a guide to losing weight the healthy way Options

[iheartjohn]

Mmmhmmm.

Please note that the ONLY way you will lose weight if you burn more calories than you eat.

Example:

I ate 1200 calories today.
I burned 2400 calories. Thus, I lost 2 pounds.

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Got it? Okay, onwards.


Step 1. Eat right.

Don't cut out your carbs, okay? You're young. Don't screw with your metabolism.

The essentials: vegetables (crrots, lettuce, broccoli); fruits (apples, oranges, bananas); grains (cereal, bread, pasta); dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese) and iron (meats, fish, nuts)

Here are some eating tips.


Instead of French Fries, consider baked potato chips.

Instead of sugar, try Splenda or brown sugar.

(more suggestions coming soon)



Cutting these out of your regular diet will cut MAJOR calories.

Eliminate ALL soda.
Eliminate anything salty.
Cut out junk food ALL TOGETHER.



9 Rules of Eating

1.Prepare a balanced meal plan and stick to it.

2.Try to stick to regular meal times the best you can.

3.Eat slowly and chew each bite completely to decrease your appetite.

4.Avoid eating while you're watching TV or preparing a meal. It is far too easy to overeat when you are distracted or surrounded by food.

5.Cutout a picture of someone whose figure you admire, to keep you motivated.

6.Eat the most filling, least fattening foods first (for example salad before the pizza, soup before the meal) so you fill up faster and consume fewer calories.

7.People that eat mostly fruits, vegetables and whole grains often find that they can eat as much as they want without gaining weight.

8.Drink four to six glasses of water each day, especially before meals. Water has no calories and it will help you to feel full.

9.Remember it takes your brain 20 minutes to realize that you are full, so eat slowly and chew your food as long as you can.


Boost your metabolism
Why? To keep your energy pulsating and your body in shape.

1.Drinking hot water as apposed to cold water can increase the speed of your metabolism and burn more calories.

2.Do not skip breakfast. A breakfast bowl of vegetables and brown rice is a great way to kick-start your metabolism for the day.

3.Avoid stress. Physical and emotional stress activates the release of cortisol, a steroid that slows metabolism.

4.Sleep. Research shows that people who don't sleep for seven to eight hours a night are more prone to weight gain.

5.Be positive! The more you feel good about yourself the easier and faster it is to lose weight.



Now on to being active.

Firstly, don't automatically run like hell everyday for the next two weeks to shed some weight. Start yourself off in moderation, so you don't get tired.

Start with a modest goal, like 15 to 20 minutes at a leisurely pace.

Gradually extend the duration and the speed.

Walk up one or two gentle slopes.

Your walk should be comprised of three segments: warm-up, exercise pace and cool-down.


How to walk:
That's right. You're probably doing it wrong.

Walk with your chin up and your shoulders held slightly back.

The heel of your foot should touch the ground first. Roll your weight forward.

Swing your arms as you walk.

To avoid stiff or sore muscles or joints, start gradually. Over several weeks, begin walking faster, going further, and walking for longer periods of time.

Walk on soft ground.

Rehydrate yourself -- drink 8-10 ounces of water for every 20 minutes of activity.


More information.

The more you walk, the better you will feel. You also use more calories.

Walking will give you more energy, make you feel good, help you to relax, reduce stress, help you sleep better, tone your muscles, help control your appetite, increase the number of calories your body uses.

To lose weight, it's more important to walk for time than speed.

Walking at a moderate pace yields longer workouts with less soreness - leading to more miles and more calories spent on a regular basis.

Make walking a daily habit or at least 3-5 times a week depending on your schedule.




If you want to add some tips of your own, you're very welcome to. I will add more of my own later.

[illriginal]

Eat 6-8 meals a day, no oily food, no salty food, no fast food.
Eat carbs and proteins. Eat more carbs in the morning than the afternoon. Carbs gives you energy. Try to make all your meals have protein. Only meals that shouldn't have protein would be fruits and vegetables (they barely have any to begin with)

Meats: Turkey, Chicken, Steak, Tuna, Salmon, Talapia, etc....

Whole Grains: Brown rice, whole wheat bread (make sure it's not bleached flour), oatmeal, and pasta.

Fruits: Apples, Bananas, Oranges (try to not eat fruits that are very sweet such as strawberries, grapes, kiwis, mangoes etc...)

Dairy: Glass of milk each day, yogurt, cottage cheese.

Nuts: Handful of most types of nuts is good as a meal.

Water: 1 to 2 gallons of water each day

Cardio: HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) This is a type of cardio where after you warm up (light jog) you pick up the pace just a little bit faster in your jogging pace. You jog for 2 minutes then switch to sprinting for 15-20 seconds, then you quickly switch back to jogging again. You're doing intervals of high intensity runs, this type of running will boost up your heart rate within 2 minutes, will make your sweat alot more effectively (which is your goal to make you lose fat), and will build up your endurance and quickness in running. This type of training makes your quicker in running for the fact that your "fast twitch" muscles are being worked hard. What are "fast twitch" muscles? Those are your reflexes/reaction muscles, the stronger they are the quicker you react.

With this type of cardio, you only do it for 10-12 minutes if you're first starting off. Then once you get used to it (you wont be out of breath as like you were when you first started this training) you should bump it up to 15 minutes, then 17 minutes, then finally 20 minutes should be your max. Once you're able to do 20 minutes of this and you can endure this much intensity, you're now considered an athlete.

Your new goal is to add more intensity, how is this done? There's two different ways to go about this, both work very effectively, this level is where vascularity is built.

A) Go back to doin 12 minutes, but instead of sprinting for 20 seconds, you're now
gonna sprint for 30 seconds. So the interval should be 2 minute jog then 30 second sprint then back to 2 minute jog.

B) Go back to doing 12 minutes, but instead of jogging for 2 minutes, you're now gonna jog for 1 minute. So the interval should be 1 minute jog then 20 second sprint, then 1 minute jog again.

After you're able to do 20 minutes worth of HIIT of either formula (A&B) you then bump up the amount of sprint time. You do not want to jog less than 1 minute, instead you want to get to the point of joggin 1 minute, then sprinting 1 minute for 20 minutes. Once you're able to do this, congratulations! You've endured the worst of the worst, so running a mile will not only be cake work for you, but it'll be a quicker time. If you're able to defeat HIIT, endurace training such as 10, 20, etc. mile runs will be the next challenge, but wouldn't be as difficult as HIIT.

Your goal in losing weight is simple:

Eating healthy food (the foods I listed above are all healthy)

Eatin the right amount of calories to control your weight (to lose weight, you want to eat less calories than "maintenance calories" or atleast burn more calories than maintainance, but keep in mind you MUST eat atleast 6 meals in order for this to be effective 100%)

Keep your motabolism running at all times by eating 6-8 times (Your motabolism helps burn fat)

Drink enough water, atleast 1-2 gallons a day (Water liquifies fat, so it makes hard fat into loose fat, which is essential for cardio)

Do cardio, rather it be the treadmill, rather it be track, rather it be 10 yard sprints, rather it biking... any activity that makes your heart race and makes you sweat is considered cardio)


Remember this, drinkin plenty of water loosens of your fat, loosening your fat makes it easier to burn. How do you burn this loose fat? With cardio, how do you know cardio is burning your fat? When you sweat... how do bodybuilders know it's a fact that you're burning fat when you sweat? Taste your sweat, if it tastes really salty, guess what? That's really fat liquified. Also eatin a lot of sodium, salty food, and greasy/oily foods is gonna prevent the water intake from doing its job. In fact that's what creates fat to begin with. Large amount of grease becomes layered fat, salt/sodium "hardens" fat, makin it harder to melt the fat off.


Good luck... and if you ever have any question, PM me or IM me on AIM: Tamacracka
I'll be glad to help, especially Americans, since our country's full of obese people, thanks to fast food.