Rules for fat loss....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 8-28-2012

This one is relatively simple.  Some things people do make them fat.

And, some things people do cause people to lose fat or help them do so.

Some things help people keep doing the right things or help them keep fat off in other ways.

If you STOP doing things in the first group that make you fat, you will stop gaining weight and will usually lose some of the fat doing those things put on you!

Similarly doing lots of the things that remove excess fat or help you keep doing them to keep the fat off -- will remove your fat and keep it off!

And, if you do both almost all the time, guess what happens?

You lose your excess fat and keep it off!

The most important thing is NOT whether you call these strategies rules or helpful to know facts.

The most important things are to:

Learn what they are.  

Almost always stop doing the fattening things or stop them totally.

&

Do as many of the things that take fat off and keep it off as you can manage to do and that are effective for you – and upgrade your life to make them a continuing habit.

For some people calling stopping the fattening things rules and doing the fat removing things rules, makes it easier to do them.

The important thing is to know them and do them – & to stop doing them for the fattening ones!

That said, if a fat loss coach with years of successful experience calls them rules, it makes sense to see what he has to say.

And, in doing what he has found works in practice consistently it can be quite helpful to think of his guidelines as rules you follow personally.

People who are well organized and systematic and who use good workable systems do better at everything.  They have better health and live longer too recent research has found.

Such people can be adventurous and playful and creative too.  In fact that’s the winning combination.

A study of what made the difference between jet aces and seemingly similar pilots found that the aces were both better organized AND more mentally flexible!

They’d systematically try new things while being careful and taking precautions until they could safely do things other pilots couldn’t do or were afraid to try.

That’s the winning formula to follow when trying out rules developed by someone else.

Immediately adopt the ones that make sense to you that are clearly doable.  That gets you started and will improve your results.

Then try out the ones you are less sure you’ll find doable.  Since these are proven rules, try to make adjustments and work arounds instead of just tossing the ones you find difficult to do or don’t like.  Do it part of the time instead of every day.  Try something similar that you can do.  Try out doing it half way.  Experiment until you have something you can do and actually do that gets results.  Then make what you find you can do your rule for now.  Try upgrades every once in a while.  Watch for things other people found work great that make the rule quite doable instead of difficult. Then try them out!

In short follow the best rules and do what the jet aces did with the rest!

Bob Harper is the fat loss trainer for the TV show, The Biggest Loser.

A Parade article on Sunday, 8-26-2012 about him and his book, “The Skinny Rules: The Simple, Nonnegotiable Principles for Getting to Thin by Bob Harper and Greg Critser (May 15, 2012)” sparked this post for example. (His book is available on amazon.com .)

The Skinny Rules presents a list of 20 straight forward rules that will help you lose weight.

(Some of his rules are easier for some people to do than others.  Each of them is something he found effective for people who followed that rule.  And some are more important and effective than others.

The article writer, asked Bob what he has found to be the most important fat loss mistake people make.

His answer is something I know about so I was quite interested.  But the most valuable thing is that he added something he found that he know from his experience that doubled what I know and explained why part of what I know happens!

His answer was that people often skip breakfast thinking that the calories they avoid will add to their fat loss find that it has the REVERSE effect!

So one of his rules is Always eat breakfast!

What did he find to explain why he found this so very important?

NOT eating breakfast and skipping it causes a massive slow down in your metabolism he has found over and over again.

I already knew that quite often people who always eat breakfast eat MORE calories than people who don’t BUT they are LESS fat!

Bob’s answer explains how breakfast is almost a free calorie time to eat.  If you always eat breakfast, you BURN up far more calories than if you don’t.

(You also will need to eat less and lunch and dinner and will be far more likely to turn down fattening mid-morning treats.  People who skip breakfast are often very hungry by mid-morning and again at lunch and dinner.  Then the calories they skipped at breakfast, get added back double or in more fattening forms or both!)

Thanks to Bob Harper, we also now know people who always eat breakfast also burn up MORE calories than people who always skip breakfast.

With that double of burning more calories and better appetite control all day long, always eating breakfast is an excellent rule to follow!

In the reviews of his book on Amazon, people found some of this other rules less easy to follow. 

But always eating breakfast is clearly a sound rule.  (Research found that it’s helpful for men and dramatically effective for women.  It’s a good rule for men.  But it’s an essential rule for women.

To get started if you’ve not been eating breakfast, your breakfast can be small at first if you have been eating very big dinners and aren’t yet hungry in the morning.

One fat loss coach found that even eating one string cheese and a few grapes or one boiled egg and half a banana can work.  The key thing is to insist on eating a small breakfast first.

Then eat a bit less at dinner mostly cutting back on starchy and sugary things.

Then you will be hungrier in the morning and can eat a bit more.  And that makes you less hungry for fattening things and boosts your calories burned all day.

For more of Bob’s thoughts and experience, you can buy his book on Amazon.

And, you can check out his blog or column on Parade’s website at www.parade.com/harper .

I do always eat breakfast and tell people it’s an important fat loss tool.

Thanks to Bob Harper and Parade I now also know it’s even more proven than I yet knew. 

And thanks to Bob Harper I now know a major reason why always eating breakfast is so important and why it works so well.