So I thought I share with you some of the things I learned
by try and error for my or others weight management experiments.
I often find women complaining about their weights but
complaining is far real than actually acting and taking control. If you find
yourself in that situation, just forget about weight management, diet and
pills. It aint gonna work!
You have to be realistic. Weight loss is a matter of gradual
change. You cannot drastically do a makeover (like the ones the reality shows
try to force feed you) over a night! So be real. I am sure you have heard this
before.
Don’t try to write down a log of your daily intake! It is
not sustainable. You need to cut down one item at a time. Start from the most
starchy, fatty intakes. Take a look at what you are eating and loving it every
day. Realistically you need to stomp over your heart and desire to eat. So
identify that one big item. For me it was rice and bread. For someone else can
be mayonnaise. For you might be chips and chocolate bar.
After cutting that one item, start doing exercise. Now here
is the trick. I see a tone of people every day at the gyms I go. And believe
me, I have executive membership at one of largest Canadian fitness clubs and I
go around everywhere. The biggest mistake I see in the gyms is that no one
understands that IT IS HARD! It
should be hard. Gaining muscles and losing that fat in your arm lady, is hard!!
No kidding about it. So before wearing that spandex and thinking about the
color of your outfit, think hard about the PAIN! No pain no gain! And yet we
are the ones who carry the child and go through labor! Go figure! Be careful,
there is a difference between pain from hard workout to pain from an injury, which
I find a lot of people cannot differentiate. I couldn’t at first either.
If you are over-weight by more than 10 Ibs, I highly
recommend you don’t jump and jerk that knee! You need that knee for a long time!
So stop jumping around or up and down.
I propose you to start from high intensity intervals of
cardio workout. You will only need 20 min. of workout but you need to (very important):
- Check with your doctor about your heart condition
- Check with you doctor about your maximum heart rate
- Buy a heart rate monitor and make sure you know how to use it!
- Learn about 75% resting heart rate (just Google it)
- Start with a 5 min. warm up then reps of 1 min. anaerobic zone 1 min. aerobic zone workouts. Then 5 min cool down!
What is anaerobic vs. aerobic? If you cannot talk while
running, that’s anaerobic, if you can talk that’s aerobic. Easy!
Then you need persistency and patience! All that matters is
a will to change the situation. And yes, there will be a plateau but funny enough;
I found that plateau is nothing but a
state of mind. There will be a time where your mind won’t let you progress.
That’s when you need to move to a harder zone and change your eating habits
again because as you recall we just removed one item and we said start with baby
steps. So now that you have learned how to walk tip-toe move to holding the
rail and walking! Now you need to sit and think for a minute or two (all that
it takes from your brain to respond) and see where you can improve to move on
forward.
And please don’t weigh yourself everyday! Your dresses will
tell you the truth way more accurate than your daily weighing.
Last but not least is adding a whole lot more vegetable and
protein to your diet. With our fast pace life in Toronto
Be careful about the intake of those items you are trying to
cut. If you stopped taking starchy food, at least replace your bread with
wholegrain or whole wheat bread. Try to have vegetables a lot! These days a
large number of vendors sell salads (although ridiculously much more expensive
than your own salad). Eat eggs (but be mindful of that cholesterol). It is
really easy to boil that egg! Eat Greek yogurt. Add flax seed to two table
spoon of Greek Yogurt and there you have a spectacular super healthy snack.
You need to eat a lot less than you think. Major issue with
people I found is that they are always afraid of being hungry. They think being
hungry will lower their energy levels. But seriously, not working out will
lower your energy.
And please don’t eat that spaghetti at lunch and go back to
your desk sitting another 4 hours or so! You are basically turning all that
starch into fat without a doubt!
Stop eating sweets intermittently! Do not eat sweats in
between meals. It just signals your body to secrete more insulin which holds
the use of fat as an energy source. So, your body will stop using the fat that
is stored in your muscles and liver, which in turn stops you from loosing weight!
Also, please please please…. Stop drinking that DIET SODA! It is just not going to help you
loose fat at all. It actually works the reverse.
So hopefully this can help you become realistic about your
weight loss and weight management.
