Matt’s Weight Loss

Okay, first: Whomever is reading this is obviously interested in either A) Me and my fat butt or B) also losing a few pounds. Here is the MOST important info I learned during my research:

• “Focused Exercises” as we understand them are a MYTH!! You do NOT lose inches from your abs by doing ab work outs!!!! I repeat a LIE!! Well, more like a misunderstanding that the ab-workout people don’t intend to clarify. When you do an exercise the fat that is stored in your body is pulled from ALL over your body to feed calorie burning. What does this mean? Basically that no matter WHAT exercise you do, you loose fat from EVERYWHERE on your body. So, no, by doing ab workouts you will NOT get a thinner waistline more quickly!!! You will slowly (VERY SLOWLY…see below) lose fat from ALL OVER your body. Yes, you will eventually lose fat from your “problem area”….once your body gets around to it. The fact is ab workouts SUCK until you are at the body-building stage, not the weight loss stage!! Doing ab workouts DOES increase muscles in your abs…..problem is they are buried under that beer gut, son!! You get stronger abs (slowly) but because the abs are such a small calorie burning muscle group you lose weight REALLY slowly. That includes your abs!! So take a walk, skip some rope, have some sex. Just don’t do ab workouts unless you LIKE doing ab workouts, and you CAN’T do anything else. Walking for about 15 minutes burns more than doing 100 sit-ups. You feel the “burn” in your abs, and yes there is muscle building there….but it is NOT burning the fat around it directly. It is VERY SLOWLY burning the fat from your ENTIRE body. Okay, thank you.
• Jogging is BAD. Oh my lord oh so bad. Unless of course you are TRAINED to jog, have really good shoes (and I mean REALLY good) and drink a LOT of milk. Even more milk than I drink (that’s a LOT of milk….I average 2/3rds gallon a day…sometimes a full gallon). What happens is eventually you BREAK YOUR FREAKIN’ BONES INTO ITTY-BITTY SHARDS EVER SO PAINFULLY!! Okay, so unless you have read a bunch of pamphlets, are under 25, have an AMAZING intake of calcium and have a TON of dough to spend on jogging shoes (they need to be replaced a LOT) Do Not Jog People. Thank you.

Now, on to getting my big butt into smaller jeans.

A Simple 16-Step Diet Plan

Diet Plan Step 1.  Say Goodbye to dieting
Forget all about dieting! In fact, you should remove the words diet and dieting from your mind, altogether. Why? Because they are getting in the way. They are preventing you from tackling your weight problem. Every time you hear these words you switch off and reach for the cookies. Result? Your weight problem gets worse.

Diet Plan Step 2.  Say Hello to sensible eating
Sensible eating is a much nicer phrase than dieting. Start using it and put it into practice, today.

Diet Plan Step 3.  Get rid of your scales
Weighing scales don't make you slim. They just terrorize you. Get rid of them now! (Actually, don't throw them away until you finish reading this page, because you'll need them to complete Step 5.)

Diet Plan Step 4.  Stop worrying about your weight
Here's why:

• Worrying about your weight makes you fatter
  Why? Because worry makes you miserable. Result? You eat cookies and get fatter.
• Worrying about your weight problem makes you less able to solve it
  Why? Because worry makes you feel more of a failure. Result? You are beaten before you start.
• Worrying is a waste of your valuable time
  Do something you enjoy, instead.

Diet Plan Step 5.  Take your clothes off and look at yourself in the mirror
Ideally, do it tomorrow morning, before breakfast.
At the same time, please do the following:

• Weigh yourself
• Measure your bust, waist, hips and thighs.

Diet Plan Step 6.  Start looking ahead
Don't worry about how you look next week, or next month. Take a longer term view - say, 6 months.

• Decide what weight you would like to be in 6 months.
• Work out exactly how losing weight will make your life better: i.e. decide on your incentive.

Diet Plan Step 7.  For the next 7 days, keep a food diary
(a) Write down every single thing you eat. (b) Write down when you ate it.

Don't waste time cheating. The purpose of this diary is to enable you to see what you actually eat, as opposed to what you think you eat! Also, it will help you to see when you eat.

SUMMARY
So far, you have done a number of important things:

• You have stopped thinking about dieting and worrying about your weight.
• You have decided how much weight you want to lose and why.
• You have taken a good honest look at yourself and your eating habits.

Diet Plan Step 8.  Start making a sensible eating plan
Keep it very simple, as follows:

• Eat regular amounts of these foods
  Fruit, vegetables (fresh/frozen/canned), bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, beans, cereal.
• Eat regular amounts of these foods
  Skimmed milk, fat-free yogurt, lower-fat cheese.
  Guide: Limit yourself to a maximum of 1 matchbox size piece of cheese, per day.
• Eat smaller amounts of these protein foods
  Eggs, fish, red meat, turkey and chicken.
  Guide: Eat no more than 4 eggs a week.
  Guide: Red meat, limit yourself to 1 x 3oz portion a day (size of deck of cards).
  Guide: Re Fish, turkey or chicken, you can eat 50% more - but no fat!
• Eat TINY amounts of these foods
  Oil, butter, soft margarine/spread, mayonnaise, cream, refined sugar.
• Drinks
  Water, fruit juices, tea or coffee (but easy on Espressos!)
• Enjoy the occasional
  Pastry, cookie, candy bar/chocolate, bag of popcorn/potato chips/crisps
  Guide: 'Occasional' means (say) once a week.

Diet Plan Step 9.  Fill your refrigerator with sensible foods
We eat whatever sits in our refrigerator. So empty out the junk and fill up with foods from Step 8.

Diet Plan Step 10.  Learn how to cheat
Do you hate fruit and vegetables? If so, that's tough. You MUST make friends with fruit and vegetables. Eat at least 5 helpings per day, although more is better. There are no substitutions. However, you can cheat. Here's how:

• Make home made soup. Ideally, add spices, a little lean meat and lots of vegetables.
  You won't taste the vegetables.
• Make fresh orange juice
  Many people won't eat 3 whole oranges every day. But they will drink the juice!
• Make blended fruit drinks (smoothies)
  Guide: Use 1 cup of fresh fruit + 1 cup fruit juice. For extra creaminess add a little fat-free fruit yogurt.

Diet Plan Step 11.  Trim that fat
Get into the habit of trimming all the fat off meat. All means all. This alone will help you to live longer!

Diet Plan Step 12.  Learn how to snack sensibly
Fruit, cereal and fat-free yogurt are excellent choices, so are jumbo sandwiches (lots of thick crusty bread, small amount of margarine/spread, lots of lower fat filling.)

Diet Plan Step 13.  Be more choosy where you dine out
Frequent dining out (main meal) is one of the biggest reasons why America is so fat. So be more choosy!

• Never enter a fast food restaurant unless eating a burger is the only alternative to suicide.
• Never dine out on the spur of the moment.
• Limit yourself to one dining out experience, per fortnight.

Diet Plan Step 14.  Don't go hungry
Don't forget about food and allow yourself to go hungry. For any sensible eater, hunger is a crime. In fact, to put it bluntly, going hungry is the stupidest thing you can do. Never ever go hungry - ever!
Get the message?

Diet Plan Step 15.  Be more active
Ideally, set aside 20 minutes a day to exercise (or 2 x 10 minutes) and gradually build up to 30 minutes a day. Yes, you may hate it to begin with but, believe me, exercise grows on you! Besides, it's worth remembering that exercise leaves you with MORE energy, not less.

Diet Plan Step 16.  Follow these simple steps for 3 months
By then you should be feeling ten times better and you should have lost an easy 15-30 pounds.

The best thing is: Your eating habits will have improved tremendously.
Which means you stand an excellent chance of keeping off the weight and getting your weight problem under control for good!

Exercise Tips for Idiots

Our attitude to exercise

Most of us hate exercise. Why? Because we don't take it seriously. As a result, we don't apply our minds to it. We don't make it interesting. We don't put much into it. We don't spend any money on it. We don't get into it. So what happens? We give up and watch TV.

Exercise does help but it doesn't make us slim

Some of us believe that exercise will make us thin. We rush off in our brand new trainers and try to exercise our butt off. What happens? Does our butt disappear? No. So we give up in disgust.

Exercise facts for idiots

Here are some facts.

· Exercise is by far the easiest way to improve our health.

· Exercise helps us live longer, it makes us feel better and it makes us happier.

· If we exercise and eat properly, we become slim. Even our thighs get slim.

· The only good exercise is regular exercise - not sporadic bursts.

· Exercise works best when accompanied by a reasonable diet. It's no justification for eating junk.

"I don't have time" - the idiot excuse for not exercising

If you think you don't have time to exercise, let me quote some poetry:

Because I could not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me.
Emily Dickinson

Busy? Then exercise!

The busier and more stressful life you lead, the MORE you need to exercise.
So stop making excuses and start using your common sense. Stop working yourself to the bone trying to improve your material life and set aside some time to exercise. You'll live longer & feel better if you do.

How NOT to start exercising

§ Rush out and join the most expensive gym in the neighborhood.

§ Go out on a 5 mile run.

§ Relive your youth by challenging the local tennis champion to a game.

§ Enter a sponsored marathon next month.

§ Go for a 2 mile power-walk without a respirator.

Exercise guidelines for idiots

There are 4 basic rules:

· Get into it gradually - step by step, stage by stage

· Do it regularly

· Make it fit your lifestyle

· If you are unfit and/or overweight, visit your doctor for a quick check up.

Stage One
This can last for 2-4 weeks

o Pretend you are an unfit lump.

o Forget all about "exercise" and "fitness".

o All you have to do is stop relying totally on labor-saving devices. That's all.
i.e. Don't rely on your car so much, don't always use the escalator, don't always use the lift.

o While you're getting used to moving around, check out your neighborhood for possible walks, or a place to exercise, or a swimming pool.

o Ask around and find a friend to start exercising with you.

o Buy a couple of dance-music CDs.

o When you feel ready for more, proceed to Stage Two.

Stage Two
This can last for 1-2 months

o Pretend you are an unfit lump.

o Take a 15 minute walk/swim every day. Don't do anymore.

o If bad weather/muggers stop you going outside, put on your new CDs and dance for 15 minutes.

o Make a simple exercise diary. Aim to gradually work up to 30-45 minutes of exercise, a day.

o Persuade a friend/partner to do it with you.

o When you feel ready for more, proceed to Stage Three.

Stage Three
This can last for 1-2 months

o Pretend you are an unfit lump who is getting fitter.

o Increase your daily exercise to 20-30 minutes.

o Update your exercise diary. Keep a note of your progress and any failures.

o Don't be tempted to do twice the exercise one day and none the next.

o When you feel ready for more, proceed to Stage Four.

Stage Four
This can last for 1-2 months

o Pretend you used to be an unfit lump who is now much fitter.

o Increase your daily exercise to 30 minutes.

o Update your exercise diary. Keep a note of your progress and any failures.

Results
By now, exercise should have become a regular part of your life. You should be feeling a lot better and a lot more energetic. If you have been eating sensibly, your body will be slimmer, leaner and much more desirable - to you, if not to everyone. You are well on the way to achieving good health. Keep it up!

Exercise guidelines for idiots who want to be slim

Some of you may only be interested in exercising in order to lose weight. If so, here's some advice.

· No exercise can help you to reduce fat. Exercise builds muscles or reshapes your body. It does not eliminate fat.

· If you exercise while dieting, you will reduce the 'plateau' effect of dieting and thus maintain your rate of weight loss. But only for as long as you keep exercising.

· If you don't follow a sensible weight loss diet while exercising, you will not lose weight.

· Although aerobic exercise is extremely healthy, it does not help the average person to lose weight, unless combined with a weight loss diet.

· Although abdominal exercise is great for strengthening and tightening the abdominal muscles, it does not help the average person to lose weight, unless combined with a weight loss diet.

The Moral?
If you want to lose weight, you must exercise AND eat properly at the same time.