Eat to Live

I lost 10 pounds in the last 7 weeks. I was only semi-strict on the diet for about 4-5 weeks. I've exercised about 1 and a half of those weeks. I'm completely unqualified to talk about weight loss. After I lose everything I want to maybe you'll be more likely to want to read this, so I'll let you know when that happens and you can come back to this post!

1. When I work out I focus on burning calories. In December I was working hard (I thought) doing at least 5k every day. I was burning less than 400 cal (est.) in an hour workout and even though I told myself I would do two workouts a day, I never had the energy to go back and tackle another one later in the day. Everyone I've talked to that's lost weight has done a cardio and some other workout every day because they weren't in great shape to begin with. So now I go to the gymn in the morning for two hours. I do an interval workout on the elliptical for an hour (like 550-600 cal, though some people can burn more if they do more resistance) and then go right into a high intensity cardio class or zumba. By the time I leave my pedometer says (usually) 13,000 steps and I've burned over 1,000 calories. I was exhausted at first but it's getting a little better.

A lot of people like using P90x. My brother used it to help with his weight loss. He lost 100lbs. in a year. But he didn't start doing P90x at first. P90x likely works depending on your fitness level. Most people aren't going to burn 1000 calories in an hour when they start doing P90x because they don't have enough muscle built up yet and it takes time to do that. The more muscle you have the more easily you can burn 1000 calories, especially in under an hour. If I did P90x I'd have to do something else, too in order to lose weight faster.


2. The diet matters huge. I read several blogs who talked about Eat to Live and then I read the book. It talks about nutrition to calorie ratios. (And also why people die because of the crap they eat.) Why eat stuff that has a lot of calories and low nutrition? I eat quinoa (w/ teeny bit of milk and teeny sugar) and fruit for breakfast, a salad or spinach shake for lunch, and steamed veggies, soup, or salad for dinner. (But I tend to like eating similar foods daily; I don't need big variation. This diet would be harder if you felt you had to try a new recipe to please you and your family every day.) I do the diet about 80-90% because, like today, I stopped and got a junior frozen yogurt cone at Braums!

Here's some keys:
~No meat and very rarely potatoes (sorry). No dairy, sugar, oils, or salts. (if you can do that, great. I don't feel that desperate so I just partake of as little as possible of those. I've had plenty of "mess up" times/weeks.)

~If you want a treat, keep it under 100 cal and eat it outside your home. Pudding, frozen yogurt, fudgsicle, and my fav is herbal tea with honey!

~Cheese is of the devil. So is most bread. (if you like bread do whole wheat pita or fat free wheat tortilla)

~If you drink juice, especially apple, you might as well be drinking kool aid. And your body will react to fake sweeteners just like real sweeteners. It will add to your cravings!

~Any fat you eat (including olive oil) has no nutrition and goes straight to the hips and tummy! (I do use salad dressing with oil because I'm not going to eat a salad without it! I love Jason's Deli balsalmic viniagrette dressing. Hooked.)

~You get healthy fats your body needs from seeds/nuts and avacado, but limited and in salads.

I lost 10lbs. in 7 weeks mostly because of the diet because I wasn't working out until about ten days ago! It would be nearly impossible for me to lose weight fast if I just exercised especialy if I were heavier and could barely exercise. I didn't lose a single pound working out until I started the diet!

This is the blog where I originally heard about the diet: Groundhog Day with Celia Fae has posts linked on her sidebar about her experience

This is a blog that talks only about being on the diet and also links to other sites:
Lean Toward the Sun

I get discouraged every time I step on the scale because I can't lose weight fast enough. The other day when my husband saw me on the scale he said, "you're not going to lose weight stepping on and off that thing!" This is my first true attempt in life to diet and exercise regularly (for more than a few months) and it's only strengthened my belief in how hard it is to lose weight! That doesn't sound very encouraging, I guess, but I know that now I've gotten to a point in my life where I finally want to lose weight badly and the wanting makes me a little crazy!

Any Questions?