Extra leverage ways to lose fat, part 2....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 9-22-2015

(Part 1 was on Thursday, 9-17-2015 and listed the basics and an introduction into why having a strong orientation to doing things that protect your health makes doing the basics dramatically easier.  It also has several ways you can eat more and still lose fat and keep it off.)

We are developing a list of as many as a dozen more ways to get extra leverage AND more detailed tips and methods to do each one.

1.  Two more that belong in the category of ways you can eat more and still lose fat and keep it off are

wearing cold packs to burn extra calories,

and doable ways to exercise at your desk

ways to feel good emotionally about your fat loss and efforts to achieve it, and abundant expert sources describing why the fattening foods are also so harmful.

a)  Wearable cold packs:

A man into exercise noticed that there was evidence that at least for people who had ancestors who survived the ice age and famines in cold climates would increase a special kind of “brown” fat when chilled enough and that this fat would generate heat and increase metabolism like a kind of internal heater. 

And, he read that in arctic climates people had to eat extra calories to keep from running out as their bodies burned calories this way to keep them from hypothermia and freezing to death.

So he rigged up a vest that could hold several cold packs that were in a freezer before that could be used on the area of your neck and upper back that contain the most fat that can be triggered into becoming brown fat and a waist pack to help burn more calories and potentially remove belly fat.

*They tested and found that wearing both of these together in normal temperatures of about 70 degrees or a bit less would burn an extra 150 calories an hour.

(I had read that some people had lost fat effectively by sitting for an hour a day in a bathtub filled with cold water and ice cubes.  I tried that and simply couldn’t do it or even taking a cold shower every time instead of a normal one with hot water.)

*The cold pack people meanwhile found that by wearing gloves and a warm hat of some kind that wearing the cold packs was much more doable.

A friend who tried a version of these found that he could easily do it if he read or watched TV while he did it. 

And a woman who was successful losing fat with them did about 2 hours of housework each evening and simply wore them while she did it.

The makers did find that you have to wear enough of a layer of light clothing under the cold packs thick enough to avoid frost bite. 

And they found out that women needed to not cover their breasts with the cold packs to avoid removing too much fat there.  Covering their neck and shoulders and belly was enough; and they could avoid their breasts and still do that.

So far it’s been too hot in our hot box apartment to test these well myself.  But some people who managed to wear them every day did lose significant amounts of fat.

The way that my schedule works, I’m not sure I’ll be able to wear these enough hours a week to help as much as I’d like.  And in some people their appetite goes up enough to prevent much fat loss.

But since some people did lose fat and what I eat tends to be about the same each week, I do plan to give these a full test.  My hope is that I’ll get good results and enough of an effect that it looks like I can recommend them to people they might help.

*One man tested them and measured all kinds of things.  He didn’t lose much fat; but his very slightly elevated blood sugar readings dropped like a rock.  And some of his other heart health indicators improved a bit.  So for people with high blood sugar and who cannot or won’t exercise much, cold packs might be a useful way to go.

At this point, I’m not sure how well these will work for me or other people.  BUT they may work for some people AND because they can be worn while people work at their computers or do housework or watch sports on TV, they can be used in a way that demands very little time each week.  That may be a huge advantage!

b)  Another way to get this benefit is to exercise while at your desk at work.  This does exist now but is NOT ready for wide use at this time.

There is a very expensive work station made where you walk as you work.  But between the expense and the extra office space needed and the fact that it’s demanding enough that many tasks can’t be done on while using it, it’s not practical for most people to use.

Standing desks are not good for decades of use, the dentists who once stood all day at work now sit in special chairs to avoid the varicose veins from standing at work all  day.  And standing desks are a bit too demanding for many tasks.  They are cheaper though and some startups with really young people in their twenties do use them.  They don’t burn as many calories and don’t work well for older people or decades of use.

I have been able to get a sit down recumbent bike in front of my computer and am writing this as I run the pedals as if I was riding a recumbent bike outside.  But it prevents my easy access to my work area; it’s too big to retrofit into most offices; and the cost per unit means most people are unlikely to ever get one!

However, in addition to burning enough extra calories you can eat more and still get and stay slim, we now know that sitting as much at their computers as knowledge workers do now, is harmful to your health – and is even somewhat harmful though less for people who exercise when they aren’t working.

So since there IS a way to make an at your desk exerciser that can be retrofitted to most desks for lower cost, we hope to get that made and available at some point.

2.  Use books for what you need most:

a) People who eat a lot of bread and other grain products often wind up fat.  There is evidence people did not evolve to eat grains; grains spike your blood sugar and insulin and cause fat to be added; and are calorie dense.  In addition, almost all the foods that have other fattening and harmful food ingredients added to them other than soft drinks are made of grain. 

People who give that up eating any of today’s hybrid GMO wheat and eating almost all other grains at all often lose dozens of pounds they keep off by simply doing so 100% of the time.

If you need to know the detailed history of why and see testimonials of people who lost that much fat or got that much healthier by doing this you can access the books and other resources by William Davis MD.

b)  People who find they emotionally rebel and have tried eating less unsuccessfully or have emotional issues around eating can access the Gabriel Method by buying his book by that title which has how he overcame this and ways to do as he did.  He too has dozens of testimonials that people have used his methods successfully.

He himself lost well over 200 pounds.  He says he realized for some reason his body wanted to be fat and was fighting his efforts to lose fat.  Then he describes how he talked his body into wanting to be trim.  Even better this is MUCH MORE than a touchy, feely book.  He discovered and includes the science behind it.

4.  All people who succeed at fat loss wind up with a custom version that works well for them personally.

To lose the fat at all, you need to find a way that fits you well enough you can use it until the fat comes off. 

AND, even more important, to keep up the upgraded lifestyle and keep off the fat you lost, you need to find a way that you can simply eat that way all the time and enjoy your life.

I forget just now where I found this but it expresses it very well.

“Here’s the blatant truth about diet and exercise:

Not everyone is the same!!

Not everyone should do one workout program and not everyone should follow one diet the rest of their lives. In fact… 

The people I see get the best results are the people who try a lot of different stuff until they eventually come to a place where they have learned their own system of diet and exercise. 

One that is unique to them and their individual goals!

However…

This takes time; it takes a little effort… and more than anything it takes an understanding that programs that may resonate with you, may not resonate with others.”

5.  No surprise.  You cannot lose fat if you have no clue what you eat and drink.

a) This was from HealthDay News:

“Food Diary a Great Tool for Losing Weight, Expert Says  

MONDAY, Jan. 3 (HealthDay News) -- The pen may be mightier than the scale when it comes to losing weight, experts have found.

Keeping a daily journal of snacks and meals is one of the best methods used by successful dieters, according to Dr. Christopher J. Mosunic, a weight management and diabetes specialist at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Conn.

"Keeping a food diary is like exercise; it will always help you lose [weight] if you do it consistently," he said in a hospital news release.

"I can split my patients into two groups. The food diary keepers and the nonkeepers. The people who keep diaries are usually very successful and I work with them for about 12 weeks. The people who don't are people I sometime see for years," Mosunic noted.

Dieters who keep journals are more successful because they're willing to acknowledge every bit of food they eat, which clearly shows them how many calories they are consuming per day, he explained.

Journaling also helps weight and nutrition experts track a person's eating and behavior patterns.

"One of the key behaviors we can identify and address is how binge eating happens," Mosunic said. "You can see by looking at something as simple as what people ate for breakfast, why their blood glucose goes low and they end up binge-eating in the afternoon."

It's important to keep your food journal simple, record even the smallest amounts of food, and it is best to share your journal with an expert on weight loss and nutrition, according to Mosunic.

There are two ways to track that.  People who do so are dramatically more successful than those who do not.

b) This is great for the initial stages and for working with a coach like this.

c) But for long term, forever, use, the extra time it adds to your week can keep you from continuing it.

The work around that I and health coach Isabel de Los Rios use is to eat a variety of health OK and not fattening meals each week and rotate in such a way that 95% of the time you eat the same amount of the same foods each week. You eat the same foods each weekday which greatly simplifies your shopping.  You just set up to eat a different kind of meal each weekday.

In my case, I eat a different breakfast each day and each evening; but the same ones each day.  Every Tuesday evening I eat wild caught salmon and every Tuesday morning I eat organic wild blueberries for example.

This certainly works for me!  I recently weighed myself once a week for 4 weeks.  My eating pattern is so regular and I’m so regular at my exercises that I also do the same ones on the same day each week that my weight was 167.0 pounds each week exactly each Saturday morning after breakfast that I measured it for four weeks in a row!

(I do need to remove 6 pounds by adding at least 10 pounds of muscle and removing 16 pounds of fat to reach my personal goal.  That’s why my keen interest in adding more extra leverage fat loss and muscle gaining methods is as keen as it is.)

And, my other goal is to create a resource where the people who use the things I find successfully can help you to learn to do what they did for each method you need to add to your own custom program!