Tag: Plateau

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Weight Loss Exercise

How and Why to Keep An Exercise Journal


Sticking to a fitness or weight loss program is never easy. However, you’re far more likely to keep going if you can see that you’re making progress. This is where an exercise journal comes in. It’s a great way to keep yourself motivated through those times when you’re just not feeling it, and it’ll also help you to form great habits.

How to Create Your Own Exercise Journal

wordartThe crucial part about keeping an exercise journal is that it needs to become part of your daily routine. This means that it needs to be simple enough so that you’ll actually bother with it! This is why you’ll probably want to avoid creating something overly complicated.

If it helps, go out and buy a brand new notebook in a design you really like, along with some brand new pens for writing in the journal. You don’t need to do this, but it could give you that extra excitement you need to get going!

You could also purchase a journal designed specifically for this purpose. There are a number available, and they are basically designed as fill-in-the-blanks diary books. It’s something you can do yourself, but buying one ready made will save you some money.

What To Note In Your Journal

If you’re into strength training and bodybuilding then it makes sense to note down your sets and reps. Every week or month you can go back over this information and see how you’re able to endure more and more as time goes on. You can also use this information to get bigger by using a technique known as progressive overload, which basically means you’re always using heavier and heavier weights.

For cardio and stretching sessions an exercise journal can be used to note down what you did and how long you did it for. If you’re using gym equipment, you can note down some of the top stats from your workout. You can then use this information to motivate you when you’re not feeling it, or to help you overcome any plateau in your workouts. If you’ve gotten lazy lately, use your journal to find out a way to push yourself just higher than you’ve ever worked out before.

In short, an exercise journal is a perfect tool to keep you aware of your previous goals and to give you something to work towards. It can be a huge boost to your motivation, and could mean the difference between success and failure!


Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Leptin – Fat Hormone Regulation

Leptin is a hormone in our body that controls fat regulation. This post is going to be a work in progress but I wanted to point out a hormone that we all have to deal with when it comes to hunger and fat loss and fat storage (getting fat).

One of the problems that I have found, and my wife as well, when Leptin is explained is that science is not very nice to us common folk. I suspect that you want to know how to lose weight and are not really too interested in becoming a biochemist to do it.

How Leptin controls fat stores

Leptin is that starvation hormone that decides that our body has to store fat if we are in a starvation situation (like animals getting ready for winter hibernation) or to burn our calories quickly (like when animals are in a hunting or hunter situation).

Basically when we eat too much food and do not exercise enough we store fat. Leptin controls that storing of fat in our body just like it would in animals but we as people with supermarkets, fast food, and easy access to the smells and tastes that we like. We kind of mess things up as far as eating when hungry comes in and do have to do something to regulate it on our own.

Okay, have you got that straight? Hope so. So when we are on any kind of a regular diet what will happen is that we lose weight for the first few days or couple weeks and then we plateau. The other crappy side effect is that our energy drops and we have trouble working out. The plateau is caused by our our Leptin levels dropping which causes our metabolism (energy burning) to slow down and at the same time our body stores as much fat as possible.

This means that we have to do something to take us out of this fat storage problem

How to Reset Leptin Levels

Leptin Fat Hormone Regulation

Reset Leptin Levels

There is a simple way to rest our Leptin levels and this is to stop our bodies from thinking we are starving. What will happen is that you will diet for a week or week and a half and then take a day or two off and remind our bodies that we are not in a starvation phase. Some diets do this already and they call it different things. Fat Loss for Idiots calls it calorie shifting, in 24/7 Fat Loss Joel Marion calls it a cheat day.

On any diet that uses this strategy you don’t just go and gorge, you eat normal size meals until satisfied but not worrying about fat content of the foods or carbohydrate types.

The important thing about this method is to make sure that you are reminding your body that you are safe, you are not starving, and to bring your Leptin levels back so that you are again able to lose fat and not have your body store fat.

Diet and Leptin Levels

Now that you know how this Leptin business works you have all the information you need to make your current diet or to further evaluate a diet. What you need to do is never diet hard for more than a week or two without taking a day or two off. Although these cheat days can cause a bit of weight gain if done incorrectly you will be doing more help then any single diet day to making sure that you are going to have long term weight loss success.

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Diet Pills

Fat Loss 4 Idiots Opinion

If you are reading this article, you are probably thinking of buying this product over the web and you have read one Fat Loss 4 Idiots opinion after another equally boring Fat Loss 4 Idiots opinion article. Most Fat Loss 4 Idiots opinion articles are highly for the diet plan or highly against it. That’s why it is very hard to find a credible Fat Loss 4 Idiots opinion page if you ask me.
When I bought the plan, it was called Weight Loss 4 Idiots. I shelled out a few bucks, it was around $30 or something, and then gained access to the actual food plan.
Okay, so the plan goes like this. The meal calculator will ask you what type of an “eater” you are. Are you up for following a vegetarian plan or are you going to follow a “regular” plan? Once you have specified that, the plan will ask you a list of food items that you like. Make sure you actually like and can tolerate the food items you log in because you will have these food items as your main source of energy for the next 11 days. Then you just have to follow this meal plan, eating in a 2. 5 hours interval in between each meal.
Here’s what I have to say about this program. If you are looking for a diet plan that can launch your way to losing weight and eating properly, then I say go for Fat Loss 4 Idiots. Especially if you are relatively on the heavy side as this plan will deliver what it promises really. 9 pounds or more can be lost in 11 days of following the plan. It is going to be easy to follow this plan and it is good enough to give you three days of “cheat” period to eat foods you crave outside your meal plan for the past 11 days. And although there are several vague points when you are following the plan, like you are not given any servings, you just have to eat until you are “satisfied” but not full, it is still the easiest diet plan by far.
However, the thing that I do not like about the plan is that after a few weeks, I hit a plateau. I ended up not losing any weight and I had to start doing the walk for 30 minutes suggestion before I could lose 4 measly pounds in 11 days. I looked for a support center that can help me while I was in this plateau but I found out the hard way that they have none. Also, after much research on eating right and eating healthy, I realized that the right diet plan can be found online for free!
So my Fat Loss 4 Idiots opinion is, if you are looking for a short term diet plan, it may be okay for you to spend on this plan as it will instill the discipline you need. But if you are looking for something long term, best to just research the net for good and healthy eating habits.