Tag: People

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General Weight Loss Tips

Energy

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about energy. Stuff, items, people in my life that give energy and those that take energy. Exercise gives me energy, TV takes energy. Fresh home cooked food gives energy, processed foods take it away. Folks with a sense of humor and an easy smile give energy, those with excess drama take it. Having clutter takes energy, organized spaces gives energy. I want to bring energy into my life, and give it out too.

In the past couple of years I’ve really pushed myself to grow as a person. Pushing myself to put kindness first. To be vulnerable in friendships and relationships. To be the first one to smile or offer help. I’ve stopped waiting for other people to be the better person. And by doing this, my energy has lifted. I’m still not perfect at this, because it’s truly a challenge.

Being better everyday takes a lot of energy. To be the person I know I can be- takes lots and lots of energy. And I wasn’t sure until now that I was up for the challenge. Some days I still don’t think I am.

Being a healthy person inside and out takes a lot of work. It’s work to take care of myself when I’d rather sit and work for hours (forgetting to eat, drink or even pee). It takes energy to show up and be there for myself- to exercise, to make an alternative food choice, to eat less. To show up and not tune everything out is hard. To shut down when stress steps in, or when things aren’t going my way.

When I don’t take care of myself I want to zone out with bad food and TV. I’ve seen this pattern over and over in my life. Escaping when I stop nourishing my body and mind.

I say part of this to say that when Miranda mentioned giving up TV for Lent I jumped on board. What in the world would I do instead of watch TV? Probably lots of good, energy giving activities. Maybe I will just sit outside and stare out. Maybe I will learn to sew myself a skirt. Maybe I will write a kind letter to a friend. I want to get energy and give it back by not watching TV. Watching TV doesn’t nourish my soul or give me energy in the ways I always hope it will.

So instead of giving it up just for Lent; I just need this now. I’m giving it up for two months starting today. The only exception, of course, will be in case of an emergency and exercise DVDs. No more jeopary, marathon episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, or my beloved PBS specials about things like wolverines.  I’m kind of excited, and kind of scared.

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Weight Loss Exercise

Cheating day on a diet

Cheating day on a diet

Cheat Day on a Diet

Taking a day of your diet is good. A diet is a great example of having commitment to what you want and I applaud anyone and everyone that does a good job of committing themselves to staying healthy with a good diet. The trouble is trying to stay on a diet every day for months or years on end. This is what people aspire to but it is not very easy to do.

Cheating day on a diet confuses your metabolism

A few diets seem to say that you should try to confuse your body by staying on your diet for a few days or a couple of weeks at most and then getting off your diet for anywhere from one to three days. What do you think of this? Well the idea behind the days off on a diet is that you need to confuse your body so that it does not just adjust to lower caloric intake or just lower your metabolism to maintain fat levels.

Diets with a Cheating Day

Would you like to know examples of off day diets? There is a Weight Watchers diet adjustment that involves changing the amount of points you eat a day and cycling though these. You could do a kind of day off on this plan. The Body for life plan is that you do diet and exercise six days a week and eat whatever you want for one day a week. And finally there is the fat loss for idiots program that has you do the diet for 11 days and then take 3 days off before you do it again. This is the most confusing for your body (this is good) and easiest for you to manage.

Rules for a Diet Cheat Day

The best way that I see people doing there diet with days off is to have rules still for your days off. Try to follow the following rules:

  1. The idea is to eat what you want but do not overdo it.
  2. First of all you need a good regimen for your diet days and then for your days off the rules should be about how you cheat.
  3. Try to make sure that you are not being ridiculous because it is your day off. Do not eat a whole large pizza or a gallon of ice cream.
  4. Do not binge, no huge meals just meals that make you comfortably full
  5. This is the day that you go to a restaurant if you want.
  6. Do not eat three days worth of food in one day. The idea is that you can cheat but you don’t want to spend the whole week just catching up.

I hope that this plan for days off helps. I know that I have struggled with this in the past but the best thing is to just expand on your regular diet and at the same time make sure that get to eat those things that you are craving, in small measures of course.

Categories
Weight Loss Exercise

Heavy – Weight Loss Series Starts

Heavy Weight Loss Series Starts

Heavy TV Show

My wife and I caught a new series on A E this weekend called Heavy. The show was pretty good but again it called into question an individuals responsibility to themselves as well as those around them.

Here is the way that the TV series Heavy is setup. Each week there is two people and those two people are huge. There are two trainers and over a few months time each of these trainers work with one of the two people to try ot help them lose weight.

Heavy – The TV Series

I have lots of questions. First, were do they find these people, second are we going to have the same trainers every week, and third are there going to be updates later as to how the people are doing?

First the people – Heavy Season premiere had Jodi, a childcare worker who started at 367 pounds and dropped down to 289 pounds. And Tom who started at 638 pounds and got down to 476 pounds. Both of these people had no real strength and their motivation was lacking compared to the people on a show like Biggest Loser. In fact Tom was living in his bed and had trouble walking to his car in the driveway. Just getting to the gym was terrible for both of these guys so it was great to see them transform into tougher, stronger people.

Heavy TV Series Trainers – My wife and I were blown away by one of the trainers, the guy was very big and ripped. I wish I could find their names but I will have to search some more. The lady trainer was great and tried to motivate Jodi but was having trouble getting a bond with her which was too bad.

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