Losing weight is Simple!
No seriously. Losing weight isn't that hard. Since December of 2005 I've lost a little over 20 pounds and the weight continues to come off at around 1 lbs/week. By the time Burning Man roles around, I should be another 10 to 15 pounds lighter.
People have asked me:
- How do you do it?
- How is it so easy?
- Why haven't you gained it back?
- How can I do it?
1) The first and foremost was deciding that being fit/healthy was more important than pretty much anything else. Naturally, food is one of those things that you need to survive, but can also become a crutch or a way to comfort yourself. So Step 1 was making it such that food was still enjoyable, but limiting its role to only sustinence, rather than a way to make myself feel good.
In other words, How badly do you want to be in shape? If you want it badly enough, then the resolve, determination, and will-power will push you through any tough spots.
2) The next part is knowing how much you need to eat on a daily basis to maintain your current weight. Most people don't know this. Nor how to obtain this. Fortunately, this has already been figured out:
Visit the What You Burn table. (First table is for Men. Second table is for Women.) Take your height and body size and you get a caloric range of what you should eat to in order to maintain your current weight. btw, the rest of that site is actually really good and I recommend reading it...
For example, Jane is a Woman who is 5'4" with a Medium frame. Jane would need to consume between 1574-1967 calories. Let's round up to 1600 to 2000 and split the difference. This puts Jane at a daily caloric requirement of ~1800 calories/day, just to maintain her current weight.
Fact: 1 pound of fat = ~3500 calories.
With this fact in mind, to lose 1 pound in 1 week, we need to divide 3500 calories over 7 days. This (conveniently) comes out to 500 calories.
In order for Jane to lose 1 pound/week, she needs to subtract 500 from her daily caloric requirement of 1800. This means that Jane needs to eat approx. 1300 calories per day. Essentially she creates a deficit in her caloric intake which requires that her body burn her stored body fat to make up the difference.
So what about exercise? Don't worry. I'm getting to that...
3) The third step is to know your weight, ie:
- Where your weight is
- Which direction it is going
- How fast in that direction it is going
- Where you've come from
There are many ways to do this, but the best way to do it is by using this highly-advanced secret weapon. It's actually a 2-part weapon.
- A good, accurate digital scale. ($30 - $40 ???)
- Weight chart that smooths out the highs and lows to get an accurate picture, like this one:
Click here to go to PhysicsDiet.com to get your own free account (no catches or funny business...)
In order to create this graph, I weighed myself every morning for 30 days straight. As you can see, the individual data points are all over the place and vary as much as 2 pounds from day to day! Naturally, I didn't lose 2 pounds over night, most of that is water weight. But the up and down roller coaster can be maddening.
Notice also the smooth trend line? Not so terrible, huh?
Notice also that it tells me the "true" amount that I lost each week.
The chart also shows me when I've fallen off the bandwagon by marking the area in red. (It helps keep ya honest...)
Now the truth is that you must weigh yourself and plug in your weight every day. Especially when your weight rises above the trendline into the "red zone". If you just give up when you start to gain weight or when you reach your target weight, then you've lost because you'll just gain it all back.
But if you keep plugging in your weight every day, then you can see where you are, where you are going, how fast, and how far you've come. Very motivating!
4) The last step is exercise. Our bodies are made for motion and when you exercise, you bring health and vitality back to your body. It also helps accelerate the weight loss, too.
When you exercise, you should permit yourself to go over your daily caloric limit a bit, but no more than say 200 or 300 calories. Just enough to replenish your body with carbs and protein after your hard workout.
Other tips for making it work:
- Drink lots of water. 8 cups a day, minimum.
- Cut back on the alcohol. It slows down your metabolism and has extra calories.
- Don't "eat out" or "order in" so much. It's nearly impossible to guess how many calories a dish has. Chances are you'll underestimate how many calories a dish truly has.
- Carry a small notebook around with you for the first month and record every calorie daily. Keep a running total as you eat across the course of the day. This way you can budget properly for the day and leave enough calories as the day progresses. After a while, you get a really good feeling for how many calories you're eating.
That's it! Helpful?
People have asked me:
- How do you do it?
- How is it so easy?
- Why haven't you gained it back?
- How can I do it?
1) The first and foremost was deciding that being fit/healthy was more important than pretty much anything else. Naturally, food is one of those things that you need to survive, but can also become a crutch or a way to comfort yourself. So Step 1 was making it such that food was still enjoyable, but limiting its role to only sustinence, rather than a way to make myself feel good.
In other words, How badly do you want to be in shape? If you want it badly enough, then the resolve, determination, and will-power will push you through any tough spots.
2) The next part is knowing how much you need to eat on a daily basis to maintain your current weight. Most people don't know this. Nor how to obtain this. Fortunately, this has already been figured out:
Visit the What You Burn table. (First table is for Men. Second table is for Women.) Take your height and body size and you get a caloric range of what you should eat to in order to maintain your current weight. btw, the rest of that site is actually really good and I recommend reading it...
For example, Jane is a Woman who is 5'4" with a Medium frame. Jane would need to consume between 1574-1967 calories. Let's round up to 1600 to 2000 and split the difference. This puts Jane at a daily caloric requirement of ~1800 calories/day, just to maintain her current weight.
Fact: 1 pound of fat = ~3500 calories.
With this fact in mind, to lose 1 pound in 1 week, we need to divide 3500 calories over 7 days. This (conveniently) comes out to 500 calories.
In order for Jane to lose 1 pound/week, she needs to subtract 500 from her daily caloric requirement of 1800. This means that Jane needs to eat approx. 1300 calories per day. Essentially she creates a deficit in her caloric intake which requires that her body burn her stored body fat to make up the difference.
So what about exercise? Don't worry. I'm getting to that...
3) The third step is to know your weight, ie:
- Where your weight is
- Which direction it is going
- How fast in that direction it is going
- Where you've come from
There are many ways to do this, but the best way to do it is by using this highly-advanced secret weapon. It's actually a 2-part weapon.
- A good, accurate digital scale. ($30 - $40 ???)
- Weight chart that smooths out the highs and lows to get an accurate picture, like this one:
Click here to go to PhysicsDiet.com to get your own free account (no catches or funny business...)
In order to create this graph, I weighed myself every morning for 30 days straight. As you can see, the individual data points are all over the place and vary as much as 2 pounds from day to day! Naturally, I didn't lose 2 pounds over night, most of that is water weight. But the up and down roller coaster can be maddening.
Notice also the smooth trend line? Not so terrible, huh?
Notice also that it tells me the "true" amount that I lost each week.
The chart also shows me when I've fallen off the bandwagon by marking the area in red. (It helps keep ya honest...)
Now the truth is that you must weigh yourself and plug in your weight every day. Especially when your weight rises above the trendline into the "red zone". If you just give up when you start to gain weight or when you reach your target weight, then you've lost because you'll just gain it all back.
But if you keep plugging in your weight every day, then you can see where you are, where you are going, how fast, and how far you've come. Very motivating!
4) The last step is exercise. Our bodies are made for motion and when you exercise, you bring health and vitality back to your body. It also helps accelerate the weight loss, too.
When you exercise, you should permit yourself to go over your daily caloric limit a bit, but no more than say 200 or 300 calories. Just enough to replenish your body with carbs and protein after your hard workout.
Other tips for making it work:
- Drink lots of water. 8 cups a day, minimum.
- Cut back on the alcohol. It slows down your metabolism and has extra calories.
- Don't "eat out" or "order in" so much. It's nearly impossible to guess how many calories a dish has. Chances are you'll underestimate how many calories a dish truly has.
- Carry a small notebook around with you for the first month and record every calorie daily. Keep a running total as you eat across the course of the day. This way you can budget properly for the day and leave enough calories as the day progresses. After a while, you get a really good feeling for how many calories you're eating.
That's it! Helpful?