When I started jogging some months ago, and started my slow incremental growth in the amount of time I was jogging, one of my initial mid-range goals was to jog for forty minutes and to do that at least four times a week. This morning I reached that goal for the first time. So I was happy about that.
My next mid-range goals to achieve are to jog for one hour and then at some point to jog for two hours. It might be awhile but I’m confident I’ll reach those goals as well. I suspect that when I am able to reach those goals, then I’ll actually start to lose the extra weight I am carrying around.
The main long-range goal all along is to maintain an exercise habit over a period of years in the future. Winter is some months away, but I’m already thinking about how I’ll go about maintaining a jogging habit during winter-time.
1Karen on Sep 16, 2008 at 1:02 am:
You ROCK!!!
2Bookslinger on Sep 19, 2008 at 10:57 am:
Yeah, exercise alone won’t cause you to lose weight unless your daily calories expended exceeds your daily calories consumed.
Start by cutting out sugary desserts, and eat fruit instead. Then cut out high fat foods such as sausage and deep fried stuff, and grease-burgers at fast food places.
About 1 pound per week is the optimum weight loss. If you take it off too fast, and don’t change your “lifestyle of eating”, you’ll just gain it back when you stop working out or stop “dieting”.
I’ve learned that diets don’t work. I lost 24 pounds on a diet when I was 31 and gained it all back and more when I went “off the diet”.
So this time, I decided to not diet, but to “change my lifestyle of eating.” And it worked. I’ve lost about 45 pounds over the last 4 years, and I’m over 50 years old now. I started eating sensibly and exercising, and it took me 2 years of not losing much weight at all, but just building cardio-vascular endurance, and substituting muscle mass for fat mass. So I looked a lot better, even though I only lost about 10 pounds the first two years.
But, once I built up endurance and gained cardio-vascular strength (ie, strengthened heart and lungs so I _could_ work out) , even though I had only lost a net 10 pounds, my metabolism increased. IE, people with muscle mass have a higher base-line metabolism than fatties.
And since I got out of the habit of eating anything and everything, I then had the discipline to even better control my eating, and stick to healthy stuff, low meat, and high vegetable/fruit diet, ie, Word of Wisdom.
So now, I am not on a “diet” per se, but I have the discipline (usually) to eat healthy, though I still have my lapses. I call it a “healthy eating lifestyle.”
Just as smokers or drinkers have to give up that “lifestyle” of smoking or drinking, so we also have to give up the “lifestyle” of over-eating, or eating-bad-things, if we want to have a healthy weight.
So here I am, over 50, I got my BMI (body mass index) back into the normal range (under 25, see http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ ) and can jog 5 miles at 9:15 per mile (or 4 miles at 9:00/mile), or bike 15 miles in 42 minutes.
I thought I’d never be able to do that again after crossing into “obese” territory (my body mass index was as high as 33.2) , but the body can regenerate if you haven’t damaged it too much.
Here are a couple of hints that helped me:
Citrucel bulk fiber for appetite control, and a “sense of fullness” between meals.
No-salt-added canned green beans (70 calories/can) as a late night snack for when I lose willpower and have to eat _something_. I add a dash or two of seasoning and about 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil, and eat it right out of the can. Low calorie, high fiber.
I use plastic spray bottles from the $1.00 store to apply/measure olive oil or other cooking oils.
Hot-air popped pop-corn, sprayed with a little olive oil instead of butter. Ok, that’s the ideal. I still usually make pop-corn in a wok cooked with oil.
Note: This is important: Your body will “horde” that which it is not getting enough of. If you don’t drink enough water (or if you drink too much soda) your body will retain water. So drink lots of plain water (not soda). Give up soda for a week and you’ll lose 2 pounds of retained water weight right there.
Your body needs a little bit of fat, including saturated fats. If you don’t consume enough fats (say, by going to a no-fat or extreme low-fat diet) then your body will “horde” the fat, and not burn it off. So if you consume a little fat (including saturated), your body will then “think” it’s okay to metabolise the stored fat when it needs energy.
The meat I mostly eat is chicken breasts, cooked in a George Foreman grill, or stir-fried (or going out for sashimi). Oils with _some_ saturated fats, such as peanut oil or grape seed oil are perfect for stir frying. Peanut oil and grape seed oil have a high smoke point, which is good for high temp stir fry.
Oh, and the magic supplement is: (drum roll) Chromium Picolinate.
Chromium helps your body burn stored fat. Other forms of Chromium don’t work. Chromium Chloride in multi-vitamins doesn’t work. Chromium Polynicotinate supplements don’t work. It needs to be Chromium Picolinate. Those others just aren’t absorbed properly. I take a 200 mcg tablet in the morning, and 1/2 tablet (100 mcg) at bedtime.
If you don’t exercise that day, don’t take the morning dose. Chromium won’t help at all if you don’t exercise. It’s not a “fat burning” supplement, it’s a “burn fat instead of muscle when you exercise” supplement.
Good luck. And remember, being a healthy weight FEELS much better than anything tastes.
3danithew on Sep 19, 2008 at 11:16 am:
Bookslinger, thanks for the extended, detailed, thoughtful comment. That was awesome and the tips are appreciated.