Why Should I Lose Weight?

We all lose weight for different reasons. Some lose weight for health reasons, your doctor is pushing you. Maybe like me your spouse is pushing you. Maybe you feel funny at work because your co-workers stare, talk behind your back. Or maybe you just want to wear the same clothes others wear.

I lost weight because I became out of shape, out of breath when I was working outside, in the garage or mowing the lawn or just vacuuming carpet in the house. My clothes didn't fit I had to buy pants with a 38 inch waist, and then finally I said "stop". I have to stop this insane way of over indulging. That's exactly what was happening. I was in my 30's and owned a restaurant that was doing well. Success was going to my head, and all I thought about was the business and shopping for things I wanted but couldn't afford before.

My wife was power walking everyday and wanted me to join her, but I always had an excuse. I stayed at the restaurant about 14 hours a day. I'd take some Sunday's off, when I'd spend time with the kids or relatives; maybe walk thru the mall and do some shopping. My wife was the one that pushed me into exercising. We joined a local health club with all the equipment, pool, steam, sauna, track and aerobics classes. My wife probably made more use of the gym than I did. She did get me interested in Racquetball. We played about 4 times a week and then slowly I got more interested in the other things in the health club. The club opened at 6 a.m. so we could go before work.

Even after several months of this routine of 30 minutes of racquetball and then using hand weights for another 20 minutes, I hadn't lost much weight. By this time I had sold the restaurant and had bought a different business that didn't involve food. I worked less hours and had more time for the gym but I still battled the weight problem. I had lost about 20 pounds over the past couple of years but was still way to heavy. My wife wanted me to change my diet, eat less, eat more greens and less meat. Reluctantly I was changing but with little results. Now that I think back I was still rewarding myself. Drinking many high calorie drinks during the day. I wasn't counting calories and I snacking too much. I know that snacking and store bought drinks can add 1000's of calories a day. I was only counting the food at meals and thought I was doing good, and that's what happens when your not serious about losing weight.

I remember my mother smoked a few cigarettes a day, and even after my Mom and Dad had quit, when my Mom was at work she was smoking. When she was around smokers then she would smoke. The same thing happens to over-eaters. When they are around others who over-eat, for example, a man or women who are doing fine at home following their diet, but at work their tempted with the snacks in the lunch room and the sodas they keep in the frig. When everyone else does it, then you thing that a little bite isn't going to hurt.

You get home after work and eat a meal with the family and all that food is a temptation and you consume too many calories; then we all do this; at night we pull out the snacks, now your over your calorie count for the day and your not active enough at night to burn those calories and you gain weight.

There are people, and I was one, that had been over eating most of their lives, and when I was young I burned all those calories, but with age comes a slower metabolism. You just don't burn as many calories a day as you use to. That's when most of us start to gain weight because we are still eating the same amount and we’re less active.

If you want to feel healthier, feel like you did when you were in your prime, you want to get back to the weight you were when you got out of school. Usually that's when people are the healthiest. They're not taking any prescriptions, they're at their normal body weight. They don't have the opportunity to snack all day when their in school and they get exercise. Most people remember school years as some of the happiest times of their lives. I guess I remember those years as a time when I was in my best physical condition.

Now I thing I've returned to that time. I lost 50 pounds since those restaurant years, I weigh the same as I did in high school but I have lost some muscle and strength which is natural so I still watch my calories, but not as close. I've keep the weight off for a few years now and I don't want any of it back. I hate this phrase but I'm going to use it, " I feel great for my age", I feel like I'm 40 again and I don't ever want to go back to feeling tired and bloated.

I know for me the whole secret to feeling better and looking better was to lose the weight. I don't have to take any prescription drugs I can eat anything in moderation, but I know about 1800 calories is my daily limit. When I go over, I'll gain weight. But there are more reasons for losing weight, serious health reasons.

Obesity still looms large in the United States but the scale's relentless climb may have leveled off, according to the latest results of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, one-third of adults and 17 percent of children and teens, are obese, said CDC researchers who focused on more than 9,000 adults and children in 2011-2012 and compared them to five previous obesity analyses dating back to 2003-04."We found overall that there was no change in youth or adults," said study author and epidemiologist Cynthia Ogden. But within specific age groups, weight shifts were apparent. More older women are obese, but very young children seem to be slimming down.

One specialist in childhood obesity was pleased with the overall findings. "I tend to be an optimist. The fact that we are seeing a leveling off is actually a good thing," said Dr. Sara Lappe, a pediatrician at Cleveland Clinic Children's who specializes in childhood obesity. Obesity in adults is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above. BMI is a calculation of body fat based on height and weight. A 5-foot 9-inch adult who weighs 203 pounds has a BMI of 30 and is considered obese, for example. Obesity in kids is defined as a child who has a BMI at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. Ogden said the results for preschool-age children are a bright spot in the findings. "We found among preschoolers, 2- to 5-year-olds, there was a significant decrease in obesity," Ogden said. Prevalence of obesity in children that age dipped from 14 percent in 2003-2004 to about 8 percent in 2011-2012, she noted. Young parents want to see their kids healthier.

Overall, more than two-thirds of adults are either overweight or obese, and more than 6 percent are extremely obese.There hasn't been a big impact on prevalence in the last eight years, but at least there's a leveling off, said obesity expert Dr. William Yancy, an associate professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C."There are a bunch of competing factors that make it hard for people to manage their weight," Yancy said. "Genetics are involved, chemicals in foods and the environment may be involved. Clearly, the food environment stimulates us to eat more and more higher-calorie foods, and our environment also encourages us not to be active. Those factors make it really difficult to maintain a healthy weight, he said. "I liken it to how difficult it is to get people to stop smoking," said Yancy. "People have to eat but they don't have to smoke, and there's a lot of controversy about what's a healthy food and what's not," Yancy said.

The word “Obesity” is used a lot today and to put that in easier terms to understand, when your BMI goes over 30, your obese. “O.K., and why is that important?” Because that’s the point when the amount of body fat reaches 30% of your body mass. And that’s important because science believes that at this point your body is spending too much of your available energy trying to maintain your fat. Stored body fat is totally non-productive. It does nothing to make your body work, yet your body has to use it’s energy to keep stored fat alive. Some stored fat is necessary but your BMI should be below 15. A number of medical problems can be contributed to being overweight and I’m sure you’ve heard them all, and it’s all true, but the only one you need to remember is that being overweight shortens your life.

You decide for yourself, "How bad do you want to lose weight?”

Everyone Gains Weight Over The Holidays

We all have spent the last few weeks on an eating binge. You can’t just give up because you gain some weight and blew your diet. Don’t think you're the only one who gained some weight lately. But you can get your eating back on track. Here’s how.

First, Relax
You need some perspective.

You need to eat 3,500 calories to gain one pound of body fat. One unplanned treat — a slice of cake, some fries, or even a rich meal — probably won’t make a major difference on the scale.
“We call these ‘taking timeouts,’ and we all take them,” says San Antonio nutrition consultant Rebecca Reeves, RD. “No one is perfect in their eating habits. What we have to learn is that we are giving ourselves permission to do this, and as soon as it’s over, we should go back to the eating plan we normally follow.”

The goal is to not make a habit of it.
“Most people overeat somewhere between 500 and 1,500 calories every single day,” says cardiologist Allen Dollar, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Emory University in Atlanta.

Don’t Give Up, too many dieters throw in the towel after a splurge, says Kathleen M. Laquale, PhD, a nutritionist and athletic trainer.

“You may feel defeated and say, ‘Oh, I blew my diet … and the heck with it,” Laquale says.
“When you do overindulged, don’t be self-deprecating. You overeat for one day; let’s get back on track again. Let’s be more conscious of our portion sizes the next day.”
Cut Back a Bit, But Not Too Much
Don’t try to make up for the extra calories by skipping meals the next day. That just leaves you hungry.

Instead, cut back throughout the day with a series of small meals packed with fruits and vegetables. Their fiber will help you feel full, says Joan Salge Blake, RD, clinical associate professor at Boston University.
Wait until you’re hungry. Then have a light breakfast such as a bowl of low-fat yogurt and berries.
Mid-morning snack: a piece of fruit and an ounce of low-fat cheese
Lunch: a big salad with lean protein such as fish or chicken, or a whole wheat pita pocket with lettuce and tuna or turkey
Afternoon snack: a cup of vegetable soup and an orange
Dinner: a piece of fish and plenty of vegetables

Skip the Scale

After a feast, you may weigh more. That’s not because you gained body fat, but because of water retention from extra salt that was in the food you ate.
So don’t weigh yourself. Salge Blake tells her clients to weigh themselves on Fridays, when they’re likely to weigh their lowest, since people tend to overindulged more often on the weekends than on weekdays.
Stick to Your Normal Exercise Routine
Exercise is a good idea. But don’t do a mega-workout to try to burn off all the calories you just ate.“If you overload and do more than your regular routine, you could strain a muscle, you could hurt a joint and muscle soreness may set in. Then you can’t exercise,” Laquale says.

Track What You Eat
Set a goal for your daily calories, and write down what you eat or log it in a cell phone APP used to track calories. That helps you stay aware of what you’re eating. For weight loss try to stay below 1600 calories a day. Be sure to include your drinks.
Cut out high-calorie foods and drinks and you’ll have plenty of food. I used an App on my cell phone to plan my meals and then I shopped only for those meals. It works, if the food isn’t in the house you won’t eat it.

This is the time of year when most people want to diet, but it is also the time of year when most weighters give-up. When your truly on a mission to be a thinner you, never give-up. You will go up a little and then go down and when you look at a chart of your progress over a long period of time you should be seeing a downward trend. And even if you don't, don't get upset, this is the time when you need to change your plan. Not every weight loss plan will work for everyone. You need to find the one that works for you. 

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog posts.

Gettingtoahealthyweight.wordpress.com

idropped40pounds.wordpress.com

howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of websites looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the Smashwords promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

The Secret To Dieting, Don't Diet

Did you ever wonder how people in some European countries manage to stay thin? When I was in Europe I didn't see an low-calorie food. Restaurants had no diet food or low calorie meals. But no one was what we call obese. I've personally been to more than 15 European countries and normal people are in better shape than American. 

I read a non-diet book last year "The secret of eating" were by the author explains that diets don't work. This is a weight loss book about how this woman had gained 20 pounds while going to school in the States and then losing the weight when returning to France, her home country. She goes on to say that in France women don't get fat. In the States when she was going to school the portions of food were too large and foods were too sweet. 

When returning to Europe she returned home and returned to eating the way she grew up. In Europe women eat sensible. Good food of very high quality and eaten in small portions. Good food does not mean good tasting, it means food of good quality. You can eat anything you like but eat food of good quality, high in nutritional value. Small portions eaten slowly is better for you, and is satisfying. In the States, people eat too fast, we're always in a hurry to get somewhere. Eat on the run, I see people eat while driving every day. Woman feeding their children in the car while driving them somewhere. Drive-thru windows are so crowded they should have a gas pump half way to the window. Sometimes I spend 20 minutes in line for coffee, I stopped that. No more drive-thru's, if I can't stop and eat or drink at a table or counter then I don't need to.

You know it wasn't always this way. Families use to eat together. At school, all the kids eat together in the cafeteria. But at home we eat individually when we're hungry. Maybe that's why families eat out more. It might be the only way to get everyone together.

This plan is for anyone who had trouble sticking to a diet plan. "Don't Get Fat" is a 3-month plan meant to reset your body for a lifetime of healthy weight through slow, gradual weight loss. She goes on to say that many people will love the plan because there's no fitness classes but instead plenty of daily activity and lots of walking. Lots of walking is what people do in other countries and Americans don't do.

To jump start your diet you begin with two days of leek soup. It cleanses the system so you can start out on empty. Followed by meat or fish, vegetables and a piece of fruit. Drink water with meals, be careful of bottled drinks or any drinks with sugar or sweeteners, those are empty calories. Not good.

At the beginning, keep a food journal. While your losing weight you need to evaluate your diet and identify excess calories. You will be able to eat anything after you reach your goal. The big part of reaching that goal is to learn to eat smaller portions. You may want to start by eating 4 or 5 meals a day about 3 hours apart. At night I snack on yogurt, low-fat greek yogurt is filling. You can eat yogurt 2 or 3 times a day, great snack full of calcium and protein. Almonds are a good snack in the afternoon. Change what you eat and how you eat and you'll lose weight.If you change what you eat, start to eat healthy, avoid processed foods (those are pre-made foods that are ready-to-eat), no dairy but you can eat non-fat greek yogurt, no enriched wheat flour, and no sugar or any artificial sweeteners.

I know what your thinking and yes this is a weight lose diet, but it's a lifestyle change. Your learning a new way to eat, a way that you will stay with from now on.

If your going to succeed in losing weight and return to a healthy life, you have to forget everything you're doing now. You have to forget about the foods your eating now, and start over. Whatever you've been doing to lose weight hasn't worked and what ever diets you've tried only gave you temporary weight loss, so if you really want to change your life and become a thinner version of you and a healthier person who will live a longer happier life, you need to start over.

Anything you've been eating will only put weight on you. You need to find a new diet with food you want to eat and that are healthy. You don't have to starve yourself but anything you eat needs to be beneficial to your body. Your food has to give your body energy, but not the energy spike you get from carbs or sugar but real energy that will stay with you. Processed foods will give you an energy high, but then you'll crash about an hour or two later and you get more food cravings. This is what leads to over-eating. Eating foods with to nutritional value that give you a temporary boost in energy, like a soft drink, and then in a short time you need more. These foods or drinks actually cause an addiction. Sugar is an example of a food that can cause an addiction and now science believes that enriched wheat is another man-made product that causes an addiction. It may be as bad for you as sugar.

Things like sugar and wheat have not always caused eating disorders or addictions. We are not eating the same things today that your grandparents did. A few decades ago, manufactures of raw material foods like wheat, sugar and white flour to name a few decided to change the way these raw materials were processed. So now when you read a food label wheat, for instance, is now enriched wheat and flour you buy says enriched flour. In the process of enriching the grain, they added chemicals to make the grains grow faster, so grains are more resistent to bugs and so they can increase production and increase profits. You wander why a lot of your food comes from other countries. Yes, labor is cheaper in other countries, but using chemicals to enrich foods is not against the law. They can use chemical in other countries that we have band in the U.S. For instance, some of our best pesticides in this country were band because they're harmful to humans, but most other countries still use those pesticides in food production and then they sell that food to U.S. Retailers and it's sold in your grocery stores.

But that's not the whole story, food suppliers to restaurants will buy that food to save money. Those french fries you buy in restaurants aren't grown in Idaho. Yes, in the grocery stores they have to label the food so you know what country it comes from, but restaurants don't have to tell you and in most cases they don't know.

So if you truly want to be a fit, thinner and healthier version of you, you'll have to start over. Do the research and find foods that are good for you and foods you'll stick with. Your next diet is your diet for life. I picked the Mediterranean diet, it's not a weight loss diet but you will lose weight and become a healthier person and you can stay with it for life. You can find it on the web. Remember there's no short-cuts, you have to commit and stay with the plan. After 3 months if the plan doesn't work for you, don't give up, try another plan.

Weight Watchers is not for everyone but it will work if you follow the plan. They teach you how to eat and give you the support you need.

What ever plan you decide on and there's dozens, you want one that you can follow for life, remember there's no short-cuts.