How I did “it”

 

The mastery of no other subject has escaped men and women more than physical fitness and dieting.  So many new diet books appear each moth, claiming to be able to reduce the bulk with the magic of some never before known secret combination that will render its finder healthy, and beautiful when the wake up the following morning.   From the blah blah diet bread, to the no carbs diet, to the no sugar diet.   When you do the final math, its really quite simple how they all work, how could you not figure it out yourself?  That’s what they want you to think. 

 

In this text, I will discuss what I did, how I did it, and what happened. Things I tried that worked, things I tried that did not work.  How I went about loosing 90 pounds, and what I would do different if I were to do it all over again.  Who helped me, who didn’t help me, and how you can succeed when those around you fail.  Its all here. Those that know me, know I’m not a genius, but every once in a while I screw up and do something right.

 

Chapter 1. 

Where did it all start?

 

I was born at a very early age.  (I always start with that)   I’ve never been a small guy.  Only once that I can remember was I ever in good shape, looking back at the few pictures that I have from those days, its hard to tell that its me.   What was I doing those days, that my body seemed to like so much?  The year was 1989; I was working at Sams wholesale club.  What did I eat?  EVERYTHING I COULD GET MY HANDS ON.  What did I do for a living?  I pushed shopping carts from the parking lot of the store, back inside the store.  Seven hours a day.  Big, heavy, metal, carts.  How did I get to work?  I walked two miles a day, to work.  I couldn’t eat enough food.  Constant exercise outweighs any foods you could eat.  Carbohydrates, sugars, starches, it doesn’t matter, it just didn’t matter.  200 pounds no matter what I eat or drink.   60% of the population is overweight, 25% considered obese  Proof there are a LOT of people that can’t get the numbers right. 

 

Chapter 2.

Oh my god, what have I done to myself?

 

We Flash forward to New Years 2000.

 

I’m now about 310 pounds.  I’ve gained about 110 pounds.  It wasn’t all over night.  Years of food, bought and paid for. Slowly gathering around my middle, just waiting for the day for the battle between it and my heard were to begin.  Who would win?  Certainly not my heart.  I was barely able to climb a couple flights of stairs with being winded.   My Friday dinner plans call for me to order two subs and a two liter of coke for myself, and some breadsticks for Molly.  I sit at my computer, devour the entire lot, and watch tv.  Later my exercise is to waddle the 10 yards to my bed, to pass out till breakfast time.  Breakfast time comes, and off to dunkin doughnuts I got. Coffee coolatats for everyone….  That will hold me till a nice lunch somewhere, to begin the process all over again.   Would anyone ever stop me?  No.  There was no one with the balls to stop me.  I was an unstoppable eating machine, and proud of it.  Able to eat two or three times the food of the average person, able to walk away from a sushi rest with a bill of 75$,  and able to drink certain loud mouth folks, under the table.  (Not naming any names Rita R.)  Happy was I with my life. I had things, I had money, I wanted for no food. Or so I thought. 

 

Chapter 3.

Where do I start?

 

It doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you start.  That said, if you don’t know where you started, you’ll never know if you are doing well or not.  I’m a very goal oriented person, so I have complex Excel spreadsheets with daily morning and evening weigh ins, with predefined goals set up so at a moments notice I can tell if I am on track or not.  You MUST have goals. Reaching a goal date, and meeting or exceeding the goal is a very rewarding thing. This is what will drive you to keep going.  A nice digital scale is fairly cheap now a days, and well worth the accuracy.  You might not need the graphs, and pretty pictures, but they sure helped me.

 

Chapter 4.

Ok, I’m weighed in, what do I do now?

 

Not every battle plan works for every war.  What I’m about to list, worked for me.  Will it work for you?  I would expect so.  If not, I’ll double your money back!

 

To do this, you need three things:

 

Some diet planning

Some exercise

Someone to give you positive reinforcement. (or yell at you, whichever works best)

 

Water, H2O, Das Wasser, el agua, whatever you wish to call it.  You NEED it, lots of it.  I’ve read all sorts of suggested numbers, 1oz for every pound that you weigh, 8 glasses a day (84 oz total) and on and on.  If you sit in a 60 degree office, all day, don’t sweat at all, then go home, and don’t do anything, chances are you wont need that much water. But, for those of us that actually DO something in life, you’ll need quite a bit.  Especially while exercising, the body needs water, it acts like anti-freeze in a car, cooling the body down.  When you sit at your desk, and that desire hits you to go grab a candy car, have a bottle of water, it will fill you up, and avoid the fat, sugar, and carbs of that Hersheys with almonds bar. 

Soda.  BAD.  Yes, its mostly water, but so is a swimming pool.  But its full of chemicals and crap.  Aspartame, Posphoric Acid, Potasium Benzoate, Caffine.  You don’t need any of this stuff. Caffeine is dehydrating.  Caffine is addictive.  I know this.  At the beginning of this, I was consuming as much as four liters of coke per day, though I tended to stick just over two liters.  Sugar, carbs, making the switch to a diet soda, was a weight loss step in itself.  Realizing my addiction to caffine was another habbit to kick, but I’ve taken care of that pretty well.  If you *need* caffine for fear of killing someone in your office in the morning hours, Try Green tea. Green tea contains twice the disease-fighting punch as red wine.  Researchers have found that the disease-fighting compound in green tea, EGCG, is twice as powerful as resveratrol, which is found in red wine.  The bad news… Arizona Green tea, with ginseng and honey doesn’t really count, the sugars in it make it taste great, but….  At least its still better than Coke.

 

Breakfast:  To end your hunger strike.  Have you heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day?  It wasn’t a lie.  Breakfast early in the am, gives your body fuel, and tells it to get the engine running, burning calories.  My first preference was Oatmeal for breakfast, with 1% milk, and a dash of brown sugar.  High Fiber and low fat, a rich source of soluble fiber, it has been proven to reduce cholesterol? Cholesterol is the fatty substance produced by the liver and other cells in the body. While you need some cholesterol to make hormones and breakdown the fats you eat, levels that are bad, mmmmkay.  Recently I’ve changed to Kashi “Go Lean Crunch”  High fiber, low fat, high in protein, most from soy. And it tastes good.  So that’s the important first step of the day.

 

Lunch:  I’m convinced that lunch was invented as an excuse to leave the office for a while. And thank God for it.  Everyone needs a work-break.  Keep in mind, lunch isn’t the time to stuff yourself till you feel like you are going to blow up.  Your body really *needs* a lot less than most people give it (obviously) 

 

 

Dinner: You don’t need dinner. You really don’t need it.  You especially don’t want dinner past about 6:30pm. This means no going out for chicken wings and beer at 10pm.  No Indian food at 9:30, and no midnight pizzas.  Your body is winding down, and everything you will eat, is going to get stored, when you go to bed and your body realizes that it doesn’t need the food for anything.   When you eat, then go to sleep, half of your body is trying to rest, while the other half is forced to process this metric ton of food you just ate. You will not sleep as well.  If  you MUST eat dinner, eat light, and eat early.

 

Food choices…  Why does the no carbs diet work?  Because your body burns carbs before fat.  Kill the carbs, and you burn the far FIRST.  Why does the sugar busters diet work?  First, sugar is a carb. Second, sugar tells your body to produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone, produced by the pancreas, that allows cells to absorb sugar from the blood.   High sugar level also tells your body to store fat. So what happens when you have a large dinner, topped off with a sugary desert?  You tell your body, take this food, and store it! BAD. 

Low sugar foods:

1. do not stimulate fat storage,
2. reduce appetite,
3. enhance sports performance,
4. improve energy levels while reducing sugar-related energy and/or mood swings,
5. improve muscle to fat ratio,
6. enhance mental alertness,
7. allow you to eat more calories

This sounds simple, right?  Well, the problem is that sugar doesn’t just show up in deserts.  Many things are converted to sugar after you eat them. Potatoes, white bread, rice. Sugar is everywhere. You gotta know what to avoid.  Even corn, dear corn, is a pitfall.

 

 

As you can see. A 12oz pepsi is more sugar that you need for the day. Scarry isn’t it?  How many times have I had the equiv of 10 12 oz cans of pepsi? (USDA recommends that the average person eat no more than 10 teaspoons of sugar per day)  Why are we fat?  Pepsi, Coke, Mt Dew.  BAD.  I will say it again, WATER WATER WATER.

 

Ok, you’ve got the idea about food. What next?

Ok, so, you follow this, and you will loose weight.  It will take you a long time, but it will happen.  But you want it faster than that, don’t you?  Ok, you’ll need a little exercise.  Don’t exercise?  Go walk around the block.  When you come back, tell me if you’re tired. If you are, good. If not, go do it twice. 

Like a bike better?  Go get in the car, and drive 1 mile from your house. Make a note where that point is.  Go back home, get on your bike, and ride there, then back home.  Congrats, you’ve just ridden two miles.  When I got my first (recent) bike, few could imagine I would be unable to ride more than a mile without exhaustion.  Slowly but surely I worked my way up to the 35 mile rides I do now –a-days. Take it slow. Don’t kill your self. Just keep bumping up the distance.  You don’t have to ride as fast as possible, up hill, not yet.  Just get there.  The idea is to keep your heart rate above normal,  for at LEAST 12 mins.  12 mins is the time it takes your body to produce fat burning enzymes, converting fat to energy.   This doesn’t mean I pedal my bike for 12 mins, this means I need to spend AT LEAST 12 mins in “the zone” This could convert to 30 mins riding, depending on conditions.

 

 

What heart rate is right for you?

Max heart rate =  220-your age

Min training heart rate= (220-your age)*.6

Max training heart rate=(220-your age)*.8

 

So, for me, being 32 years old: 

Max of 188 with a target area of 113 to 150.

 

The closer to 113, the more fat I burn, the closer to 150, the more cardio exercise I get.

Obviously this is kinda complicated to start.  Who wants to try to keep riding, and check their pulse for 15 secs to see if you are there.  Several companies, Polar included make lovely wireless heart rate monitors, You have what looks like a watch, but will tell you current heart rate, and can be set up to let you know when you exceed or fall below, “the zone”

They cost about fifty dollars at most any sports store, and are handy to have if you are serious about training.

 

Ok, I’m burning fat, what else?

The next step is to get some weight training.  Muscle is what looks good.  Without muscle mass to define you, you might be skinny, but you’re still a wimp.  Everyone needs toned muscle.  What else is good about muscle?  Fat requires no fuel to keep it going, thus fat just keeps growing.  Muscle, on the other hand, requires fuel to keep it going. This is good; you are looking for more things that burn calories, without you having to do all the work.  Start building the muscles and they will work for you.  I’m not asking you to bench press twice your body weight, but get those muscles working a little.  You’ll be happy with what you see.

 

 

 

This is a lot of stuff to do, and remember, and I get scared by myself.

Ok, this part is really important. Most people aren’t gifted with the drive to do all this on their own. They need someone to go along for the ride.  I had one major person, and a couple alternates.  You need someone to help get you up that big hill, or off your butt when you feel lazy and don’t want to exercise.   You need someone that will be there you yell, or say nice things, as the need arises.  This is pretty important.  Few have the ability to do this all on their own.