Weight Loss Secret Revealed!!!
Prologue: I'm writing this for me as much as for anyone else. The only time I'm in charge of my weight is when I remember the secret. I'm maintaining control now, but only because I got a painful and expensive jump start in the hospital. Just wanted to clear that up! Love, Twiggy
Here it is, are you ready???? OK: eat fewer calories than you burn. Ta da.
Yeah, I wish it were more exciting, too. Heartbreaking for those of us looking for The Great Weight-Loss Secret. But the secret is that there is no secret.
This is why Weight Watchers is so successful: you aren't counting calories, but you are cutting them. Just doing it via their point system. I loved WW, did it for a few years. I needed structure and direction and got it in gallons. My only gripe with WW is that low fat, fat-free, processed and "sugar free" foods are encouraged. I have come to believe these foods are not only unhealthy, bordering on dangerous, but detrimental to long term weight loss goals. (More on that in a future post.) WW without the junk would be perfect.
Ok, don't anybody steal that idea. I could make a million. Just need the right name. Weight Watchers Without The Junk is too long. I'll get right on that.
This is also why the Shangri La diet is so successful. It's efficacy is based on how successfully you can suppress your appetite, which leads to eating less.
How many calories you use in a day is dependent on the health of your metabolism. If you ate too much sugar and too many simple carbs over your lifetime, you've screwed up your insulin response system and slowed down your metabolism. Live past age 35 and everything slows down. Throw in a brief history of yo-yo dieting, and your metabolism is toast. At least, that's how I did it. Who knew I'd be so good at it?
To speed up your metabolism and calories burned, you can do three things:
Add an hour of exercise a day for a nice calorie allowance.
Cut out sugar. Might as well, turns out quitting sugar is critical for health.
Make sure you get adequate nutrition from your food and/or supplements (the point of this blog!)
My exercise of choice right now is a heated yoga class, a la Bikram or Barkan yoga. Some gyms simply offer yoga in a heated room, rather than work with one of the franchises. But whatever the method, the heat is nice. It helps you stretch further and work harder, building more muscle, burning more calories.
Did you know that the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn even while you sleep? Yay!
A Caveat: Beware Starvation Mode You don't want to cut your calories so low that your body goes into starvation mode. If you cut your calories too low, your body, which is extremely efficient, will assume you have been stranded on a desert island and will reserve it's energy stores for essential functions (like breathing) for what could possibly be a long haul. It will stop burning fat and, if this continues long enough, start burning your muscles for fuel. This would be bad. So cut calories within reason.
Simple Math There are 3500 calories in a pound. To lose a pound a week, a reasonable weight loss goal, cut 3500 calories a week, or 500 a day.
That's one piece of toast (100 calories), one T. of butter (100)(doesn't everyone put a tablespoon of butter on their toast?), one coke (120, have a glass of water instead) and one piece of bacon (182). Just don't substitute anything in place of these goodies, and there you have it.
Tips
Put half what you normally eat on your plate the first time around. You can always have more. Always.
Don't drink your calories!!! This is one of the best weight-loss tips making the rounds. Don't drink juice, soda or anything else with calories. We drink unsweetened iced tea or water.
Take a week and write down everything you eat. Then look up the calorie count of each item. Decide what you can live without. Then live without it.
Biggest Clue That You Are On The Right Track You will be hungry. If you are overweight, chances are excellent you haven't felt hunger in awhile. Join the club! I yearn to feel hungry now. Because when I do, I know I'm doing something good for my body.