Scales Fluctuate - Measure Inches and Fat Loss, Not Weight

I was getting tired of trying to figure out if I was losing truly losing fat, muscle, bone mass, etc. So I ended up buying a set of digital body fat calipers. Best $25.00 I have spent yet on my diet. Prior to being able to get an accurate body fat measurement, I was weighing myself too often and just plain stressing out over the fluctuations. For me the whole purpose to dieting is to lose fat. This way my progress is accurately measurable.

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The Price Tag of Fat Loss

With inflation kicking in along with gas prices, it is becoming very expensive to eat well. The prices on fresh anything is going through the roof. Is it any wonder that the lower tax brackets often have the largest waistlines? More info here. We are pricing the country into obesity and the activities of choice are becoming less physical.

Since starting to eat better, my grocery bill has boomed a minimum of $50.00 per week. While I feel the financial pinch, in the end it is well worth it. Think of the overall health care savings that I will realize in the future.

Baby Steps

Here is something to think about. Why jump in headfirst when you don't know how deep the water is. Walk in gradually. In my opinion this logic also applies to weight loss.

Losing weight is not a diet. Diets don't work. You must change your habits before you will see even the smallest amount of lasting success. So in the spirit of the head first water analogy, start by making small changes (baby steps) rather than going from 3500 calories a day to 1200.

First step is to get more active

1. Start by take the stairs.


2. Walk on your lunch hour


3. Speed up the pace at which you walk.


4. After you inject more walking, start to jog.


5. Instead of watching TV start an activity like softball, golf, bowling, etc.


6. Take some time to find out what physical activity you like or at least can tolerate. For me I hate to run, so for my cardio I use an elliptical machine and work out on a heavy bag (boxing)
   

The second step is changing eating habits.

1. Go to subway instead of those other fast food fat factories. Be aware that not everything at subway is low fat. Choose whole wheat and choose your toppings wisely.


2. Pack your own lunch being mindful of what you eat.


3. Eat slower - this can keep you from eating too much too fast (a huge problem fir me)


4. Eat smaller more frequent meals.


5. Use olive oil instead of other, less healthy oils.


6. Eliminate deep fried food.


7. Limit red meat intake to twice a week. (includes pork) Get creative cooking with turkey, chicken, and fish.


8. Limit sweets and empty calories. Candy bars, potato chips, garlic bread, French fries, etc. (if you have to have chips, buy the baked variety.


9. Try to virtually eliminate complex carbs, not all carbs. A good rule of thumb is if it is very light in color, and a carbohydrate, it's consumption should be limited. White bread, any sugar, potatoes, white rice. Substitute refined carbs with whole grain carbs. Again some are okay, just limit the consumption.

After increasing your activity levels and gradually eating better, then you may find it easier to start reducing your caloric intake below your maintenance levels. This is necessary to lose fat. Bottom line is you need to intake fewer calories than you burn and you will lose weight.

Good luck!

Cheat Meal

In my humble opinion in order to lose the weight and keep it off you need to be able to eat some of the things you enjoy. If you do not, It will become increasingly difficult to lose and keep the weight off. This is where my cheat meal comes in. Cheat meal has some rules, which are as follows.

1. Try not to exceed your daily calorie intake for maintenance. This is factoring in your calories burned through exercise. If you go a little overboard with the meal, you need to offset it with more exercise.


2. You still must control you portions.


3. This is ONE great meal a week. This does not mean you can eat 5000 calories every Saturday.


4. Don’t eat this meal after 7:00.


5. Eat slowly and enjoy every minute of the meal.
   

Here is my favorite cheat meal.

New York Strip steak (trimmed)– 600 Cal
Baked potato – 161 cal
Fat free sour cream – 100 calories (watch your portions)
Vegetable – estimated 100-calorie portion.
2 - 4oz glasses red wine 280 calories

So basically this meal is 1280 calories. My maintenance caloric intake is 2300 (sedentary) calories. So this leaves 1200 calories for the day. So my menu for this day could look like this:

Breakfast: ¾ cup cereal with non-fat milk – 240 calories
Morning Snack: piece of fruit – 120 calories
Lunch: Turkey sandwich on whole wheat, light dressing, with single serving baked chips – 530 calories
Afternoon Snack: South Beach protein bar – 140 calories
Dinner: Cheat meal – 1280 calories

Total calories = 2300

So, as long as I exercise on this day I still have a calorie deficit for the day. If my expected calorie intake had been more like 2500 for the day, I would work out harder that day. Some of the benefit here is that this can help stop the urge to binge and can give your metabolism a little boost. This boost can help to keep the problem of weight loss plateaus to a minimum.

So the lesson here is that you can eat some of the things you enjoy like steak, but you need to plan ahead for the day and be mindful of your portions. Enjoy!

Calcium?

My wife was playing a episode of Oprah yesterday she had taped on the DVR. Oprah was speaking to Dr. Oz (shown to the left). He made a statement that calcium can help minimize the absorption of fat thus aiding in the weight loss process. He recommended 1200 mg of calcium per day along with 600 magnesium to avoid calcium induced constipation.

Always being up for a good experiment I am going to try this out and see if the weight comes off any quicker than before. I have high hopes and low expectations but it is certainly worth a try. Anyone else ever tried this?

Be Realistic

Be realistic! So how much do you need to lose. When I first started this adventure, I thought to myself "I could stand to lose 25 lbs". Well realistically, I have hit almost 35 pounds down and still have 20-25 to go. 25 pounds? Who was I thinking about? Certainly wasn't me.

Be realistic! Make sure you are focusing on inches lost in conjunction with ponds lost. If you are working out hard (especially for men) you are probably adding some muscle mass. This can skew the pounds you are losing and make you feel like you are not making progress. So you may only lose 2 lbs a week, but without the muscle gain it would be more. Bottom line - your losing body fat.

Be realistic! How quick can you get down to your goal weight/size? Plan on this being a long haul if you have a considerable amount of weight to lose. Going into your weight loss adventure knowing this will help. For me, the first 3 weeks were pretty impressive. I dropped about 15 pounds. But the more I lost the slower the pounds were coming off and the harder I had/have to work. (some of the initial weight dropped was probably water weight too) . If you are losing the weight correctly - it should be more like a lifestyle change than a "diet" anyway. Losing body fat at the right rate can help to keep it off for good.

Back On the Wagon

Boy, it has been a rough couple of days. I kinda fell off the wagon this last week. Now I don't want to give the impression that I ate an entire box of moon pies and a gallon of ice cream, but I didn't totally behave myself. Diving into the hard numbers, I didn't gain any weight back, I just didn't lose this week. While I am a little disappointed in my loss of focus, I am back on track and am 2 pounds down already this week (in 4 days).

I had a little stumble, and it probably won't be the last. The good news is that when I stumbled, I stumbled into maintenance mode. So the lessons learned here are:

1. I know how I can eat to maintain my weight (provided I continue to exercise)


2. A stumble know and then is not the end of the world.

About 20 lbs more to go and I am there!