Woo Hoo! Guess who just got accepted to participate in the latest round of Beta Testing!?
If you happen to be overweight and want to lose some poundage, here are 20 tips that can help you on your journey:
1. Have a Plan:
There’s a saying: ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.’ Have a realistic goal and set specific targets. You should have at least two areas of your plan, Nutrition and Fitness. Determine how many calories you should consume daily and also come up with a fitness plan that works with your schedule.
2. Sleep More:
Sleep does more than help your body recover from a long day — it actually helps you fight fat. In fact, researchers at the University of Chicago reported that sleeping less than 7 to 8 hours can increase your appetite (forcing you to overeat), slow your metabolism (causing you to burn fewer calories) and make the body retain more abdominal fat. Need another reason to sleep more? Lack of shut-eye is also associated with bad workouts. Do yourself a favor and get some rest. Your body will thank you.
3. Cut Out Snacks:
Yes, some people benefit from eating four to six meals per day and enjoying snacks. But researchers from Purdue University found that the snacking method could be sabotaging your efforts. That’s because the average snack has increased by 200 calories over the last 30 years to nearly 600 calories. If you have trouble with portion sizes, reduce the number of meals you eat.
4. Create and Use a Daily Food Log:
Part one of the energy equation is to simply restrict your fuel intake. But unfortunately, most people do very badly with this. Research has shown that most people grossly underestimate how much they are eating, sometimes by up to 50 percent! There are a number of ways you can track what you are eating, such as using LoseIt!, but whatever system you use the key is consistency and accuracy.
5. Get Active and Move:
This is, essentially, the second half of the equation – the calories-out side. Unfortunately, most people struggle with this process. In today’s society we are largely sedentary: We travel in cars, we work in front of computers all day and we relax in front of the television. Add incidental exercise (like talking the stairs or tapping your foot) in addition to formal activity (such as playing sports, lifting weights, running) to see the greatest benefits.
6. Remove Liquid Calories:
You want the truth: America has a love affair with drinks! There are different drinks for just about everything. 65 percent of Americans drink beverages that are heavy in calories. Not only are these drinks less likely to keep you full, thus leaving you hungry, they are oftentimes loaded with sugar.
7. Plan a Cheat Day:
Going on a diet is tough on you, both mentally and physically. That’s why a cheat day is a frequent part of many successful diet plans. This splurge can provide you with the break from your restrictive habits that will keep you satisfied while still losing weight.
8. Lift Heavy Weights:
Whether you’re a man or a woman, the fastest way to burn fat faster is by lifting heavy weights. Not only do heavier weights activate more muscle fibers, they also increase your resting metabolism. In other words, when you lift heavy weights, you continue to burn calories at a higher rate, even when you’re doing nothing!
9. Make Yourself Accountable:
Surround yourself with tools to help you with your journey. Tell your friends. Tell your family. Join an online community. Let people know your goals and ask for their support in helping you achieving them. The more supported you are, the better.
10. Add Workout Variety:
For a high-impact workout that will kick up your metabolism in a short amount of time, try alternating cardio and resistance training in a circuit. For example, start with 5 minutes of cardio (treadmill, bike, elliptical) immediately followed by a dumbbell circuit of cleans, cleans and press, lunges, military presses and bent over rows, where each exercise is performed for eight repetitions. This entire circuit can be repeated two to three times.
11. Practice Carb Swapping:
Carb swapping is one of the easiest (and fastest) ways to jump-start weight loss. Replace foods like pasta, rice and bread with fruits and vegetables. The fruits and vegetables have fewer calories and carbohydrates than their processed counterparts. That means you can eat more total food without adding weight.
12. Use Simple Tools:
You don't need to get on one of those fancy elliptical machines or treadmills. A $10 jump rope is highly effective as part of your warm-up, and as a way to get good-quality intensity into your workout. Stay light on your feet and control your breathing as you try to hit 50 jumps, 100 jumps or more without a mess up.
13. Rest Less During Exercise:
There are many essential variables that must be managed when structuring your workout, one of them being rest. The rest periods you take between exercises can be modified to elicit a fat burning effect. By shortening the time you take between exercises to as little as 10 to 30 seconds, you can increase your resting metabolism and the intensity of your workout.
14. Try Combination Exercises:
Linking two to three different exercises together into a chain of movements is a great way to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time. This is the key to improving your workout efficiency and positively impacting your fat loss goals. Combos like linking a pushup and a burpee into a pull-up are an amazing example of this technique.
15. Eat More Fat:
Did you know that the Institute of Medicine recommends that a diet be made up of 25 to 35 percent fat? Turns out, high-fat foods like nuts, avocados and healthy oils can help you lose fat faster than other diet approaches. Just make sure you figure out how much fat you need in your diet to prevent yourself from overeating. And, as always, avoid the trans fats. They’re still not healthy.
16. Eat More Protein:
Protein helps you maintain lean body mass (muscle, not fat), and increase the thermic effect of your diet. That is, protein requires more energy for your body to process than carbohydrates or fat. This can subtly contribute to the calories-out side of the energy equation. As a bonus, eating protein keeps you fuller longer, and researchers have shown that it can reduce how much you eat per day by hundreds of calories.
17. Become a Heavy Drinker:
No I’m not talking about alcohol. While there’s nothing magical about water, the process of consuming lots of liquid can trick you into feeling less hungry. What’s more, when you’re dehydrated you burn 2 percent fewer calories per day, says University of Utah researchers. So if you struggle to control your appetite, drink up before your meal. Then drink some more. You’ll be more likely to fight off fat.
18. Drink Whey Protein:
Your diet should primarily consist of whole-food sources like meats, veggies, fruits and nuts. However, research published in the Journal of Nutrition found those who consume whey-protein shakes lost almost twice as much fat as those who didn’t have the shakes. Magic? Hardly. The protein in shakes isn’t any more effective than protein found in solid meals. However, most people don’t get enough protein in their diets, and the shakes are a convenient way to meet your body’s needs, suggest the researchers. This is especially true in my case, for try as I might, I can never seem to get enough protein. Adding a protein shake is a great way to boost your protein intake! Just be sure to account for the added calories that come with the shakes!
19. Be Patient and Give Yourself Time:
You didn’t gain weight overnight, so you will not take it off overnight either. Give yourself time and know that the weight will come off if you stick to your plan.
20. Weigh Yourself Daily and Use a Trending Average:
Be sure to weigh in daily and store your weight in a log, like The Hackers Diet. Also, be sure to focus on the trending data rather than the day-to-day weight fluctuations. This helps to minimize the frustration so many dieters feel when their daily weight goes up and down randomly. If this sounds confusing, stop over and give The Hackers Diet a read. It explains this approach in great detail!
Enjoy!
— PFM
This is a workout presented in Men’s Health magazine.
I like this one for its simplicity. It’s a 20 minute circuit workout with only 4 exercises and is perfect for someone with no exercise gear at home or someone who does a lot of traveling and doesn’t have a hotel gym available.
The first 9 refers to the number of reps you’ll perform of each exercise; the second 9 is how many rounds of the circuit you’ll do; and the third 9 is the number of minutes it should take you to finish the entire routine.
The circuit looks like this:
-
Body-Weight Squat: Do 9 reps
-
Pushup: Do 9 reps
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Inverted Row: Do 9 reps
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Jumping Jacks: Do 9 reps
That’s one round. Your pace is determined by your fitness: You can rest as needed between each exercise—simply go by “feel.” Do a total of 9 rounds. Try to complete the entire workout in 9 minutes or less.
Rest for 2 minutes, and repeat the workout. Your goal: Try to finish in the same time as you did the first routine.
Now, this particular workout looks super simple, but to finish the entire circuit in 9 minutes may be a little tough for most people. So there is a starter plan presented below to help you work up to the full 9-9-9 plan.
THE STARTER PLAN
Perform this routine every other day, resting one day between each workout. Workout 1: (Circuit One: 3-9-9, Circuit Two: 2-9-9) For each exercise, do 3 reps. After you've done 9 rounds, rest for 2 to 3 minutes. Then repeat, only do 2 reps of each exercise. Workout 2: (Circuit One: 4-9-9, Circuit Two: 2-9-9) For each exercise, do 4 reps. After you've done 9 rounds, rest for 2 to 3 minutes. Then repeat, only do 2 reps of each exercise. Workout 3: (Circuit One: 5-9-9, Circuit Two: 3-9-9) For each exercise, do 5 reps. After you've done 9 rounds, rest for 2 to 3 minutes. Then repeat, only do 3 reps of each exercise. Workout 4: (Circuit One: 6-9-9, Circuit Two: 3-9-9) For each exercise, do 6 reps. After you've done 9 rounds, rest for 2 to 3 minutes. Then repeat, only do 3 reps of each exercise. Workout 5: (Circuit One: 7-9-9, Circuit Two: 4-9-9) For each exercise, do 7 reps. After you've done 9 rounds, rest for 2 to 3 minutes. Then repeat, only do 4 reps of each exercise. Workout 6: (Circuit One: 8-9-9, Circuit Two: 4-9-9) For each exercise, do 8 reps. After you've done 9 rounds, rest for 2 to 3 minutes. Then repeat, only do 4 reps of each exercise. Workout 7: (Circuit One: 9-9-9, Circuit Two: 5-9-9) By now you should be ready to try 9-9-9. So be sure to use a stop watch and time yourself.
Continue your every other day schedule, and focus on reducing your time each session.
Enjoy!
— PFM
Being of the technical sort, when I am working on a problem or project, I try to find solutions that take advantage of technology when-ever and where-ever I can.
Fitness and Weight Loss are no exception!
I use various websites and apps to help with counting calories, logging my weight, logging my workouts and so on. There is an online book that I like called The Hackers Diet written by John Walker.
He was one of the co-founders of AutoDesk and AutoCAD. This book was basically written by a techy and he treats understanding and controlling your weight like any other business project. It really speaks to me, being that I'm another techy! ;)
I use the website and tools that John provides to store my daily weights and keep track of my overall weight trends. It’s basically a must have in my opinion, for anyone wanting to lose weight and have a basic understanding of weight loss.
I also use various bits of hardware for the same purpose. One of the newer hardware items that I recently started using is a Withings scale.
This is a pretty nice digital scale that records your weight along with your estimated fat mass and lean body mass. It also has a built in WiFi connection and will automatically send your daily weights to its parent website.
Normally, at a minimum, I have to deal with two websites that store my weight information, the Hackers Diet site and the Withings site. It’s become a common effort to visit the Withings site to get my actual weight and then visit the Hackers Diet site to enter my new daily weight for the day.
This week I was introduced to a brand new site that was developed by a co-forum companion that actually takes the Withings data and populates a custom-made interface that uses the Hackers Diet methodology. Since it pulls the data directly from the Withings site, you just need to weigh-in every morning and do nothing else! When you want to see your current weight trend, just pop over to the Trend Weight website and it will show the simple charts based on your Withings data. It even calculates the 20 moving average in the same manner as well. It doesn’t have any extra bells and whistles, however the new site is very clean and very easy to use. The only requirement to use it is that you need to have a Withings scale.
It’s called Trend Weight and was developed by Erv Walter.
It also allows you to share your data if you so choose. Here is a link to my recently imported data, just so you can see what it looks like:
https://trendweight.com/u/8bf533e6381e48
Enjoy!
— PFM
http://fitnessgroan.wordpress.com/ presented another alternative to help determine your BMR value. Unfortunately he replied to a post that I was trying to update via Microsoft Word. The update failed miserably, so I was forced to delete the post and re-create it from scratch. In the process I lost his actual reply. But I have it recreated below.
Based on the formula outlined below my data would look like this: 227 pounds / 2.2 = 103 kilos of total weight My scale shows that I have roughly 28% body fat (Note that scales are not the most accurate measure of body fat percentages) 103 kilos * 0.28 = 28.8 kilos of body fat 103 - 28.8 = 74.2 kilos of lean body weight 74.2 * 30.2 = 2240 calories
This is a slightly different value than the one I got from the BMR calculator that just focuses on age, weight, sex and height. That value was 2082.
This shows a minor difference of 158 calories between the two methods. Either way, both values would be a good starting point for the Weight Control flowchart.
Thanks!
— PFM
You can also easily determine your basal metabolic rate; calories necessary to maintain current weight using the following formula. It's extremely accurate if you have a method for determining your body fat percentage. The formula is: weight in kilograms - body fat =lean body weight X 30.2 = daily caloric intake for maintenance. Eat less than that and/or workout more to create a calorie deficit and lose weight. Eat more and lift heavy weights and gain muscle mass. For example: Jen is 150 lb. and wants to lose weight. She has 30% body fat. Divide her weight by 2.2 to get her weight in kilos=68 kilos with about 21 kilos of fat (30%). Take her lean weight 47 kilos and multiply it by 30.2 (calories/kilo base metabolic rate). She needs 1419 calories/day to maintain. Add more to gain or less to lose.
— PFM
— PFM
“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.”
— Albert Einstein
I’ve been doing some testing by publishing posts with Microsoft Office: Word directly to the WordPress blogs.
I have to say that either I’m doing something wrong, or the formatting conversion between the two really, really blows!
I’ll keep doing some tests and we’ll see what happens.
-PFM
In order to focus on weight-loss, fitness or both, you first need to know your base nutrition requirements. There are numerous calculators available online that can help you identify an average value. However, these values are fairly generic and there are always exceptions. My suggestion is to use one of these calculators to find a starting point. Then you can plan your meals, gather data and make adjustments as needed.
The chart below helps to visualize this process:
1. Use a calculator like THIS ONE to determine an estimated starting point.
2. Enter your data into the appropriate fields and click on the Calculate button.Note: The Lifestyle field represents your current daily activity level. Use the chart in the lower section to help determine what your level.
3. The two key items to note on the next screen are your BMI (Body Mass Index) and Calories Burned. The BMI listed above shows 31.8 and using the chart below we see that I am considered Obese.
|
BMI |
Weight Status |
| Below 18.5 | Underweight |
| 18.5 – 24.9 | Normal |
| 25.0 – 29.9 | Overweight |
| 30.0 and Above | Obese |
The Calories Burned shows 3088. This is the estimated amount of calories, based on your current weight, age, height and activity that you can eat daily and still maintain your weight. We now have our starting point and can revisit the Weight Control flowchart above.
But, we can’t move on to the next step just yet. We still need to do some work on estimating the amount of calories we can burn daily to achieve our results.
BMR: Basal Metabolic Rate is simply the number of calories that your body would burn if you spent all day in bed and did nothing else. In other words, it is the BARE MINIMUM amount of calories you should eat daily.
Here is a link to a BMR Calculator.
In my example then, I have the following values:
BMR: 2082
BMI: 31.8
Calories Burned: 3088
Now, in order to lose weight we need to do some minor calculations:
One pound is equal to 3500 calories.
So in order to lose 1 pound per week, we need to subtract 500 ((3500*1)/7=500) calories from our daily budget.
If we wanted to lose 2 pounds per week we would subtract ((3500*2)/7=1000) calories from our daily budget.
1 pound per week: subtract 500 calories – 2588 calories remaining per day
2 pounds per week: subtract 1000 calories – 2088 calories remaining per day
Simply eating 2588 calories per day and maintaining current activity levels would allow for a weight loss of 1 pound per week.
You never want to reduce your daily calorie intake to an amount lower than your BMR. Also, there is a common saying in weight loss that you should not lose more that 1% of your body weight per week.
This gives us the following rules for our example above:
- Don’t eat less that 2082 calories per day (BMR)
- Don’t lose more than 2.27 pounds per week (Weight * 1%)
- Any changes that decrease our activity levels will require a new estimate to be created
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Any changes that increase our activity levels MIGHT require you to eat back those calories
- If your daily calories (minus) the new activity calories is less than your BMR, you should eat back those calories, otherwise you may not have the energy to perform and properly recover
- If your daily calories (minus) the new activity calories is more than you BMR, you can simply keep to your current eating plan and enjoy the benefits of more exercise
With these rules and our current activity level staying the same, we can safely lose about 2 pounds per week by eating 1006 calories less per day for a total of 2082.
Now we have a proper starting point of 2082 calories for our flowchart.
But wait a minute! That amount is our actual BMR as well. Why not just figure that out and be done with it? Well, in my case, I have a quite a bit of weight to lose and it just works out that my BMR matches my estimated calories at this point in time. There will be times when subtracting 1000 calories (in order to lose 2 pounds per week) will drop your daily estimate below your BMR. This is when it really matters, as you should never eat less than your BMR daily. This simply means that in order to lose weight safely, you will have to lose weight at a slower pace.
4. The next step is to plan our daily meals based on this total estimate of 2082 calories.
The following is a sample plan for spreading out calories though out the day:
Breakfast: 8:00 am 450 Calories
Morning Snack: 10:30 am 250 Calories
Lunch: 12:30 pm 400 Calories
Late Snack: 2:30 pm 250 Calories
Evening Snack: 5:30 pm 200 Calories
Dinner: 7:30 pm 532 Calories
This is mostly just a guide to help me plan out my meals/snacks for the day. Sometimes I eat more for breakfast so I make up the difference with my snacks.
It’s also important to make sure you keep a log of everything you eat during the day. This helps to keep you honest and following the plan.
5. Weigh yourself daily and keep a record of your data. There are several options here. The Hackers diet has an online tracker. The app LoseIt! has both a mobile device app (iPhone/Droid) as well as a website.
The important thing is to be sure to weigh-in at the same time every day. I weigh myself first thing in the morning right after I wake up, naked, just before my shower.
6. Remember, that your daily weight fluctuates +/- 5 pounds every day based on the amount of water, waste, sodium, undigested food, etc that you have in your system. So the next step is to use a trending method, like the Hackers Diet, in order to clean up these excess fluctuations from your weight loss records by creating trend data. This trend data will help to make sure that your estimates are accurate and keep you on track.
7. Finally, if your trending data shows that your estimates are too high or too low, you need to make minor adjustments to you estimated calorie intake in order to make sure you are meeting your goals.
Example 1: If your trend data shows that you are losing more weight than you planned for, then you need to evaluate a couple of things:
- Are you sure the calories eaten are properly logged and accurate?
This entire process requires accurate estimates of your food in order to be successful. If you don’t know the calorie amount within a certain food or meal, you should use google to look up a similar item. Always err on the high side if you have to guess.
- Did you increase your activity levels?
Increasing your activity levels without increasing your food intake will cause this to happen.
It’s also possible your initial estimate of activity was too low.
Remember to follow the rules in Step 3.
It’s also possible your initial estimate of activity was too low.
Remember to follow the rules in Step 3.
- Have you been sick?
It’s not uncommon to lose weight while being sick. Just stick to your plan and when fully recovered reevaluate your estimates again.
Example 2: If your trend data shows that you are actually gaining weight, then you need to evaluate the following:
- Are you sure the calories eaten are properly logged and accurate?
This entire process requires accurate estimates of your food in order to be successful. If you don’t know the calorie amount within a certain food or meal, you should use google to look up a similar item. Always err on the high side if you have to guess.
- Did you decrease your activity levels?
Decreasing your activity levels without also decreasing your food intake will cause this to happen. It’s also possible your initial estimate of activity was too high.
Remember to follow the rules in Step 3.
- Have you been sick?
It’s not uncommon to gain weight while being sick. Just stick to your plan and when fully recovered reevaluate your estimates again.
And so, the flowchart is used over and over again for the entire process of losing weight. It’s important to re-evaluate on a regular basis as the number generated from the different tools outlined above will change as you lose more and more weight.
Enjoy!
-PFM
Edited: Not surprisingly for such a long post, there were numerous typo’s that I have corrected.
Description of Workout: This body-weight and dumbbell workout focuses on a set of basic exercises for the primary muscle groups to help kick-start an introduction to workouts. This circuit workout can be run for an extended period of time as a basic program, however after about 3 months you should consider switching to my Version 2 program. You will be working out 3 days per week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Monday/Wednesday/Friday:
- Circuit: Do 3 sets of the following with only 10 seconds rest between exercises
Body-weight Exercises:
squats – 10 reps
stiff leg deadlift – 10 reps
calf rasies – 20 reps per leg
push ups – 10 reps
Dumbbell Exercises:
bentover rows – 10 reps
military press – 10 reps
bicep curls – 10 reps
tricep extensions – 10 reps
- Core Work: 5 planks: plank for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds – do 5 total sets
- Cardio: 30-60 minutes of cardio – walking, hiking, running, cycling (outdoors or indoors with equipment)
Tuesday/Thursday:
5 planks: plank for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds – do 5 total sets
Enjoy!
-PFM
Description of Workout:
The dumbbell only home or gym full body workout focuses on the use of heavy compound lifts, and allows you to maximize muscle gains with minimal equipment. This workout can be run for an extended period of time. As long as you are experiencing strength and muscle gains, stick with this routine! Here are some key elements to maximizing progress:
- Progression. Never waste a set. Always push for more reps on every set using good form. When you can hit the top level of the recommended rep range on your first set of an exercise, add weight! This means that if an exercise calls for 3 sets of 6 to 12 reps, and on your first set you can perform 12 reps, add more weight the next time you perform this exercise.
- Failure. Do NOT train to failure. Train to the point where you believe you might fail if you attempt another rep.
- Food. You MUST eat more then it takes to maintain your body-weight to pack on muscle mass. If you do not do this, you may add strength, but it will be very difficult to add muscle.
You will be working out 3 days per week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Do not add additional exercises into this workout.
Cardio can be performed first thing in the morning, or post-resistance training. Also, I do 5 sets of Planks every day. (Hold the position for 30 seconds, then rest for 30 seconds. This is 1 set.)
Monday: Full Body
| Exercise: | Sets: | Reps: |
| Dumbbell Squat | 3 | 6-12 |
| Dumbbell Bench Press | 3 | 6-12 |
| One Arm Dumbbell Row | 3 | 6-12 |
| Standing Dumbbell Curl | 3 | 6-12 |
| Two Arm Seated Dumbbell Extension | 3 | 6-12 |
| Sit Up | 3 | 10-25 |
Wednesday: Full Body
| Exercise: | Sets: | Reps: |
| Dumbbell Step Up | 3 | 6-12 |
| Dumbbell Stiff Leg Deadlift | 3 | 6-12 |
| Seated Dumbbell Press | 3 | 6-12 |
| Standing One Leg Dumbbell Calf Raise | 3 | 10-20 |
| Dumbbell Shrug | 3 | 10-15 |
| Dumbbell Side Bends | 3 | 10-15 |
Friday: Full Body
| Exercise: | Sets: | Reps: |
| Dumbbell Lunge | 3 | 6-12 |
| Dumbbell Floor Press | 3 | 6-12 |
| Wide Grip Pull Up | 3 | 6-12 |
| Standing Hammer Curl | 3 | 6-12 |
| Lying Dumbbell Extension | 3 | 6-12 |
| Lying Floor Leg Raise | 3 | 10-25 |
Enjoy!
-PFM
Who knew?
-PFM
This one is actually several years old! We recorded the Fairly-Odd Parents one day and he paused it in order to free-hand draw Jorgen!
It’s still one of my favorites!
-PFM
My son was bored yesterday and was watching the New Looney Toons in the kitchen. This was the result of his boredom! I’m sure gets this natural talent from his father’s side of the family! 😉
-PFM
-PFM
McKibbins Daily 