What's The Best Time Of The Day To Exercise?

Is there a best time of day to exercise? Two of the top reasons people give for not exercising regularly include lack of results and lack of time. So, for many people, the best time to exercise is the time that is most convenient and the time that fits into a busy schedule.

Research on exercise and time of day is growing, but still limited and not without controversy. In general, if you can find a time for exercise that you can stick with consistently, you will be much more likely to train regularly and get better results. But if you are exercising to help you lose weight, what works for me, is to exercise in the morning before I eat. The science behind that is that it takes 10 to 12 hours after you stop eating for your body to use up the food that you ate the day before. 

Circadian Rhythms and Exercise

The human sleep and wake cycle follows a daily routine called circadian rhythms. It’s this cycle that regulates our body temperature, blood pressure, alertness, and metabolism, among other physiological functions. In general, these rhythms conform to our 24-hour day and may be reset based on environmental cues. The time of day that we typically exercise is one of these cues. Research by the University of North Texas in Denton found that although circadian rhythms are inborn we can reset them based upon our behaviors. For example, using an alarm clock, establishing meal times, and even when we work out are all cues to help rest our rhythms. They found that people who consistently exercise in the morning “teach” their body to be most ready for exercise at that time of day. When they switched to evening exercise, they didn’t feel as strong.

Also See: Does Jet Lag Decrease Athletic Performance?

The ability to adjust your rhythms is important for athletes training for a specific event. The message is to train at the same time of day that the event will occur. Research supports this advice. Studies show that your ability to maintain exercise intensity will adapt to your training time. Therefore, if you do your marathon training in the morning, you may perform better on race day (marathons typically start in the morning).

But if you train in the evening, a morning race day may leave you feeling weaker and slower.

Individual Differences and Exercise Timing

Some people are just naturally morning people. They have no trouble exercising first thing in the morning. Others don’t get moving so quickly and are more likely to feel like exercising later in the day. If you have such an obvious preference it’s pretty easy to decide what sort of exercise schedule you might stick with. The interesting thing is that research shows that no matter when you think you are better able to exercise, almost all of us are, in fact, physically stronger and have more endurance in the late afternoon.

Scheduling Exercise

Not everyone can choose to exercise when they feel like it. Work and family commitments often take priority and we end up squeezing in some exercise. If you find that the only time you have to exercise is when you least feel like it, don’t despair. As we learned earlier, you can change your rhythms and your body can adapt to a new exercise time.

However, it may take about a month to reset your internal exercise clock. (get tips on adjusting your circadian rhythms during air travel).

Research and the Best Time to Exercise

While there is specific research being conducted on this topic, unfortunately, the answer to the question, “What is the best time for exercise?” varies based on the specific question you ask, your training goals, and your exercise adherence. Here are some of the latest specific research findings:

Late Afternoon is Best for Exercising
Research shows that the optimal time to exercise is when our body temperature is at its highest, which, for most people is 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. (body temperature is at its lowest just before waking).
Strength is Greater in the Afternoon
Dr. Hill reported that strength output is 5% higher at around mid-day; anaerobic performance, such as sprinting, improves by 5% in the late afternoon. Endurance is Greater in the Afternoon
Aerobic capacity (endurance) is approximately 4percent higher in the afternoon.
Injuries Are Less Likely in the Afternoon
Afternoon exercise is the best if you want to avoid injuries for many reasons. We are most alert; our body temperature is the highest so our muscles are warm and flexible; our muscle strength is at its greatest. These three factors make it less likely that we will get injured.
Morning Exercisers Are More Consistent
Even though afternoon exercise might be optimal from a physiological standpoint, research also shows that morning exercisers are more likely to stick to it than late-day athletes.
Evening Exercise and Sleep
Most research supports the idea that exercise can improve sleep quality. But does exercising too late in the evening keep you up? Studies have shown improvements in sleep from both morning and afternoon exercise, so it’s not yet clear if evening exercise keeps you up. One study even showed that vigorous exercise half an hour before bedtime did not affect sleep.
One thing that is agreed upon is that sleep deprivation can hinder sports performance.

The Bottom Line
The good news is that you get to decide the best time for you to exercise based upon your personal goals, schedule, and lifestyle. Ideally, you will pick a time that you are able to stick with consistently and make part of your daily or weekly schedule. If you are training for a competition, it’s wise to modify your training to accommodate the event start time, and it’s always wise to warm up before any workout.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Why Are You Gaining Weight?

I believe you have to understand why you have a weight problem if you're going to fix it. In the U.S. we’ve been very fortunate. The U.S. has prospered like nowhere else on Earth. Sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes things just progress too fast. When the economy grows too fast this puts a lot of stress on those people who have trouble keeping up with others.

I guess I’m one of those who never had to struggle. Some people complain today about how they don’t have the things they want, but if you go back to the big depression when there were no jobs and there was little or no welfare programs and people were living on $20 a week in cold-water flats, well for most of us our lives are better today.

So when I say that overall the American people have done pretty well, I guess what I mean is that there’s not a lot of people skipping meals anymore. On a whole, our standard of living is much better. But today’s lifestyle is much more stressful than 40 years ago, before computers, cell phones, and the internet. The pressure to keep our jobs, make enough money to survive in today’s fast-paced economy, adds a lot of stress to working people.

The population is overworked, stressed out, and looking to somehow make their lives a little easier. So we try to spoil ourselves whenever possible. If you think about it a minute, this is the reason for more than one of our problems today. Somehow people need to return to eating the way we did in the ’50s. The way they still eat in other parts of the world where cancer and other health problems are not so commonplace.

Supermarkets are a great convenience but we’re eating fresh food that ripens in trucks during shipping. Fruits and vegetables should stay on the vine or on the tree until ripe. But growers can’t get it to the market fast enough, so it’s picked weeks early and ripens in transit. Picking early causes a loss of nutrition. Your paying for something you're not getting.

Shopping for food grown locally is the only way to get real fresh food. In outdoor markets, the grower is selling you the products he grows. Now I know that limits you, all you are able to buy is what's grown in your area, but that’s the way it use to be. Even frozen vegetables are grown by the large growers that only produce for the mass markets. And yes they do freeze the fruit or vegetable at the time they're picked so they're as ripe as possible, but those large growers use chemicals to grow their products, and there lies the problem.  Organic is better if you buy supermarket food but is it ripe? Did it stay on the plant or tree long enough to get the nutrition you paying for? Who knows. I prefer to get the product from the farmer, if the farmer says it’s organic it probably is. One big step forward for the consumer is that you can buy organic fruits and vegetables frozen. It keeps the price down by eliminating spoilage. 

Part of eating small portions or eating less to lose weight is getting the most nutrition you can out of what you eat. I believe that if you get enough nutrition from your food you won’t have cravings between meals. Because of today’s lifestyle, the food we buy, and the way we eat; we are causing our own health problems.

Gym memberships and exercise equipment, diet pills, or low-cal foods won’t make you healthy. Good health starts with eating healthy food with lots of nutrition and over time your body will burn off your body fat and being more active and sitting less will strengthen your bones and muscles. Your body will take care of itself if it gets the nutrition it needs.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

How Much Sitting Do You Do?

This is a great post you should read. Some of us still shake our heads and wonder why they can’t lose weight, but if you read this it will spell out the problem that most of us have with our weight.

What’s the Worst Time of Day for Sitting Too Much?

By Wendy Bumgardner

Prolonged sitting is a risk factor for heart disease, even if you exercise, according to studies. Now that so many people are wearing activity trackers, Fitbit looked at anonymous aggregated data from over a million users to see who sits the most and when. It is enlightening.

The Worst Times of Day for Being Sedentary

Fitbit’s data showed three times of day were the most likely to find you sitting or slumped at your desk.

Afternoon from 2 pm – 3 pm
After-coffee/before lunch – prime work/meeting time of 10:30 – 11 am
After work and after dinner, specifically from 7:30-8:30 pm.
10 Tips to Stop Sitting Still: If you know when you are the most likely to be inactive, you can literally take these steps.

If you know when you are the most likely to be inactive, you can literally take these steps.

Work and Sit More, Retire and Sit Less

The stereotype is that you retire to your armchair, but Baby Boomers never did like to be conventional. Total sedentary time decreases after age 55 and right around retirement age from ages 58-66, people sit less.

This reflects on what happens when you enter the workforce. The Fitbit data found that people from age 20 to 25 had their total sitting time go up an hour. Sitting time continues to increase by 30 minutes from age 24 to 30 and up another 30 minutes between the ages of 30 and 55. That’s a total of two more hours of sitting compared with their school-age years. This is concerning because one study found that for each hour of sitting, heart disease risks rise 14%

30 Easy Ways to Walk 2000 More Steps per Day: Use these hacks to ensure you are getting up and moving around for 250 steps each hour of the workday.
Which Countries Sit the Most?

Oddly enough, it is in Spain that people are the least inactive during the workday, even though many still observe siesta in the afternoon. They are inactive for only 5 hours, 2 minutes before 6 pm, which is 45 minutes less than the average for the USA and China. It could be that a siesta break from sedentary work is what keeps them moving. Combined with a tradition of going for an evening walk, paseo, it could be that Spain is ahead of the game for reducing sedentary time.

Hours of Inactive Time Before 6 pm by Country – Fitbit Data

US: 5:47
China: 5:45
New Zealand: 5:35
UK: 5:29
Canada: 5:25
India: 5:23
France: 5:15
Italy: 5:12
Australia: 5:10
Spain: 5:02

Figure out what time of day is bad for you and do something about it. When you add the time you spend in bed to the time your sitting, most overweight adults are on their feet fewer hours than the hours sitting or lying down. As a matter of fact, some adults are only on their feet about 4 hours a day. I put this in bold for a good reason. Even a one-hour workout can’t erase the damage we do with that much sitting. 

So what’s the answer? Work from a standup desk with a stool so you can stand or sit. This isn’t a new idea, many people work this way today. Our grandparents worked this way. Many blue-collar workers work this way now. Anything that will cut down the number of hours we sit. The desk that we sit at has been the biggest contributor to our health problems. This type of inactivity combined with a bad diet has ruined the health of millions of Americans.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

I Read Those fitness Websites But Nothing Works For Me

I’m sure you have read a few yourself. The ones that advocate exercises that most of us can’t do, but they're great if you want to lose inches or lose weight. No wonder most people give up trying. Last month and I think I wrote about it, less than 3% of  American adults are physically fit. We already know that 66% of adults are overweight which means another 30% of adults may not be overweight but they’re seriously out-of-shape.

Now you can understand why Americans on average pay about 17% of their income for healthcare, whereas in other developed countries the average citizen pays about 9% of their income for healthcare. If we had the best healthcare system in the world you could justify the extra cost, but we don’t. We rank number 37 in developed countries according to the World Health Assoc.

So why is this important to you? The number of physically fit people in our country is steadily dropping generation by generation. Americans need to realize what they are doing to themselves. Americans have a strange attitude toward themselves and it’s not just about fitness. We tend to put things off. We have a “why do I have to do it today?” attitude with most everything and that’s one reason we are so rushed. We are in a hurry to do everything. We think that we can do everything at the last minute, not realizing that we are putting extra stress on ourselves.

This is one reason why we fall for all those quick weight loss methods. We want to be able to use the quick and easy method and we think that if we just keep looking we’ll find one.  Well, good luck with that. The methods for getting rich and the methods for losing weight aren’t much different and as we all know there’s too quick a way to get rich.

Anytime your body loses weight quickly your body goes into starvation mode and starts to hoard calories, and the fat starts to return. The bad part is when you lose weight quickly you're losing mostly muscle weight and only about 30 fat. But when you gain the weight back, it comes back all fat. So now you’ve increased your percentage of body fat you decrease your percentage of muscle mass. So what is the difference you might ask? It’s your muscle mass that has to burn fat to maintain its size and strength. So every time you lose muscle you're losing your ability to burn fat.

Overweight people constantly complain to me in emails that they eat like a bird and can’t lose weight. If you are already overweight and out of shape you have your work cut out for you. I’ll write more about this in my next post and give you tips that I used to lose my fat. Before you can get into shape you have to lose that fat. Losing body fat is all about the food you eat. The quantity is not that important. Some foods and drinks will help you burn more calories and some things you eat will only cause you to gain weight. Stop eating the wrong foods and your burn will burn off the excess fat.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

Understanding Weight Plateaus

Don’t quick trying because you stopped loss weight. It normal, the body will get used to your routine and you stop burning those extra calories. When this happens and you can’t find a good reason, change your routine. Don’t cut back on food, that doesn’t work. Change the food you eat and up the amount of activity.

A weight loss plateaus is a pause your body will take after losing several pounds and all this is normal, the body wants time to adjust. This is a must read for those who are trying to lose more than 20 pounds. You want to understand that your body really doesn’t like to see you lose weight. The body always worries that you’re going to starve. You have to trick your body into losing weight and not going into starvation mode over the weight loss. Don’t get frustrated over plateaus, they’re normal and this article tells you how to deal with them.

If you’ve spent any time and effort losing weight, you may have noticed how hard it is. It seems like, just when you start to see progress, your body just stops responding to what you’re doing.

If you’ve experienced that, you’re not alone. The thing is, as hard as you work at losing weight, the human body works even harder to keep energy intake and output in balance. In other words, your body doesn’t like to lose weight.

And, even more frustrating is the fact that very efforts you make to burn more calories may eventually slow it down. Here are some of the mistakes we make that may contribute to weight loss plateaus.

Problem 1. Reducing your calories too much

Fact: It takes calories to burn calories. When you decrease your food intake, your body simply lowers its metabolic rate in response. This still allows the body to function properly but, because there aren’t any extra calories around to fuel all the other things you’re doing, your body may move into starvation mode, holding onto extra fat as fuel. Simply eat better foods. Some foods will help you burn fat and some foods will add fat.

Solution:
Keep your calories slightly below your maintenance calories so that your energy and metabolism remain high. A deficit greater than 500-700 calories makes it much more difficult to maintain your lean body mass. One basic formula to calculate your daily calorie needs:

Men
kg (body weight) x 24 = kcal/day
Women kg (body weight) x 23 = kcal/day

note: kg = pounds divided by 2.2 (i.e.: 180 lbs / 2.2 = 81.8 kg)

You can also use Nutrition Expert Shereen’s excellent calorie calculators to get a rough estimate of how many calories you need each day. More about calories and weight loss. More Ways to Break the Plateau!

More Ways to Break the Plateau!

Problem 2. Loss of lean body mass
Fact: Muscle burns fat and losing muscle means burning fewer calories. Lean body mass uses five times the calories as fat mass so, if you lose it, your metabolism drops and your weight loss stops.
Solution:
Make sure your exercise program is combined with a fully nourished body. You can accomplish this with a diet that creates a safe calorie deficit along with some type of multivitamin to help with any nutrient deficiencies.

Problem 3. Weight loss
What? But you thought that’s what you wanted! However, what you may have forgotten is that when you weigh less, it takes less calories to move your body. A loss of any amount of weight will lead to a reduced energy requirement.

Solution:
Make sure you start (or continue) a weight training program to help increase lean body mass, which can help compensate for the loss of calories.

Problem 4. The ‘Adaptation’ Phase Ends
When you start a new exercise program, your body responds because it is required to make numerous changes to adjust to different workloads. So, your muscles are rebuilding themselves and this consumes all kinds of calories. But, at some point your body will stop adapting to the new workload and, as a result, you burn less calories for the same activities.

Solution:
Don’t let your body get used to the exercise. Maintain your body’s adaptation period by changing the intensity, duration, frequency and/or the mode of exercise and include interval training if necessary.

Problem 5: Exercise Efficiency
The more you do something, the better you get at it. As your body becomes better at performing your exercises, it can actually use fewer calories during the exercise. Think of it this way: trained athletes often use fewer calories than untrained athletes with similar body types and workouts.

So, if this describes where you are, consider yourself a trained athlete and read on!

Solution:
The solution to this is the same as for Problem 4; don’t get used to the exercise. Concentrate on more dramatic changes such as trying brand new activities. For example, if you use the treadmill for two weeks, switch to something different like the rowing machine or the bike. Don’t forget to make changes in your weight training routine as well!

Problem 6: Over-training
Just like not eating enough can lower the amount calories you burn, so can over-training. When you exercise too much, there is a point of diminishing returns when an increase in exercise energy expenditure is negated by an equal decrease in non-exercise energy expenditure. In other words, when you increase your exercise intensity, your body responds by decreasing the amount of calories you burn during the rest of your day.

Solution:
Take time to recover. If you reach exercise burnout, this is a great time to take a break for a few days, or try something gentle like yoga or a stretching routine.

After you’ve rested, get back to exercise but lighten up your original routine and increase your intensity only as necessary.

7. Enhanced Physical Condition
As you get into better shape, your body is more efficient and it costs fewer calories to operate. Improved health means a lower resting metabolic rate and fewer calories are burned during normal daily activities. Part of this is because your cardio-pulmonary system is more efficient now and you have a lower resting heart rate.

Solution:
Congratulations! You’re officially in shape and healthy. Focus on that and feel good about yourself. Concentrate on changing your routine as described in Solution 5.

Losing body fat should be your goal. Read up on weight loss and losing body fat. It doesn’t cost money to lose body fat. The internet is full of free information. But the quickest way and cheapest way is to buy an ebook online and get everything you need in one short read. 

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

What Does Obese Really Mean?

Most Americans still think Obesity is for the seriously overweight, those people that are 400 pounds or more. It’s not true if your body mass is 30% fat you’re considered to be Obese. You don't have to be overweight to be obese. Sounds crazy, right. I found this post in a newsletter I received the other day.

(HealthDay News) — Obesity is nearly three times more deadly for men than it is for women, new research suggests.

In a study of nearly 4 million men and women around the globe, the risk of dying before the age of 70 was 19 percent for men and 11 percent for women of normal weight.

But that risk jumped to 30 percent and 15 percent, respectively, for obese men and women. That’s an absolute increased risk of 11 percent for men and 4 percent for women, the researchers reported.

Why do women have less risk? Women are able to carry more weight because they can give childbirth. Their system protects them almost all their lives from weight problems.

“Obesity is second only to smoking as a cause of premature death in America,” said lead researcher Richard Peto of Oxford in England. So how do you tell if you're obese? The easy way might be to ask your doctor, but if you want to know right now a good indicator is to measure your waist. The rule of thumb used to be “if your waist measures 40 inches. But so many people don’t measure their waist properly so it’s not very actuated. Then science came up with another way. If your waist measures more than half your height you're overweight, but that still means that it depends on who is measuring. The right way to measure your waist is to start at the naval and measure around the body and back to the naval.

Every inch you can lose around your waist and you’ll become healthier. Your heart benefits the most, but you will lose weight and increase your energy level.

“If you could lose about 10 percent of your weight, a woman would knock 10 percent off the risk of dying before she was 70, and for a man, it would knock about 20 percent off,” Peto said.

Why obese men are at greater risk for premature death than women isn’t clear.

“Our study was not able to address this question, but previous observations have suggested that obese men have greater insulin resistance, liver fat levels, and diabetes risk than women,” said study co-author Dr. Emanuele Di Angelantonio, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge in England.

The British and Canadians do a lot more research on your health in general than we do in the U.S. because both countries have National Healthcare and anything that drives up the cost of healthcare will increase their taxes.

One U.S. expert said more research is needed to explore the apparent link between obesity and mortality.

Avoiding obesity has clear advantages for both men and women, Graubard said. “In addition, we know from other studies that physical activity can reduce mortality risk,” he said.

In the new study, researchers collected data on 3.9 million adults, aged 20 to 90. The information came from 189 previous studies in Europe, North America, and elsewhere. The investigators included data on all those who lived for at least another five years. Over the time of the study, nearly 400,000 participants died. The study findings showed that underweight people were also at risk for premature death.

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3 billion adults worldwide are overweight, and 600 million more are obese. And, obesity has been strongly linked in previous research to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer, the researchers said.

This study overcomes many of the limitations of earlier efforts and “renders a clear and emphatic verdict — obesity increases the risk of premature death around the globe,” Katz said.

This study also indicates that the risk extends across the full range of overweight and obesity — the more severe the obesity, the graver the danger of early death.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.

An Inspiring Story

I’ve been writing posts about weight loss, dieting, and exercise for almost 12 years now. Today I want to tell you why I write. 

I’ve had a weight problem most of my life. I think it’s kind of a mid-life thing that most of us go through. My daughter went through a similar period in her life and did gain a lot of body fat after her third child. But then a strange thing happened, instead of retaining the weight in her late 40’s she vowed to lose the weight. I didn’t think she could do it. It’s extremely hard to lose weight for a woman that is turning 50. 

I was able to lose weight when I was in my 50’s and then again in my 60’s and 70’s. I was 220 pounds when I was middle age and all the exercise and dieting I did couldn’t help. I finally started to lose weight when I decided to change my diet. No, I didn’t try a new low-cal diet, I just change what I was eating. I decided to eat healthy instead of eating a lot of restaurant food. Now I weigh 155 and I maintain it by eating the same way.

But let me go back to my daughter, she was never one to exercise. She stayed thin throughout school and ever college. I think when she got married she only weighed 120. But after the second child, it was harder to lose and then she had a third a few years later and after that her weight didn’t change. She was about 165 in her mid-40’s and wanted to lose but nothing worked. 

This really isn’t unusual for a woman but at age 50, she decided to get healthy. I thought to myself “good look”. She started to eat better foods and stayed away from the carbs. It was the beginning of the same battle I went through. At first, she thought if she made a small change in her diet she would start losing but that wasn’t working. We talked about it and I explained that she still had to watch out for the calories. Everything you drink has calories too. Months went by and still to progress. We talked again and I explained that 1200 calories a day may be too many for you to lose weight. When you work at a desk all day and get very little exercise you might have to cut back to 800 calories. Just try it for a few weeks. 

She did and it seemed to work for a while and then she stopped losing. I understand I told her, you hit a plateau. You might stay there for some time just stay with the plan, you might have to cut more calories. I attribute her success to the fact that she never gave up. After almost two years, she dropped below 130 pounds. I couldn’t believe all the newfound energy she had. I think she lost 20 years. I could see that 30 year old again. She’s always smiling, her job doesn’t bother her any longer and she’s more confident. 

I’m very happy that her life is turning out the way she wanted. Dropping weight and getting back to the way you used to be will be the best thing you can do for yourself. Life is hard enough without complicating it with health problems that you can avoid.

Look for my podcasts on anchor.fm, or the podcast app on your cell phone. Search “howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight”.

If you really want to lose your body fat then look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You’ll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books.

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $3.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans, or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.