My Weight Loss Story ! But now that I know I can and know how to do it, if sharing how I did it helps just one person, it’ll totally make it worth putting it all out there! I hated feeling like I was depriving myself. I knew I wouldn’t stick with something like that. Two years ago, I really got serious. I did the Couch to 5. K program. I went from completely sedentary to walking and then eventually running a 5. ![]() ![]() K 3- 4 days a week. I cut back my calories (although apparently not enough, because I didn’t really know how much to cut) and cut back on sweets, too. I was really, really good for the full program- 8 weeks. And I didn’t lose a single pound. ![]() ![]() I didn’t lose any inches either, for what it’s worth. After that, I pretty much gave up. I figured if I couldn’t lose weight by “diet and exercise!” – then I felt like I just couldn’t do it on my own! Recently I was talking with a couple of my friends and they were having success with Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig type diets- the kind where they send you the food. Both of them saw results on the scale the very first week! And I would read updates on their blogs and they were consistently losing weight every week. After my previous experience of trying it on my own and not losing a single pound- even after 8 weeks, I really thought the only way I could lose weight was through a program that sent you food. I wasn’t quite ready to do something like that though. Mostly because they were so expensive! I didn’t want to spend that kind of money. But also because I had Kevin to think about- I didn’t want to leave him to fend for himself while I was dieting, but I also didn’t want to cook dinner for him and not be able to eat it either! And how would I survive in the “real world” with real food? Would I really learn anything? Then someone said something about the Nutrisystem diet that really stuck with me. She said the Nutrisystem diet was a “1. Nothing more to see here.” Nothing more to see here – that really stuck with me. I don’t know, did I really think the boxed diet foods they sent you were super specially formulated to help you lose weight?? So I thought, hey, if I really wanted to give one of these type diets a try, I could do it myself with Healthy Choice, Lean Cuisine foods, etc. ![]() Just to see if it would really work. This is something I can do- I could try it for one week. It’s crazy to think that I could lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks while eating this every morning. It’s great though because in the evening when I. How to Get Back to Healthy Eating After Overindulging. Indulging once in awhile is completely healthy and normal — especially around holidays or special occasions. This Is How Ivanka Trump Reportedly Reacted When Her Dad Refused to Apologize for "Grab Them By the Pussy" Comments. The weight you gain during the. Discussion of weight loss on a Paleo diet, answering the question: will I lose weight on Paleo? ![]() If you think you'll quickly lose those unwanted pounds this holiday season, think again — a study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that the weight you. Cutting back on calories is a great way to lose weight, but cutting back TOO far can be counterproductive. I’ve seen a number of people take their calories down to. I can keep track of my calories. I didn’t know if I had the discipline to count/track my calories, but having the frozen meals would help and it would only be for a week. It will be worth it if actually works! So the first week, here’s what I did. There were a ton of Smart Ones meals that I really liked! Or sometimes I would just have another bowl of cereal and a piece of fruit. If it was one of those days. I still wanted to be able to cook dinner for us at night- but what a PAIN it would be to figure out the calories in every single ingredient I used, add them all up, divide it by the number of servings the dish made, BLAH! I would never have the patience to do all that!! ![]() ![]() But then I found a tool called Recipe Analysis at Calorie. Count. com. All I had to do was copy and paste my recipe into the site, put in the number of servings it makes and it calculates everything! It told me exactly how many calories were in a serving- and having to put in the number of servings helped me know how much to put on my plate! Dessert/Snacks – 2. I often had extra calories left over for dessert or an afternoon snack. There are a whole range of *delicious* single- serving sized desserts and treats out there that I had *no* clue about!! My absolutely favorite? Weight Watcher’s Fudge Brownie Ice Cream. Oh my- It comes in a single serving 6oz cup- and it is *extremely* decadent and filling. Other favorites are Skinny Cow Ice Cream sandwiches (BIG sandwich for only 1. Weight Watcher’s Giant Latte Bars (huge ice cream bar, tastes better than anything at Starbucks, and only 9. Weight Watcher’s Giant Cookies & Cream Bar (kinda like a Nestle Crunch Bar, 1. And best of all, I could find it all at my regular grocery store (Kroger or Publix). So now I could pretty easily figure out exactly how many calories I was eating for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and desserts/snacks. For a week I stuck to the whole 1. I tracked my calories on Spark. People. net so I wouldn’t lose count during the day. At the end of the first week I had lost 2. I had *never* seen results like that before with anything else I’d tried. Seeing those results on the scale at the end of the week was enough encouragement for me to stick with it! After 1. 1 weeks, I had lost 2. And to date, I have lost a total 3. I went from a size 1. It’s been about 5. I started- Kevin joined in about 9 weeks ago and eats 1. He’s lost 2. 3 lbs so far! Since June 1st, I have had nothing to drink but water. Honestly, this was probably the hardest thing I did. I mean really, does anyone really ENJOY drinking tons of water?? It took probably 6- 8 weeks before I didn’t reach over for my glass of water and wish it was something else! But now I can honestly say that I don’t miss it at all- and I actually crave water now! I feel healthier now that I’m drinking more water, and I have gotten several compliments on my skin lately- I didn’t really put two and two together until someone mentioned that it might be because of all the water I’m drinking now. But maybe so! Another thing- and I don’t think this has anything to do with my weight loss, but it certainly has made me feel tons better- I started taking a multi- vitamin. Now I absolutely hate, hate, hate taking pills. Especially those giant horse pills they call multi- vitamins. And especially every day! So what’s a girl to do? I found One- A- Day Vita Craves! Now the name is deceiving because you actually get to eat 2 of them a day (yes, I said *get* : )). I just keep the bottle on the table and take them after dinner so I don’t forget. But I wouldn’t forget because I actually really look forward to taking them every day! It’s like a little sour fruit snack! And I can definitely tell- they have made a huge difference. Everyone has noticed how much more *energy* I have now! And one other thing I changed- and this one my doctor got on me about doing- I started eating *more* during the day and *less* at night. I used to be really bad about getting busy during the day and forgetting to eat- and then eating all my calories at night. It was hard at first because I am usually not hungry *at all* first thing in the morning. But now I try to balance my calories throughout the day and not eat anything within 4 hours of going to bed- and I’ve noticed that now I am hungry first thing in the morning and it’s easier to get more calories in during the day now! And I still get to eat all the foods I enjoy. We spent a week at the beach this summer and I ate what I wanted. It was indulgent and delicious, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The difference this time was that the “free for all” eating ended when I got home- and the next day I was right back on track. I am counting calories, but I’m still happy and able to enjoy myself without feeling deprived. I give myself one “cheat” meal a week- if Kevin and I want to go out to a new restaurant, or have dinner with friends, or have company over and make all those ridiculously sinful desserts you’ve been seeing me post about. All those things I’ve posted, I’ve been able have! It’s definitely not an every day or even an every week thing- but after counting calories and not cheating all week, it’s okay (and even good!) to give yourself a little reward. From Monday January the 7th to January the 1. I lost over 4. 0 pounds within the first three months and I’m still going strong! The diet and program I describe below can typically produce 1. Note to women: Yes, you do lose weight differently than men. Your metabolisms are different and it’s important to keep this in mind. This post outlines solutions for women as well (our mom lost over 2. Here are my before and after pictures to checkout: The First Day and Week 2 weigh ins here: Initial Weight: 2. Pounds. Week 2 Weight: 2. Pounds. 15 pounds lighter in 2 weeks – needless to say I was pretty excited and this definitely helped me to keep going. I followed a customized fat loss program for 9. There is a female and a male version of this program. Click here if you are a women. If you are a man, click here. After the 9. 0 days this is where it took me: Initial Weight: 2. Pounds. Day 9. 0 Weight: 1. Pounds. Here is my before/after picture for the initial 9. I threw in a recent update from about a month ago – still going really strong like this. My brother, Devon had very similar results as well (although much less to lose). Even our mother was able to drop 2. Want more info on the program? If you are a women, click here. If you are a man, click here for your program. This has been life changing and actually a lot of fun! This post is meant to be a recap on the types of lifestyle changes we’ve made and and overview of what we did to lose this weight. We hope it can help as many people as possible. Although we did end up exercising a bit, most of the losses we noticed were from optimizing a meal plan and program that worked specifically for us. If you’re serious about losing some weight then you might want to check out the customized fat loss program (for men) Or its sister program called the Venus Factor (for women). Please take some time to review some of the post, but much of the info was taken from this program (Men: click here. Women: click here. The video on the page is about 2. The program is only about $4. I used to spend on pizza every weekend. Follow the link below to check it out. It’s crazy what dropping as little as 1. It was going through this process that sparked my renewed interest in the health and fitness community and snow balled into me being much more passionate about all this. If you’re looking to lose weight quickly, there are three things you need to optimize or focus on: Your diet – what you eat and drink. Your exercise – timing and duration of specific exercises. Supplementation – speeding up the process with the help of safe drugs. I really think that the best way to lose weight is by optimizing your diet. More specific it’s to manage your blood sugar levels and eat for your specific metabolism. Women, click here to see the program that’s specific for the female metabolism (this is how our mom lose her weight. Men, click here to check out the customized fat loss program for guys. I lost my weight by only optimizing my diet. I changed what I ate dramatically and literally melted the weight off. I remember waking up on the fourth day after starting this in complete amazement by the fact that my fingers felt skinny. I’m not sure if it was the amount of salt I ate or what, but my fingers and hands have felt fat for the last year – this alone was enough to keep me going. For the sake of this overview, I will not go into any detail on supplements (as I have yet to learn much about them), and will only briefly touch on exercising. Instead, I’ll focus on optimizing diet for rapid weight loss. So how did I lose this weight so quickly? I kept my blood sugar from spiking by following a fat loss program built for me. It was quite similar to the slow carb diet. The methods I used were from the advice I found from a variety of locations, surrounding foods and how diet alone can make for some amazing weight loss. You can get the program we used for this right here: women click here – and – men click here. Not going into details of the diet (you can read that yourself). These were the key changes I made that I know helped with the rapid weight loss. I ate a big, high- protein breakfast. I love my breakfasts. It’s crazy to think that I could lose 1. It’s great though because in the evening when I sometimes get cravings, I will just remind myself how awesome breakfast is going to be. I included a picture to the right of a typical breakfast that I will eat. It’s three fried eggs, 4- 6 pieces of bacon, and fried mushrooms, onions, and beans. Delicious. Lets be honest, there were mornings that I just didn’t have it in me to make this. For those mornings I would fall back to just 2- 3 hardboiled eggs, or a single hardboiled egg and a protein shake made with water + whey protein isolate. Since I work from home, I can typically take the time to make a big breakfast, but probably 1/6 days I would have to fall back to the quick breakfast. Remove most dairy products. This wasn’t a huge issue for me. I haven’t drank much milk since junior high, and although I do enjoy cheese on almost everything it was easy enough to give up. Luckily, I could still use butter to cook with, and if you are like the many people that love cream in their coffee – this is okay as well as long as it’s heavy cream and not milk. Cheese is a big part of my cheat days as I explain below. Water, Coffee, or Tea. This was one of the biggest challenges for me. That said it is crazy how fast you can lose weight quickly if you simply cut out drinking unnecessary calories. Admittedly, I’ve historically enjoyed a beer or two over dinner at home – and even more than one or two if out with some friends. Although I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a beer a night, or a glass of wine a night, I know the former is not great for losing weight. If all you have is two weeks to lose weight, you’re going to have to be very strict with this rule. Luckily you can still drink any water- based drink such as coffee and tea, so it’s not all bad. I usually have a huge glass of ice cold water plus one or two large cups of coffee in the morning to kick start my day. I often use cinnamon to flavour my coffee – it’s a great tip for those of you that really enjoyed adding milk. No white carbohydrates. In fact, anything that is white or can be white. So no pastas, no rice, no breads, no oatmeal, no potatoes, etc. However, I still ate a ton of carbohydrates. I just ate better high- fiber carbs such as black beans, kidney beans, and lentils. The latter I didn’t really enjoy, so most of my meals were made up of beans. The picture to the left is an example of what I would eat for supper. This night I had a spread of black beans, cooked frozen veggies, and sliced ham. I basically substituted the ham for any other meat – chicken, beef, or pork mostly – and alternated between black and kidney beans. Note – if you find your food getting bland, try using mustard and pepper. For lunch, I’ll often take 1/2- 1 can of tuna, 1- 2 cups of frozen veggies, and a big scoop of bean, cook in the microwave, add a couple squeezes of mustard and pepper and shake. Moderate 2. 0 minute weight resistance twice per week. When I was reading the Four Hour Body, it really got me interested in how the body works and how it deals with exercise, food, etc. This is one thing that I think really helped me – especially during my cheat days. I will do a light to moderate 2. Bicep curl x 1. 5Air squats x 5. Military shoulder press x 1. Wide arm pushups x 2. Against- the- wall tricep extensions. As many close- grip pull ups as possible. Calf raises x 3. 0The goal of the workout was to promote food storage to muscle instead of fat – this is especially important during your cheat days. During my cheat day I will look to do the air squats + tricep extensions even if I’m eating out. I didn’t go to the gym at all for this, instead I just took a couple old 2. If you don’t have a pull up bar don’t buy one, simply exchange the exercise for a back row or seated back fly exercise. I also don’t own a weight bench so no need to spend your money on that. What I’ve learned since losing even more weight is that these workouts are pretty important if you want to lose weight fast. They aren’t necessary but they certainly do help shed some extra pounds by keeping the fat off, especially on your cheat day. I gave myself one cheat day. I say one cheat day, because I wanted to illustrate the fact that this diet can be used for people wanting to know how to lose weight in 2 weeks. If you are only using this as a fast way to lose weight, then you’ll only want to indulge in one cheat day during your two- week period. However, I now give myself every Saturday as a cheat day. I believe that this cheat day is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, the science behind it suggests that if you go for too long on a limited- calorie diet (which this isn’t, however I noticed that it took me much, much less food to fill me up when I ate well, so you tend to naturally eat less on this diet) that your metabolism will shift to a lower gear in order to compromise for the lower intake of calories. By cheating one day and spiking the number of calories you consume, it will keep your metabolism from doing this – and allow you to maintain your high metabolic rate throughout the week. Personally, I find the cheat day important because it gives you something to look forward to. This diet is a huge change from most Westerners’ lifestyles. With the diet comes a lot of cravings, especially in the beginning. I would make a little note of anything that I was craving and made sure I went out and bought it Saturday morning. For example, this is what my first cheat day looked like: Breakfast – bacon and eggs with hash- browns, toast, a ton of ketchup, and a fruit smoothie. Snack – Full bag of All Dressed potato chips and a large bag of sugar candy (Cherry Blasters)Lunch – Entire box of extra cheesy Kraft Dinner. Snack – 2 large Caramilk chocolate bars. Supper (and evening snack) – 1/2 large poutine, a few garlic fingers and 7 slices of a 1.
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May 2017
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