Eat less food


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Big Tom
Lose weight
"Eat less. "

Saturday, 2nd May 2009

If you want to lose a lot of weight, first you have to gain weight. Unfortunately for most of us that's easy. It was pretty easy for me. I paid attention to what I ate but I still ate too much. I wouldn't eat fries but I'd eat two burgers. I'd eat pretzels because they are "fat free" I have done just about everything that you can do wrong so I know what doesn't work. I lost 70 pounds in the last year so when people see me now they always ask, "How did you lose so much weight?" The real answer is, "Eat less." Sorry.

Last year I put about 20,000 miles on my motorcycle and about zero miles on my mountain bike. It also helped me put on a couple of extra pounds. It isn't like I was a thin guy before last year. I have weighed about 225 to 235 for the last 20 years. I'm not a big fan of exercising to lose weight, even though I'm a big fan of exercise. If you want to lose weight by exercising you have to exercise a lot. If you want to lose weight, you have to eat less calories.
After ( 161 pounds)

I know that sucks. I wish it wasn't true. I still read all of the junk science on the web. If you want to laugh or maybe cry type; "Lose weight no diet" into your favorite search engine. You will see how Acai Berry, Colon Cleansing, Weight loss cookies, eating more sugar, less sugar, no carbs, low fat or a hundred other things will let you lose 15 pounds a week. You can also read how, if you cut out diet soda or add olive oil it will let you lose all those unwanted pounds.

It doesn't work, it can't work. You can't eat more calories no matter what kind of calories and lose weight. It also can't be healthy. If you try and trick your body you will feel bad and you won't keep the weight off. I can lose 7 pounds by cutting salt, drinking a ton of water, and then riding the bike for a couple of hours but I'll put it right back on as soon as I eat and drink again and I'll feel really bad until I do.

I allow people to advertise on my web site so you might see ads on this site that tell you how you can lose weight without eating less or exercising. If you see them it isn't because I think they're right. They're dead wrong and you shouldn't fall for it.

Weight History

What I recommend:

Eat less food: You will most likely have to eat less food, really you'll have to eat less calories. Most people eat a lot more than they think and what they eat has a lot more calories then they think. I'm not sure why I didn't weigh 400 pounds. I didn't want to gain weight so I wouldn't eat everything I wanted but I still ate more than I could burn off. I eat a lot now but it's low calories, not diet stuff, but high fiber low calorie food, vegetables. I often eat a huge bowl of something for lunch. I toss spinach, mushrooms, zucchini, into a bowl of soup and still get away with eating only 150 calories or I can toss the same thing into chili and get away with 400 calories. If you don't add the mushrooms and zucchini the same size bowl would be 1000 calories.

Eat more often: I eat six times a day; breakfast, a morning snack, lunch, an afternoon snack, dinner, and finally an evening snack. I eat a lot less, a can of V8 and an apple for morning snack but I always know that I will being eating soon and it stops my body from thinking I'm starving.

Eat Breakfast: If you are going to skip a meal, make sure it's not breakfast. Breakfast jump starts your metabolism and people that have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off eat breakfast everyday. It seems smart to skip breakfast, save the calories and eat lunch out or eat more at dinner. A calorie is a calorie, right? That's kind of right, a calorie is a calorie but if you don't have them ready your body will think that you're starving and slow down your metabolism. It will decide that it's better to break down muscle since getting rid of muscle will allow you to live on less food. Muscle consumes calories and fat stores calories if your body thinks you don't have access to food, breaking down muscle makes a lot of sense. You can only add one pound of muscle a week so you don't want to lose any muscle if you are trying to lose fat. Skipping breakfast is one of the worst things you can do if you want to lose weight.

Eat high fiber low calorie food: I love mushrooms, raspberries,and zucchini because they have good nutrition and are low in calories. I'll toss a cup of mushrooms and another of zucchini into a bowl of soup adding 30 calories, 15 calories each. Raspberries are the greatest superfood ever with more than 50% of your vitamin C, a little vitamin A, Calcium, and Iron. One cup gets you 32% of your daily fiber all for 64 calories and they taste great, I mean they're raspberries, they're not brussels sprouts, they're raspberries.

Count your calories: I was talking to my Mom about how many calories there are in a slice of bread. She has been dieting for about 70 years and she didn't know. Lots of people have given me crazy advice about losing weight, I'm not sure why since I've lost weight so I must be doing something right. The people that really struggled with and succeed getting the weight off count calories. Pick one of the many web sites. I like http://www.livestrong.com/ but there are a lot of sites so pick the one you like and count calories. You can stop after you know how much you're suppose to be eating. If your weight starts to go up, then go back to tracking your calories. Two thousand calories seems like a lot until you add up everything you eat. Somethings will amaze you, muffins sound healthy but they aren't. A Starbuck's blueberry bran muffin has 500 calories. It has 19 grams of fat and 75 grams of carbs. A glazed Krispy Kreme donut has half that with 250 calories, 12 grams of fat and 32 grams of carbs. Sourdough bread has 120 calories for a small 45 gram slice . An IHOP Crispy Chicken Tender Salad has more than half your daily calories, at 1326 calories. It has one calorie more than their T-bone steak and eggs.

I watch people order salad and think they are doing the smart thing. They are, if they skip the eggs, dressing, crutons, and cheese but since a TGI Friday's Cobb Salad has 1,245 it isn't what you want if you are counting your calories. I eat lots of salad and no Krispy Kreme donuts but I know what I can pile on, spinach, lettuce, mushrooms, what I need to watch, tomatoes, beans, egg, and what I need to leave off like croutons and crispy noodles. I also get the dressing on the side and dip my fork in it. My wife loves Wendy's, I weighed 235 pounds so I'm not sure Wendy's is a good idea but maybe a salad. If I order the Mandarin Chicken Salad which starts off with 540 calories I can cut that in half if I don't put the package of crispy noodles on, leave off the roasted almonds, and ask for the Chipotle dressing instead of the Oriental Sesame dressing. That means I'm eating Iceberg lettuce, Romaine lettuce and Spring Salad, Mandarin Oranges, grilled chicken with a nice dressing. It's low in fat, high in protein, has 60% of my recommended Vitamin A, 50% of my Vitamin C and 10% of my iron, all for 270 calories, less if I don't use all of the dressing.

Exercise:
Like I wrote at begining of this article if you want to lose weight by exercising you have to exercise a lot. Don't get me wrong, exercising will let you enjoy life. You'll feel better. I can max the Army Physical Fitness test again for the first time in 20 years. I can ride 100 miles on the bicycle and I get to drink an extra cold beer, or eat chocolate, or some buffalo wings, after I ride so I'm strongly recommending exercise. Muscle burns calories.

Walk: One of my friends lost 50 pounds and when I asked him how? He said he counted calories and walked three times a week. I didn't believe him. You can't lose weight by walking? You can't if you don't count calories but if you do both you can! Walking is a good way to not eat. If you want to snack, go for a walk first.

I listen to audio books. I love them but I only listen to them while I'm working out. If I'm bored I put on my iPod and go for a walk. You can burn 244 calories for an hour walk at about 3 mph. I now walk at about 4.5 mph, that lets me burn 591 which lets me eat some chocolate and still have some calories in the bank.

Run: You look cooler when you run then when you walk plus it allows you to walk faster. If you can run two miles you can walk at 4.5 mph.

Ride a bike: This is my favorite exercise, it burns a ton of calories and you can see your improvement. I burned 1309 calories today with about an hour of riding. It took me a long time to work up to that speed but I love riding. Even though I love to ride, I walk every day and ride at most three times a week. It's hard to ride on the street since cars hate you. They will drive you off their road, pull out in front of you, open doors and blow horns to make you understand that they don't want to share the road with you. I can't ride in the morning since people are going to work. I can't ride at night since people are coming home. I can't ride in the middle of the day since I have a job. I ride on the weekend and try and sneak in a ride after rush hour and before sunset when I'm not traveling. I can walk anytime, before the sun comes up, after the sun goes down, at lunch, before dinner, after dinner, it's easy to walk. I also don't believe you can over-train by walking but riding my bike is still my favorite exercise.

Lift Weights: Muscle burns calories. I hate lifting but muscle burns calories, enough said.

Stair Master: I like this more than lifting weights but not much more. I do it at the hotel when I don't know or like the neighborhood.

You most likely will not lose weight with exercise, studies show that people that work out more will also eat more. They get in better physical shape, feel better, look better so it ain't bad but most people won't lose weight with exercise only. You have to work out a lot to eat that Cobb Salad and when you do ride your bike for an hour at 19 mph you'll think you can eat a lot more than a Cobb Salad. Walk. I do the other stuff so I don't get bored but walking is great. It doesn't cost you anything, you can do it just about everywhere. You start the minute you walk out of your front door. I find it funny that people wait for someone to pull out of a good parking spot at the gym. Walk.

On another but related note. I'd like people to stop telling me how to lose weight, especially people that need to lose weight. I know how to do it, eating less calories has worked for me. It might not work for you but I'd bet that it will work better than spending $100 for an Acai Berry filled colon cleansing, weight loss cookie.

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