Set up your home for effective fat loss because it works...

Today's Post: Monday, 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.

But, I wish I had now -- because I suddenly realized how important this finding is.

It gives people who really want to lose excess fat a really powerful way to load the dice in their favor and sharply increase their chances of success!

And, since people have to drink and eat something, the third piece of information or strategy that follows from this is that if you don’t have lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks, you are much more likely to have whole fruit and vegetables and other low glycemic good for you foods such taste enhancers like spices and garlic and onions.

1. So if you have lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks in your home and want to win at fat loss, a great first step is to get a large garbage can (or a set of grocery bags to use to give away the stuff if you are too thrifty to be comfortable just tossing it) and get it out of your house.

Boxes of commercially baked cookies, boxes or bags of snack foods, all soft drinks, all white bread and bread not totally whole grain, cake mixes, any sugared breakfast cereal, and most candies should all go out.

Then get apples or cherries or berries and shelled, raw or dry roasted nuts, and snack vegetables like baby carrots or radishes or broccoli florets or cauliflower florets and low salt vegetable juices and green tea or black tea and unsweetened cocoa and coffee or soda water to have to drink & for snacks.

And, buy more vegetables for cooked vegetable dishes and salads and some extra virgin olive oil and real garlic or garlic powder from the spice section and onions and some kind of vinegar you like for these dishes.

2. If you have rugs, get a large towel you can use to lie on for crunches and pushups and other exercises you do at home and on the floor or buy mats like they use in gyms. If you are willing to do skipping rope as an exercise (it’s very effective in causing fat loss), get a good jump rope for about $25. If you are willing to try a mini-trampoline (also very effective at causing fat loss) check out www.urbanrebounder.com . Their mini-trampoline costs about $150. If you are willing to do dumbbell work as strength training, get a set of fixed weight or a few adjustable dumbbells and plates. (I’ve found that a great way to do this cheap is to just get one dumbbell at each weight—instead of two. Then I do an exercise for each arm one at a time which allows me to do exercises virtually nonstop since each arm rests while the other is being exercised.) If you can afford to get more equipment like a gym-quality treadmill or elliptical trainer or recumbent exercise bike you can use while watching the TV news or sports or a Nordic Track or a Bowflex or Total Gym strength training station that can also work. Then use the equipment several times each week.

Then find your favorites or those your are at least OK with in the health OK foods and drinks and ingest those instead of bringing home the stuff that made you fat in the first place.

And, keep using your exercise equipment several days each week.

I believe about half of all Americans now obese (really fat) or very over-weight just did these two things without any other effort to restrict the amount of food, most of them would lose most of their fat. A woman who is 120 pounds overweight might easily lose 80 pounds of that in about a year and a half for example.

And, the converse is also true. I’m about 15 pounds overweight and 30 pounds overfat. If I stopped eating vegetables and doing regular exercise and had sugary cereal for breakfast instead of oatmeal and fatty meats and white bread and cookies and my favorite commercial desserts each day and drank several soft drinks each day, in a few months I could easily be 60 pounds heavier and fatter. Yikes!

But that stuff never comes in our front door.

And, I do have a towel and dumbbells and a NordicTrack that I use every week and exercise virtually every day even if it’s just 5 minutes of crunches. (Most weekdays my total exercise session is just 15 minutes or so first thing in the morning just before breakfast.)

So I don’t carry that extra 60 pounds of fat around that I’d otherwise have.

I also haven’t had a heart attack triggered and partially caused by that lifestyle. (To be fair, I do take some supplements that, according to my blood tests, are effective at giving me extra heart protection.)

If you have kids, this may be more challenging as they may be used to the bad stuff and all their friends may still eat it. But consider this. One mother who insisted on doing this found her family grocery store bills dropped a few hundred dollars a month!