by Benny on October 30, 2009
The path to losing weight is to make gradual changes. You don’t want to go from one day sedentary and eating all-you-can-eat buffets to working out 1 hour a day and eating 5-6 smaller meals per day. You’re not going to stick with it if change is that drastic.
Here are three basic and easy ways to incorporate small changes into your routine that might help boost weight loss.
- Get help from family members who eat with you on a regular basis.
- Use a bathroom scale to weigh yourself regularly.
- Eat from smaller plates.
One way to get family members to help is to rid the food of junk food. Those moments when we’re craving something sweet, opening the cabinet and seeing a cookie is going to make us want to eat it. And we know we can’t just eat one!
Tell your family of your plans and have them encourage you. You could get one family member and work out together.
Use a bathroom scale to check your progress. The best time to weigh yourself is first thing in the morning. Just remember though that if you’re doing strength training along with cardio, your clothes may feel looser but you weigh the same.
Muscle weighs more than fat. However if your goal is to drop 20-30 pounds or more a scale will help to keep you focused on your goals.
Finally eat from smaller plates. This helps because when we see a bigger plate we tend to want to put more and more food on there. When we go to buffet restaurants, the plates are huge so there’s more room to pile on food!
If the plates are smaller, visually the plate will look full with all the food on it and make us eat smaller portions, which will help tremendously with losing weight.
Try to incorporate these three easy, inexpensive ideas to your weight loss goal and soon these will become a routine in your healthier life.
by Benny on October 6, 2009
I just picked up a book called “The All-Pro Diet: Lose Fat, Build Muscle, Live Like a Champion”. I was intrigued by it because I am a fan of Atlanta Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez and his amazing consistency to be the best at his position.
There’s always another book touting their diet and some have just become fads. I don’t think this one will be one of those. After reading reviews on Amazon, and feeling like I needed a change in my diet, I decided to buy it.
The book is short. I read it in one day. The principles about healthy eating I’ve read some before. This book’s main focus is having more of a plant based diet, which I wasn’t too familiar with. Basically it is eating more natural food and less processed foods.
The reason for change is recently I’ve been having problems waking up early, some dry skin, and being tired around 2pm everyday. I get about seven hours of sleep a night and I do workout at least 5 days a week. I should be in good shape!
It could be my diet. I always have a healthy breakfast, exercise in the morning, then a post workout shake but when it comes to lunch it’s hit and miss. Somedays I’ll be good. Other days it’ll be Chik-Fil-a nuggets with the waffle fries and a milkshake. Delicious but so bad for you! If so, dinner I’ll go light. If lunch is good, then dinner I splurge a bit. Also I’ve had the worst sweet tooth lately! Someone offers me a cake, I can’t say no and I’ll say give me more!
If the saying is true “You are what you eat” then I’m a milkshake and cookies cause I’ve been having those a lot lately. Hopefully my girlfriend thinks I’m that sweet too.
I like the concepts in the book about natural eating. For example buy organic milk and grain fed beef because it will have less chemicals and pesticides. Fruits and vegetables should be bought at a farmer’s market. Whole grains should replace anything white.
I went to Whole Foods for the first time and really shopped there. Before I went to eat the buffet, which is good but can get expensive really quick! I bought some items he recommended and am going to try it out.
So far I’ve gotten into eating almonds and dried cranberries as a healthy snack between meals. I had been off almonds for awhile because I thought I was getting an allergic reaction to them. They are one of the best foods you can eat so I wanted to them again. So far, I feel fine, taste real good, and so easy to make and eat.
After I try some other changes in my diet, as the book recommends, I’ll write an update.
by Benny on September 23, 2009
From Flickr
I had a friend who drank a “Five Hour Energy” drink right before a soccer game a couple weeks ago. It was a morning game and he felt like he needed more energy. During the game, he didn’t feel so good. He regretted it completely.
However, so many do drink an energy drink before exercising because they believe it’ll give them the energy they need to finish their workout. I feel like it’s a bad idea. My friend felt like it was a bad idea too.
I do drink energy drinks once in awhile but I never drink it before playing soccer or exercising. The reason is they are filled with a lot of caffeine, herbal supplements, and sugar. All those pose health risks including:
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by Benny on September 17, 2009
Continuing on with my series of “Excuses and Solutions to Not Exercising”, today we will focus on the third excuse that people have to not exercise.
Third excuse is “I’m self conscious about how I look.”
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by Benny on September 15, 2009
