Exercise at your desk to lose fat and keep your health....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 7-17-2012

It’s not widely known yet but there are now two ways to exercise at your desk while you work so you get the moderate exercise without taking time from your work.

One of them is new and can be used more of the time you are at your desk than the first one to come out.  It also costs less than half as much!

 This is extremely important news for two reasons.

1.  Doing nondistracting exercise at your desk has the potential to double or triple the amount of fat you can lose and keep off and to cut the time necessary nearly in half!

(I manage to squeeze in a bit less than half an hour a day of interval cardio and strength training each day.  But that much exercise leaves me about 1800 calories a week short of the 2900 calories a week people who have lost over 30 pounds and kept it off get on the average.  I don’t have more time.  But if I can arrange to get that added 1800 calories a week while I’m working at my desk, I CAN do that!

I lost 20 pounds recently and then regained 9.  I’ve kept off the 11 pounds because I’ve continued the eating upgrades since I began.

But had I lost 6 pounds too in the first part when I lost so well by using an at your desk exerciser I would have lost 26 pounds.  And had I lost another 6 pounds during the time when I regained, I’d have only gained back 3 instead of 9.  That means I’d be 23 pounds less fat than when I began now instead of 11!  That’s a BIG difference. )

This means that everyone who would like to be less fat or who is working to do so but sits at work now has access to this solution too!

2.  People today, between sitting at work and sitting at home, often sit for well over 8 hours a day.  This causes many health problems and literally billions of dollars a year in potentially. avoidable health care costs.

(I sit at work over 9 hours a day and about 2 hours at home each workday myself.) 

But research shows that this is a very powerful risk factor for heart disease and stroke and other diseases. 

Worse, exercising with interval cardio and strength training for an average of a bit less than 30 minutes each day while protective against this problem is only partly effective.

But if 80 to 90 % of the time you are sitting at work you are getting constant mild exercise by keeping your feet moving with such an exerciser, that problem is gone completely.  The health problem of sitting is virtually wiped out!

There are now two solutions to this problem and I’m working on a third one.

1.  The first one is the Steelcase walking desk or “Walkstation.”  See http:// http://store.steelcase.com/brochures/walkstation/ . 

This works partly but has two significant problems. 

It’s not usable for enough of the hours in the day you work for the best fat loss results and health results.  Even two hours a day of working while walking on the treadmill that it comes will burn 300 to 400 calories a day.  But few people will want to stand more than that a day while working. 

(At its set speed of 2 miles an hour, that’s mild enough to not detract from your work and equal walking 4 miles a day.  So it is better than sitting the whole time particularly for fat loss.)

Secondly, it’s much more expensive than I’d initially heard and starts at $4399.  OUCH!

2.  The second one is new and solves one of those two problems and partly solves the second one.

A man in Pleasanton, California has begun selling a desk plus recumbent bike combination for closer to $1800 to $2,000.  At a health show last Saturday, the people trying it praised it for having ample and usable desk space.  And, it costs thousands less than the walking desk!

That’s a lot better price wise than over $4,000!

(I think it’s still about five to ten times higher than what I think the market needs. It also isn’t easily retrofittable to the existing desks people already have. That’s important because I think everyone should work at an exerciser of this kind! I hope to help create that solution too.)

However, the active desk recumbent bike plus desk DOES do a great job on the health and fat loss side!  You can use it almost all the time you would otherwise sit at your desk instead of just part of the time.  So the exercise can be even more gentle and nondistracting than walking yet easily help you burn 2,000 calories per five day week or more.

As an example, Bryan, the man making them, is a regular runner.  But he needed to burn more calories a week to stop being fat as much as he needed and wanted to do. 

He’s used his active desk for 9 months.  AND, he lost 18 pounds!

The best news is that it’s available now directly through Bryan at bryan@activoffice.net .

He is also possibly going to sell it on Amazon soon.

If the price is something you can afford at all, and you have the bit of extra space where you work, I strongly recommend you consider getting one.

PS:  I got a much less expensive exerciser at my local BIG 5 sporting goods store.  Much to my great irritation, it raised my knees too much to fit at my desks either at work or at home.

But the key thing for this post is this: 

I’ve found I can use it while sitting on our couch at home and reading.  And, even though it’s not nearly as smooth to use as Bryan’s recumbent bike, I am easily able to start going and keep going on automatic pilot yet read with no noticeable effort or distraction for an hour or two at a time.  

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post: Monday, 2-20-2012

Since last month, The good news is on building more muscle. And, so far, that news is VERY good.

On my one-legged squats while holding a dumbbell, I went from 12 for each leg while holding a 25 lb dbl to 14 for each leg while holding the 25 lb dbl AND a 15 lb dbl in my other hand. Since the one legged style is like doing about 165 lbs on a barbell two legged squat, that's possibly as much as now doing 245 lbs.

I bought a 30 lb dbl last month just after my January measuring session. Then that Monday, I replaced the 25 lb dbl I'd been doing all my one handed upper body exercises with using that 30 lb dbl. It took some getting used to but I'm already about where I was with the 25 since that upgrade was long overdue.

Then, the Saturday I measured this time, I bought a 50 lb dbl to use with one handed shoulder shrugs and bent over rows. And, I bought a 35 lb dbl to begin to work up to on the 30 pound exercises now.

When I went to the gym I used 55 lb dbls for shrugs and 75 lb dbls for bent over rows. So the 50 pound dbl is also long overdue. But since I've not used it for a good bit, it will take getting used to AND between the two newest dbls and the 30 lb one from last month, I think I can add some muscle.

For example, if I can manage building up to one legged squats, getting into and standing up from a lunge position holding the 35 lb dbl in one hand and the 50 in the other, that will be somewhat similar to doing squats with 330 lb. If I manage to do that and not have any injuries achieving that WILL add muscle to my legs and butt and likely enough to shrink my waist!

That’s the good news.

However, since last month I gained one & a half pounds on the scale. That’s the bad news. It's even worse news too since in addition, the month before, I'd gained two and a half pounds. So although I'd lost two pounds the two months before that, in the past two months, I gained four pounds despite maintaining my basic fat loss eating pattern that initially lost me close to 20 pounds. I have kept half that off. But to be at my goal weight I now need to lose at least 8 pounds and have it all be fat.

But that's not all the bad news. Last month I'd lost some on my waist the month before. This time, I gained that back & about a quarter of an inch more. Since my goal is to lose 4 to 6 inches on my waist, clearly I need to lose the 8 pounds AND at least 15 pounds more of fat more that I replace with 15 pounds of muscle.

I may be on track for the muscle gain. But I need to do a good bit more to lose fat too.

The last two months was my holiday weight gain as you'll see. But had my fat loss program been on track, I'd have not gained any or just a pound or two NOT four pounds.

So, I need to boost my fat loss efforts.

First, here's why it was my holiday weight gain. I was really under the weather for Thanksgiving. So although I managed to go and enjoy the people, I had no appetite to eat much or enjoy the dinner. SO, I made up for that at Christmas dinner (on purpose) & ate a Thanksgiving sized meal when I'd have been a bit more restrained had Thanksgiving been normal.

Then at the end of last month, the local football team, was in the playoffs on a day I could go to the sports bar for crab cakes and beer. They lost but played well enough to win and very nearly did.

Then I watched the Superbowl at the sports bar and had crab cakes and a bit more beer.

Lastly, a week ago yesterday, there was a family dinner for my birthday. I ate well at that and had extra of the superb & very chocolate-y brownies they had for dessert!

I ate enough at those 3 dinners since I measured last month to and the Christmas dinner the month before, that had I not ate right the rest of the time and exercised, I could easily have gained more than 4 pounds!

But clearly I wasn't eating well enough to gain no pounds to replace the four pounds of fat I was losing the rest of that time.

Plus now I need to lose 8 pounds instead of 4 to get back to my goal weight.

What to do?

Because my breakfasts lunches and dinners are mostly OK and virtually the same from week to week, what varies for me is my after dinner snacks.

The better news is that the past two month I kept the journal I began about 2 months ago.

But the other part of the plan was a no show. My planned increase in broccoli was low and sporadic although I DID manage some. But it wasn't virtually every day by a long ways! And, eating less almond butter simply did NOT happen at all.

So, it's clear I need a larger and more easily accessible supply of raw broccoli florets to fill me up virtually every evening and to be far more strict on eating the spoons of almond butter. The two are solidly linked. I can eat only one serving of the almond butter on my less strict every other day and none at all on my strict days. But to be full enough to manage that, I need the larger and more easily accessible supply of raw broccoli florets to fill me up available each evening which it has not yet been.

I have a new plan to make the larger and more easily accessible supply of raw broccoli florets available each evening. Let's see by next month how I do.

I think I'll lose a pound or two a month once that's in place. What I don't know is if it will lose me all of the 8 pounds before it stops causing fat loss. We certainly will find out!

Part of the 4 pound gain over the two months was from the extra wine at the two family dinners and the beer two times that was in addition to what I normally drink.

Last week that was back to normal and it will be quite a while before those special occasions happen again.


So last month offers some promise and had some progress despite the bad news on the scale and tape measure.

(I now need to lose 8 pounds total to return to my goal weight. And, I still need to lose at least four to 6 inches off my waist.

According to pictures I’ve seen, I’m now at about 25 % bodyfat. To remove my abdominal fat, according to those same pictures, I also need to add enough muscle to stay at or just slightly below my goal weight AND lose about 12% to 15% of my current bodyweight as fat.

This translates into losing 20 to 28 pounds of fat while gaining 12 to 20 pounds of muscle.)

I'm finally putting the initial plan in place to add the muscle. But the fat loss part still needs some work. And so does my total calories of exercise and activity. I average 1400 calories a week now. But 3500 would be better. The good news is that there may be a 2100 calorie a week fix I can actually do. The next section repeats that from last time.

* X * X *X *

(Future improvements still planned:

Eventually I’ll also need to get a specialized minibike or other seated leg exerciser I can use while seated at my desk and another I can use while reading at home or at my home computer.

They don’t yet make those that I know of but most people today need them. Given the health harm of sitting too much and how many people do that, these minibikes or other seated exerciser for your legs and chairs that match them well are coming soon I think.

Walking burns about 300 calories an hour. (200 if you are skinny and walk slowly to over 500 if you walk really fast or walk somewhat fast but are much heavier.)

Using a seated minibike or other seated exerciser that you use much less effort on but keep moving slowly most of the time you sit can easily burn 50 calories an hour.

Then if like many people today you sit for 6 hours a day, you could easily add an extra 2100 calories a week by using a seated minibike exerciser most of the time you sit at home or at work. That would help people lose about 2 and a half pounds a month for a few months once they got into the habit of always using one.

If I’d used one of the seated minibikes since I began my current fatloss plan, I’d still need to add the extra muscle to be at my goal weight. But I’d be trying to add muscle weight to get back to my goal weight! That’s because I’d be 10 to 15 pounds less fat.)

I’ve also had an idea for awhile. Before sewing machines had electric power, they had an under the work area treadle that was designed to be effective but avoid distracting the person sewing from doing their sewing.

It may be possible to find an antique sewing machine and find a manufacturer to make a design of that treadle mechanism that would do the same for people working at a desk.

It’s proven to do the job needed in actual use!)

I’ll let you know how my additional planned changes and efforts work next month.

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post: Monday, 1-23-2012

Since last month, I lost a half inch or so off my waist. My chest and hips dropped about an eighth of an inch too.

That’s the good news.

I gained 2 & a half pounds on the scale. That’s the bad news.

The summary is that to lose size and inches while gaining on the scale means that all or most of the weight gain on the scale was muscle.

But to not lose on the scale or to gain that much, I likely had no fat loss.

So last month was a mixed review.

I seem to have gained muscle without any fat loss. Since I did more exercise, I ate a bit more than I should have to lose fat at the same time.

Once again, there are three reasons for it.

First, I got more exercise and more exercise likely to build muscle.

I was able to keep up my one legged squats with a dumbbell and do more repetitions each time. I have completely managed to restore my whole jump rope sessions and kettlebell exercises twice each week completely since building back from the very bad cold I had in late November.

And, we had to walk quite a bit to take transit during the almost two weeks our car was in the shop because they were too busy to get to it right away. Quite brisk 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 minute walks several times each week is a proven way to lose extra fat. Even if you have been doing leg exercises, it hits your legs from many extra angles. So if you haven’t been in practice doing it, you do build new muscle in your legs and butt.

Second, although I did my partial fast at lunch each Thursday, I did slip a bit on my alcoholic drinks. They increased from 8.5 a week to 9.5 or 10. I plan to get that back to 8.5 a week this next month.

Third, even though I did keep a log of my after dinner snacks each evening – my new strategy I just began – and I did eat a serving of broccoli most evenings, and I wasn’t excessive in eating almond butter, I apparently now need to eat it a bit less by eating it with dinner OR as an after dinner snack but not both. Or I need to eat some nonfat cottage cheese and more broccoli instead of having any almond butter as a snack on my stricter days. I’ll try both this next month to see if that helps.

(I now need to lose 6 and a half pounds total to return to my goal weight. And, I still need to lose at least four to 6 inches off my waist.

According to pictures I’ve seen, I’m now at about 22 % bodyfat or a bit more, perhaps 25%. To remove my abdominal fat, according to those same pictures, I also need to add enough muscle to stay at or just slightly below my goal weight AND lose about 12% to 15% of my current bodyweight as fat.

This translates into losing 18 to 24 pounds of fat while gaining 14 to 20 pounds of muscle.)

My strength training has gone decently lately.

But I need to add some heavier dumbbells now to add more muscle. My largest one now is 25 pounds. So I plan to buy a 30 pound one and may get a 35 pound one too this upcoming weekend.

They will come in handy on my new program, doing a set of squats with one leg at a time, one for each leg, three times a week. I’m at 11 repetitions once for each leg while holding a 25 pound dumbbell. (Last month I was doing 11 with not dumbbell at all. Doing them while holding the 25 pound dumbbell, I’ll be at 14 reps soon. Once I do that, I’ll add holding the 30 pound dumbbell as I do them. That will be as if I added 60 pounds to doing two legged squats. (Then I’ll build up to using holding the 35 pound one and then to holding a dumbbell in each hand. I can do that even before I get another even heavier dumbbell.)

Eventually that will add some thigh and butt muscle and increase my pounds of muscle. In fact, I have already been able to do them without holding a support post for balance now as I hold the 25 pound dumbbell. (Last month I was using no weight and holding on to a balance post.)

So far, that plan is working and it likely helped my improvement on the tape measure.

So by continuing to do and make progress on my strength training, I plan to keep adding muscle.

Next month I’ll focus on continuing to make progress on my strength training and on eating more fiber and nonfat protein and less almond butter.

And I’ll keep doing my other exercises and every other day stricter eating plan and the few daily calorie cut backs I added.

Ideally, I’d like to gain another pound of muscle and lose 5 pounds of fat by next month. That would show as a 4 pound weight loss on the scale. And, it would cut my waist another half inch or more.

* X * X *X *

(Future improvements still planned:

Eventually I’ll also need to get a specialized minibike or other seated leg exerciser I can use while seated at my desk and another I can use while reading at home or at my home computer.

They don’t yet make those that I know of but most people today need them. Given the health harm of sitting too much and how many people do that, these minibikes or other seated exerciser for your legs and chairs that match them well are coming soon I think.

Walking burns about 300 calories an hour. (200 if you are skinny and walk slowly to over 500 if you walk really fast or walk somewhat fast but are much heavier.)

Using a seated minibike or other seated exerciser that you use much less effort on but keep moving slowly most of the time you sit can easily burn 50 calories an hour.

Then if like many people today you sit for 6 hours a day, you could easily add an extra 2100 calories a week by using a seated minibike exerciser most of the time you sit at home or at work. That would help people lose about 2 and a half pounds a month for a few months once they got into the habit of always using one.

If I’d used one of the seated minibikes since I began my current fatloss plan, I’d still need to add the extra muscle to be at my goal weight. But I’d be trying to add muscle weight to get back to my goal weight! That’s because I’d be 10 to 15 pounds less fat.)

I’ve also had an idea for awhile. Before sewing machines had electric power, they had an under the work area treadle that was designed to be effective but avoid distracting the person sewing from doing their sewing.

It may be possible to find an antique sewing machine and find a manufacturer to make a design of that treadle mechanism that would do the same for people working at a desk.

It’s proven to do the job needed in actual use!)

The best good news is that most of what I did to lose the 15 pounds I wanted and 3 pounds extra I lost temporarily is still in place. I’m still doing those things too. And, I am still about 10 pounds lighter than I was when I started.

I’ll certainly keep doing those things!

I’ll let you know how my additional planned changes and efforts work next month.

Solutions to common fat loss problems, part 5....

Today's Post: Thursday, 12-29-2011

We posted on solutions to 3 of the most important problems in part 1 on Tuesday, 12-20-2011, last week.

1. Effective fat loss plans that do not turn on your body’s famine response succeed and you can keep the fat off. Diet, temporary starvation routines always turn on the famine response and fail. That post has the solutions that make up an effective fat loss plan.

2. Foods and drinks most people now think of as normal that did not exist or didn’t exist at all in their current forms 100 years ago. But they are NOT normal. That post has a bit about how that happened and why virtually avoiding all these foods and drinks makes hunger free fat loss almost easy. People who have been consuming a lot of these can lose tens of pounds with almost no other changes.

3. A key strategy in a fat loss plan that does not turn on your body’s famine response is to exercise. But finding time to exercise can be quite challenging. The post last Tuesday had 3 proven ways to find the time to exercise.

Last Thursday’s post began solutions to 3 more common fat loss problems.

4. Stress triggered eating.

5. Friends and family and neighbors are fat.

6. How to persist, lose all your fat or close to it, and keep it off.

Last Thursday’s post covered 4. Stress triggered eating -- and solutions to keep it from sabotaging you.

Friday last week we covered 5. Friends and family and neighbors are fat --
and how to overcome the effects of that.

If your friends, family, and neighbors are fat, it can be much harder to lose fat yourself. But there are three ways to do it. And, of those there are many ways to keep enjoying your current friends while being more effective influencing them than the other way around. That post had those solutions.

And, on Tuesday this week, we posted on how to keep yourself on track. That about doubles your chance of success.

And, we posted on how to set up a support system making regular use of such supportive people and information. That too will at least double your chances of success.

Doing both, if you do them well and you keep doing it, it will at least multiply your chances at success by over 4 times. For many people doing both will guarantee your success.

Today, we add a bonus post to this series. When I decided to do this series I wrote down 6 common fat loss problems to give solutions to.

The last post, how to ensure you keep going I put in as the 6th problem to solve because I lost my original list of 6. And, I found I could only remember 5.

I remembered the first 5; posted on those; did the last post about how to virtually ensure success by both managing it yourself and getting skilled and supportive outside help.

Today, I was doing an end of the year clean up at work and found the original 6th problem.

It was too much sitting!

Until a hundred years ago most people didn’t sit much and before 1,000 years ago very few people sat more than 4 or 5 hours a day. Modern man evolved something like 30,000 years ago; and our primate ancestors go back over a million years. Most of them sat very little each day!

Today, it has become common for people to sit for 9 to over 12 hours a day.

That’s a huge difference in activity level and average blood circulation during each day.

The calories burned difference and the less exercised muscles that has caused are two of the reasons far more people are fatter than they were on the average before a 100 years ago.

But that’s far from all.

First, if you sit much over 6 hours a day, your risk of virtually everything you’d like to avoid goes up.

This includes aging, heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes, and sexual dysfunction. It also includes brain shrinkage, memory problems, and also is a contributing cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

Second, fatter people sit even more than normal weight people. One study found that obese, definitely fat, people sat an average of 9.5 hours a day while normal weight people sat an average of 7.0 hours a day.

That 2.5 hour a day difference is quite large. Even very light activity burns at least 100 calories an hour more than sitting. Over a week’s time, it adds up to 1750 calories a week. That’s about the calories in half a pound of body fat.

If two people eat the same number of calories for a year and the one who sat 7 hours a day was the same weight at the end of the year, the one who sat 9.5 hours would be 26 pounds fatter!

Mercifully the person sitting more usually tends to eat less, so it’s usually not that bad.

BUT, for one cause of sitting more, it is often worse!

And, the studies reflect that too. People who watch TV less than 14 hours a week are routinely far less fat on the average than people who watch TV over 28 hours a week.

Watching that 2 hours more of TV tends to build in more sitting time. But it’s even worse than that for three reasons.

You sit so quietly while watching TV, you burn less calories than while you are sleeping!

Second, the ads on commercial TV specialize in advertising the bad for you and fattening foods and drinks that you should virtually write off if you want hunger free fat loss.

Third, if you eat any kind of snack – even healthier ones, let alone fattening ones -- while you watch TV, you simply eat on automatic pilot. You also even keep eating when, had you been paying attention, you’d have noticed you were no longer hungry and were full!

Earlier in this series under how to find time to exercise, we posted on two ways to turn TV time into exercise time.

One way is to turn off the TV and do some kind of vigorous exercises such as strength training or interval cardio or moderate exercises like walking, swimming, or gardening for longer times.

The other way is to set up some kind of exerciser you can use while you watch TV.

There are two other solutions.

Program in regular breaks in your sitting so you don’t just stay totally still for more than an hour or two.

Getting up to get yourself coffee, tea, or water throughout the day keeps you hydrated and gets you up to do it. But it gets you up a second time to visit the bathroom too!

I also got the idea to do about 30 seconds of a moderate exercise a few times a day. Good idea; but a few weeks later, I realized I’d done it once on the day I thought of it and never did it again!

I’ve since put in a double reminder and do it 5 times virtually every weekday.

When I get up to get a cup of tea or green tea, right then or when I finish the cup, I do the short exercise session. AND, I make a mark in my special logbook for that day. That combination is very effective. And only on the very busiest days do I fail to do it all 5 times.

But there is more coming!

What if you could burn 50 to 100 calories for at least half of your sitting time too?!

An expensive set up where you can work on your computer and on your phone while walking, a “walking desk”, has been tried. It does work; but it’s expensive for the purpose and it can be tiring or can distract you from your work.

Eventually I personally plan to get a specialized minibike or other exerciser I can use while seated at my desk and another I can use while reading at home.

They don’t yet make those that I know of but most people today need them.

Given the health harm of sitting too much and how many people do that, these minibikes and chairs that match them well are coming soon I think.

Walking burns about 300 calories an hour. (200 if you are skinny and walk slowly to over 500 if you walk really fast or walk somewhat fast but are much heavier.)

Using a seated minibike exerciser that you use much less effort on but keep moving slowly most of the time you sit can easily burn 50 calories an hour.

Then if like many people today you sit for 6 hours a day, you could easily add an extra 2100 calories a week by using a seated minibike exerciser most of the time you sit at home or at work. That would help people lose about 2 and a half pounds a month for a few months once they got into the habit of always using one. Then they’d keep it off!

(If I’d used one of the seated minibikes since I began my current fatloss plan, I’d still need to add the extra muscle to be at my goal weight. But I’d be trying to add muscle weight to get back UP to my goal weight! That’s because I’d be 10 to 20 pounds less fat. I’m only 5 pounds over my goal weight now; but my waist is still too fat!)

I’ve also had a new idea. Before sewing machines had electric power, they had an under the work area treadle that was designed to be effective but avoid distracting the person sewing from their sewing.

It may be possible to find an antique sewing machine and find a manufacturer to make a design of that treadle mechanism that would do the same for people working at a desk.

It’s proven to do the job needed in actual use!

But until those become available for $69.38 at WalMart or $79.95 at Big 5 Sporting Goods, by all means do the other things in this post! They will help.

Solutions to common fat loss problems, part 4....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 12-27-2011

We posted on solutions to 3 of the most important problems in part one last Tuesday, 12-20-2011.

1. Effective fat loss plans that do not turn on your body’s famine response succeed and you can keep the fat off. Diet, temporary starvation routines always turn on the famine response and fail. That post has the solutions that make up an effective fat loss plan.

2. Foods and drinks most people now think of as normal that did not exist or didn’t exist at all in their current forms 100 years ago. But they are NOT normal. That post has a bit about how that happened and why virtually avoiding all these foods and drinks makes hunger free fat loss almost easy. People who have been consuming a lot of these can lose tens of pounds with almost no other changes.

3. A key strategy in a fat loss plan that does not turn on your body’s famine response is to exercise. But finding time to exercise can be quite challenging. The post last Tuesday had 3 proven ways to find the time to exercise.

Last Thursday’s post began solutions to 3 more common fat loss problems.

4. Stress triggered eating.

5. Friends and family and neighbors are fat.

6. How to persist, lose all your fat or close to it, and keep it off.

Last Thursday’s post covered 4. Stress triggered eating -- and solutions to keep it from sabotaging you.

Friday last week we covered 5. Friends and family and neighbors are fat --
and how to overcome the effects of that.

If your friends, family, and neighbors are fat, it can be much harder to lose fat yourself. But there are three ways to do it. And, of those there are many ways to keep enjoying your current friends while being more effective influencing them than the other way around. That post had those solutions.

This time we’ll cover how to set up a support system making regular use of such supportive people and information. It will at least double your chances of success. And, if it’s done well and you keep using it, it will virtually guarantee your success.

It’s a key part of

6. How to persist, lose all your fat or close to it, and keep it off.

These basic three principles were in the first post in this series and all the others.

Plan to upgrade your lifestyle permanently to one that protects your health and supports your health without hunger. Instead of a temporary plan, a diet, that gets temporary results if any, focus on doing sustainable upgrades.

Do so in a way that does trim off some calories you were taking in and burns more while doing so in ways that avoid making you unusually hungry all the time.

Always aim to do these things in ways YOU find sustainable. (Not being too hungry all the time makes that much easier.)

6. How to persist, lose all your fat or close to it, and keep it off.

The first part is the focus and controls you build into your life yourself.

The first way to do that and double your chances of success is to keep track regularly.

Exercise is a key part of staying healthy and losing fat without hunger. People who keep a logbook of their exercise they use at each session they do right then as they exercise each time, are more than twice as likely to keep exercising. I use a system that enables writing in mine to just a few seconds for each exercise.

Measuring your waist and hips and chest and your weight on the scale on the same day of the week or the same day of the week once a month and analyzing what went right or less than OK to cause that period’s results also can double your results. (My own monthly report was a post last week.)

If you eat a very varied diet, it can help to keep a similar log for what you eat.

But having planned variation for each breakfast and each weekday lunch and many weekday dinners where you eat what you planned and eating almost only the right kinds of food the rest the time is easier on you. You just have the meals you planned and by adding some variation but often eating the same foods for the same meals each weekday, you know what you ate without having to take the extra time to record it.

Having those planned meals also makes it much easier to shop for your food too.

You do keep control of what you eat that way; but save the time the more complex logs of eating would require.

Controlling your exercise, managing your food intake, and monitoring your progress taken together can ensure your long term success.

But if you aren’t used to doing that sort of thing or your motivation to stay on course is variable, it can more than triple your success chances to have regular support for your efforts.

Such support can help you do this kind of management. It can encourage you to continue. It can provide solutions to the problems that you need help with.

Jillian Michaels is not perfect. But she does have a decent online support system for a relatively modest fee. She does particularly well for women who find her and her successful students inspiring and who need specific exercises and eating plans to get them going.

Weight Watchers has both an online program and a weekly meeting you can attend in person. People who need to add calorie cut backs to exercise and eating foods that support your health can do well with Weight Watchers. And people who need in person support and more productive thinking styles can do well with their weekly meetings. The meeting leaders can give you the emotional boost and the positive way to think about problems and solutions you need.

Weight Watchers does have some problems but has improved in many of those areas. They recommend more of a calorie cut back than is wise for permanent fat loss to ensure people get fast enough results they don’t drop out. (I found that by adding more nonstarchy vegetables, a zero point food, and aiming for a smaller cut back, and continuing to exercise, I was able to lose more fat than the cut back looked likely to deliver.)

Though they have gotten more proactive at encouraging people to delete fattening foods and drinks than they were, they still don’t emphasize that enough nor cutting back on all grains. They also don’t emphasize exercise enough. And, for many kinds of fruit, it may have been a mistake to list them as zero point foods.

But if you join and use either Jillian Michael’s system or Weight Watchers, by adding our information to their system you can do well in improving your health, losing fat, and keeping it off.

We are working to design and make our own online support system available too.

To access that when it becomes available, just keep reading our posts and our fat loss posts in particular. We will announce it on our posts when it’s ready; and it will be available through its own link from our posts.

Solutions to common fat loss problems, part 3....

Today's Post: Friday, 12-23-2011

We posted on solutions to 3 of the most important problems in part one last Tuesday, 12-20-2011.

1. Effective fat loss plans that do not turn on your body’s famine response succeed and you can keep the fat off. Diet, temporary starvation routines always turn on the famine response and fail. That post has the solutions that make up an effective fat loss plan.

2. Foods and drinks most people now think of as normal that did not exist or didn’t exist at all in their current forms 100 years ago. But they are NOT normal. That post has a bit about how that happened and why virtually avoiding all these foods and drinks makes hunger free fat loss almost easy. People who have been consuming a lot of these can lose tens of pounds with almost no other changes.

3. A key strategy in a fat loss plan that does not turn on your body’s famine response is to exercise. But finding time to exercise can be quite challenging. The post last Tuesday had 3 proven ways to find the time to exercise.

Last Thursday’s post began solutions to 3 more common fat loss problems.

4. Stress triggered eating.

5. Friends and family and neighbors are fat.

6. How to persist, lose all your fat or close to it, and keep it off.

It covered 4. Stress triggered eating -- and solutions to keep it from sabotaging you.

This time we’ll cover 5. Friends and family and neighbors are fat --
and how to overcome the effects of that.

This one can be quite challenging for many reasons.

For family members who still think junky foods and drinks are normal and want to keep eating them or who would dislike have being fat uncomfortably brought to their attention who are now ignoring it and those who both fail to support you or make it harder for you for whatever reason, some of these solutions will help.

The good news is that in many families where the person who lost weight is clearly happier and continues to be nice to the other people in the family, the influence goes the other way! You can inspire them to lose fat too!

But for bad family situations you need the last solution we’ll cover next week which is ways to get outside support by people who want you to lose fat.

a) The first idea is to get a firm grip on the fact that if you learn how to keep yourself healthy and lose fat and keep it off AND do it and keep doing it, you join a new and elite group of people.

You’ll keep your family and many of your friends. But you will now belong to a new group of people who include championship athletes, doctors who help their patients prevent diseases, personal trainers, health writers, and health coaches.

You’ll also fit better with groups of people who do the best in life including college professors, successful entrepreneurs and sales people, CEO’s and other executives, other achievers, and other college educated people. That’s because each of these groups is more likely than average to be in the new group you are joining.

People enjoy being members of an elite. And this is an elite you can join by choosing to do so and doing the actions necessary.

b) Find ways to socialize with your friends and acquaintances that support them but do not support their bad eating habits or lack of exercise. And, begin to avoid some situations where they would want you to eat badly with them.

If they are active on Facebook, do some of your socializing there.

Invite them to go with you on short hikes in interesting or beautiful places. Then let them set the pace.

Instead of going to their home, when you can, meet them at a restaurant at which there are food choices that fit what you need as well as the standard fare.

Meet them at potluck events where you can bring health OK foods you can eat and pick out what foods you’ll eat.

If you go to their home to eat, be an unusually friendly and polite guest and make the conversation fun and interesting for them. But take small servings of foods you shouldn’t eat and say if they taste good; but leave some of the most fattening stuff.

But do NOT try to sell them there on why to eat the way you do. ONLY do that if once you do lose enough fat it’s noticeable and either they ask how you are doing it or they say yes when you ask if they would like to do as you have done.

Focus on the things about that friend that you like and make the meal a positive event and focus on the things you have in common.

You’ll keep the friendship and be MORE likely to be positive example to them!

So by socializing some by Facebook and email; eating with them at locations that easily allow them and you to eat the way you want; and making the good times you share more important than the food when you eat at their place, you can keep the friendship and NOT have your fat loss derailed or your health harmed.

c) If you need to and can do so, spend some time socializing with people like personal trainers or people who have been going the gym for years and look like it in addition to your fatter friends.

Read books about health and fat loss. Read this blog when the topic interests you.

That way part of your thinking, social input, and social modeling is on people who already are the way you are becoming yourself.

Next time we’ll cover how to set up a support system making regular use of such supportive people and information. It will at least double your chances of success. And, if it’s done well and you keep using it, it will virtually guarantee your success.

Solutions to common fat loss problems, part 2....

Today's Post: Thursday, 12-22-2011

We posted on solutions to 3 of the most important problems in part one last Tuesday, 12-20-2011.

1. Effective fat loss plans that do not turn on your body’s famine response succeed and you can keep the fat off. Diet, temporary starvation routines always turn on the famine response and fail. That post has the solutions that make up an effective fat loss plan.

2. Foods and drinks most people now think of as normal that did not exist or didn’t exist at all in their current forms 100 years ago. But they are NOT normal. That post has a bit about how that happened and why virtually avoiding all these foods and drinks makes hunger free fat loss almost easy. People who have been consuming a lot of these can lose tens of pounds with almost no other changes.

3. A key strategy in a fat loss plan that does not turn on your body’s famine response is to exercise. But finding time to exercise can be quite challenging. The post last Tuesday had 3 proven ways to find the time to exercise.

This post begins solutions to 3 more common fat loss problems.

4. Stress triggered eating.

5. Friends and family and neighbors are fat.

6. How to persist, lose all your fat or close to it, and keep it off.


4. Stress triggered eating.

Some stress is so severe that the shock and adrenalin response completely turn off your appetite.

But most of the stress people have is chronic and mild to severe. The effect of this kind of stress is similar to the effects of the famine response.

People become more hungry for “comfort” foods that may be from the not really normal list and horribly fattening. It always tends to cause more appetite for sugary and fattier foods.

There are two ways to beat it.

Be less stressed. And, avoid this effect when you are stressed

Being less stressed IS possible. It’s not often easy. But there are ways you can have less stress. You can prevent some kinds of stress. You can escape or turn off some stressful problems, and you can turn off your body’s stress response.

The post we did: High leverage ways to live longer, part 2.... Thursday, 12-8-2011 covers these three methods in detail because people who do these 3 things age more slowly, have better health, and live longer.

Bonus for this post.: In that post we forgot three great ways to turn off your body’s stress response.

a) Believe it or not you can get quite substantial if brief stress relief AND wake up a bit too within a few seconds. You don’t even have to learn how because it was already wired in when you were born! Just take a few seconds and yawn and stretch on purpose.

(People you know you or who see you as similar to them in some way will tend to yawn too and get the same stress relief often without even realizing it.)

b) Another blogger reminded me that watching videos or old movies you think are funny and laugh at also can be superb stress relief.

c) Doing a fast set of a relatively vigorous exercise also gives you almost instant if brief stress relief.

Being stressed without giving in to fattening foods also works.

If you follow the methods that cause hunger free fat loss that does not trigger your body’s stress response, your real hunger will be low or reasonable.

Saying no to stress caused eating is dramatically easier when your real hunger is not also high! Women who always eat a filling and health OK breakfast can say no to very fattening treats found in some offices MUCH more easily than women who haven’t eaten since last night as one example.

If you’ve eaten food that turns down your hunger and fills your tummy with some fiber too and some food that you enjoy eating, if you do reach for comfort food, it’s dramatically easier to have just a bit instead of a lot more.

Another way is to know the health harms of the ingredients of some of the worst treat foods. You may be hungrier for them from stress. But focusing on what those ingredients will do to you can make it much, much easier to pass completely.

The last way I’ll list is to refuse to eat treat foods that you don’t really like that much normally. Only eat those you normally really like. And just eat some while remembering that you are aiming to average mostly healthy and nonfattening foods.

Next time we’ll cover 5. Friends and family and neighbors are fat --
and how to overcome the effects of that.

Solutions to common fat loss problems....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 12-20-2011

1. The fail safe famine response is the big one.

Fat loss eating plans with no net calorie reduction tend not to work. But 95% or more fat loss plans overdo calorie restriction enough that the bodies of the people using them, trigger this famine response.

It makes people get hungrier and for it to take more food to stop them feeling hungry. It slows fat loss. It lowers energy levels and metabolism so you feel less like exercising and burn less calories. And, it makes sugary and fatty foods taste better than they already do.

It’s like taking 3 effective drugs to fatten you up at the same time.

The 3 main solutions are to:

a) Eat only or almost only lower glycemic and nutritious foods that support your health. These foods have fewer calories or cause your blood sugar and insulin to spike very little or both. The health OK protein foods and the health OK fats and oils turn off hunger well and have no extra rebound hunger later. And, many of these foods are high enough in fiber that you have a full stomach when you eat them.

Eating enough of them to turn off your hunger will NOT trigger your famine response.

That’s particularly true for the protein foods and the foods higher in fiber. And adding some health OK fats and oils most days makes the famine response even less likely research finds.

(We post quite often on these foods and drinks that actually support your health without fattening you by the way. Virtually all of them also have multiple health benefits and protect you from many diseases.)

b) Do enough more exercise overall and enough strength training and interval cardio to use up more calories instead of eating less of them.

This doesn’t work by itself short of 8 to 10 hours a day of exercise. But even a few minutes almost every day of such exercise does burn enough more calories to cause more fat loss. It also helps ensure you lose fat instead of muscle.

The biggest two benefits though are that you get enormous health benefits even before you lose much fat. And, because you can lose fat with less food cut backs, you can lose fat without triggering the famine response.

c) The additional calorie cut backs need to happen in a pattern that does NOT trigger the famine response. We are descended from people who had a variable food supply. So some calorie cuts backs are OK. But meal after meal day after day calorie cut backs at every meal and every day, your body will read as a famine.

Strategies like only cutting calories extra every other day or only two days a week that have a day or two off between them or only one half day partial fast a week done every week, do net out fewer calories each week. But because they allow you to be normally fed most of the time -- tend not to trigger the famine response.

In summary, every day calorie cut backs in a temporary diet plan, produce temporary results and zero permanent results.

Since it is unpleasant to do and doesn’t work, it hasn’t worked for the people who try to lose fat that way.

People who try it feel as if they have failed at fat loss. They were fine and still are able to lose fat. They used a method that always fails. To lose fat they have to use the method that does work instead.

But people who do a thorough job permanently upgrading their lifestyle to these 3 methods lose fat they keep off.

It’s not easy for many people. But it is doable. And it gets easier once you get used to it and customize it to you.

2. The boiled frog problem.

It’s said that if you put a frog in a pot of water on the stove and increase the heat very gradually, the frog will cook without noticing the risk at all.

Most people today are far too fat because something very like that happened to all of us over the last 100 years.

People now see fattening foods and drinks as normal today. These foods and drinks often did not exist a 100 years ago. Or they were a few times a month treats eaten by people who burned thousands of calories a week walking and in other ways few people do now.

The change from then until now has been so gradual that few people realized it was happening.

Similarly, the companies that have been making money providing these foods and drinks, only gradually cut the quality and cost to make them and increased how addictive they were and gradually advertised them more. They now make a lot of money by harming masses of people and making them fat.

But they didn’t start out that way. They began making small amounts of treats that people only consumed small amounts of a few times a month. The people doing it got plenty of exercise and many of them needed MORE calories to be healthy instead of less. And, the companies used real foods just like the original home made recipes of the day.

Seeing these foods and drinks as normal and safe to eat and drink is easy to do and most people do it.

But every last one of them is unnatural and fattening and harmful in any but the tiniest amounts. They tend to be made out of refined grains, cheap vegetable oils high in omega 6, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and artificially saturated vegetable oils. They also add chemicals and other additives to make the food more addictive.

People who succeed best in fat loss throw out these products, don’t buy any more or take them as gifts. And, they stop buying foods or drinks with these ingredients or ordering them in restaurants.

It’s truly an unfortunate situation. And it can be challenging to do when the people around you don’t know any of this or how harmful to health these ingredients are.

But now you do. You can stop being a slowly cooking fat frog and switch permanently to being less fat.

But once you know and get used to not having these things, strangely it can be relatively easy to lose tens of pounds of fat.

These foods tend to not turn off your hunger very well and they all tend to turn it back on again from the blood sugar and insulin surges they cause. That means you actually may be LESS hungry while losing tens of pounds of fat.

This is even true for diet soft drinks research has repeatedly found. Despite having no calories diet soft drinks or foods with artificial sweeteners act as a potent appetite increasing drug. Worse, they increase your appetite for sugary foods!

Fat loss is far easier for people who don’t take this kind of appetite increasing drug!

3. Lack of time to exercise is another real problem.

Two solutions that work are these.

a) Do strength training an interval cardio you can do at home in 15 to 30 minute sessions. And do one session first thing in the morning most days.

You get a lot of results for short periods of time this way. And by doing it before the demands of your day start up, it’s dramatically more reliable and doable to fit it in.

b) Trade TV watching time for time exercising or exercise as you watch TV.

Both of these are well worth trying.

You burn fewer calories watching TV than you do sleeping so doing less while doing things like going to the gym or taking a Tai Chi class an evening or two a week instead of watching TV can really help!

Watching less TV also cuts your exposure to ads for the foods and drinks you should completely avoid.

So exercising instead of watching TV is a triple win for your fat loss and keeping it off.

You can also get some kind of easy cardio you can do while watching the TV you really want to watch. In fact many gyms have cardio equipment rooms with TVs to make this easier for people.

If you burn only 50 to 100 calories an hour but you do it 5 to 15 hours a week it can really add up!

There are many other problems people have with fat loss. But here are solutions for three of the most important to solve problems.

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post: Monday, 12-19-2011

Since last month, I lost another pound.

That’s the good news. And, there are three reasons for it.

First, except for the Thursday that was Thanksgiving, I did my partial fast at lunch the other Thursdays. Second, I was able to skip drinking an extra day and averaged my new and lower number of alcoholic drinks each week, 8.5, despite drinking a bit extra on Thanksgiving. Third, one of the people who usually brings a food to Thanksgiving that I eat a bit extra was unable to make it. And other things happened too such as less appetite due to my cold, so I ate less at Thanksgiving than I have in the past.

I’m pleased the partial fast at lunch method is still working and that I was able to avoid drinking extra for the month. Clearly I’d have weighed more and gotten even fatter had I not done them.

But the bad news is that on both of the two measures of my waist I take -- a bit tight AND a bit relaxed, I gained about three quarters of an inch.

That means I lost lean weight and got fatter! Oops!

To do that I clearly lost muscle. On a guess, I gained a couple pounds of fat and lost three pounds of muscle.

What happened on the gaining muscle side that caused me to lose it instead?

Simple. In between 11-19 & 12-17, the Saturdays I took my monthly measurements, on 11-22 I came down with a really bad cold.

Much to my shock, with all the things I do that make colds half as bad and only half as long, THIS cold was triple strength! The bad part of the cold lasted a week. The almost as bad part lasted a second week. And, it took another two weeks to recover my strength and cough up all the gunk in my chest in addition.

Colds are worse in the late afternoon and early evening. And my Monday and Weds evening jump rope sessions need extra energy and deep breathing. So I had to skip those sessions. I suspect I lost muscle from my legs and butt by doing so.

In addition, I kept up my morning exercise sessions. But to avoid making my cold worse, I used lighter weight and less repetitions. So, here again I suspect I lost some muscle.

The far better news is that the recent several morning sessions are back to normal and I’ll be able to get back to my jump rope sessions tonight.

My hope is that I gain the muscle back by next month, that I lose another pound, AND lose back the 3/4 inch from my waist or even lose an inch.

(My main goal now that I’m close to my goal weight is to lose inches off my waist by adding muscle on my larger muscles like my chest and butt and legs and keep those two measures the same or increase them.

Clearly I went backwards on this one last month. Although I may not make progress on more, over the next month I should be able to regain the muscle I had.)

Also, I had a plan to get a log book pad of paper to keep track of the broccoli I ate each evening. But I was too tired in the evenings from the cold to make the extra effort at all to unthaw the frozen broccoli florets and eat some. And, I was too short on time and energy to buy the kind of log book pad of paper I plan to use.

I will have some extra shopping time the Monday after Christmas to buy the log book pad of paper. And, I’ve had excellent results following through on things I once use a log book system to track.

So, between adding back the muscle and the one day a week partial fast at lunch and that evening effort, I believe I’ll again lose a pound on the scale by next month.

The combination of adding muscle and losing weight should cut back on my waist measurements. Next month, the weight loss should be fat loss and my fat loss should be greater than the weight loss!

Let’s hope so!

I now need to lose 4 pounds total to return to my goal weight. And, I still need to lose at least four to 6 inches off my waist.

According to pictures I’ve seen, I’m now at about 22 % bodyfat or a bit more, perhaps 25%. To remove my abdominal fat, according to those same pictures, I also need to add enough muscle to stay at or just slightly below my goal weight AND lose about 12% to 15% of my current bodyweight as fat.

This translates into losing 18 to 24 pounds of fat while gaining 14 to 20 pounds of muscle.

My strength training has gone decently lately – once I finally got over my cold; but I need to add some heavier dumbbells now and eventually will need to go to the gym to use heavier weights as well to do that.

That’s mostly true for leg exercises since I’ve not done enough heavier or more challenging exercises for them.

THAT I’ve begun doing something about.

Not long ago I began doing a set of squats with one leg at a time, one for each leg, two times a week. I’m only at 11 repetitions once for each leg. But I can clearly keep adding one each time for quite awhile. In fact, it has gotten enough easier, I’ll be at 14 reps soon. Once I do that, I’ll add holding the 25 pound dumbbell as I do them. That will be as if I added 50 pounds to doing two legged squats. (Then once I get some heavier dumbbells, I can add more weight.)

Eventually that will add some thigh and butt muscle and increase my pounds of muscle. In fact, I may be able to get a more solid balancing post and add a dumbbell of enough weight to make this more likely.

So far, that plan is working but is still at too early a stage to expect much on the scale or tape measure.

(Eventually I’ll also need to get a specialized minibike or other seated leg exerciser I can use while seated at my desk and another I can use while reading at home.

They don’t yet make those that I know of but most people today need them. Given the health harm of sitting too much and how many people do that, these minibikes or other seated exerciser for your legs and chairs that match them well are coming soon I think.

Walking burns about 300 calories an hour. (200 if you are skinny and walk slowly to over 500 if you walk really fast or walk somewhat fast but are much heavier.)

Using a seated minibike or other seated exerciser that you use much less effort on but keep moving slowly most of the time you sit can easily burn 50 calories an hour.

Then if like many people today you sit for 6 hours a day, you could easily add an extra 2100 calories a week by using a seated minibike exerciser most of the time you sit at home or at work. That would help people lose about 2 and a half pounds a month for a few months once they got into the habit of always using one.

If I’d used one of the seated minibikes since I began my current fatloss plan, I’d still need to add the extra muscle to be at my goal weight. But I’d be trying to add muscle weight to get back to my goal weight! That’s because I’d be 10 to 15 pounds less fat.)

I’ve also had an idea for awhile. Before sewing machines had electric power, they had an under the work area treadle that was designed to be effective but avoid distracting the person sewing from doing their sewing.

It may be possible to find an antique sewing machine and find a manufacturer to make a design of that treadle mechanism that would do the same for people working at a desk.

It’s proven to do the job needed in actual use!

The best good news is that most of what I did to lose the 15 pounds I wanted and 3 pounds extra I lost temporarily is still in place. I’m still doing those things. And, I am still 11 pounds lighter than I was when I started.

I’ll certainly keep doing those things!

I’ll let you know how my additional planned changes and efforts work next month!

People doing 2 day a week low carb lost MORE weight....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 12-13-2011

There are many ways to lose fat and its weight but some give you a larger return than others.

The ideal way would help you lose more and be easy enough to do that you can easily sustain it.

That way you would get enough results to give you an incentive to continue. And, you’d find it doable for you to do so. That way you’d lose more weight AND keep it off.

One way to do just that was recently tested to work!

It’s known by many that a low carb diet or even a very low carb diet is effective at fat loss. And, it’s known by some that being extra strict every other day can help you lose fat without triggering your famine response.

It’s also known that people who succeed in losing fat with a 7 day a week low carb diet often drop out because it prevents eating ANY of so many kinds of foods.

And, one French doctor who helps people use low carb fat loss methods teaches his clients to only eat protein foods and nonstarchy vegetables ONE day each week to maintain their fat loss. He found it to be effective.

So, some researchers decided to test if having people who were eating a Mediterranean diet that was mildly restrictive on calories might lose more fat if, on two days a week, Monday and Weds or Tuesday and Thursday for example, they ate a very low carb version of it.

They also decided to see the results if on those two low carb days, calories were cut back extra for one group and there were no restrictions on how much food people ate in a second group.

The test was done on women at above average risks of breast cancer since it’s known that obesity adds to the risks of breast cancer.

But my strong belief is that the results would also be the same for other women and for men who were making an effort to lose fat.

All the women were eating a Mediterranean diet. But one group just did that 7 days a week.

One group on two days a week could have all the lean meat, olives, and nuts they wanted.

And, a third group ate those foods but less than half as many calories worth as they ate on the other 5 days.

Both those last two groups eliminated bread and pasta on those two days. (Potatoes and rice are NOT part of the Mediterranean diet. But to be sure, they were asked NOT to eat any on those 2 days.)

(Note that soft drinks, packaged snacks, home made desserts, packaged desserts, and baked goods and pastries are NOT part of the Mediterranean diet either!)

The women in both the no restriction and the reduced calorie low carb 2 days a week groups lost 9 pounds in 4 months. And the women who ate the Mediterranean diet 7 days a week lost 5 pounds in 4 months.

The women in both of the two low carb day a week groups also showed greater improvements on insulin and leptin and insulin resistance.

That’s part of the reason they lost more fat. But it also means they were more successful in avoiding or partially reversing type 2 diabetes and the slightly too high blood sugar that often leads to it. So, that means they got more heart protection too!

The women tested also must have been relatively health oriented before the test period. Had they done this test on women who, before the test period, were fatter due to consuming a lot of drinks, packaged snacks, home made desserts, packaged desserts, and baked goods and pastries, the results would have been better. The weight loss would have been a lot more in all 3 groups.

Also, the results would have been better for all 3 groups if the program had also had a good exercise program and emphasized increasing nonstarchy vegetables all 7 days a week for all 3 groups. Emphasizing beans and lentils and all the days except the low carb days would also have gotten better results. (Eating some beans and lentils on the low carb days also might have made the program easier to maintain long term for some people according to the results of one fat loss expert.)

But, this report has convinced me to take 2 of my weekday every other day strict days each week and make them even more low carb than they were.

Note that the emphasis in the South Beach Diet and the more recent Atkins diet plans on health OK proteins and oils for health reasons has been shown to be important and health protective.

Small amounts of sour cream, butter, and fatty meats WILL work in a low carb fat loss diet. So will processed meats such as bacon, sausage, ham, pepperoni, and salami.

But the preservatives in processed meats and the omega 6 oils in those foods if they are from animals fed grain are now well known to be harmful to your health and to help cause heart disease.

So very eating lean meat, wild caught fish, nuts, and some eggs are better choices for protein. And, olives, nuts, avocados, and extra virgin olive oil are dramatically better choices for fats and oils for protecting your health.

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post: Monday, 11-21-2011

Since last month, I lost pound. I’m now a pound lighter than I was a month ago and was three months ago.

But, on the two measures of my waist I take a bit tight and a bit relaxed, I gained a bit about a quarter of an inch.

The half inch losses were from my chest measurement and from my hip measurement.

(My main goal now that I’m close to my goal weight is to lose inches off my waist by adding muscle on my larger muscles like my chest and butt and legs and keep those two measures the same or increase them.

I would have been much happier to keep those the same and have lost the inches all on my waist.)

Also, I weighed half way through the month and lost the pound the first part of the month. That means that my partial fast did succeed in removing that pound and keep me from gaining it back.

But I still need something more to lose the several pounds of belly fat and small bit of weight on the scale I want to lose.

Oh well! Again this month, the results are not bad news; but they aren’t the good news I want either.

(Here’s how that relates to Thanksgiving coming up in a few days by the way.

Last Friday we posted on how to cook for Thanksgiving to still have the traditional favorites but cut the damage to your health and limit the fat gain.

And, tomorrow, we’ll post on ways to eat and enjoy the Thanksgiving day dinner that allow you to have your favorites but which also limit the damage.

To get permanent fat loss you need to keep track of how you are doing at least once a month and take corrective measures when indicated as I have with these monthly posts.

You also will do better if you employ the strategies in these two posts for holiday meals.

Thanksgiving and the other yearly holidays come every year.

By doing these few key things, including keeping up your monthly tracking you’ll not gain much when you enjoy the yearly holidays.

It’s even possible to gain Zero extra fat or pounds on the scale during the holiday season. I’ve done that before and expect to do so this year.

That means if you lose fat and weight and do likewise, the fat you lost will stay off permanently DESPITE enjoying Thanksgiving and other holidays.)

Back to my report for the last month.

I was under extra stress the past month from worry about losing a major tool to stay healthy due to the FDA threatening to remove it completely and a personal medical issue that was and is worrisome.

That tends to cause your appetite to increase and for any fat you do gain to go to your waist.

I found my control of eating almond butter only in small amounts and to eat broccoli each evening was very poor.

These things explain why I gained on my waist instead of losing and why I didn’t lose a second pound the second half of the month.

The good news is I’m still working at gaining leverage and effectiveness at ending the threat the FDA will remove virtually all supplements regardless of their protective value in preventing diseases and the avoiding the costs to treat them.

I made progress just this morning and have an idea of how get a much more powerful person than I to help.

I’m also working at gaining leverage and effectiveness at stopping and reversing the minor medical problem. On that I’ve even seen a bit of progress.

Next month, I will also make an enormous effort to be more controlled about eating less almond butter and always eating broccoli each evening.

For the month from last Saturday to a month from now, I’ll keep a log of those 2 things.

I’ve found that effective to do things new to me when I do it. And for some things, I’ve found if I don’t, nothing happens!

I now need to lose 5 pounds total to return to my goal weight. And, I still need to lose at least three to 6 inches off my waist.

According to pictures I’ve seen, I’m now at about 22 % bodyfat or a bit more, perhaps 25%. To remove my abdominal fat, according to those same pictures, I also need to add enough muscle to stay at or just slightly below my goal weight AND lose about 12% to 15% of my current bodyweight as fat.

This translates into losing 20 to 25 pounds of fat while gaining 14 to 20 pounds of muscle.

My strength training has gone decently lately; but I’ll eventually need to add some heavier dumbbells and go the gym to use heavier weights as well to do that.

That’s mostly true for leg exercises since I’ve not done enough heavier or more challenging exercises for them.

THAT I’ve begun doing something about.

Last month I began doing a set of squats with one leg one for each leg two times a week. I’m only at 8 repetitions once for each leg. But I can clearly keep adding one each time for quite awhile. Eventually that will add some thigh and butt muscle and increase my pounds of muscle. In fact, I may be able to get a more solid balancing post and add a dumbbell of enough weight to make this more likely.

So far, that plan is working but is still at too early a stage to expect much on the scale or tape measure.

(Eventually I’ll also need to get a specialized minibike exerciser I can use while seated at my desk and another I can use while reading at home.

They don’t yet make those that I know of but most people today need them. Given the health harm of sitting too much and how many people do that, these minibikes and chairs that match them well are coming soon I think.

Walking burns about 300 calories an hour. (200 if you are skinny and walk slowly to over 500 if you walk really fast or walk somewhat fast but are much heavier.)

Using a seated minibike exerciser that you use much less effort on but keep moving slowly most of the time you sit can easily burn 50 calories an hour.

Then if like many people today you sit for 6 hours a day, you could easily add an extra 2100 calories a week by using a seated minibike exerciser most of the time you sit at home or at work. That would help people lose about 2 and a half pounds a month for a few months once they got into the habit of always using one.

If I’d used one of the seated minibikes since I began my current fatloss plan, I’d still need to add the extra muscle to be at my goal weight. But I’d be trying to add muscle weight to get back to my goal weight! That’s because I’d be 10 to 15 pounds less fat.)

I’ve also had a new idea. Before sewing machines had electric power, they had an under the work area treadle that was designed to be effective but avoid distracting the person sewing from their sewing.

It may be possible to find an antique sewing machine and find a manufacturer to make a design of that treadle mechanism that would do the same for people working at a desk.

It’s proven to do the job needed in actual use!

A. Last month, my two part plan to eat differently was a bit worse due to following it inconsistently.

1. My plan to eat less almond butter was a bit worse.

I did successfully use the smaller spoon and a bit smaller serving only. The problem was that I ate about four times too many servings!

2. I had also planned to eat a few thawed frozen, organic, broccoli sprouts in place of the almond butter. (I had found before that adding nonstarchy vegetables is effective.)

Likewise, my plan to eat thawed frozen, organic, broccoli sprouts still worked.

But last month, I put the frozen chunks in their container much LESS consistently and ate some of the thawed florets only on a few evenings compared to the months before that.

B. I still had the significant worry most of last month. But I have taken action to try to resolve it. And, I have worked on building a just in case strategy too since last month.

I’ll still worry for quite a while since it will take months to know if my efforts helped, but I’m somewhat calmer emotionally. That will help me avoid gaining fat from eating too many comfort foods.

C. The best good news is that most of what I did to lose the 15 pounds I wanted and 3 pounds extra I lost temporarily is still in place. I’m still doing those things. And, I am still 10 pounds lighter than I was when I started.

I’ll certainly keep doing those things!

D. But one of the better pieces of news is that I was able to sustain my new and added way to cut calories last month.

I read two separate reports on this. One said that fasting one day a week tended to cut pounds of fat without triggering the famine response and even had health benefits. The other said that eating your normal breakfast and then just that one day, skipping your lunch and dinner had the same effect.

I’m not convinced that’s really a benefit to your health when you already don’t pig out on tons of calories of harmful foods. Nor do I think I’m likely to be able to do it or keep doing it.

BUT, I’ve decided to try something along those lines last month.

For lunch on Thursdays, I’ve been eating walnuts, pecans, a half sandwich on whole grain bread, a serving of raw broccoli and baby food winter squash. And, I’ve been eating cooked pinto beans, parmesan cheese, extra virgin olive oil, spices, and nonfat cottage cheese plus pasta sauce for dinner.

Now, on Thursdays only, I’ll only eat the serving of raw broccoli for lunch.

And, I’ll delete the pinto beans and the nonfat cottage cheese and the parmesan cheese and half the extra virgin olive oil and pasta sauce and put the remaining pasta sauce and extra virgin olive oil the baby food winter squash only that I have been eating for lunch.

The calories not in those two meals are close to enough 825 calories to cause a one pound fat loss each month.

It did work the first part of last month. And, I found it surprisingly doable.

The key issue, of course, it will only be effective if I can do it without adding a larger snack or eating extra the following day – AND if I can do it on a permanent basis!

The early reading is that keeping it up is doable for me. But avoiding giving it back by eating extra at other times didn’t work well for the second half of last month.

If my fix by keeping a record of my evening snacks works next month and from then on, that will help!

It’s still possible that if it almost works and is stays doable, I may be able to make it work better by adding some non-caloric fiber so my tummy doesn’t get quite so empty.

(PGX from the kanjac root does work for some people for this purpose and to slow blood sugar rise for people who need that. But I’d prefer to do without the added expense; it may tend to plug me up too much; and it soaks up water enough it may tend to prevent uptake of water soluble vitamins.)

So, I’ll try doing without it first. Then I’ll try half the suggested amount of the PGX just at dinner. If I can do this strategy either of those two ways, this one strategy added to what I’m already doing will cause me to lose about 14 pounds of fat over a year or so.

At worst, I’ll lose back the 5 pounds of fat I’m now carrying above my goal weight and get me back down to my goal weight.

At best, I’ll lose the 14 pounds of fat or more and add 9 pounds or more of muscle from my other work and my waist will finally get noticeably smaller and still have me at my goal weight.

I’ll let you know how these changes work next month!

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post: Monday, 10-17-2011

Since last month, I gained a half pound. Since a month ago I’d lost a half a pound, I now weigh about what I did two months ago – that’s better than a net gain. But it’s not the progress I want either!

Of the two measures of my waist I take to try to make them more comparable, the conservative, relaxed one was less and the more normal and slightly tense one was about that much more. Oh well! Again, that’s not bad news; but it’s not the good news I want either

The normally but not excessively relaxed waist measure, the conservative one, was 39 & 1/4 inches -- a bit less than that same measure was last month. The normally but not excessively tense measure was about 38 & 3/4 inches -- a bit more.

I now need to lose 6 pounds total to return to my goal weight. And, I still need to lose at least three to 6 inches off my waist.

According to pictures I’ve seen, I’m now at about 22 % bodyfat or a bit more, perhaps 25%. To remove my abdominal fat, according to those same pictures, I also need to add enough muscle to stay at or just slightly below my goal weight AND lose about 12% to 15% of my current bodyweight as fat.

This translates into losing 20 to 25 pounds of fat while gaining 14 to 20 pounds of muscle.

My strength training has gone decently lately; but I’ll eventually need to add some heavier dumbbells and go the gym to use heavier weights as well to do that. That’s mostly true for leg exercises since I’ve not done enough heavier exercises for them.

(Eventually I’ll also need to get a specialized minibike exerciser I can use while seated at my desk and another I can use while reading at home.

They don’t yet make those that I know of but most people today need them. Given the health harm of sitting too much and how many people do that, these minibikes and chairs that match them well are coming soon I think.

Walking burns about 300 calories an hour. (200 if you are skinny and walk slowly to over 500 if you walk really fast or walk somewhat fast but are much heavier.)

Using a seated minibike exerciser that you use much less effort on but keep moving slowly most of the time you sit can easily burn 50 calories an hour.

Then if like many people today you sit for 6 hours a day, you could easily add an extra 2100 calories a week by using a seated minibike exerciser most of the time you sit at home or at work. That would help people lose about 2 and a half pounds a month for a few months once they got into the habit of always using one.

If I’d used one of the seated minibikes since I began my current fatloss plan, I’d still need to add the extra muscle to be at my goal weight. But I’d be trying to add muscle weight to get back to my goal weight! That’s because I’d be 10 to 15 pounds less fat.)

A. Last month, my two part plan to eat differently was a bit better.

1. My plan to eat less almond butter was a bit better.

I was unable to cut back to one serving a week. But I did about the same number of servings but used a smaller spoon and a bit smaller serving.

2. I had also planned to eat a few thawed frozen, organic, broccoli sprouts in place of the almond butter. (I had found before that adding nonstarchy vegetables is effective.)

I DID still manage to eat a good bit more thawed frozen, organic, broccoli sprouts last month. I put the frozen chunks in their container much more consistently and ate some of the thawed florets most evenings compared to three months ago.

B. I still had the significant worry most of last month. But I have taken action to try to resolve it. And, I have worked on building a just in case strategy too since last month.

I’ll still worry for quite a while since it will take months to know if my efforts helped, but I’m somewhat calmer emotionally. That will help me avoid gaining fat from eating too many comfort foods.

C. Because before this month, I got a minor injury doing my jump rope in part because I skipped doing it a bit too often, I did not skip my jump rope sessions at all this past month. Now that I’ve done that and the cooler weather is arriving, I’ll begin to build that back. Then I’ll try to make some progress!

Similarly, I was doing my short kettlebell routine just after my jump rope, but I skipped it to help me be sure to do the jump rope one day a week and the other day when I was doing it more often, I also skipped for the same reason and because it was too hot. Now the cooler weather is arriving, I’ll begin do my short kettlebell routine again and to build that back and eventually return to making progress in it.

D. I haven’t the time on Thursday nights to go to the gym for heavier leg exercise. But I will begin to experiment with doing one leg at a time half squats and begin to work to do full squats holding my kettlebell. That will almost be as much work as squatting with 225 pounds with two legs. That’s still not much weight; but it’s a good bit more than I have been using!

If that works and adds some muscle to my legs and butt, my waist should go down and the scale may go down also.

E. The good news is that most of what I did to lose the 15 pounds I wanted and 3 pounds extra I lost temporarily is still in place. I’m still doing those things. And, I am still 9 pounds lighter than I was when I started.

I’ll certainly keep doing those things!

F. But the real news is that I will try a new way to cut calories next month.

I read two separate reports on this. One said that fasting one day a week tended to cut pounds of fat without triggering the famine response and even had health benefits. The other said that eating your normal breakfast and then just that one day, skipping your lunch and dinner had the same effect.

I’m not convinced that’s really a benefit to your health when you already don’t pig out on tons of calories of harmful foods. Nor do I think I’m likely to be able to do it or keep doing it.

BUT, I’ve decided to try something along those lines next month.

For lunch on Thursdays, I’ve been eating walnuts, pecans, a half sandwich on whole grain bread, a serving of raw broccoli and baby food winter squash. And, I’ve been eating cooked pinto beans, parmesan cheese, extra virgin olive oil, spices, and nonfat cottage cheese plus pasta sauce for dinner.

This month, on Thursdays only, I’ll only eat the serving of raw broccoli for lunch.

And, I’ll delete the pinto beans and the nonfat cottage cheese and the parmesan cheese and half the extra virgin olive oil and pasta sauce and put the remaining past sauce and extra virgin olive oil the baby food winter squash only that I have been eating for lunch.

The calories not in those two meals are close to enough 825 calories to cause a one pound fat loss by next month. That, of course, is only if I can do it without adding a large snack or eating extra the following day – AND if I can do it on a permanent basis!

The better news is that if it almost works and is almost doable, I may be able to make it work by adding some non-caloric fiber so my tummy doesn’t get quite so empty.

(PGX from the kanjac root does work for some people for this purpose and to slow blood sugar rise for people who need that. But I’d prefer to do without the added expense; it may tend to plug me up too much; and it soaks up water enough it may tend to prevent uptake of water soluble vitamins.)

So, I’ll try doing without it first. Then I’ll try half the suggested amount of the PGX just at dinner. If I can do this strategy either of those two ways, this one strategy added to what I’m already doing will cause me to lose about 14 pounds of fat over a year or so.

At worst, I’ll lose back the 6 pounds of fat I’m now carrying above my goal weight and get me back down to my goal weight.

At best, I’ll lose the 14 pounds of fat or more and add 8 pounds or more of muscle from my other work and my waist will finally get noticeably smaller and still have me at my goal weight.

I’ll let you know how that works next month!

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post: Monday, 9-19-2011

Since last month, I lost a half pound.

This past month my waist measured the same as the month before.

I also took two measures to try to make them more comparable. The normally but not excessively relaxed waist measure, the conservative one, was the same 39 & 3/4 inches as that same measure last month. The normally but not excessively tense measure was about 38 inches.

I now need to lose 5 1/2 pounds total to return to my goal weight. And, I still need to lose at least three to 6 inches off my waist.

According to pictures I’ve seen, I’m now at about 22 % bodyfat or a bit more, perhaps 25%. To remove my abdominal fat, according to those same pictures, I also need to add enough muscle to stay at or just slightly below my goal weight AND lose about 12% to 15% of my current bodyweight as fat.

This translates into losing 20 to 25 pounds of fat while gaining 14 to 20 pounds of muscle.

My strength training has gone decently lately; but I’ll eventually need to add some heavier dumbbells and go the gym to use heavier weights as well to do that. That’s mostly true for leg exercises since I’ve not done enough heavier exercises for them.

(Eventually I’ll also need to get a specialized minibike exerciser I can use while seated at my desk and another I can use while reading at home.

They don’t yet make those that I know of but most people today need them. Given the health harm of sitting too much and how many people do that, these minibikes and chairs that match them well are coming soon I think.

Walking burns about 300 calories an hour. (200 if you are skinny and walk slowly to over 500 if you walk really fast or walk somewhat fast but are much heavier.)

Using a seated minibike exerciser that you use much less effort on but keep moving slowly most of the time you sit can easily burn 50 calories an hour.

Then if like many people today you sit for 6 hours a day, you could easily add an extra 2100 calories a week by using a seated minibike exerciser most of the time you sit at home or at work. That would help people lose about 2 and a half pounds a month for a few months once they got into the habit of always using one.

If I’d used one of the seated minibikes since I began my current fatloss plan, I’d still need to add the extra muscle to be at my goal weight. But I’d be trying to add muscle weight to get back to my goal weight! That’s because I’d be 10 to 15 pounds less fat.

A. Last month, my two part plan to eat differently was a bit better.

1. My plan to eat less almond butter was a bit better.

I was unable to cut back to one serving a week. But I did cut back last month a bit from what I ate the month before that.

2. I had also planned to eat a few thawed frozen, organic, broccoli sprouts in place of the almond butter. (I had found before that adding nonstarchy vegetables is effective.)

I DID manage to eat a good bit more thawed frozen, organic, broccoli sprouts last month. I put the frozen chunks in their container much more consistently and ate some of the thawed florets most evenings last month.

To the extent that I ate less almond butter, this likely was what helped me to do that.

That was my most important goal for last month.

Next month I need to be sure to continue doing this!

B. I still had the significant worry most of last month. But I have taken action to resolve it. And, I have worked on building a just in case strategy too since last month.

I’ll still worry for quite a while since it will take months to know if my efforts helped, but I’m somewhat calmer emotionally. That will help me avoid gaining fat from eating too many comfort foods.

C. Though some of my progress was stopped by a minor injury on my two evenings a week doing jump rope, I was making progress before that. And, wanting to make sure the minor injury stays healed once it does, even though I had to cut back a bit from what I had planned, I’ve been better about doing the jump rope both evenings a week instead of just once.

D. The week before my measurement day last month, my wife and I went to a special breakfast. I ate well. I don’t think I ate enough extra to gain 3 pounds. But some of the 3 pounds I gained last month may be because I overdid a bit then.

We were unable to go to that monthly event this time. So that may have helped too.

E. The good news is that most of what I did to lose the 15 pounds I wanted and 3 pounds extra is still in place. I’m still doing those things. And, I am still 9 and 1/2 pounds lighter than I was when I started.

I’ll keep that up and work to implement the fixes from the problems I had last month and the month before.

I’ll let you know how that works next month!