A quick addendum...

In my post this morning, I mentioned a website, thedailyplate.com. This site has now been incorporated into www.livestrong.com. Just go there, and in the search box at the top right of the page, type the name of the restaurant or the food item you are looking for. If you tell it to search in "food and fitness" instead of "all", you will get where you're going much faster. You don't need an account to access this information. If you do decide to register for an account, you will have access to features similar to fitday.com, where you can input your food and track your progress.

Facts Are Our Friends...

"Facts are our friends."

 

This quote from Pastor Johnny Hunt, current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is applicable to most areas of life. Most of us have at least one area of our life where we're not really interested in the facts, because this lack of knowledge helps us look past our own faults and shortcomings. I am reminded of the classic story "Snow White", where the evil queen asks, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" She was more interested in the mirror's opinion, and how she compared with everyone else, than she was in the mirror's reflection. She was enraged when the mirror declared that, with Snow White's arrival, she was no longer the fairest in the land.

 

In ministry, we have been known to fall into some of these same tactics - a fellow pastor asks how many we are averaging in church, and I have heard many pastors round the numbers WAAYY up. A crowd of 150 can easily become 250 through the power of the "guesstimate"; the latest trend is to add up the total number of people in every service, and that's the "attendance". If Sunday School attendance is 100, morning worship 150, Sunday evening 70, Wednesday night is 40, it is perfectly acceptable now to say that your church is running about 360 (well, 400, if you count those who would have been there if they could have been, and a few more if you count those who attended the monthly service in the nursing home).

 

The same thing holds true for our eating and exercise habits. Unless we are very intentional about tracking everything we eat accurately, we will often paint a very distorted picture of what our diets actually look like. One thing I discovered during ABL is that the rule of thumb is, you usually eat more than you think, and you usually exercise less than you think. This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend, and I ate some things I would not have normally eaten. I am on a stabilization plan with PHC, in which certain foods are gradually re-introduced back into the diet. I ate well outside of that list this weekend (not excessively bad, but a few things that weren't on the list). Predictably, my weight is up a little bit - with a three-pound swing in two days, I can tell you that it is water weight. When I sat down and plugged yesterday's eating into my fitday.com profile, I was rather shocked to discover that my sodium intake was THROUGH THE ROOF! During the competition, one of the pleasures that I allowed myself was the Chargrilled Chicken Sandwich from Chick-Fil-A, and I would indulge myself with this treat almost every Monday night following weigh-in. It was in the PHC book as an acceptable eating-out alternative; I ate it without giving it too much thought. Every week I faithfully wrote it down in my food journal, and I always had a good laugh about it with Savannah, my nutrition counselor at PHC. Previously I had recorded it in my fitday.com journal as a piece of chicken and a couple of pieces of bread, and figured, "ah, that's close enough". This morning, I looked up the actual nutrition information for the sandwich at thedailyplate.com (which lists almost every food you can imagine from every restaurant chain you can imagine), and discovered that my treat is probably responsible for every single mid-week gain I had during the competition. The calories aren't bad (about 300), but the sodium is off-the-charts (1120 mg). That wasn't too bad for weigh-in day, because most of us didn't eat anything between a light, early breakfast and weigh-in time at 7:00 PM. But when added into a typical day's eating, the results can be quite alarming. Yesterday (Memorial Day, remember), I ended up at nearly 4800 mg of sodium, almost four times what I would get in a normal day. Now, I can fix this... today I will be eating very low sodium foods, and will be drinking water like crazy to get my body to stop retaining the fluid.

 

Here's the point: you can't fix the problem until you can accurately define the problem; you can't accurately define the problem until you know the specifics. And you won't know the specifics until you overcome your fear of the facts. Fear of facts is why we won't get on the scale, or check our bank balance, or be accountable with our time. Ignorance may be bliss, but bliss can be a very dangerous thing.

Are You Committed?

As I write this, I am nearing the end of my personal weight-loss journey. But I'm only beginning the journey of staying fit, which is a trip that will take the rest of my life.

 

Also, as I write this, some of you reading this have already given up. You meant well... you were serious. THIS was going to be your time. THIS time was going to be different...

 

But here you are again. And not feeling good about it.

 

Let me just take a minute to try and encourage you to get back on your plan. If you did it for a week, you can do it for another week. If you did it for a month, you can do it for another month. I read a good quote last month - it was something to the effect of, if you are doing the best you can, then you can't try any harder. What you CAN do is try different.

 

You can also ask for help. I have learned that even the most brilliant plan loses its effectiveness once your body has gotten used to it, and then you have to make changes. During the past 6 months I've been on plans that included all the food groups; plans of nothing but protein; plans of nothing but dairy and poultry; plans of nothing but vegetables and fruits; and at times, nothing but yogurt and a little fruit. Some of you did your plan the first week, and lost 4 or 5 (or more) pounds; then it slacked off to a pound, or maybe a little gain... but instead of, to use an analogy, going looking for another axehead, you kept swinging with just the handle, and then wondered why you couldn't chop down the next tree.

 

If you've quit, or just fudged a little, please consider getting back on track. I know I've not sent out a lot lately, but you have to understand that the things that I wrote in the first 5 or 6 weeks are the exact same things that I'm having to do right here at the end of my journey - starches, sugar, salt are still the enemies; lean protein, dairy, and vegetables are still the things to eat; water and exercise are still the catalysts for change. There's not much more to it than that.

 

Please feel free to contact me at any time... I did not do this to keep all this knowledge to myself. God has put me in this place in my life to be a blessing to others, and I welcome the chance to help you.

Some Random Tips...

We got these tips at one of our recent ABL meetings, and I'm just passing them along. They are in no particular order - some are diet related, some are supplement related, some are exercise related. Hopefully you can find something that will be of help to you!

 

* Green tea - you can drink it (2-8 cups per day), or you can take the green tea extract in capsule form. One cup of green tea can burn an additional 80 calories per day.

 

* Lemon juice - the juice of one lemon in 8 oz. of warm water first thing in the morning will help get rid of excess water.

 

* While losing, limit your fruit selections to apples, berries (strawberries, blueberries), and grapefruit. Stay away from citrus fruits, bananas, pineapple, and watermelon because of high sugar content.

 

* Bread, potatoes, cereal, and crackers are a no-no. As little as one piece of whole wheat bread can derail your diet, depending on how sensitive your body is to carbohydrates.

 

* Drink water (preferably cold) 30 minutes before meals. The liver converts stored fat to energy, but if you are dehydrated, the liver will abandon that job in order to help the kidneys. Dehydration = lower kidney function = increased liver involvement in waste processing = less fat burned. (FYI, alcoholic beverages do the same thing - pull the liver off its primary task. If the liver is busy processing alcohol, it will NOT metabolize fat.

 

* Cardio exercise is most effective first thing in the morning, before you eat your first meal. You will begin burning fat right away.

 

* There's a reason for all the 'grapefruit' diets - grapefruit does aid in weight loss. It helps lower insulin in the body, which makes you feel less hungry; lowered insulin level is also an aid to breaking down stored fat.

Fatty Foods May Cause Cocaine-Like Addiction

Scientists have finally confirmed what the rest of us have suspected for years: Bacon, cheesecake, and other delicious yet fattening foods may be addictive.

A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. When rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction, the study found.

Doing drugs such as cocaine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers "crash," and achieving the same pleasure--or even just feeling normal--requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, says Kenny, the lead author of the study.

"People know intuitively that there's more to [overeating] than just willpower," he says. "There's a system in the brain that's been turned on or over-activated, and that's driving [overeating] at some subconscious level."

In the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Kenny and his co-author studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days. One of the groups was fed regular rat food. A second was fed bacon, sausage, cheesecake, frosting, and other fattening, high-calorie foods--but only for one hour each day. The third group was allowed to pig out on the unhealthy foods for up to 23 hours a day.

Not surprisingly, the rats that gorged themselves on the human food quickly became obese. But their brains also changed. By monitoring implanted brain electrodes, the researchers found that the rats in the third group gradually developed a tolerance to the pleasure the food gave them and had to eat more to experience a high.

They began to eat compulsively, to the point where they continued to do so in the face of pain. When the researchers applied an electric shock to the rats' feet in the presence of the food, the rats in the first two groups were frightened away from eating. But the obese rats were not. "Their attention was solely focused on consuming food," says Kenny.

In previous studies, rats have exhibited similar brain changes when given unlimited access to cocaine or heroin. And rats have similarly ignored punishment to continue consuming cocaine, the researchers note.

The fact that junk food could provoke this response isn't entirely surprising, says Dr.Gene-Jack Wang, M.D., the chair of the medical department at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, New York.

"We make our food very similar to cocaine now," he says.

Coca leaves have been used since ancient times, he points out, but people learned to purify or alter cocaine to deliver it more efficiently to their brains (by injecting or smoking it, for instance). This made the drug more addictive.

According to Wang, food has evolved in a similar way. "We purify our food," he says. "Our ancestors ate whole grains, but we're eating white bread. American Indians ate corn; we eat corn syrup."

The ingredients in purified modern food cause people to "eat unconsciously and unnecessarily," and will also prompt an animal to "eat like a drug abuser [uses drugs]," says Wang.

The neurotransmitter dopamine appears to be responsible for the behavior of the overeating rats, according to the study. Dopamine is involved in the brain's pleasure (or reward) centers, and it also plays a role in reinforcing behavior. "It tells the brain something has happened and you should learn from what just happened," says Kenny.

Overeating caused the levels of a certain dopamine receptor in the brains of the obese rats to drop, the study found. In humans, low levels of the same receptors have been associated with drug addiction and obesity, and may be genetic, Kenny says.

However, that doesn't mean that everyone born with lower dopamine receptor levels is destined to become an addict or to overeat. As Wang points out, environmental factors, and not just genes, are involved in both behaviors.

Wang also cautions that applying the results of animal studies to humans can be tricky. For instance, he says, in studies of weight-loss drugs, rats have lost as much as 30 percent of their weight, but humans on the same drug have lost less than 5 percent of their weight. "You can't mimic completely human behavior, but [animal studies] can give you a clue about what can happen in humans," Wang says.

Although he acknowledges that his research may not directly translate to humans, Kenny says the findings shed light on the brain mechanisms that drive overeating and could even lead to new treatments for obesity.

"If we could develop therapeutics for drug addiction, those same drugs may be good for obesity as well," he says.

Copyright Health Magazine 2010

Collecting Evidence Of Your Success...

This is from my personal blog, which I first posted on my Augusta's Biggest Loser Official blog (at augustasbiggestloser.ning.com). I thought it might help someone - just some thoughts I had about motivation this morning:

 

Since we began with the ABL competition, I have done some things that could be taken as being vain, even though I have tried my best to explain what I was doing. On my facebook page and on here, I have put pictures up of me before I started losing weight, and pictures taken along the way - down 50 pounds, down 70 pounds, down 90 pounds, etc. I write in my personal blog about 3 times a week or so about my experiences. I share my victories (and my defeats) with my friends. And I always feel like I have to write, "I'm honestly not trying to brag or anything..." I have wanted to explain why I was doing what I was doing, but I never could find the words to correctly express my intentions. Until now...

In my email this morning, I learned that Kindle, the electronic book device from Amazon, now has an application that will allow you to download and read digital copies of books on your PC. I installed the application, and the first book I downloaded was "Believe It, Be It: How Being the Biggest Loser Won Me Back My Life" by season 5 winner Ali Vincent. I've been wanting to read it for a while. I read almost the entire book this morning, and in it, she talks about the struggle she had trying to change her mind about herself. She said that she still saw herself as that fat girl, just a smaller version of it. The way she got past it was to begin, to use her words, "collecting evidence of (her) success".

Johnnie tells us there are no moral victories in this competition, and he's absolutely right in regards to the competition itself. There are no prizes for tiniest waistline, smallest shirt size, fastest 5K run, heaviest bench press, best "after" photo, or even for the most pounds lost. But the tiny waistline, the small shirt size, the 5K time, the weightlifting capacity, the photos, and the scales are "evidence of your success". As I've written before in my blog, when I look in the mirror, I still see the guy in the "before" photos. I need evidence of my success in order to re-define who I am.

Nandy and I were at the TV studio Tuesday morning, she with her big ol' pants, and me with a gargantuan suit jacket that used to fit me. Bragging? no... just collecting evidence of our success. My last three weeks on the scale have been like this: no change, down 10, up one. I was not upset or concerned with the "no change" or the "up one", because all along the way, I have been collecting evidence of my success. As I post pictures and statistics about pounds and inches lost, I am not trying to tell the world, "look what I've done"... I'm telling the old self-image in my head and my heart, "look what I've done". My blog, my photos, my ever-changing clothing sizes, my "PR's", my health status - all those things are evidence of my success. The people that I'm sharing those things with are my "witnesses" that help validate that evidence.

If by the grace of God I do happen to come out on top in this competition (and that is by NO MEANS a "given"), I will not regard that as having achieved my goal. My goal is to change my life for the rest of my life - a victory would only be another piece of evidence of my success, no more and no less important than fitting into the next size smaller jeans. If I do not win, that fact simply will not be part of my collection of evidence. To my fellow competitors - do NOT look at winning or losing this contest as the end-all, be-all gauge of your success. Twelve of us were chosen for this competition; ten of us are not going to "win". But all of us can use what we have accomplished as evidence of our success!

Updates...

Some of you may have wondered why I am not writing as often as I was when I began this blog. The posts have slowed down largely because I've shared most of the basics of weight loss with you. In spite of all the late-night TV commercials claiming to have "THE answer" to weight loss, there really is no silver bullet. People who have not seen me in a while ask me what I'm doing to lose weight, and the answer is always the same: "I'm eating lots of bland, boring food and working my tail off in the gym every day." Most people who are wanting to lose hope for a different answer, like "I take these pills - they're $4.99 at CVS - and the weight is coming off." They - quite literally - want to have their cake and eat it, too.

 

Over the next couple of days, I will re-read everything I've written, and see if there's anything earth-shattering that I've forgotten to share. But here, in a nutshell, are the things every dieter needs to keep in mind:

 

1. It takes a deficit of 3500 calories to lose one pound of fat. You either have to find a way to reduce your calorie intake (like giving up the cheeseburgers) or increase your calorie burn (like exercising until you feel like your lungs are going to explode).

 

2. Little cheats go a long ways. You can undo an entire week of benefits from exercise with one slice of pizza, one soda, or one double cheeseburger.

 

3. Your body needs water to flush out the fat. And then you have to make sure you get rid of the water. Drink water like a fish (take your weight, divide by two - that's how many ounces you should drink per day); watch the sodium, which will cause you to retain fluid. Don't cook with salt, don't add salt at the table, and don't eat anything for which you can't verify the sodium content.

 

4. If you exercise to the point of sweating and then quit, you're just warming up. Walking is good for you, but you have to walk a LOT for it to be beneficial. I gave you a guideline of 10,000 steps per day, or approximately 5 miles. A stroll around the block with an ice cream cone in your hand ain't gonna cut it.

 

If you've lost the link to my tips, you can read everything I've written here:

 

http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Re-Evaluate...

(This entry is from my personal blog - thought it might be useful.)

 

Well, tonight was a first for me... this is the first week that I have lost nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not one ounce.

 

I guess it's time for me to take the steps myself that I recommend to everyone else when they ask me how to proceed after a week of little or no loss (or a gain). So, here we go:

 

1. Analyze the diet: Did I eat something I should not have? (Nope.) Did I eat too much of something that can slow down my weight loss? (Probably - I do know that I tried increasing my carbs slightly, and that probably had something to do with it.) Did I eat out? (No - aside from my usual Monday night trip to Chick-Fil-A, I've not eaten out.) Did I get too much sodium? (No, I didn't eat anything I didn't cook myself this week.) Lesson for next week: lose the carbs again.

 

2. Analyze the exercise: We did change our exercise routine this week - last Wednesday we started running during our hour with Johnnie; Friday morning we had that basketball game; the physical repercussions from the game did limit my workouts over the weekend, and even this morning's run. Talked with Johnnie tonight about going back to alternating cardio with weight training. He approved, so hopefully I can get back on track.

 

3. Supplements, vitamins, parsley tea, lemon water - the ancillary stuff we have to do. Check, check, check, and mostly check. Gotta get back on the water.

 

Sometimes your body just gets used to what you're doing, and you have to shake things up. I will be making some changes this week, and hopefully will get things moving again. It's coming during a difficult week - I have to take an out-of-town trip for the first time since starting the Biggest Loser. We will be at a church conference that will be feeding the crowd like kings, and I'm going to have to navigate all that.

 

Am I disappointed? Yes. But I'm not upset. Even Barry said, "You didn't lose a dadgum thing and you're still in the lead... good job." My trainer Johnnie echoed those sentiments, and I do understand where they're coming from. I've done the work and had the discipline to put myself in a position to be able to weather a bad week here and there late in the contest. I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, and it will pay off in the end. So - back to work tomorrow morning.

 

 

Watch Your Numbers...

Today's tip is a very short one: eat less, exercise more.

 

Why do I say that? In a study done by the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, researchers from Tufts University found that fast food and restaurant food actually averages 18% more calories than stated on the nutrition information guides. This is not a deception, per se: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows up to 20% excess calories in food. If your fast food meal is listed at 500 calories, for example, it is probably 600 calories. A hundred calories here and there may not seem like much, but for someone trying to watch their weight, it can add up to a ten-pound weight gain in a single year.

 

Conversely, when exercising, we seldom actually burn off the amount of calories that we think we are burning off. Even if we go by calorie-burn charts, there's no accounting for rest periods, changes in speed and intensity, and other factors that can affect the way we burn calories.

 

So just remember: if the package says you ate 500 calories, and the exercise table says you burned off 500 calories, the truth may be that you have eaten 600 calories and only burned off 350. Two weeks of that will add a pound and a half to your weight without you even realizing it!

 

Hence, eat less; exercise more.

When The Diet Quits Working...

Frequently, people trying to lose weight will discover that the things they did the first few weeks to lose weight suddenly don't work anymore. It's not that the diet doesn't work; usually the issue is that your body has gotten used to what you are doing, and has adjusted itself in self-preservation. Whatever diet plan you are following, have another one ready as a back-up. If you are on a low-carb, high protein diet, try going to an exchange-type diet, continuing to keep an eye on carbohydrates, fats, and sodium. There are a hundred different diets out there - some heavy in fruits, some heavy in protein, some heavy in grains. Stay away from the ones that don't make any sense to you or that seem too daunting, but look for something you can do differently.

 

Supplement the change in diet with a corresponding change in activity. If your activity has consisted mainly of walking or light weights, find another form of exercise that you can do. And don't be afraid to sweat or feel muscle soreness! Some of you older folks may be somewhat limited in what kinds of activities you can do, but be creative (and careful!).

Be SMART with your goals...

Today's thoughts are not original with me, but they are worth sharing. What are you trying to accomplish with your weight loss strategy? If I were to ask you to write down your goals, what would you write? "To lose weight"? "To be healthier"?

 

Those are good things, but those are not really good goals. It's like going on a trip and saying, "I'm going east." When you set out on a journey, you are specific about where you are going, how you are going to get there, and how long it will take. When setting your weight loss goals, use the acronym SMART to decide what you are going to shoot for:

 

S - Specific. Be specific about your goals. "I want to lose 50 pounds." "I want to get my blood pressure down to normal." "I want to fit back into my size 8 jeans."

 

M - Measureable. Make sure your goals are measureable, so that you can gauge your progress. This usually involves setting goals that involve numbers, whether they be pounds, inches, or other units of measure.

 

A - Action-related. This involves setting goals for which you have the knowledge, ability, and tools to achieve. They have to be set according to what YOU are capable of achieving.

 

R - Realistic. If you set your goal at losing 10 pounds a week, you are going to give up, because by week 4, you're going to be about 30 pounds behind. Do not watch The Biggest Loser and think you are going to pull those kinds of numbers. They have a whole team of trainers, nutritionists, doctors, and other support people who guide them through carefully planned menus and insane workout schedules.

 

T - Time-related. Put a time component into your plans, with a starting date and a goal completion date.

 

Keep your goals specific, measureable, action-related, realistic, and time-related, and you will realize them sooner than you think!

A few tips...

Sorry there haven't been any new updates for a few days... things have been a little crazy for me. Readers of my regular blog and my facebook status updates know that I am struggling with some back/leg/hip issues right now - hard to focus on anything while suffering from severe sciatic nerve issues. Workouts are hard; sitting is hard; walking is hard; sleeping is even hard right now.

 

Just a few tips to pass along that anyone can do to help improve their weight loss:

 

1) Breathe. Breathing sounds so elementary, but most of us breathe shallowly, filling only the top portion of our lungs. But the real exchange of gases happens at the bottom of the lungs. When you have the opportunity, focus on taking deep breaths; breathe deeply by pushing your diaphragm in and out, not by raising and lowering your shoulders. Your diaphragm is the band of muscle directly beneath your ribcage and above your belly, and its purpose is to expand the thoracic cavity to allow air to fill the lungs. More air means more oxygen; more oxygen means more fat-burning.

 

2) Drink. Several times I have discussed the importance of getting enough water. Your water intake needs to be half your weight in ounces, so if you weigh 200 pounds, you need 100 ounces of water daily. But there are other drinks that will help you with your weight loss. Don't go crazy with coffee or diet drinks, but caffeine has been shown to help with weight reduction. If you get your caffeine through coffee, watch the cream and sugar. Use fat-free, sugar free alternatives to flavor your coffee. Green tea can also help burn calories, but again, not with sugar.

 

3) Move. After a satisfying meal, most of us move to the couch and vegetate for a while. Resist the urge, and go for a walk instead. Getting some exercise immediately after a meal (within 5 to 15 minutes) will help convert the food you just ate into fuel for muscles instead of stored fat. If you live a sedentary lifestyle, this is even more important.

 

4) Weigh. For those of you in our Healthy Again in 2010 group at Lumpkin Road Baptist, some of you have missed an appointment or two with the scale... don't do that! It's kind of like not checking your bank account regularly - when you finally do take a look, it's never as good as you think it should be. If you are trying to lose weight, I recommend weighing every day on your own, and definitely don't miss the weekly weigh-in. Weighing daily gives you the opportunity to make corrections in your diet immediately, instead of on a week-to-week basis.

 

5) Forget. Mess up this week? Move on, and don't look back. Figure out what caused you to get sidetracked, find a way to avoid it next time, and get on with business.

 

6) Commit. Your level of commitment will directly coincide with your level of success. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: little changes bring little results; temporary changes bring temporary results. If you want radical results, you HAVE to make radical changes.

 

Next time I will write about why most people fall off the wagon within the first 6 weeks of their diet.

 

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com

Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

 

 

"Why Can't I Just Work It Off?"

"I'm going to the gym every day, but I'm not losing weight - what am I doing wrong?" I'm starting to hear this from a lot of different people, both inside and outside our weight loss group at church. The plain truth is, working out every day is not going to make you lose weight if there is no change in your dietary habits.

 

Here's an example: you're in a hurry, and for lunch you run by McDonald's and grab a large number one meal (you order a large to get the large drink). This Big Mac Extra Value meal is 1350 calories. In order to offset that calorie intake (forget about the 1410 milligrams of sodium for a minute), you would have to do this much of the following exercises:

 

    * You could do 3 hours of non-stop high-impact aerobics

 

    * You could play full-court basketball for 2 hours

 

    * You could go mountain biking for 2.5 hours

 

    * You could play full-contact football for 2 hours

 

    * You could jog for 3 hours

 

    * You could walk at a moderate pace for 7 hours

 

You get the idea. The average overweight person cannot physically do enough exercise in one day to offset the effects of a high-calorie diet. The average American eats around 4,000 calories per day. In order to lose one pound per week without changing your eating habits, you would have to burn off 4500 calories per day. That translates to 10 hours of aerobics, 6 hours of basketball, 7.5 hours of mountain biking, 6 hours of full-contact football, 9 hours of jogging, or 21 hours of walking.

 

Let me know how that walking thing works out for ya!

A FREE Online Resource...

I can't take any credit at all for the information I'm about to give you, because a friend of mine alerted me to this site.

 

When we began Augusta's Biggest Loser, we were asking about the body bugg that they use on the TV show "The Biggest Loser". Turns out the body buggs are quite expensive, and you have to pay a subscription fee to upload your data to their website. My friend Eric alerted me to a site that he has been using in his weight loss journey, and it has a lot of great features. The site is www.fitday.com, and with nothing more than signing up, you get the ability to do the following:

 

* Track your food intake each day, broken down by calories, fat, carbohydrates, and protein

 

* Track your daily nutrients according to percentage of recommended daily allowance

 

* Track your progress through a journal, weight chart, and other means

 

* Add custom foods to the database simply by typing in the nutrition panel contents

 

* Input your exercise and see roughly how many calories you are burning each day

 

* Record your measurements (waist, arms, etc.) and track your inches lost

 

Basically, it's a poor man's "body bugg". The online version is completely free (although missing a few advanced reports that are only available in the paid version); for $20, you can download the software to your computer instead of using it online. All you have to do is create a username, a password, and give them an e-mail address. I have begun using it myself, and I absolutely love it. Eric asked me to take a look at what he had done, and I was able to immediately identify a couple of potential problem areas for him.

 

**Congratulations to the Lumpkin Road Baptist Healthy Again in 2010 participants - over the past two weeks, you all have lost a combined 125 lbs!!**

 

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com
Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

Do Weight-Loss Aids Really Work?

One of the things I have discovered by being at the gym at 5:30 every morning is that there are an awful lot of weight-loss and body-toning aids that are being hawked on television these days. From battery-powered belts that supposedly give you a six-pack, to devices that will tie you up in knots, it seems like there is a market for anything that will be a shortcut to diet and exercise. Our desire to be fit can be so overwhelming that we through common sense out the window, ignore all the "results not typical" small print warnings, and plunk down our hard-earned cash for a chance at the body/physique they show on television. Americans spend over $40 billion dollars a year on weight-loss aids.

 

Weight loss is no more complicated than this: removing factors like water retention, you have to create a 3,500 calorie deficit in your intake/output to lose one pound. This is most easily and safely done by a combination of eating less and exercising more. Even the commercials for exercise-centered video games for the Wii say in the fine print at the bottom of the screen that weight loss occurs when you create a 3,500 calorie deficit in your diet through proper nutrition and exercise.

 

There are some legitimate products out there that can help with weight loss - but consult with your doctor or your local professional weight-loss clinic before taking them. Some are legit, some are questionable, and some are downright dishonest and deceptive (like the colon cleansing products that claim you have 7 to 25 pounds of "gook" lining your intestines that needs to be cleaned out).

 

The plain ol' time-tested, boring path of diet and exercise is the best, and only real, way to make a permanent change in your life.

 

 

Weighing in...

Sunday is the weigh-in day for the Healthy Again group at Lumpkin Road Baptist Church (the rest of you reading along who do not attend our church will just have to skip over the church-specific stuff).  Here's a couple of weigh-in tips that apply to anyone.

 

1. There is a lot of debate over whether or not you should weigh every day. Some weight loss experts discourage it, because your weight can fluctuate from day to day (women are particularly susceptible to this problem). Some encourage it to keep you on track. Personally, I do weigh every morning - not to be obsessive about it, but because I can make mid-week adjustments to my diet if I sense a slow-down in my loss. If it slows, I eliminate some of the starches from my diet, or work a little harder on exercise, or make some other change. As part of the Augusta's Biggest Loser competition, our official weigh-in is once a week, but our nutrition center weighs us two other times a week. They only see their regular clients once a week, but because we are in a competition, they don't want to wait a week to see about changing our food plan. If there's a problem, it shows up in a couple of days instead of a couple of weeks.

 

2. To get an accurate weight each time on the scale, the following may be helpful:

 

    - Wear the same (or similar) clothing each time you weigh. If you are weighing in at the church on Sunday, this may be difficult. Just do the best you can.

 

    - Weigh at the same time each time you weigh in. There can be as much as a four-pound difference between what you weigh in the morning and what you weigh in the evening.

 

    - If you began by weighing without shoes, make sure you weigh without shoes each time.

 

    - When you step on the scale, stand up straight, look forward, and exhale. It's best to have someone else look at the dial / display for you, because when you lean forward to see your numbers, you are most likely going to put too much pressure on the front of the scale, which can distort your number either up or down. Swallow your pride and let someone else record your weight loss.

 

    - Tempting as it may be, don't try any "tricks" to artificially get your number down before you face the scale. Boxers and wrestlers know all the tricks to get their weight just exactly what it needs to be for the moment they have to weigh in. As far as I know, there are no boxers or wrestlers in our group. Don't delay more than one meal to face the scale (for example, if you weigh on Sunday night, postponing dinner until after the weigh-in is fine), but don't starve yourself on Sunday to get a good number. You could slow your metabolism down and make it more difficult for the pounds to come off later.

 

Eat right, drink right, exercise right, and let the scale worry about itself!

 

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com
Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

 

The Motivation to Keep Going...

What motivates you? This is an important question, because most people do not have it within themselves to simply will themselves to succeed in weight loss. You need to find what motivates you, incorporate it into your life, and use it to propel you forward. Here are just a couple of suggestions:

 

Media - there are movies out there with inspirational speeches, scenes of people giving their all, etc. Go to youtube.com and do a search for inspiration or motivation. You will find movie scenes, speeches, etc., that will put just a little more hunger in you (no pun intended) to achieve your best. I throw in a Rocky movie every now and then to watch Stallone exercise, and to see the results. I listen to the speeches the coach makes from "Facing the Giants".

 

Pictures - for those of you who have just a little bit of weight you want to lose, pictures are probably not going to be very motivational. But if you are wanting to make a change in your appearance, there's a couple of ways you can use photos to your advantage. If you have a picture of you at, or near, the weight you want to be, pull it out and put it somewhere where you will see it often. Another way to use the camera to your advantage is to keep a picture record of where you start at, and take a new picture at significant points during your weight loss. I had my starting pictures, and then one at 50 pounds down, and my most recent one is at 80 pounds down. Keep the new pictures side by side with your old picture, and you will be astounded at the difference. There's something about looking at yourself in a photo that is significantly different from looking at yourself in a mirror.

 

Your health status - many people who are trying to lose weight are doing so to improve their blood pressure, cholesterol, or some other indicator of quality of health. Have your numbers checked regularly, and watch them come down as you live a more healthy lifestyle.

 

There are other ways to motivate yourself, such as posting relevant scripture verses or motivational sayings around your environment. But there is one type of motivation that we do not want you to do, and that is to reward yourself with food. Many people, after they have had a good weigh-in, will go and "treat themselves" to some off-limits food that they are wanting. Not only do you have the potential of wrecking your diet with a cheat (even a little one), but you are reinforcing the behavior that assigned an emotional attachment to food, and that emotional attachment is what got many of us into this place to start with. Food should neither be a reward nor a punishment; food is the fuel your body needs to burn off excess fat, and to continue functioning day-to-day. Until you change your mind about your food, you are not likely to make permanent changes in your lifestyle.

 

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com
Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

 

 

Salt Re-visited...

Too much salt in your diet will cause you to retain water and sidetrack your numbers on the scale; however, there are several other harmful effects of excessive salt / sodium on your body. Please read the following carefully:

 

Excessive sodium will:

 

- Raise the pressure of the blood, causing stress on the arteries

 

- Increase the mass of the left ventricle of the heart

 

- Thicken, stiffen, and narrow major arteries, including the coronary and renal arteries

 

- Increase the number of strokes

 

- Increase the severity of cardiac failure

 

- Cause the blood platelets to clump together

 

- Accelerate the rate of kidney deterioration

 

- Affect calcium and bone metabolism, affecting bone density in women

 

- Increase the incidence of cancer of the stomach

 

- Increase the severity of asthma in male asthmatic subjects

 

On the plus side, however, excessive sodium will:

 

- Make your food taste good.

 

That's it. Is good taste really worth wrecking your heart, arteries, and kidneys?

 

Here's your guideline for salt: DON'T cook with it. DON'T add it to your food at the table. DON'T eat anything for which you don't know the sodium content. You should not get more than 2000 mg of sodium per day, at most. 1500-1700 is probably more like it.

 

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com
Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Fast Food, or "Fat Food"?

In today's "hurry-up" world, we want everything to be fast, including our meals. It's so convenient to swing by McDonald's or Burger King and pick up a meal, but what will it means in terms of your healthy lifestyle? How many calories are there in that #2 meal, with large fries and a large Coke? All the fast food restaurants are trying to pitch themselves as having "healthy" alternatives - KFC has a big sign over their menu featuring a grilled chicken meal with only 370 calories (but the sodium content - nearly 1800 mg - is in fine print).

 

How do we know what we're eating? Years ago, we had to rely on little calorie-counting books that gave us their best guess on very general categories of food. But with the proliferation of information available on the internet, you're only a few clicks away from looking under the hood of your favorite restaurant's menu. Here are a couple of sites that can help you:

 

http://www.foodfacts.info - Fast Food Facts has comprehensive information on 21 of the most popular fast-food and specialty restaurants (like Krispy Kreme). You can search by restaurant, or sort the results based on calories, sodium, carbs, and other content.

 

http://www.calorieking.com/foods/ - Calorie King has their own membership plan, but you don't have to join to look up foods in their database. You can search not only the entire menu of hundreds of restaurants and fast food chains, but you can look up specific foods in every category imaginable, from beverages to desserts and everything in between.

 

Confession time: My old breakfast favorite from Sonic - two sausage, egg, and cheese burritos - has a whopping 940 calories, 60 grams of fat, 650 mg of cholesterol (more than double the recommended cholesterol for an entire DAY!), and 2280 mg of sodium. And back in those days, I thought I was making a healthier choice because it was a burrito instead of a biscuit! Throw in a lunch at McDonalds, and I was already over 2500 calories, 127 grams of fat, and nearly 4000 milligrams of sodium, with dinner still awaiting me.

 

No wonder I feel so much better after being off of that stuff for just 3 months!

 

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com
Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

 

 

10 Steps to Getting Started...

This is not original with me - it's from the book, "The Biggest Loser Success Secrets". Maybe you have already started on your weight-loss journey, but no matter where you are, these items can help you focus your efforts:

 

1. Admit you have a weight problem. Denial can prevent you from taking action, and pounds will keep piling on.

 

2. Don't make excuses for delay. There's never a "good" time to start a weight-loss program. The best time to start living healthfully is NOW.

 

3. Learn from your past. If you are trying to lose weight now, you have probably tried before. Maybe you failed in the past, but use those failures as an opportunity to learn. What worked before? What didn't work before? Figure out what worked for you, and incorporate the successful behaviors into your new diet plan.

 

4. Make a clean sweep of all junk food. You can't eat it if it's not there, and it cannot tempt you if it's not there. Rid your environment - home, office, car - of foods that will cause you to stumble.

 

5. Build your team. Research shows that people who lose weight and keep it off have good support systems to help them along. This could be your family, your coworkers, an exercise partner, or a weight-loss group.

 

6. Set realistic goals. If your goals aren't realistic and attainable, you'll get frustrated and most likely quit. Set small goals that you can meet in order to maintain your enthusiasm.

 

7. Make daily resolutions toward reaching your goals. Early in a program to change your lifestyle, it's helpful to make daily resolutions that are manageable rather than focusing on far-off end goals. (I can attest to this - throughout my Biggest Loser experience, I have looked for benchmarks that I strive to reach that can be attained in no more than three to four weeks. 25 pounds, then the 300 pound barrier, then 50 pounds, then 75 pounds, etc., are the markers that have kept me going. I don't think about the 140 lbs. I need to lose - if I hit my markers, the 140 will take care of itself. Currently I am working to hit the 250 lb. mark, which is only about 12 pounds away as of this writing.)

 

8. Set your calorie budget. Without a dietician or a specific plan, you may not know how many calories you should eat in a day. A simple guideline to use is this: decide what you want your goal weight to be; multiply that number by 10, and that will tell you roughly the number of calories you should eat in a day. Generally, you should try not to eat less than 1000 calories in a given day. Doing so will actually slow your weight loss as your body goes into starvation mode.

 

9. Plan to be active for at least 60 minutes a day. This may be walking, exercising with free weights, playing a game, or any number of activities. The key is to keep moving.

 

10. Expect to have setbacks. They will come - you may as well brace yourself for them. Some weeks you will lose little - some weeks you may even gain. Don't view these setbacks as "failure" - you will be tempted to give up. As quickly as possible, identify the reason for the setback. You may have to decrease carbohydrates, increase your protein, and exercise a little more to get things moving again. But they will get moving again - be patient!

 

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com
Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

 

You Have to Eat to Lose...

When losing weight, you will hit those weeks where the losses will not be as good as they may have been in week one. This is natural - don't get discouraged. One common reaction by people is to assume, "I'm not losing as fast - I need to eat less." Don't give into the temptation to do that, and here's why. If you reduce the amount of food your body is used to eating, you will cross a line where your body will stop losing weight, and it will go into preservation mode. It assumes no more food is coming any time soon, and your hypothalamus will shut your metabolism down. You will begin feeling weak, and maybe even light-headed. You will convince yourself that this is the cost of dieting that you must endure, but your weight loss will be better if you eat more, and keep your metabolism going.

 

Most diet plans are well-defined into breakfast, lunch, supper, and maybe a snack or two. But instead of eating at those three or four times, try spreading your calories out throughout the day. Try eating something about every two and a half hours - this will keep your metabolism burning all day long, instead of the stopping and starting that occurs when you eat at 7 AM, noon, and 6 PM.

 

There is no secret formula, because everyone is different. But just be aware that the times you eat are just as important as what you eat, and it may take some careful experimenting on your part to find your optimal eating pattern for weight loss.

 

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com
Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

 

 

What About My Sweet Tooth?

Many of us are in the boat we are in with our weight because of our "sweet tooth" - whether it be chocolate, hard candy, or sweet, doughy treats, candies and desserts can pack on the pounds quickly. For many people, getting a handle on this area of diet can mean the difference between failure and success. My vote is for "success".

 

I will not try to convince you that sugar-free, fat-free alternatives are going to be just as tasty as their "real" counterparts. But there are some things you can do, and some things you can eat, that will help with that craving.

 

First, understand that it is easier to go from "no sweets" to "sugar-free sweets" than it is to go from "real sweets" to "sugar-free sweets". For some people, the best strategy is to go for a period of time with no sweets at all, and then to re-introduce their sugar-free counterparts. When we began the Augusta's Biggest Loser program, they put us through a four-day period of "detox", where all we ate was fruit, vegetables, chicken, and brown rice. Not only did this help cleanse our digestive system and wean it off of the junk food that most of us ate, but it also re-aligned our tastes. When we were finally allowed to have some other food items, they tasted MUCH better!

 

Second, there are some products out there that will help with your sweet tooth when the urge strikes. Jello makes sugar-free, fat-free puddings that are very good. Make sure you get the ones that say they are both sugar- and fat-free, because they make some that are just sugar-free, but loaded with fat, and vice-versa. They also make very good sugar-free jello - you can either make it yourself from the box, or you can pick them up in individual servings in the cold foods area (usually by the cheese products in the grocery store). These servings of jello only have 10 calories each, and you can eat them to your heart's content. For a little variety, you can add a little fat-free whipped cream (I don't particularly care for the taste, but some people do).

 

Yogurt is another good alternative, but you have to be careful, because the major brands (Dannon, Yoplait) tend to be very high in sugar and in total carbohydrates. The yogurt that our nutritionists recommend to us is only found at Kroger stores, because it is a Kroger brand called "Carbmaster". It has far less carbs than the main brands, and is a much better choice. If you absolutely have to have the big-name yogurts, go for the simpler varieties like plain fruit. Don't get the ones with Oreo crumbs or M&Ms that you stir in and think you are eating healthy!

 

There is a wide assortment of snack bars out there that can be used to satisfy the desire for sweets. Use these sparingly, and compare different brands by reading the labels. Many of them are labeled as diet aids, but in fact, many of them contain large amounts of sugar and carbohydrates. So be careful.

 

Finally, you have to make some changes in your thinking to deal effectively with your sweet tooth. One of my teammates has a slogan that she has come to use whenever she is confronted with a temptation: "It's not worth the sweat!" Eat it if you want, but understand that you are going to have to do some serious work to burn those calories. A chocolate creme-filled donut from Krispy Kreme is 350 calories, and most of us would not stop at just one. Let's assume you eat three (because everyone knows you ate one of them in the car on the way home, and you tell yourself those calories don't count!). Three of those donuts is a typical Saturday morning breakfast for those of us here in the south. That is a total of 1050 calories, 117 carbohydrates, and 69 grams of sugar. To work off those 3 donuts, you would have to walk at a brisk pace (4 miles per hour) for 12 miles! And you would have to do it immediately after eating them, because certain types of carbohydrates are turned into stored fat almost instantaneously.

 

Do not ever forget that there is a spiritual component to the discipline of weight management, as well. Ask God for help in overcoming the temptations that come your way every day.

 

 

Two Things...

I forgot to follow up on something I promised a couple of days ago. When I gave you the link to the calorie burn calculator, I told you that I would show you how to calculate how many calories your body actually needs - but I never followed up. Here's the link: http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php. Enter your gender, age, height, and current weight, and it will calculate your BMR (basal metabolic rate). This will show you how many calories your body needs to maintain your current weight. If you are a 40 year-old female who stands 5'3", and you weigh 210, your body requires 1674 calories to maintain its current weight.

 

I also wanted to pass on a resource for you - it is impossible to pick up a fitness magazine without being bombarded with images and ads that are not appropriate for a Christian to spend their time with. I found a publisher that puts out a magazine (6 or 7 issues a year) that you can access online called "Fit Christian". It appears to be about all-around fitness, with interviews with Christian athletes, recipes, workout ideas, etc., but without all the garbage of the world. You might want to check it out.

 

http://www.fitchristian.com/

 

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com
Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

How Much Sodium?

I wanted to re-visit the issue of sodium, because that is the most common question we have received so far about the tips I offered Sunday night.

 

Q. Why is sodium bad for you?

 

A. Sodium is not bad for you - your body needs sodium, just like it needs many other minerals and nutrients. However, the body only needs about 500 mg of sodium to function properly. Most Americans eat way more than that. A healthy diet restricts sodium to around 1200-1500 mg per day; anything over 2400 is considered excessive. A typical fast-food meal of a burger and fries contains around 1300 mg.

 

Q. What will too much sodium do to me?

 

A.  Excessive sodium has been conclusively linked to high blood pressure, which causes problems for all body systems. The probability of heart attack, stroke, liver disease, kidney disease, and other catastrophic illnesses goes up with increased blood pressure. An added side effect is that too much sodium causes the body to retain water, which affects your number on the scale each week.

 

Q. How can I reduce sodium in my diet?

 

A. Read labels and make good food choices, for one. Green beans, for example, are packed with a large amount of sodium. A regular can of green beans has about 330 mg of sodium per 1/2 cup serving. A "no salt added" can of the same product has 50 mg of sodium. When you consider that you only should be eating 400-500 mg of sodium per meal, that regular can of green beans doesn't look so healthy anymore. Be especially wary of products labeled "diet", "sugar-free", and "fat-free" - they will frequently use high levels of sodium to compensate for the ingredients they leave out.

 

The foods in a well-balanced diet contain more than enough sodium for your body - take the salt shaker off the table, and don't add salt to anything while you are cooking with it. Be careful of things like seasoning salt, etc., which contain large amounts of salt. If you find your food too bland without salt, sometimes you can mimic the salty taste with a buttery spray such as "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter".

 

Even some traditional diet foods can derail your diet - cottage cheese and pineapple were a staple of many diets when I was growing up. However, cottage cheese can, in some people, make you retain water; pineapple is the second-worst fruit you can eat if you are trying to lose weight because of the sugar levels (only watermelon is worse).

 

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com
Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

 

 

How Much Exercise Do I Need?

Exercise. Ugh. No one likes to hear about exercise, particularly if you aren't used to doing any. Exercise usually conjures up images of sweating over a treadmill or a bike, but exercise can be much more than that, and it can be fun. Granted, the exercise that I am involved in as a participant in Augusta's Biggest Loser is not necessarily fun, but sometimes it is. Strenuous exercise does more than just burn calories; it builds muscle, which can burn fat long after the exercise is over with.

So how much exercise do I really need? It depends on how many calories you want to burn. There are some great tools online for figuring out how many calories you can burn doing a specific activity. A very good calorie burn calculator can be found at http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc. You type in your current weight, select an activity, and type in the number of minutes you did (or anticipate doing) that particular activity. The calculator will show you how many calories you will burn. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds and you bowl for one hour, you will burn 276 calories. If you weigh 200 pounds and you walk for one hour, you will burn either 252, 396, or 468 calories, depending on how fast you walk. Remembering that you need to create a deficit of 3500 calories in order to lose one pound, a brisk walk every day for one hour is almost exactly enough work to lose 1 lb. per week, assuming you take in no more calories than your body needs to maintain its current weight. We will learn how to figure that number of calories next time.

Email: healthyagain@lumpkinroad.com

Healthy Again Blog: http://healthyagain2010.blogspot.com

How to Lose One Pound

What Does It Take to Lose One Pound?

 

To lose weight, you have to eat fewer calories than your body uses. Calories are the amount of energy in the food you eat. Some foods have more calories than others. For example, foods that are high in fat and sugar are also high in calories. If you eat more calories than your body uses, the extra calories will be stored as excess body fat.

 

A pound of fat is about 3,500 calories. To lose 1 pound of fat in a week, you have to eat 3,500 fewer calories (that is 500 fewer calories a day), or you have to "burn off" an extra 3,500 calories. You can burn off calories by exercising or just by being more active.

 

The best way to lose weight and keep it off is to eat fewer calories and be active. If you cut 250 calories from your diet each day and exercise enough to burn off 250 calories, that adds up to 500 fewer calories in one day. If you do this for 7 days, you can lose 1 pound of fat in a week.

 

"Then why can't I just quit eating for a while and lose weight?" Two things happen when you stop eating: 1) Your metabolism shuts down because your body thinks no food is coming, and it will do everything it can to conserve energy, thus, it will shut down your weight loss; and 2) when your body does have to burn something, it will indiscriminately consume good muscle tissue along with stored fat. This is why people with eating disorders such as anorexia never reach a phase where they look healthy - a body in deprivation burns muscle along with fat, so that the end result looks like skin draped over bones.

 

Muscle tissue burns fat; water flushes fat out of your body. This is why you must eat right, you must get some exercise, and you must drink water in order to properly lose weight.

 

What Foods Should I Eliminate From My Diet Immediately?

 

- Desserts (even limited quantities will wreck your diet; try sugar-free jello instead)

 

- Sugar (even in your tea - sorry!)

 

- Salt

 

- Soft drinks (use diet sodas sparingly - no more than 1 a day, because of the sodium)

 

- Beef, particularly ground beef (beef is the hardest meat to digest, and contains too much fat for weight loss. Lean cuts of beef should be limited to no more than one time per week, and eat it on the day after you weigh in. It will take days for you to get rid of it.)

 

- Pork (same reasons as ground beef)

 

- Ketchup (contains too much sugar for weight loss)

 

- White bread (when buying bread, look for bread that is 40-50 calories per slice)

 

Be healthy!

 

 

Getting Started

Good morning – after discussing a little bit with Jo Anna last night, we decided it might be beneficial for me to pass along some tips I have learned.

First off, there was a great response last night at our initial meeting – thank you for participating in this weight loss challenge. What we are doing is not easy – but nothing worth having is easy!
I am not a weight loss expert, but the people I am working with on Augusta’s Biggest Loser are experts, and I am passing along what I have learned from them to you. I wanted to put down, in written form, some of the things I covered in the meeting last night so that you will have them. There were four basic tips I gave last night to help you get started:

1) You are going to have to get some exercise. I suggested walking, and mentioned that I walk 5 miles a day outside of anything I do at the gym. Not all of you can do that – you may have to start with a much smaller goal, and work your way up. People who only diet are more successful at weight loss than people who only exercise, but the people who do both are the most successful. Go to Wal-Mart, pick up a pedometer (as little as $5), and wear it all the time. The steps you take during the normal course of your day count towards that 10,000 steps (5 miles). Whatever you have leftover at the end of the day to walk, go find a comfortable place for you to walk and finish it out.

2) You are going to have to drink water. Water is what the liver uses to process fat and flush it out of the body. How much water? Take your weight, divide it by 2, and that is approximately how many ounces of water you need to drink in a day. If you weigh 200 pounds, you should be drinking approximately 100 ounces of water. If you weight 300, you should drink around 150 ounces of water. Don’t drink it all at once – spread it out throughout the day. I usually do a quart at a time, and I allot myself 2 hours to drink that quart. And don’t drink a lot of it right before you weigh in. I stop drinking about 6 hours before weigh-in time. Your body will get rid of any water it doesn’t need, so don’t worry about over-doing it.

3) You are going to have to reduce your carbohydrates. White bread, biscuits, pasta – any food which has as its first ingredient “enriched flour” – needs to go, as well as anything that has sugar, corn syrup, fructose, or any form of sugar. Be very careful with foods that advertise themselves as fat free or sugar free, because when they take out fat, they usually make up for it with sugar. When they take out sugar, they make up for it with fat. Sometimes they make up for both with sodium, which leads me to my fourth point.

4) NO SALT! Don’t cook with it, don’t add it to your food, and don’t eat anything that you can’t verify the sodium content in. Sodium (salt) will make you retain water, increase your weight, drive your blood pressure up, and make you feel bad. A person should only get about 1200 milligrams of sodium in a day – a Big Mac and a large order of fries is about 1340 milligrams of sodium.

Tomorrow I will send out a more comprehensive list of things that you should not eat, or that you should eat sparingly, if you really want to lose weight.
Be healthy!