Monday Weight Training

A new month, another day for reflection.

Today is Monday, so you'll be doing your weight training today - as you do every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

You should be doing your weight training as gradually as you're doing your weight loss. The old adage "No pain no gain" may be true...but you're not trying to gain bulding muscles, merely tone up the ones you have.

But you do have to increase the number of repetitions you do, and the amount of weights you use.

Typically, you increase the amount of weight you use, if you're trying to build muscle. And if you're trying to tone muscles or achieve endurance, you increase the number of repetitions. But a lot of repetitions won't really do any good if you're not using weight that presents some kind of challenge to you.

You should therefore increase the amount of repetitions you do over the course of a week or so, and increase the amount of weight every couple of weeks, until you've achieved the amount of strength you want. Then, just increase repetitions.

Keep track of the weight and the reps you do each day. THere's nothing like the warm glow of accomplishment you receive as you page through your journal and watch the weight gradually go down, and the strength gradually go up.

DJ Khaled Says Fat Joe's Weight Loss 'Inspired Him'

"Everybody keep catching strokes and heart attacks, and what happened to me was, like seven of my friends passed last year from heart attacks, and they were all 32, 34 years old, 35.
The author of this statement is in the music business. Well...the rap business, which some people think is a kind of music.

In any event...if people he knows are having heart attacks at age 32, 34 or 35, I venture to say it's because they're doing drugs, not because they're overweight.

But the result is the same. It's a lot easier to keep up with your kids if you can run and jump, and toting around 80 or more extra pounds makes it difficult to do that.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1668026/dj-khaled-fat-joe-weight-loss.jhtml
Celebrity Favorites: DJ Khaled
"Fat" Joe is no more. The Bronx, New York, rapper has recently been dropping pounds like he drops hit records, losing more than 80 pounds to date. No word yet as to whether he will consider a name change, but his friend and frequent collaborator DJ Khaled is in full support and astonished by his buddy's new physique.

"Joe lost so much weight that I can't believe it," Khaled told Mixtape Daily. "I was just on the phone with him and he was like, 'Khaled I wear a 1X. I walk into Bal Harbour, go to Gucci and whatever.' "

Shopping in the ritzy North Miami Beach neighborhood is not the only perk to being lighter. According to Khaled, Joe's diet has also reinvigorated his artistic muscle. "Now he goes into any store and buys a 1X. He said he feels the best he ever felt and he's back in the studio working," the We the Best Forever DJ said. "I think by him losing all this weight, it just inspired him, just more inspiration for him to make more hit records."

Back in June, Joe revealed to the New York Daily News that he went on a diet following the deaths of a number of his close friends. "I always loved being fat, obviously. I'm Fat Joe," the rapper told the newspaper. "If I could gain 1,000 pounds and be healthy, I would love to do that. The biggest killer of people is food. It kills more people than AIDS or gun violence or war, anything you can name.

"Everybody keep catching strokes and heart attacks, and what happened to me was, like seven of my friends passed last year from heart attacks, and they were all 32, 34 years old, 35. And I said, 'I got kids, I can't leave 'em like that.' This world is too hard for me to leave my kids, without me supervising and being there for them."

Half the year gone

It's July 25, and the year is almost half over.

In the scheme of things, every day is precious. The average life expectancy for the US is something like 75 years (a little higher for women, a little lower for men).

Quality of life in our old age in many instances depends on the quality of life in our young age.

(This is unfortunately not always the case. You can go for the first half of your life not having any allergies at all, and then suddenly develop them. Some cancers don't start until late in life, etc - which is why once you've passed the age of 40, time to get those regular mammograms, etc.)

But there are many ways that you can ruin your health in your early years that will always reflect on you later in life.

Over-indulging in alcohol or mind-altering drugs is one of them.

Being consistently overweight is another.

And I'm not talking about being consistently 5-20 pounds overweight. 20 pounds overweight is a mere bagatelle.

But if you're 40 to 100 pounds overweight, or more, when you're young, carrying around all that extra weight will play havoc with your joints when you are older. Everything becomes more difficult when you are older, so placing that handicap on them in addition to the normal wear and tear is just a bad idea.

Now, I say 20 pounds overweight when you are young is a mere bagatelle. I mean that in the sense of what it does to your joints.

And being 20 pounds overweight is not that bad from a health standpoint either.

The problem with being 20 pounds overweight is that it just takes a little something for that overweight to start creeping up there inexorably. Because, our metabolism slows down as we get older. So if you do your exercises, and eat as much as you want, and maintain a 20-pound extra weight for ten years, that's all well and good.

Then the metabolism starts to slow down and suddenly every week an extra pound is added on, and it will be that much harder to take off. And all of a sudden you're 30 or 40 pounds overweight.

Which is why 20 pounds is the absolute minimum overweight that you should allow, and it's better to be no more than 5 or 10 pounds overweight. [And, as always, it's better and more healthier to be 5 pounds overweight than 5 pounds underweight. Being underweight is more dangerous to your health than being the equivalent amount of overweight.]

If you're only from 5 to 10 pounds overweight, when you get in to those metabolism-slowing years, it's a heckuva lot easier to catch it in time and modify - slowly- your eating habits to compensate.

Wow! Time goes by! What to do in a heatwave

I knew I'd missed a couple of days due to a personal project I had to complete, but I hadn't realized I'd missed 6 days! 6!

Apologies to my faithful readers. Won't happen again!

Anyway, it's almost the weekend, and here in Cheyenne Wyoming, Frontier Days are beginning. Various rodeo performances, and also "old time" cowboys having gunfights, life in the 1800s, etc. And hopefully, period food! We'll see.

It's been pretty warm here, but then it's been warm around half the country, apparently. I'm sure you've all been getting advice on how to make sure you don't get heat stroke, etc., but here's some more.

If you're out and about, drink A LOT of fluids. Also, wear a hat with a brim. (And even more important, wear the brim so it covers your eyes, not so it sticks out behind your neck accomplishing nothing at all! White or light colored clothing will keep you cooler than dark colored clothing.

Ice cream is always a treat during hot days, but limit yourself to a single cone or a small serving. Water is always the best thing to drink on hot days!

The Biggest Loser..... What?

I'm watching the British Open....the round is already over for the day, since England is several hours ahead of us, so they're showing it on tape delay. (My guy Mickelsn is in 7th, 5 strokes back...I doubt if he can make those up tomorrow.)

Anyway, just saw an advertisement for The Biggest Loser TV show (a show that I've never watched. I despise reality shows). An extremely large woman is the guy's next project. She must have been at least 300 pounds overweight.

And at the end of the advertisement - he and she are jogging together (at least for a few seconds.)

No, no, no.

When you are from 200 - 300 pounds overweight, you do not jog! Think of the pounding that is going to put on her knee joints! The danger of injury is way too severe.

Indeed, anywhere from 200 to 300 pounds over weight, the best thing to do is exercise in a pool. The water gives you buoyancy, and you can exercise easily without harming your joints. In addition, the water acts as resistance, so anyone working out in the water is going to get a damn good workout.

It's only after you get down to a less dangerous weight...anything below 200 pounds, that it's okay to start jogging, and even then it'd be better to ride a bike instead to save the knees.

You will say - what about all those 300-pound football players? Well...you don't see them running more than a few yards at a time. The 300-pounders are the defensive and offensive line - all they do is wrestle with each other, while the skinny guys are the ones who do the speed running.

Savoring Your Meal

Here's a quick tip on how to prevent yourself from over-eating.

Eat slowly, savoring each bite.

It's not necessary to count 32 chews before you swallow... just don't shove the food down, n o matter how hungry you are. Take a bite, chew it thorougly, swallow it, and move on.

This gives your stomach time to start digesting it, and you will feel fuller faster - and longer.

You only need one solution

My brother is trying to become a professional gambler. Too that end, he has bought hundreds of dollars worth of books on the subject, he's bought a DVD course, and he's just bought a few more books.

And I'm thinking to myself...why are you buing so much stuff to teach you how to play poker? Why not buy the top poker book, the one everyone raves about, and if, after following his advice, you still can't win at poker, accept the fact that no matter how many bloody books you buy, how many courses you take, poker is purely a game of luck and if you're not lucky, you will never win!

The same can be said for people trying to lose weight. I've had a few clients who reveal that they go to stores and buy books on weight lifting, and various dieting books, which then sat on their shelves, unread, I guess because they were hoping the information within those books would pass to them by means of osmosis.

Or they read the books, and didn't see what they wanted to see - an easy, effortless way to lose weight.

Well, there's no such thing. You will have to make some effort, exert some willpower, but if you follow a simple program, not as much as you might think.

There is no reason to give up foods you love - sugars, starches, fats, etc. Simply eat in smaller portions.

Your appetite can shrink. Start eating less, gradually, and eventually you will stop feeling hungry at the end of the day. The "trick" if you want to call it that, the "weird old secret" is simply patience.

It is very difficult to lose weight rapidly - and then keep it off. Lose weight slowly, so that your appetite shrinks along with your body, and when you've reached the weight you want, it will be a lot easier to maintain that weight.

And easy is what we want, right?

A bit OT: Put structure into your life, and record it!

When you were in school, your life was very structured. 8 hours - or however many hours you went to school - divided into 8 periods in which you learned (hopefully) 8 different subjects.

Then you came home and did your school work, or participated in sports, or what have you.

Then you graduated from high school, and a percentage went on to jobs, and/or college and jobs, and a percentage got married and dont' work.

So you no longer go to school, you don't work, you have a home to "make" (and home making is a job, I'm not saying it isn't!) - what do you do with your time? Many women are bored with their new-found freedom, and many of 'em have kids just to give 'em something to do with their time. (And because they want them, but I wonder how much of it is just to give them something to do, and having a kid is the "natural" thing.).

If you're bored, you probably over-eat, because what else is there to do when you're bored except eat? It's time to add structure to your life.

Most people eat the large meals at specific times - breakfast at such and such a time, lunch at this time, dinner at that time.

If you're having trouble losing weight on that schedule, try eating 5 smaller meals a day - but those meals must also be scheduled at exact times. It's a lot easier to keep track of how much food you're eating (how many calories you're consuming) if you eat at the same time every day. Indeed, it's when your schedule is disrupted (or doesn't exist) that over-eating typically occurs.

By eating smaller meals, you can eat right up until the time you go to bed - light meals of course. Not enough to feel stuffed, just enough to keep the gnawing hungry pains away from your door.

As for recording your day - by that I mean record more than just what you eat and drink and how you feel, how many weights you press on weight training days, and so on. Record what you accomplish each day - did you start a new book, complete a book, learn something new, meet a new friend, did your kids bring home something neat from school, etc. etc.

I have kept these journals for the last ten years and I really regret that I didnt keep them from the age of 20 onward or even earlier. We all think, "Oh, I can remember that...that's something I'm not going to forget..." but 20 years later, 30 years later, it's been pushed out by other memories and if you don't have a journal to look back on , that memory is gone forever.

Watch Food Shows

I kind of got side-tracked yesterday - I had intended to write a post on watching cooking shows, and ended up going off on a variety of tangents.

I'm not talking about those food reality shows where a variety of chefs compete to be the best chef - truth to tell I despise reality shows. I'm talking about the actual cooking shows, by actual real, professional chefs.

THe food network seems to be obsessed with food reality shows - all of them the same formula - "in your face" confrontational filming.

But they also have a few cooking shows.

The thing is - don't just watch 'em, cook!

See ideas for how to design your kitchen, or set a table - go for it.

Back to regular posting!

First, sorry to not have posted in so long. I've been on travel. I had my laptop with me, but ended up getting a virus - the XP Repair Virus, don't ask me how - and so I haven't been able to do anything with it since.

Now I'm back home and on my desktop, and all will be well with the world as soon as I shell out $60 to get my poor laptop fixed. If anyone knows how to track down folks who make computer viruses, let me know because I'd love to stomp them into pulps.

Anyway, I've been watching a British TV series called Pie in the Sky, starring the ginormous Richard Griffiths. (American fans may know him best as Harry Potter's mean uncle in the Harry Potter films). Excellent actor, but the guy is not just overweight, he is ginormous, and yes, I admit I wonder why. Actors have it so much easier than "real" people - they've got the money to pay for personal chefs, they've got the time to go to places and work out, and you'd think they wouldn't be able to get starring roles if they were extremely overweight.

And in America that would be true. The only overweight stars on American tv are those in sit coms. In England, it doesn't matter what an actor looks like - facially or figurally (that's probably not a word, but I'm using it anyway.) Anyone who watches British TV know this - the British women very rarely wear makeup - or at least, not pancaked on - indeed Helen Mirren in the tv series Prime Suspect was praised for looking like a "real woman" as opposed to those women in American cop shows who wear the plunging necklines and tight skirts even when on duty, and of course the hair is never out of place, etc.

But, that's not the point of this post. It was while watching this show that I saw ads for other BBC shows, including one called Two Fat Ladies, which was filmed from 1994 to 1997. They made only 24 episodes. But I actually saw a few episodes of these a few months ago, perhaps it was a New Years Day marathon or something, and I must say I enjoyed it very much, for all that you could not have paid me to eat anything they cooked. I'm a meat and potatoes girl myself, and they were cooking fish, and various weird things, etc.

Now, they weren't ginormous, but they could each have stood to lose at least 60 pounds. And they had enjoyed every dish it took to put on all that weight.

Now, I'm not encouraging people to overeat and gain weight because it shows that you enjoy life. I'm just saying that people should have a right to enjoy life, and if for them it consists of eating so much that they have bellies, etc....they shouldn't be condemned for it. (On the other hand, seriously, seriously overeating - in which one becomes not overweight but ginormous, like more than 200 pounds overweight, that's got to be psychologically motivated and steps need to be taken to help that individual.)

In any event, if your goal is to maintain a healthy weight, and you've got weight to lose, this blog will help.

The advice? Lose weight gradually. Losing 2 pounds a week is actually pretty easy, if you approach it the right way. First, of course, you've got to realize that it will take at least 3 weeks and maybe even 4, before youre in a position to start losing those 2 pounds a week.

When you first set out to lose weight, you've got to realize that your body is at a "stasis" point. It likes what it weighs. So you start cutting the size of the portions you eat by a fifth, or a fourth (but not by half, that's too much and unnecessary) and start exercising, and it will take a couple of weeks before your body decides that it's time to start using up the stored fat. At first, since you're exercising as well, you might even gain a couple of pounds, because muscle weighs more than fat , and you will be exchanging fat for muscle. (That's "exchanging" - not "changing" - muscle and fat are two different things, fat doesn't turn into muscle)

And adding muscle is a good thing, because once you have muscle, muscles burn calories faster than fat does.

Why Calorie-Counting-Obsession Is Not Necessary

As I've mentioned a few times before, I read the message boards of a 60+ year old - a man who is a successful soundtrack producer but who in private life is a diva. He also has some misguided ideas about losing weight, and since he knows best (on every subject under the sun) it's useless to try to point out his mistakes.

He's the guy who eats one meal a day (which he calls his meal o' the day) and then he wonders why he's not losing weight as fast as he'd like. He counts his calories - he ate 1,500 calories yesterday, for example, and according to him burned off 400 of those calories with a jog.

Well, mebbe so, mebbe so, but those numbers aren't all there is to it.

First off, of course, he's over 60, so his metabolism is slower than it was up until he was about 40. (And indeed, if you look at photos of the guy up until that time, he had one of those beanpole figures. Could probably eat anything without gaining weight. Now that he's old and his metabolism has slowed down, that is not the case.)

So, he did his diet a few years ago, and it worked, apparently. Eating one meal a day and jogging 4 miles a day. (Not bad for a 60 year old, admittedly.) But of course once he'd reached the weight he wanted...he got away from jogging, and he started eating three meals a day. End result, within a couple of years he'd put all the weight back on (because even if he was staying within 3,000 calories a day, which I doubt, his body's metabolism had slowed down yet more - caused by his diet - and his body was busy re-storing the fat it had lost so precipitously.

So now, he's trying it again, not having learned anything.

It's taking him longer than he thought to lose a pound or two a week. Why? Well, on the one hand because his metabolism is even slower than it had been, and on the other hand, because he's not eating enough!

Does that sound like a contradiction in terms?

Your body is not a clean-cut organism. It tries to save itself from starvation. If you suddenly cut drastically down on the calories you are consuming, your body doesn't know that you're trying to lose weight, all it knows is that it is starving, and it better conserve energy until the food starts coming normally again.

So it will give up muscle before it will give up fat. And that is a bad thing. And even when the fat starts coming off, it will come off verrrry slowly and reluctantly... and will always strive to restore that fat to its "normal" levels in preparation for any future starvation periods when it might need it.

So yes, eventually someone on a starvation diet will lose weight... but they will lose it a lot faster if they cut out 500 calories a day, rather than 1,500.

And, in addition - they will be able to keep that lost weight off for more than just a year or two!

Happy 4th of July weekend!

I'd intended posting something on this yesterday, as I'm assuming most of my readers are off on a 4th of July break.

If you're reading this... don't be afraid to have a good time this weekend - moderately. Moderate in drinking, moderate in eating.

But don't be afraid to eat!

The 4th isn't typically thought of as one of those days when people traditionally over eat, such as Thanksgiving or Christmas, but there are barbecues, and chips, and baseball games, and parades.

If you feel like indulging your sweet tooth, don't feel guilty afterwards. Life's for living!

And you're not going to gain weight in one day of eating unless you have two or three thousand calories worth of dessert on top of what you normally eat.

So enjoy yourself!