Tag: Yo Yo

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General Weight Loss Tips

What if…

I’ve been keeping all of my oh so interested food posts over at www.myfitnesspal.com username: lorriebee. If you’re at all interested in what I’m eating. I’ve got loads of food photos to share with you, but first I want to share some random thoughts I’ve been having lately.

I’m a ponderer, I wonder about things, it’s just my nature. And today I’m thinking about this: what if I never lost a pound again- would I change my actions?

Lately I’ve noticed a few conversations with people around that fact that they assume eating a healthy diet and exercise is only out of the pursuit of weight loss. I can’t help but feel that this is entirely short sighted. Granted, when I started out on this journey a long time ago I was pretty ignorant about food. I was raised in the low-fat era of diet sodas, fat free dressing, and Snack Wells cookies. I never gave a moments thought to the pop-tarts, chips, Little Debbie cakes that I was consuming.

If it was in a package it was okay to eat. I never questioned ingredients, food sources, chemicals or unethical practices. But that was then and now after many years of yo-yo dieting, reading, watching and consuming all things health and nutrition I think I have a pretty good handle on what is sensible eating for me. Of course, it’s not perfect- it never will be. But, I know about meat, I know about processed foods and I know that most items in the grocery store are only pretending to be something they aren’t…food.

My quest for thin got me here. I don’t know if I’d ever arrive to caring that diet soda is not the solution to a diet full of fat and sugar. Or that meat has been injected and filled. Or that the innocent vegetable has been manipulated to be bigger, shinier and will hold up longer in the fridge. My fat opened my eyes to the world of better eating.

So sometimes I get frustrated when folks assume that I’m drinking juices in the morning just to lose weight. Or that sometimes I say “no thanks” to dessert, processed snacks or questionable meat because I’m trying…yet again…to lose weight.

The truth is, I want to do this. Not just because I have 150 pounds to lose, but because it feels better than the alternative. As if, weighing less would give me license to eat anything and everything without a moments thought.

The source of my knowledge and motivation is weight loss. For a hundred or so reasons. This is true. But, it’s not all based on weight loss.

I’ve come to realize that this slow shift in my mentality has opened the doors for real, lasting success. Because I understand that the way I’m eating now isn’t something I stop doing when I lose weight. I feel good when I drink raw vegetable juice,  eat salmon, salads, smoothies, oatmeal, and whole grains. I feel better about myself and my life. It makes me hopeful and inspired to be a better person. My work improves, my skin gets clearer and I’m a more pleasant person to be around.

So right now, today, my “plan” is to be good to myself. This involves exercise, not because it could and probably will make my ass smaller, but because I feel like a better human being. I’m eating less meat right now, not because of a fad diet, but because I feel better. Does that mean I won’t eat meat this weekend at the wedding? No. Does that mean I will never have the occasional steak? Like hell. I’m getting up and making  making juice because it’s a good thing to for me to do. I’m exclusively eating whole grains unless it’s not an option (and when it’s not I don’t feel bad about the white rice or bread). I’m eating nuts or fruit for snacks because it doesn’t weigh me down. I’m finding new ways to enjoy dessert and my favorite foods. And to top it all off, to make it count, so I know I’m doing what I need to do to lose weight: I’m counting calories. Everything else is up to me.

I’m finally understanding “lifestyle change”. It doesn’t mean that one meal at chik-fil-a is a bad thing, it doesn’t mean that healthy food can’t be delicious (it really is!), and it certainly doesn’t have to be the painful, hopeless, sacrifice that I’ve wanted to believe it is. The myth that made me believe for so long that I couldn’t do it without a pill, surgery or the latest top-selling diet book.

This is no longer punishment. This isn’t perfection. This isn’t 30 pounds in 30 days. This isn’t a raw food only diet. This isn’t no carb, low fat, low calories. Not vegan or vegetarian. Not the cabbage soup, rotation, or delivery meal systems. This isn’t diet food. This isn’t about the “last meal” or the “I will start over tomorrow”. This isn’t what I’m eating just to lose weight. This is me being okay with the occasional treat, the occasional indulgent meal because if I’m consistent 80% of the time, everything will be okay. This is about being guilt-free about food. Guilt only causes pain which leads to binging for me.

Today I am still obese. I’m not an impressive weight-loss success story. The process is never impressive. The mental shift, the work, the never going to give up attitude, the reading, the studying, the learning wasn’t a loss or failure. If I don’t lose a pound on the scale tomorrow morning, I’m still going to drink my juice, eat delicious real food and move as much as possible.

So do me a favor. The next time you see someone eating a salad or saying “no thank you” to dessert don’t assume it’s just because they are “being a good dieter” and on the same note, if you see someone eating a cupcake or enjoying a nice burger and fries, don’t assume they’re “off the wagon”. Being healthy isn’t about black and white eating or never consuming refined carbs again. It took me a long time, but I’m so glad I finally realize this.

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Categories
General Weight Loss Tips

Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle – A Closer Look at the New Ebook Diet Craze Burn the Fat Feed the Muscl

We’re all familiar with the hyped up new books and diet systems that come out regularly, claiming they can show you a better way to achieve bodybuilding goals, weight loss, or just good overall physical fitness. Most of these are full of rehashed information that doesn’t really show us anything original that we haven’t seen or read about somewhere else before. But one book has stood out from the rest for a while now, Tom Venuto’s Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle.

Venuto is a bodybuilding and nutrition authority, who has studied this subject for over 20 years. His long list of certifications was really the only reason I gave his ebook a second look, and I think it lends some credibility to the methods he recommends in Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle.

This is a 340 page ebook, and these are the major areas that it covers about drastically reducing your own body fat percentage.

1. Permanent weight/fat loss. Yo-yo dieting is commonplace with almost all nontraditional diet and weight loss programs. People can have some sort of success with a program, then gain the weight all back within the next few weeks. Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle talks about some of his carefully studied methods to join that 5% that keeps the weight off permanently.

2. Drugs and supplements: My real disgust with this whole industry really started when I began to come across a lot of mainstream diet books in bookstores, and on bestseller lists, etc. that actually “recommended” their own brand of supplements. Some went so far as to print the website address where you could buy them on every page of the book! Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle is an all natural system, and the author explains why you’re most likely wasting your money on 97% of the supplements out there. There were supplements that I swore by before, but in reading Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle, I’ve been able to continue to get the results I want without them. This approach can potentially save you hundreds of dollars a month.

3. Metabolism. There’s a natural barrier to dieting and fat loss, where you can have some success and lose weight for a while, then it gets substantially more difficult to lose any more. They call this the “plateau. ” A lot of diets that consist of really minimal meals get you to the plateau quickly, and they slow down your metabolism to the point where it can be very difficult to continue losing weight or lose it again once you gain it back. Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle explains Tom’s system for speeding up your metabolism to where fat no longer just sits still. Your body continuously expends the fat as energy. This part I have honestly not seen anywhere else. And there’s a lot more to it than smaller meals, more often.

4. The right foods. There are good fats that are more or less essential to losing weight and burning excess fat. A lot of people take this the wrong way and see it as permission to eat a bunch of junk mixed in with their diet. There are very specific foods that this refers to, and Tom tells you exactly which ones. There are also lesser known methods for combining different types of foods to get the best results.

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