Getting Back to It

One of the reasons I started this blog was to help keep me on track. It was also meant to be a place where I could gather information and sites I found helpful, and to hopefully encourage others to seek to improve their health as well. I'm sure it would help with this if I stuck to it.  The thing is that is true about most things in life, not the least in terms of health.

The biggest challenge is to stick to it. Pretty much all diets will work if you stick to them. Pretty much all exercise programs will achieve what they are designed for if you stick to them.

What that tells me is that the key to success in diet and exercise is finding a program that you can stick with. Realize there are basic fundamental principles that need to be met, and find what helps you meet them in a way you can stick with in the long run.

Since I am posting this from my tablet, I am not going to get into details. Hopefully in future posts I will do that.

Are you in Denial

I was reading an article today that stated most Canadians are in denial about their health. They think they are healthy, and will report they are healthy in surveys, but at the same time the things that would be used as health markers are anything but healthy.

I bring this up because I know what it is to be one of those people. I thought I was fairly healthy, until it all came crashing down when I got pneumonia and then had a stroke. It was only then that I was forced to realize I had taken my health for granted because I was not really sick. The thing is, leaving it to that point could have meant the end of my life, and strokes can and do kill. Worse yet, it could have left me with major physical or mental disabilities due to the brain damage a stroke causes. If you think about it, would you rather own up to the fact you are not as healthy as you like to think you are right now, or would you rather wait for a major health crisis caused by your denial which might take your life one way or another? I am guessing you would rather not go through a heart attack or stroke to prove that you have let your body go.

The good thing for me is I was able use what happened to me as a motivation to change. It has been a few days over a year since I had my stroke. I am still dealing with some of the effects even today, and thanks to God I am still recovering and seeing improvement. In that time I have lost 66 pounds and gotten much healthier both in what in eat and how much I do.

My question for you today is are you ready to change? If so get going to eat less and do more.

Weight Loss and Diet

One of the things I like to do to spur me on in my continuing quest to loose weight and get fit is watch TV shows where people who are out of shape seek to get in shape. I find things like Biggest Loser can be very encouraging.

Having said that, I was watching the X-Weighted episode "Jill" from 2006 this afternoon while I did various administrative tasks, and I was very unhappy that the message they seemed to deliver at her mid-point weigh in was that it was her lack of exercise that was hindering her weight loss. Now she was the one who stated that first, but the trainer, Paul Plakus did not correct that view. Instead, he encouraged it by his response talking about how many calories (3500) she would need to burn to lose a pound.

The thing is, while exercise can and does help lose weight, the vast majority of a person's weight lose will be because of diet, not exercise. It all comes down to eating less calories than you use in a day. Exercise, when all is said and done, will contribute only be a small portion of that. Exercise gets you fit and strong.

My personal experience is that was true even for me back when I was on the various fad diets out there. The thing that made the difference was calorie consumption. If I controlled that I lost weight whether I was exercising or not. That is why most of those diets work be it the Atkins, South Beach or whatever. They all cut a persons calories consumed.

With that in mind in this episode of X-Weighted the person, Jill, was at the gym having a snack. Now the snack was an improvement on what she said she would have had before, but it was still rather high calorie for a "snack."

"What was that snack?" you ask. It was an apple, almonds and water.

While those are all healthy options, and are good for you, the almonds in particular are quite high in calories. It looked like she had about .5 to .75 of a Cup of almonds. That would mean just for the almonds (assuming dry roasted not salted) a calorie count of 412 to 618 calories. This assumes I estimated the amount of almonds correctly, and I was trying to be conservative in my estimate. Add a medium apple at about 95 calories and that snack come in at 507 to 713 calories. That is probably more than half the calories she should be eating a day if she wants to lose weight. By the way, it is more than most of the full meals I eat especially if the amount of almonds was closer to .75 of a Cup. I am guessing any of the calories she burned while on the stationary bike at the gym were replaced immediately with that "snack."

When she was disappointed with her weight loss, I can say based on what was shown, she was simply eating too much. A better snack would have been 2 apples and water or one apple and maybe and ounce of almonds. Better yet, if she could do it, just have the water with no "snack" at all.

The lessons from all this are pretty straight forward.

1) If you want to lose weight you need to know how many calories are in what you eat, and how many you want to eat per day or week. Without controlling your calories, you will not have significant weight loss.

2) Don't fall for the idea that exercise will make you lose weight quickly even if you don't take care of how much you eat. It simply won't happen. You will get more fit, a good thing in itself, but you will not get rid of the fat quickly with just exercise.

Insanity Is Great

The more I use it, the more I like it. I mean, any workout that can get your body working good and hard before you are even done the warm-up is the exact sort of workout I like and for that matter, need. I have not slept well the last few days which made working out difficult. Add to that a bunch of snow falling and the need to clean that up, and workouts were not being done. Today, after having a good night sleep, I got back to it after a couple of days off. Insanity did it. I couldn't get through the whole workout, but what I did finish worked me out really well.

Before and In Process December 2010

I was looking at some pictures on my facebook account and saw some from Christmas 2 years ago. While the position I am in in that photo is less than flattering, it compared to the photo I have from December this year shows what I have changed. Now that change came all in this year. If anything I was fatter when I started in January than I am in the December 2008 picture.

Before: December 24, 2008



In Process December 5, 2010

Insanity

Insanity, an exercise plan on DVD has become one of my favorite ways to exercise. I have not used it following its official plan, but have worked in various workouts from it into my regular exercise routine. For months I used Tae-bo exclusively, and I still like it a great deal. However, I noticed a month or two back that my heart rate was not being raised sufficiently with the Tae-bo DVDs I have. I tried P90X, another Beach Body product, but found its dependance on Yoga did not interest me at all. Then I saw Insanity at Costco and decided to try it out. The first time I tried it, I barely got to the end of the warm-up. My heart rate was higher than it had been for weeks, if not months, and I loved it. Since getting Insanity I have started to do it more and more, and Tae-bo less and less. I still have not gotten through all the routines completely, but even with that, the workout I am getting is great.

Having said that, there are a couple of cavets. First, if you have knee problems or hip problems, this is not for you. It fairly high impact with lots of lateral action. Second, this is not for beginners. You need to be somewhat fit to do these. If you are not, you will find that you will have a great deal of difficulty doing this.

All in all, if you are looking for something that will push you to the next level, this is an exercise program that will do that. I am guessing that you could modify some of the moves yourself, if you take the time to figure it out, to make that lower impact, but some of the stuff will be very difficult to modify.

Eat Stop Eat

I have now done two fast days, and so far the results are very positive. On the fast days I find I still have lots of energy, and frankly going from 6PM to 6PM for a fast is not that difficult. Think about it for a minute and you will realize that for 8 hours of that time, give of take, you are sleeping. Keep busy through the day, and 6PM comes before you know it.

The results so far are that I have come down from 196.8Lbs to 193.0Lbs. Now some will say that is all water weight, but it clearly isn't because on the days I eat the weight does not come back. Others will say it is all muscle, but based on the fat percentage, the majority of the weight loss is fat.

Now I realize this is but one week. Having said that, I am thinking this is something that I could do for the rest of my life, and in the end it will not require constant measuring of food and a careful diet. I still have to watch my sodium consumption due to my high blood pressure, but with Eat Stop Eat it has come down consistently this week. I am hoping the trend continues and I can get off more medication for the blood pressure.