Cutting out meat is always helpful...(flameproof undies on)
Posted on 01/21/2006 7:21:11 PM PST by RightOnline
I mentioned this superb list of rules/suggestions for fitness and weight loss in another thread, and my FReepmail box filled pretty quickly. :)
To keep this brief: The Lovely Wife and I got into weight lifting (strength training) a few years ago, and one of the companies from whom we purchased sports supplememts (whey protein, etc.) issues a monthly email newsletter. This particular one I kept, because to my mind, it is the best......by FAR........encapsulation of the things we should all do to lose weight and keep fit. Anything and everything I have learned about fitness fit in these "rules" very, very well. I have sent this to a fair number of people, and without exception, EVERY one of them has lost significant excess weight and is far, far healthier.......and in a way they can so easily live with on a daily basis.
Therefore, I'm sharing this with all of you in the hope that it may help one or two of you. I can only promise that if you print this out, tape it to your refrigerator, and diligently follow what you read here..........you will feel sooooooo much better in such a relatively short period of time, you simply won't believe it.
Top 10 Ways to Drop the Fat by Cathryn Majorossy
1. Eat 4-6 small meals per day. Spread your calories out evenly during the day to help keep your metabolism moving and your energy levels naturally high. Try to target balancing each meal so that they contain roughly the same amount of calories. Meal replacements and nutrition bars are an easy way to supplement up to 3 meals per day.
2. Balance each meal with protein, carbs and fat. By providing reasonable amounts of these three essential nutrients at each meal, your body will have the fuel it needs to run at an optimum level. Balancing the nutritional make-up of your meals also helps prevent the storage of body fat.
Preferred sources of protein: fish, lean meat, chicken, eggs, turkey, lean pork, protein powders. Preferred sources of carbohydrates: fruit, vegetables, beans, whole grains. Preferred sources of fats: olive oil, nuts, fish oils, canola oil.
3. Choose the right carbohydrates. When constructing your meals, select complex carbohydrates that are “colorful” and high in fiber (like fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts). Try to avoid highly processed carbohydrates like pasta, bagels, crackers, chips, soda and candy. Highly processed carbs have little nutritional value and can easily be stored as body fat. If it’s a carbohydrate and it comes in a bag or a box, you should be suspect.
4. Don’t forget completely about the fat. Despite the hype in the 80’s and 90’s, fat IS an important part of everyone’s diet and is necessary for fat loss. It may sound strange but it is the reality. One benefit is that fat is slow to digest so it makes you feel full and thus you eat less. Fat also helps in proper digestion of carbs and protein; without it your body cannot process food efficiently. The key is to select foods that are rich in omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. These include salmon, mackerel, almonds, walnuts, olive and canola oils.
5. Eat until you are no longer hungry, not until you are stuffed full. A common mistake people make in their everyday eating habits is that they just eat too much. They eat until they are literally bursting at the waistline. You don’t need to be stuffed at every meal, or eat every bite . . . despite what your mom told you, it is ok to leave food on your plate. Even better, don’t put so much on your plate in the first place. Keep your portion sizes under control If you find yourself eating for no reason, or you just can’t stop, you are probably eating to fill a void in your life, as many people do. Taking some time to evaluate the areas of your life that are making you unhappy may help. Food is not the answer, and overeating always results in feeling worse.
6. Don’t cut your calories too low. Drastic calorie cutting attempts usually result in failure. If you are looking for lasting results and not just a quick fix, then your best bet is to aim for about 2/3 of your “normal” caloric, or food, intake. Putting your body into starvation mode will ultimately derail your weight loss attempts. Your body will fight back by trying to hold onto your fat even more tightly! Slow and steady wins the weight loss war.
7. Give yourself one, and just one, splurge day per week. If you are eating “clean” 6 days a week, you deserve a splurge day. Pick one day per week and save up all your cravings for that special day. Make a chocolate dessert, or have some extra pasta with dinner. Whatever it is, after 6 days of keeping your diet in order and keeping focused on your ultimate goal, you not only deserve a day of eating some of your favorite foods, but your body can also completely handle it. Remember, you cannot gain a significant amount of body fat in just one day. It takes months, in most cases, years of poor eating to add that weight. One splurge day a week is acceptable and even helpful; just make sure when the next day comes around, you get back in the saddle again and get ready for 6 more days of good clean eating and weight loss progress.
8. Get your body moving with exercise. You will not reach your fat loss goals without getting your body in motion. Exercise helps you burn calories more efficiently, improves blood circulation to all parts of your body (including your brain), helps your skin stay young looking, and even improves bone strength. Just 3 or 4 workouts per week is enough to get some truly life-changing benefits from exercise. There are so many types of activities you can participate in. There’s no excuse. Weight training exercises are great for both men and women to build muscle strength. The more muscle your body has, the more calories it burns per day. Cardiovascular exercise is a great way to get your blood pumpin’ and your energy levels high. And you can do some of your exercise outdoors and breathe in some of that fresh air too!
9. Drink plenty of water. Drinking at least 8 glasses of water per day is essential for fat loss. Water helps your digestion, helps you feel energized, gives you a feeling of fullness and keeps you looking young. In addition, water seems to act as a natural appetite suppressant. In fact, people on diets who do not increase their water intake will find themselves feeling “hungry” much more often and more severely than those who do up their water consumption.
One possible reason for this is that dieters are getting less water from their food, because they’re eating less food, so the body is actually craving fluid. These cravings can be significantly curbed with increased water intake.
10. Supplement wisely. The JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) now recommends a multi vitamin/mineral complex for all healthy adults. Also, a quality weight loss supplement may aid in your efforts and help you finally get rid of that unwanted fat. (Note: weight loss supplements work well only in conjunction with a healthy diet and exercise program).
Cutting out meat is always helpful...(flameproof undies on)
Again.......see above. It's all in WHAT you eat.
This is almost identical to the Zone diet (it is not a low carb diet like Atkins), which is not really a diet but a permanent change in eating habits. Sears' books have some helpful tables that show the amount of grams of protein, carbs (both good and bad types), and fat in various types of food and how much you should be eating a day based on your lean body mass. After a few weeks it all becomes second nature and completely changes how you eat. I went from 180 to 160 in a matter of weeks while eating more and better foods. But this wan't the whole story. I added close to 10 pounds of lean body mass (through exercise and weight training), which means that I lost 30 pounds of fat, for a net loss of 20 pounds
I have a friend from high school who is going to be shooting what he calls "a pro-animal rights terrorism" flick this summer. He eats blocks of tofu all of the time. (We're friends, he's just a kook.)
Now, if this were buffalo mozzarella, well, that is another thing entirely.
Aye, but do I havta gev oop kayk?
I cut it in cubes and put in on salads
Or this is yummy too
Cut in cubes cut up some tomatoes, red onion, some garlic, olive oil and Italian seasoning
I do eat chicken but I try to buy organic
However every once and a while there's nothing like a good steak (rare)! (sorry)
The one part of the email that I really agree with is where it says not to stuff yourself. I do believe it's fairly key to stop eating as soon as you're not hungry anymore. And don't eat again until you are hungry, which shouldn't be for some hours unless you ate just carbs, then hunger comes faster.
I've also noticed that when you are really busy and concentrating on and consumed by the job at hand that you won't eat until you truly get hungry. And then the desire to stuff oneself seems absent.
Enough protein is the only way to reduce calorie intake without rampant hunger which will bust the diet. In fact the key determiner of whether a diet is sustainable is whether it gives a person at least 75 grams of protein a day. Lean meat is the best way to get it.
GET IN MY BELLY!!!
Tofu is the most misunderstood food; It's so versatile and tasty!
Its versatile just you say!
I'd post a pic if I could upload it to a server somewhere..........
However, meat is not an essential part of each meal. Veggies and grains are much healthier than having bacon for breakfast, a turkey sandwich for lunch, and meatloaf for dinner. I don't think our bodies can process that much meat in a day.
Tofu is no substitute for meat, I know. ;-) But it can be prepared so many ways, and is so tasty in it's own right...
Well, I like the taste of raw tofu, but you're right, it's much better seasoned. It's also the perfect kid food, if you get them started on it early.
A merely unfat person's diet is not appropriate for someone trying to lose weight, that is what people never understand in these things. They think, I'm healthy, eat what I eat and you'll be a healthy weight too. No. If your diet leaves your weight stable, and a fat person eats it, they will stay fat.
To lose significant amounts of weight, caloric intact has to be 3/4 to 1/2 sustaining levels. If you eat that little with lots of carbs, you will be starving 8 hours out of every 24, and nobody keeps it up.
A fat person needs to cut calories drastically, way below what thin people consume, and needs to do so without feeling hungry all the time. The right way to do that is as the article says, to up protein intake (especially - it mentions time to digest fat but that is not nearly as critical, since inadequate protein intake will trigger hunger to get enough) - and also relatively narrowly spaced but quite small meals.
There is no way to eat 1500 calories a day in only 3 meals without hours of hunger. There is no way to eat 1500 calories a day with a calories to grams of protein ratio of 30 or 40 without hunger, because the body will immediately demand 75 grams and tell you to keep eating until it gets them.
But you can readily eat just 250 to 300 calories at a time and feel full enough to stem hunger. And if you include enough meat and the like, you can get calorie to protein gram ratios of 15 or 20 (10 and under from the protein sources themselves, but balanced with other foods). If you get 1500 calories and 75 grams of protein or more and can eat something small every 3-4 hours, you will not feel hungry.
Lean people give the worse advice on this stuff because they assume anyone acting as they act will have a weight like theirs, but it is not remotely true. To beat a real weight problem takes a massive caloric restriction sustained enjoyably for 6, 9, 12 months. The ways of doing that are much narrower than the fools giving the advice based on some non-losing norm can grok. They always bring in their ulterior motives and break the people they are advising out of the only patterns that can actually do it.
If you simply don't eat........as so many try.........your body falls back into "starvation mode"; it thinks you are in a famine period and actually STORES fat. You can't do that. You MUST stimulate your metabolism.......especially important in the morning; breakfast.
People who just "stop eating" are always flustered at either their lack of weight loss or hitting that dreaded "plateau"...........that is why.
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