in the morning, plays 18 holes, then goes home and has a trainer give him a shooting lesson, and finally rounds out the afternoon by shooting 500 clay pigeons in his back yard. Probably just before going to a black tie dinner party.
How does a seemingly normal human being do all that activity?
But I remembered a lawyer I once hired who invited my family to his weekend house in Massachusetts. He was up by 5:30 am rowing his shell on a lake, then played two hours of tennis. As soon as we arrived around noon, we all ate lunch and went for a hike up a mountain. Back at the house, we were ushered onto a a speedboat for a spin around the lake. He said this was a normal day. Rowing is so beautiful when the mist is on the water. Gets you ready for the day.
But any one of these activities would have been enough activity for me. I was going crazy just talking, eating and hiking. I’d already driven a couple of hours to get there. The boat tour was fun, but way too much input for me.
Yesterday I heard from a friend that these guys may have ADD, which is attention deficit disorder or ADHD, which is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Some part of their brains need to be constantly stimulated to feel ok or calm or relaxed. Too much stimulation wears me out. I need to relax. Too little stimulation makes ADD brains go crazy. They need MORE activity to feel relaxed.
I knew that ADD/ADHD kids are given ritalin to relax them. I never knew before yesterday that the drug is a stimulant and helps decrease one’s need for activity and movement.
Whether the two adults I referenced have any disorder or not, they certainly have higher energy than I do or will ever have. The challenge is to discover what you need, what you like and figure out how to have them both.
I drove a friend to a dog show and fell in love with the afghans. Elegant dogs that reminded me of fashion models on the runway or in hair ads. You can compare how the hair moves on the afghan and then the women. Just check out a few seconds of the models’ hair moving in the runway video below to see what I am talking about. And then you can watch the hair product ad below it.
thin and thin
Next I noticed how thin the dogs’ heads are underneath all their long hair. I learned that these show dogs are bred that way, because it supposedly looks good, wins prizes, is what the judges want to see in champions.
Then I flashed back to all the models I ever knew or heard about who are supposed to be ultra thin to make the clothes hang just right…how those models watch every calorie they eat, count them, are always hungry, because their livelihoods depend on it.
Karlie Kloss at 19: too thin
I had just bumped into a photo of a 19-year-old model who has been in the biz for eight years. One article said she is too thin now. Another fashion critic was having difficulty adjusting to seeing a formerly cute teenager posing nude. Karlie Kloss says she is “numb to the nudity. It’s just part of the job.” Do you think she is too thin, just right, or overweight (for a model of course)?
I also thought of three affluent, up-scale women I know who all thought they became a little heavy, started counting calories and lost 10-35 pounds. Thin is good. Thin is desirable. Thin is beautiful. To lose weight, they weigh everything they eat, look up how many calories are in each food item. Make sure they don’t consume more than a predetermined number of total calories per day. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline. Especially if you love to eat.
Then my friend and I went for dinner at a Chinese restaurant near the dog show in upstate Massachusetts in a town of 40,000. The people were heavy…fat…obese. Even many of the kids. The contrast with the afghans and models was mindblowing. It was incredibly upsetting. As we sat down, I saw two people just starting to eat a pu pu platter for two. They also had a big bowl of fried rice. Hopefully it was the whole meal, and not just the starter. Did you ever eat a pu pu platter? It might include an egg roll, spare ribs, chicken wings, chicken fingers, beef teriyaki, skewered beef, fried wontons, crab rangoon, fried shrimp, among other items, accompanied with a small hibachi grill. Here is what it looks like for two people. Can you believe this is just the appetizer for many hungry eaters?
pu pu platter for two
So two people eat all of this as a warm up. But then I saw a huge man walk by the table. He was like a walrus. On the way I out, I noticed that he was sitting by himself beginning his own pu pu for two…plus the bowl of fried rice. HOW CAN THESE PEOPLE EAT SO MUCH! No wonder there is an overweight/obesity epidemic.
What I couldn’t figure out is why so many people are ok about being fat, when all the ads and movies show thin models, TV commercials promote fitness and thinness, and it appears clearly that thin—or at least not being fat—is a desired body type in American culture. What am I missing?
I will tell you in another post what one marketing expert told me recently.
young thin Kirstie—1979
a lot heavier
slimmed down—9/2011
My “large women” story yesterday led me to Kirstie Alley, a very famous sit com star who I knew almost nothing about and have never seen on TV (can you believe it?). So I learned a few amazing things about this formerly overweight personality who had a show called “Fat Actress” and still has a reality series documenting her weight loss called “Big Life.”
In a year she has lost 100 pounds. Some people have trouble losing 10 pounds, but Kirstie’s weight goes up and down like a yo-yo.
In a February 2010 trailer for her weight loss reality show, she said:
“I was thin my whole life, til I gained 75 pounds,” she says. “Then I lost 75 pounds, then I gained 75 pounds.”
The point of the show is to lose it again, and cameras will be there every step of the way along with her kids and staff. She says she hopes that this is the last time she goes through the process and is looking forward to being the skinny booty call instead of the fat booty call.
“I think it’s stupid to say you’re full figured,” she says. “Fuck you, you’re fucking fat!”
heavier days
The actress and former “Dancing with the Stars” contestant, 60, revealed to “Entertainment Tonight” this week that she had bought the same dress in a variety of sizes, from 14 to 4, and made a deal with herself to keep shedding pounds until she fit into the smallest size.
Early in 2010 Kirstie admitted she recently tipped the scales at 230 pounds. She weighed just 143 when she appeared on Oprah in a bikini in 2006.
thin Kirstie
For years I have noticed that people gain weight over time, but just a couple of pounds a year…that adds up to 40 pounds after two decades. And more after 30 years! There is now an epidemic in America: one third of people are overweight, and another third are obese. Leads to all kinds of health issues.
Too bad everyone doesn’t have Kirstie’s ability to be on TV and have the world watching your weight-loss success (or failure) for reinforcement. All that peer pressure. But maybe just telling your friends what you aim to do—and putting yourself on the spot—might be enough. Of course most people are afraid to fail, and certainly not publicly. So we keep our goals to ourselves, especially when it comes to losing weight. Plus…who wants to give up all that good-tasting food, alcohol and milk shakes!
Gerard Butler
Gerard Butler has been in the news for losing a considerable amount of weight.
pudgy Gerard
But after revealing his ripped abs on Tuesday, it’s obvious he’s back to his tightly sculpted, King Leonidas-like form from the movie “300″ (see below).
Like many actors prepping for a role, Butler, 41, has recently undergone a physical transformation. He dyed his curly locks blond and packed on the muscle to star in director Curtis Hanson’s upcoming surfing flick, Mavericks.
But it wasn’t a set photo that showed off Butler’s sexy new body. It was a casual snapshot of the Scottish actor changing before playing in a charity soccer match in Glasgow. Butler was spotted in the Celtic Football Club’s locker room, where he was about to don a team jersey before heading out to the pitch. He playfully posed for the photo by sticking his tongue out and making a silly face.
The “300″ actor’s tip-top shape apparently helped his skills on the field, because his team, which included other British athletes and celebs, won 5-2 in a game benefiting the anti-poverty organization, Oxfam International.
Gerard mimics this famous 1951 photo of Albert Einstein
another victory for Novak—Wimbledon 7/2011
a healthier diet for Djokovic
Novak Djokovic has gone from number three in tennis rankings to number one in a very short time. How did he do this?
He overcame the mental hurdle, he lost weight by removing wine and pizza from his diet, and he tweaked his service motion to result in 69 more aces and 125 fewer double faults than at the same point last season.
This from Tom Perrotta’s article in The Wall Street Journal: How did Novak Djokovic conquer the tennis world?
Maybe the answer is as simple as this: Since last year, he’s swearing off pasta, pizza, beer, French bread, Corn Flakes, pretzels, empanadas, Mallomars and Twizzlers—anything with gluten…
David Levitsky (a professor of nutrition and psychology at Cornell University) said a gluten-free diet might have benefits for those with mild allergies, or even no allergy at all. “The other part of the story is, if you believe in a cause of your disorder, it becomes the cause,” he said. “We see this in many different studies. If you believe it, you change your behavior in the direction of being cured.”
In tennis, something small often leads to a big boost in confidence.
Another article by Dr. Barbara Berkeley reports that Andy Murray has adopted the same no carbohydrate diet:
“Is it possible that, in fact, cutting out carbohydrates made Djokovic into a better athlete? Is it possible that everything we’ve believed about the importance of loading our muscles with tons of starches is untrue? Is it possible that we can play endlessly taxing endurance sports without jamming ourselves full of pasta and potatoes? And is it possible that we might be better off for it?
It seems that world number 4 Andy Murray thought so. He has adopted the Djokovic diet. How much do you want to bet that others follow…
I have held a consistent view on diet and it is a view that I believe holds up when one examines Djokovic’s transformation. Rather than worry about individual dietary elements, we should attempt to eat foods that are most like the ones are bodies understand genetically. Since our genes are thousands of generations old, we need to look at the foods that were prevalent in those times: lean proteins, fats that come from natural sources (and thus have higher omega 3-6 ratios), vegetable and fruit matter, seafood, nuts and other naturally occurring plant foods. Suars and starches (including grain) were not a part of that original diet and are processed poorly or even cause overt harm in those of us who are more “original” genetically. In addition, our body has certain fuel expectations. Large amounts of carbohydrate as fuel seem to me to be inconsistent with what our body was fine-tuned to expect.
In my own practice I treat many tennis players and runners who are significantly overweight despite many hours of intense exercise. When they change their diet to one that is primarily Primarian, they not only lose weight but they become more efficient at their sports.”
The new diet has definitely paid off for Djokovic who said, “I have lost some weight but it’s only helped me because my movement is much sharper now and I feel great physically.”
fat Eddie Koch book character
This article by former NY City Mayor Ed Koch is based on his growing up as a chubby kid called “fatso.” Ed describes his early years as painful and resigned, but lost 30 pounds to run for Mayor. Now he has co-written a children’s book about good diet and exercise. It’s all very basic, the kind of suggestions this site believes in completely, and it’s nice to hear the mayor joining in with a message sent out by Michelle Obama’s program and hundreds of well-meaning fitness and fat-loss groups promoting wellness.
I also relate to the caption of one illustration that says: “These pants must have shrunk in the wash,” young Eddie thought. It’s exactly what I said in high school, when my pants were tight. But I never made this funny statement: “I still believe, as I said when I was mayor, that a qualifying Fire Department test for men and women should be, can you carry a 210-pound mayor out of a second-story building?”
“What I hope they walk away with is that it’s possible to avoid being the subject of derision or being an outcast simply by leading a healthy life with a healthy diet. It will cause you enormous pain if you let yourself get obese,” added Mr. Koch, whose childhood photos show him as a bit stocky, if not flat-out fat by today’s standards. “You’re not going to worry about it when you’re young, but if it continues, it can shorten your life. You want to have a family, you don’t want to leave them prematurely, and while it’s very unfair, many people in deciding who they’re going to hire will make a decision which includes weight.”
Eddie Shapes Up tells the story of an overweight young boy who hates recess because he is an easy target in dodge ball, tosses the carrot sticks and apple his mother packed for lunch in favor of a classmate’s potato chips, and declares, “I know I’ll never be thin, so I might as well eat what I like and as much as I like.”
But a friend advises Eddie: “Everybody has a different kind of body. What’s important is being healthy and in good shape.”
“Another tip for kids who want to eat between meals,” Mr. Koch added. “I eat sugar snap peas kept in the fridge. I also eat a lot more fish than I did and rarely, but occasionally as a treat, have a big rib steak. Everything else in moderation.
I know so many people who want to lose weight and are constantly working at it. Maybe these celebrities who’ve succeeded at dropping a few pounds—100 in one case—can be an inspiration. Most impressive to me is Anthony Hopkins (below), who shed 75 pounds. “I’m in the gym six days a week, I power walk, live on 800 calories a day.”
John Goodman was miserable after his weight ballooned to new heights: nearly 400 pounds. He stopped eating sugar and drinking, and hired a trainer. Now he's lost over 100 pounds.
Jennifer Hudson dropped from a size 16 to a size four. And now she's a national spokeswoman for Weight Watchers
Drew Carey (host of The 'The Price Is Right') was tired of all those extra pounds, what with Type 2 diabetes and the inability to lift his step son. So he lost 80 pounds, and has never looked better.
These past two years have tried to suck the life out of me, and they were on the way to achieving it. Between pulling my son out of his freshman year of college; a stock /retirement portfolio that was in a tail spin; and a business that was barely turning a profit, I was not happy. No, make that I was Mad, and not much company for either my wife or family.
Forever one to do things for others, and leave myself with the short end of the deal, I did an about face, and decided it was time to do something I wanted to do. I spotted a new sign in a building close to my office: TRAIN WITH SMITH. Tried to Google it, got nothing, finally drove in and then contacted “Smith” by email as I could tell from looking in the window that it was a small private gym studio. PERFECT: Close to my office in New Milford, CT, Small, Private, and I knew I’d have to really make a commitment versus my past failures of merely joining a gym.
I liked the few quick exchanges we had on email, so I set up an appointment to meet. I will be honest, I was slightly taken aback when I met Corey Smith, and she at first scared the hell out of me–an attractive young woman in classic proportion yet with arms so muscular that they are almost the size of my thighs. Yet there I was, setting up an appointment for her to personally guide me into better shape. Little did I know that what she really would guide me towards was a happier, better way to live.
I was not fat. I was not horribly out of shape. However, I knew that turning 60 was glaring me in the face; that I wanted to try to keep it at bay. After my first two training classes with Corey, I knew I was getting so very much more than what I would ever get in a gym. I know from past experiences that it is way too easy to make excuses to not go to the gym, or to go and believe you’re doing a work out. I now see that with the proper form and regimen, you get so very much more out of a private training session. I go four times a week, one hour each visit.
Corey really doesn’t believe in a lot of machines; they hold you up, instead of using your own body weight. What first appeared like some instruments of torture dangling from an overhead bar now support me while doing lower abdomen curls, pull ups, as well as a web with handles, which I plank off of while doing all types of arm and back work.
I next signed up for her CLEAN class where she teaches you how to eat more intelligently. What struck me the most that first evening at CLEAN was that it takes 4 weeks to break a habit….She was giving us the opportunity to break bad habits and create new ones…And I did. I now eat 6 meals a day and have more energy and stamina that I can ever remember having. Every three hours I’m eating another meal, not a snack, but a full meal, in a reverse triangle proportion.
(This means that breakfast is the largest and most heavy carb meal. Each subsequent meal is a little smaller and with less heavy carbs. Each is a full meal, meaning proteins, carbs and fats. But no, not a snack of just a piece of cheese and an apple. For breakfast I’ve been known to have 2 slices of whole grain bread, 3 turkey meatballs with tomato sauce, 2 eggs and a slice of avocado. My last meal might be 4 or 5 shrimp, a small salad with some feta cheese in it. My 2nd meal of the day (10 am) might be a cup of Quinoa with cranberries and toasted pecans. I now stop eating starchy carbs at my 3rd meal, which is lunch.
She also drilled into us P.P.P.P.P.P… Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance….I do a lot of cooking for the week on Sunday, so it’s all there ready to pick up and cart with me to eat at the office again at 10, 1, and 4.)
While I don’t fixate on the number, I show that I’ve dropped 12 lbs. However knowing that I have gained so very much muscle strength who knows (or cares) what that real number might be. I’ve given up drinking my nightly beloved Cosmopolitans except for one on Cheat Night, and my evenings are now shared with my family with a smile, instead of just being sprawled on a sofa scowling and mad at my plight in these upsetting economic times.
I would never have thought that the mix of eating better, and exercise would have had such a positive mental re- adjustment on me. I’ve dropped weight, gone off meds, and reshaped my body. But more importantly: I’M HAPPY AGAIN.
Check out the studio and read some of Corey’s newsletters at this Facebook link.
Since I began this web site, it’s obvious to me that there are thousands or millions of articles telling people how to be healthy and fit: just eat “right” and exercise. So easy as to almost be boring. How many times do people need to hear or read these almost identical words of well-meant guidance? But humans aren’t logical. We are emotional and often take actions that are against our better interests. As one friend said to me over 20 years ago, “I knew what I was doing, and I didn’t want to do it. I just couldn’t stop myself.”
Maybe it takes the 10th or the 99th article to stimulate a reader to make a meaningful change in her behavior. I will keep trying. So here is another good one by author and wellness expert Kathy Freston, who interviewed Dr. Dean Ornish about diet and losing weight. You can read the whole article here after glancing at some of the excerpts below.
Everyone knows that diet and exercise play a role in how much we weigh, but many are surprised to learn what a powerful role emotional stress has in causing us to gain weight and how stress management techniques can help us to lose it and keep it off…
Good carbs are whole foods. These include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and soy products in their natural, unrefined, unprocessed forms. Because these good carbs are unrefined, they are naturally high in fiber as well. The fiber fills you up before you eat too much…
Diets that are high in animal protein are usually high in saturated fat, which promotes both heart disease and cancer…Fat (from any source) has nine calories per gram, whereas protein and carbohydrates have only four calories per gram. Thus, when you eat less fat, you consume fewer calories even if you eat the same amount of food—because the food is less dense in calories…
As you begin to eat more healthfully, your taste preferences change. You begin to prefer foods that are more healthful. And you connect the dots between what you eat and how you feel…
KF: What is a reasonable rate of weight loss?
DO: In most cases, no more than three pounds/week.
KF: What if we want to lose weight faster; is there a healthy way to do it?
DO: Do more exercise and meditation and eat smaller amounts of healthy foods and less salt. Regular exercise not only burns calories, it also raises your basal metabolic rate, the number of calories you burn while at rest. Thus, exercise helps you lose weight even when you’re not exercising. Do some strength training as well as aerobic exercise. Walking a mile burns even more calories than running a mile. Exercise in ways that you enjoy, then you’re more likely to do it. If it’s fun, it’s sustainable.
I have been noticing these weeks all the ads about how to lose weight. Why does anyone believe you can lose weight without exercise and any change in your diet if you just send in your money for the secret promise? That you can eat all the sugar or carbs or sweets or bacon or meat…even pure lard, and you are “guaranteed” to lose pounds. You can almost lose the weight while you sleep if you just send in your check to find out the miraculous answer to your dreams. Am I so naive again to not grasp what is beguiling millions of others? Is it the instant gratification, the something for nothing philosophy? Tell us what you think.
One undesirable consequence for me of all this activity is that I am losing weight—down to 165 this morning. That’s nearly the lowest I have been since high school, and I am the guy who wants to build muscle and gain weight. So I have to be the goose who is cramming food down his own gullet. Not for paté, but for muscle. Some of the articles say that I need to eat at least 500 to 1000 more calories a day than usual. Have 5 or 6 little meals a day. And drink protein shakes! Read the rest of this entry »
Whew! I am OK. Thought I strained myself with too much exercise, and especially that ab workout last Wednesday, when I jumped right to some advanced drills on the ball. Could never be satisfied sticking with beginner stuff. Was worried that I might have caused a hernia, so I decided to rest a few days. Felt a little strain.
I did do 46 push ups on Friday morning, rested for 10 breaths, and dropped for another 14 My record in long ago days was 150 push ups total, with those 10 breath intervals. Also did 100 leg scissors to beef up my abs.
Thursday I left to watch my first professional squash match—very exciting and much higher level of play than the college games I have seen. As a friend said, those pros can really “whack” the ball. Reminds me of all the movie hitmen who whack their targets.
Came home Friday for the annual game dinner at a hunting and fishing club I joined a year ago. Love the talk about how many fish were caught, dogs flushing pheasants, deer missed by inches when they ducked the arrow heard whooshing towards them. Another world. Active and sometimes manly men…and a few women. They may have had quadruple bypasses two months ago—like one man in his 70’s or 80’s I met—but they are already walking their dog a mile or two each day to get in shape for walking the river with a fly rod.
Another member is now raising 25 chickens from chicks for the first time and buying organic lamb from a neighbor. All healthy and outdoors. And some of these gents are lawyers and hedge fund guys—along with serious and multi-generational farmers. An interesting mix.
One fit young man there I know is 35, weighs maybe 150, goes to the gym every work day, and has a private trainer work with him two of those days. “How are your abs?” I blurted out nosily. “I have too much skin to have abs,” he confessed. “I weighed 284 pounds in college.” Wow was I shocked. Turned out he didn’t eat properly. I didn’t pursue any deeper questions, like “How the hell did you lose 130 or 140 pounds?” Read the rest of this entry »
I have learned that as undisciplined as I am when it comes to exercising, I am very disciplined compared to others when it comes to eating. My father always said that “You are what you eat.” My wife calls me the “food police.” Since high school when I weighed 170, I have reached 185 pounds and dropped to 163 or so. But that drop was during a brief period when I jogged for a couple of months on a dare to run in a seven-mile road race.
It took me years to realize that when my clothes became tight, it was NOT because they were shrinking in the wash—I was gaining fat. So I would then give up the desserts I love and bread and muffins and lose the weight. I was that disciplined. Once the pounds were gone, I was back to ice cream every night, and sometimes three desserts a day between Thanksgiving and New Years. Predictably I regained 10 pounds each December…that I would then lose over the next few months.
About two years ago, my cholesterol rocketed up to 239, which is almost heart attack range I read—so I instantly changed my diet and my life. I began exercising daily on a rowing machine that had been gathering dust, gave up ice cream, chicken skin, sea urchin and many other high cholesterol foods. Within three months I was down to a cholesterol number of 178. Amazed everyone. I stopped the rowing. Now the number is 204. Not bad. Much safer.
But I asked my doctor at this year’s physical why people who say they want to lose weight continue to eat foods that are clearly fattening. “I can’t lose weight,” they whine, and then they drink almost a whole bottle of wine, snort that blue cheese down or have just a “tiny” spoonful or two of cake or ice cream at most meals. “Not everyone is as disciplined as you,” doc pointed out. “They don’t want to give up those good tasting foods that you can avoid.” Even though some of them go to the gym more than I do, spend an hour on a machine to lose 300 calories and then have one drink or dessert that in five minutes puts all those calories right back on them. Not logical…but people aren’t logical. Read the rest of this entry »