WEEK 14 - Advice

Week 14 | April 17, 2012 | Weight 263.5 | Loss of 2.4 lbs | Total Loss: 47.1

Hooray for another great loss!  You know you're making progress when people start asking you how you're doing it.  What's the secret and what's the magic behind weight loss.  I decided to reflect back on what I've done and make a list of things I've tried my best to understand and adhere to that's been successful for me.

The important thing here is that there is no one way to lose weight.  There's lots of different things a person can do to lose weight and get fit.  Below, is simply how I am doing it and by no means does every single item in this list need to be applied.  Some of them are common sense, others are things I've researched and chose the best resulting answer for me.  That said, this list is to answer the question "How did I (me) lose almost 50 pounds so far?" - My answer is, I use a combination of the Lose It WWW site for calorie tracking, and workouts and using the below advice.


1. Don't use any of the LoseIT food items in the database. Figure out your own. They rarely match what's on the labels, especially if you don't live in the US.

2. Do the work to figure out your own recipe calorie counts. I discovered the Meat Loaf I was using on Lose It was 200 calories. When I did the work to actually find out what mine was, it was more like 300.

3. Don't log your exercise. Think of it as bonus and do it as much as you can. I work out a couple times per day for 30-40 mins each time.  It is a combo of Cardio and Strength Training. If you must log your exercise, get a heart rate monitor.  Lose It says Vigorous Sex burns 1 calorie per minute and Fishing burns 3.5 calories per minute.  Uhh.. Hello?  Also, unless your workout machine asked your weight, height, sex and age, it's calibrated for a 30 year old, 150 pound man.  Don't trust the number!  Get a HRM!

4. Zig Zagging is your friend. Eat a bit under each day and then use those extra calories on the weekend to eat the things you enjoy that "may" not be the best for you.

5. Weigh daily, and learn to understand what the scale is telling you (don't guess, there are ways to actually figure it out) and record weight weekly, even if it's a gain. It will keep you accountable.

6. Watch out for sodium and learn about its effects. Turn on macro and micro nutrients in lose-it so you can see what your taking in.

7. Learn about BMR - it may apply to you.

8. Learn that new muscle growth in a typical male takes a year for 5-10 pounds worth (even for a Mesomorph) - no, you didn't put on 2 pounds last week because of muscles, it's probably water due to sodium or you overate and didn't estimate your calories correctly. (It's even harder for women to gain muscle mass).

9. Learn about simple vs. complex carbs.

10. Skinless Chicken Breast is your best friend.

11. Avoid eating out like the plague. Home cooking is much better.

12. WATER, WATER, WATER, WATER, and WATER.

13. Learn about weight fluctuations. Understand that they are normal from day to day, even hour to hour.

14. Log EVERYTHING, even if you go in the red, log it. I see people not log because they are either too ashamed they overate or don't want to see failure. Log it anyway - later you will remind yourself of what not to do by looking at it.

15. Patience, Patience, Patience, Patience.

16. Don't worry about the end goal date - it will come eventually but don't form habits that you can't sustain for the rest of your life. This is a life time change, not a diet.

17. Do meal planning. Figure out your whole day ahead of time. Then at dinner, you take up your serving, the extras on the counter are taunting you - have someone garbage them - it's a waste, but it helps train you to not eat the leftovers or go for seconds.

18. If you eat fast like me, train yourself to understand that the hunger will subside 20 minutes after eating - you may not be actually hungry even after eating your full planned meal.

19. Cardio burns, Resistance builds.  Unless you hit puberty, you didn't gain 10 pounds of muscle from riding a bike last year.  Your muscles will get stronger before gaining ANY mass.  This is the way of things.  Don't confuse getting stronger with muscle mass.

20. Stick with it and accept the simple science.  3500 calories = 1 pound!

That's it.  Remember, you don't have to follow this yourself, it just happens to be what I've researched and followed myself to see my success so far for the past 14 weeks (oh and it works for my wife as well.  She is down 26 pounds and is much closer to goal than I).  I still have a ways to go, but I am full steam ahead!  I've put this here to answer the question I'm being asked - what is it that YOU do?  Well, here it is.  Good luck to EVERYONE in their journey!  We can do this!