If you establish the routine of exercise, healthy diet, and monitoring your results, you will see progress. You should feel more energetic, and find yourself getting a bigger appetite. This is happening because your metabolism is getting charged. It is ok to eat more when this happens because your body is learning to be more active. As your body expects to be more active it intentionally burns more calories. This is important to understand.
Another important metabolism fact is that muscles require much more calories just to maintain than fat. This means that building and maintaining muscles will help your body to burn more calories per day. You do this by doing two things: (1) Strength training (i.e. lifting weights) and (2) Consumption of protein.
As you start your routine, you should start using the strength training circuit at your gym, or lifting weights. Eat some protein right after the exercise (chicken, peanuts, etc..). As you build and maintain muscles, you will be more energetic and burn more calories. This will help you to leverage the healthy eating and exercise routine to lose weight even faster, while achieving the best health imaginable. Don't worry about building more muscles than you like. Unless you go to extremes (i.e. steroids) you will just develop nicely toned but normal looking muscles.
If you are using myfitnesspal.com, keep an eye on the nutrition facts for protein and other nutrients, and be sure you are getting enough of the good nutrients, and not too much cholesterol, etc.. If there are problems, then pay more attention to nutrition facts on the labels of the food you eat, and make substitutions to adjust your diet.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
0005 - Diet
Another part of the routine to establish is diet. You will see the importance if you begin to use myfitnesspal.com to track your net daily calories.
Eating whole grains, and plenty of fruit and vegetables, really does make a huge difference. If you drink sugary drinks such as soda, or fruit juice, substitute water, tea, or coffee. Eat lean meats. Pay extra for 98% fat free chicken. Avoid red meats, except on occasion. These actions will really pay off, especially if you make them routine alongside exercise.
You will learn, by counting calories, that you are trying to run a net deficit of calories per day, including the foods you eat and the exercise you perform. If you maintain that deficit, regular weight loss and good health will become routine as well.
Study the term "Complex Carbohydrates" vs "Simple Carbohydrates". You want to avoid simple carbs, and eat large amounts of complex carbs. Drink plenty of water as well.
You do not need to starve yourself. Just eat plenty of healthy foods and snack during the day between meals. Nuts and grains are good for you and will keep you full for a long while. Salads contain very little calories and plenty of nutrients. Don't eat egg yolks or mayonnaise. Mustard and salsa contain almost no carbs. Be creative and make your lunch sandwich with mustard and/or salsa, with lean turkey or chicken breast, and whole grain bread. It will pay off. You will not be squandering your hard fought workouts on unhealthy meals.
Eating whole grains, and plenty of fruit and vegetables, really does make a huge difference. If you drink sugary drinks such as soda, or fruit juice, substitute water, tea, or coffee. Eat lean meats. Pay extra for 98% fat free chicken. Avoid red meats, except on occasion. These actions will really pay off, especially if you make them routine alongside exercise.
You will learn, by counting calories, that you are trying to run a net deficit of calories per day, including the foods you eat and the exercise you perform. If you maintain that deficit, regular weight loss and good health will become routine as well.
Study the term "Complex Carbohydrates" vs "Simple Carbohydrates". You want to avoid simple carbs, and eat large amounts of complex carbs. Drink plenty of water as well.
You do not need to starve yourself. Just eat plenty of healthy foods and snack during the day between meals. Nuts and grains are good for you and will keep you full for a long while. Salads contain very little calories and plenty of nutrients. Don't eat egg yolks or mayonnaise. Mustard and salsa contain almost no carbs. Be creative and make your lunch sandwich with mustard and/or salsa, with lean turkey or chicken breast, and whole grain bread. It will pay off. You will not be squandering your hard fought workouts on unhealthy meals.
0004 - Measure Results
As you establish a routine and focus your emotions on the things you can control (the establishment of the routine, and the efforts you are making), the next step is to begin to measure results.
The intent of measuring results is NOT to judge yourself or undermine the mindset you are working on. It is purely to make this process more scientific and arm yourself with the knowledge you need to get the best results possible.
In the case of working out, there are a few examples of what to do to measure your results:
(1) Regular weigh-ins - Record your weight once or twice per week. Don't get upset if you plateau or gain weight one week. Be proud that you are trying to be informed rather than do this blindly.
(2) Heart Rate Monitor - Absolutely, buy a heart rate monitor. If you are not familiar, these devices strap around the chest and measure your heart rate continuously. Generally they come with a watch that measures workout time, allows setting your weight, and uses the heart rate and weight to come up with an accurate estimate of calories burned during a workout. Understanding the calories burned and how heart rate influences this is essential. You will be able to adjust your workout to do what works best for YOU.
(3) myfitnesspal.com - This website, and the mobile apps for Android, iPhone, etc, allow you to search for various foods and easily track the calories and nutrition facts for the food you consume during the day. It takes some discipline to log in every day and keep the log up to date, but this is an additional exercise in establishing routine. If you use the heart rate monitor, you can enter your exercise calories burned, and truly see the impacts of your eating and exercise choices on your health. Quantifying these things makes the impact of your daily decisions much more understandable.
Remember, the point of monitoring all these things is to establish a routine and to keep yourself informed. You should not push harder unless you feel comfortable doing so.
The intent of measuring results is NOT to judge yourself or undermine the mindset you are working on. It is purely to make this process more scientific and arm yourself with the knowledge you need to get the best results possible.
In the case of working out, there are a few examples of what to do to measure your results:
(1) Regular weigh-ins - Record your weight once or twice per week. Don't get upset if you plateau or gain weight one week. Be proud that you are trying to be informed rather than do this blindly.
(2) Heart Rate Monitor - Absolutely, buy a heart rate monitor. If you are not familiar, these devices strap around the chest and measure your heart rate continuously. Generally they come with a watch that measures workout time, allows setting your weight, and uses the heart rate and weight to come up with an accurate estimate of calories burned during a workout. Understanding the calories burned and how heart rate influences this is essential. You will be able to adjust your workout to do what works best for YOU.
(3) myfitnesspal.com - This website, and the mobile apps for Android, iPhone, etc, allow you to search for various foods and easily track the calories and nutrition facts for the food you consume during the day. It takes some discipline to log in every day and keep the log up to date, but this is an additional exercise in establishing routine. If you use the heart rate monitor, you can enter your exercise calories burned, and truly see the impacts of your eating and exercise choices on your health. Quantifying these things makes the impact of your daily decisions much more understandable.
Remember, the point of monitoring all these things is to establish a routine and to keep yourself informed. You should not push harder unless you feel comfortable doing so.
0003 - Repetition
As you are working on your mindset, and finding pride in the things you control, you will need to develop a routine. This means setting aside a certain amount of time, and doing everything in your power to make time, on a daily basis, to work on your goals (exercise, etc.)
You should not push yourself hard. That would just burn you out and make the establishment of a routine impossible. Just spend time getting started. Early in this process, resign yourself to the fact that you have to schedule regular time to workout and meet your goals. Make it easy on yourself by not pushing very hard yet.
If you walk on a treadmill or elliptical machine, you can do things like watch TV that you have recorded on your DVR while working out. This would save you time by including some entertainment as part of the workout.
The goal at this point is NOT to push hard and get results. The goal is to establish a discipline of routine so you can begin to learn how to change your life. Be proud of the journey you are on, and don't judge yourself by any lack of results. Don't overdo anything. If you are going to work out for 30 minutes every day, then be sure you go at a pace that is comfortable for 30 minutes every day.
You should not push yourself hard. That would just burn you out and make the establishment of a routine impossible. Just spend time getting started. Early in this process, resign yourself to the fact that you have to schedule regular time to workout and meet your goals. Make it easy on yourself by not pushing very hard yet.
If you walk on a treadmill or elliptical machine, you can do things like watch TV that you have recorded on your DVR while working out. This would save you time by including some entertainment as part of the workout.
The goal at this point is NOT to push hard and get results. The goal is to establish a discipline of routine so you can begin to learn how to change your life. Be proud of the journey you are on, and don't judge yourself by any lack of results. Don't overdo anything. If you are going to work out for 30 minutes every day, then be sure you go at a pace that is comfortable for 30 minutes every day.
0002 - Mindset
The first step is to work on mindset. You need to want to achieve your goals. This sounds simple, but you will need to work on this if you truly stop to think about it.
Many people judge themselves based on things that happen to them that are beyond their control. The key to developing mindset is to be persistent, and judge yourself only for the things that you can control. If your intentions and actions are pure, and you are doing your best, then you should remain proud and positive about where you are and where you are going. Everything else will fall into place, but you cannot expect instant or overnight results. Patience really is a virtue!
Whatever you do, do NOT let the results influence your pride or happiness. If you are working out and trying hard, and dieting, then you should be proud and happy because you know you are doing the right thing, even if you have not seen the results you desire yet.
Many people judge themselves based on things that happen to them that are beyond their control. The key to developing mindset is to be persistent, and judge yourself only for the things that you can control. If your intentions and actions are pure, and you are doing your best, then you should remain proud and positive about where you are and where you are going. Everything else will fall into place, but you cannot expect instant or overnight results. Patience really is a virtue!
Whatever you do, do NOT let the results influence your pride or happiness. If you are working out and trying hard, and dieting, then you should be proud and happy because you know you are doing the right thing, even if you have not seen the results you desire yet.
0001 - Introduction
The purpose of this blog will be to lay out a way to get your life in order, be happy, and achieve the health you have always wanted. I will be speaking from personal experience that has been quite successful, and if you have the drive to improve your life, you WILL get there!
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