More on setting up your home for effective fat loss....

Today's Post: Thursday, 11-5-2009

From my recent post on Monday this week (11-2-2009):

“I read a recent news story reporting that people who had exercise equipment in their homes and virtually no fattening, packaged foods or soft drinks often were quite successful at fat loss.

And, the people who had no exercise equipment in their homes and lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks were usually not successful if they tried to lose excess fat.

That seemed so basic and obviously true, I didn’t bother at that time to note which news service or who did the research.”

In that post I expand on those two themes and give tips and examples on how to bring in less fattening foods and more exercise equipment that when used will help you lose fat.

Then on Tuesday, 11-3, Health Day ran a story on that study or one very like it.

Their initial line in this version of the story was :

“If you want to lose weight, exercise and diet are crucial. But a new study says other factors appear to play a role, too -- including the number of TVs in your house and the presence of exercise equipment.”

The study compared the homes of people who lost least 10 percent of their bodyweight -- and kept off the weight for five or more years to people who were overweight or obese and were still fat.

As we discussed on Monday, the people who lost that much weight and kept it off were about three to four times more likely to exercise than those who were obese or overweight. (That means some of the people who were still fat were exercising at least some.) I’ve read separately that the people who have lost that much fat weight almost all exercise. Plus they average about 2900 calories a week of exercise.

(Even some exercise helps; & as we’ve posted before some kinds of exercise such as vigorous interval cardio and progressive strength training work best.) But up to about 3500 calories a week, more exercise IS better than less.

Here’s our today’s topic that was NOT in the earlier news story or my post on Monday.

Those who lost weight had fewer televisions in their home in addition to having far fewer or no fattening foods on hand and more exercise equipment in their homes.

Here’s why fewer televisions help plus some ideas.:

It’s really quite simple really. One of the most effective fat loss methods known is to watch less TV.

It seems that watching TV burns fewer calories than sleeping! Worse, a large percentage of the advertisers for broadcast TV are the makers and providers of the foods it’s worst to eat or drink. Even worse than that, the people who eat those foods or drink those drinks watch TV at the same time & fail to notice the large amounts of that stuff they are ingesting. Further the ads and even some of the shows make that lifestyle seem typical and normal.

Unfortunately, over the last 35 years, it HAS become typical.

That’s why something like half our young adults were recently found to be too fat to be in the United States armed forces.

It never was normal in any desirable or long term sense of that word. And, it’s absolute death to being able to lose excess fat weight.

So, if you do several things to enable yourself to watch far less TV, your chances of losing excess fat go up every time you take a step in that direction.

1. Having fewer TVs is a great idea for many people.

Older children and teens who have TVs in their own rooms reliably do less well in school. They also are reliably much fatter than similar kids who do not. Not only do they do less studying and homework, they read less even on subjects they are interested in and they are far less likely to do any exercise or play any kind of sports. And, they see far more of the ads for fattening foods and drinks and consume far more of them.

So, if you no longer want that stuff in your home to tempt YOU, pulling your kids room TVs will help. They’ll be less likely to bring it home themselves and be more OK with you not buying if for them.

2. The same thing is true of having a TV in your own bedroom. You’ll watch fewer hours of TV each week and see less of those ads. Even better, you’ll sleep a bit more which also helps fat loss and helps prevent depression and high blood pressure. Better yet, surveys found that your sex life will improve!

3. Be much more selective in what you watch.

You get far more news and news far more relevant to your own interests by reading newspapers or going to Yahoo.com . In reading print, your intake speed is at least double, and after factoring in ads, it’s likely at least triple what it is watching TV news. Then since, you no longer have to sit through stories of no interest to you, the speed difference is closer to five or ten to one faster than watching TV news.

Only watch TV news for news where the visual scenes are important to you. Or occasionally you may get important local news faster by watching the TV news.

But do that kind of viewing mostly on rare special occasions and you’ll be far better informed and a good bit less fat.

Discontinue watching TV as a baby sitter for yourself. By all means keep watching the 10 or 20 percent of the things that you really like the best. But simply read or exercise or talk to real people or even do housework instead of watching TV for that time. Your life will be more varied and interesting & you’ll be far less fat.

4. Consider making the main or only use of your TV to watch movie DVD’s on weekend nights when you aren’t doing something else.

Neflix.com makes watching movies you really like this way an inexpensive and super easy thing to do.

If you are short on money, subscribing to NetFlix and discontinuing your cable TV will save you a good bit of money. You can always get the TV cable back for some kinds of breaking news and sports when you have more money.

5. Try picking two nights a week when you would otherwise just sit home and watch so – so TV and taking a class on Tai Chi or going to the gym. That gives you a double, you not only watch less TV, you get more quality exercise at the same time.

6. Another thing you can do is to watch the TV you do still watch while exercising on a stationary bicycle.

Remember, every TV you can sell, donate, or give to the electronics recyclers will make you less fat AND cut your utility bill.

And, every hour a week you stop watching the TV’s you still have will help you be less fat – either helping you lose excess fat or not gain any or both.