|
|
| There are 4 comments on this blog. |
|
|
I did that same diet back in the day after I quit smoking.. I put down the cigarette and picked up the fork 🤦🏻♀️ I stuck with the diet and took spinning classes @ my community college ($26/unit for a semester is unbeatable imo) and was the most fit I’ve ever been.
Weight loss is 90% diet so stick with it.. with age comes decreased metabolism (I’m living proof of that lol) but I will happen if you keep it up.
That’s about all I’ve got, I’m running into a mental wall about weight loss now.
|
|
|
Calories in, calories out.
|
|
|
I skimmed over the Bluezones website. I guess the concept is that researchers found the most common 9 or so lifestyle traits amongst communities, towns, or villages where many people live to 100 yrs old or past 80’s, etc. If people emulate or plug themselves into this type of community or life style, then it’ll add to own life expectancy. One thing I’ve read is that these centurions are active and do a lot of walking. I was already thinking about doing this so reading about these blue zone people just affirms this.
I’m really digging this diet/healthier adventure of mine. I think the more informed and conscious you are about food, the easier I find to stay disciplined and motivated. There’s so many ways to skin a cat as the saying goes when it comes to weight loss. (Oddly, I never understood the origin of that cat expression but I use it often enough. No, I would never abuse cats! Lol)
Today marks my 2 weeks Southbeach Phase 1 and I’m only down 7 lbs and didn’t hit the 8-10 lbs the book talked about. I also didn’t do any exercise either. I’m still very happy w it because it’s been rather effortless. No bread, sugar, fruits, noodles,, rice, pasta, candy took a bit of getting used to for 2 weeks but there’s still a lot of choices within those parameters. I’m still practical if I get into a jam or dining w friends. I’ll try to order stuff w/o the carbs but if need be I’ll order a burger, toss one bun and rip other one in halve and use half buns for top n bottom just to hold the burger together. I could order extra lettuce and go animal style but that a little socially awkward.
I think my road to fitness hack is to implement/layer a different strategy every two weeks with holding off hardcore sweat-inducing workouts till later. I find if I start hardcore workout w all this extra weight I quit after a month even though I’ll lose easy 10 lbs. However, the fact that I’ve dropped 7 lbs in 2 weeks w/o breaking a sweat is amazing. Besides, I’m nursing a sore back. I’d like to drop 8-10 lbs every 2 weeks with each new method layered. For those who care to follow my guinea pig progress of using these kinder gentler weight loss ideas, I’ll update every other week.
For next two weeks, I plan to add 10,000 steps of walking or about 5 miles a day. (Although it is exercise but it’s not intense.) It sounds like a lot but if broken up, it’s do able. My goal is to be strict about the 10,000 steps next two weeks and then drop down to 3 mile daily walks after two weeks. Every 2000 steps is about a mile which takes about 20 mins and burns about 100 calories. My idea is to either walk 45 mins before or after a couple of meals or walk 30 mins after each of 3 meals.
Having been super athletic when I was younger, I used to think walking as a form of exercise was whimpy and no way it’ll burn calories like hardcore cardio or weight lifting. However, I learned from fitness videos that calories burned are calories burned. Your body doesn’t care if you run or walk the calories off. Yesterday at Home Depot I decided to keep waking around the store to add more steps even after I found what I was looking for. I did the same while I was at Target and just walked out w a bottle water afterward.
Obviously if you’re already pretty lean to begin with, losing 8-10 lbs from extra walking for two weeks might not be realistic but I think I have a good 30 lbs to lose before I need to take on more rigorous exercise.
This time I’m opting for more a slow, steady, and less intense way to weight loss.
As for my Southbeach diet, I’m still going on it and do Phase 2 to stay off of bad carbs and bad sugar. I’ll re-incorporate lite sugar fruits like berries, grapefruits and maybe plums (even though this might not be lite sugar?). I’ll stay on my 1800 cal/day allowance. I’ll still track my 3-4 liters of water and food calories via fitness app.
I’ll see you guys in two weeks, and hopefully be another 7-10 lbs lighter for a net loss of 14-20 lbs over a one month period.
Thx to all who shared feedback.
|
|
|
Well, it’s been another two weeks since I’ve started my South Beach diet. I already finished my strict Phase 1 no bread, pasta, rice and sugars even from fruits diet two weeks ago. I dropped 7 lbs. For Phase 2 I get to re-introduce some back so I brought back some fruits. I also had some bread, rice, and pasta a few times a week. I also track and make sure I drink at least 3 liters of water per day that my weight requires.
(Setback 1) Sadly, I binged ate almost double my daily calorie budget about 3-4 days during most recent 2 weeks but amazingly I was delightfully surprised that the next day, most of the extra food passed thru my system and my overall weight increased only by a couple of pounds, which went away when I ate sensibly again back to my 1800 calorie days.
(Setback 2) I’m still a lazy ass and thought getting my 10,000 steps or 5 miles walking/day was going to be easy. I did it for first 5 days and maybe that helped to counteract my binge days but I think I only averaged about 3000 steps or 1.5 miles a day over the recent 2 weeks.
Still to my surprised, I dropped another 7 lbs so down 14 lbs in last 4 weeks! That’s the most I’ve dropped in years and I’ve been able to do rather lazily. Lol!
Upon reflection, I must credit my relative success to: Sticking w Southbeach no/little carb and no/low sugar diet; logging daily food and calorie intake via food app; and unwittingly setting my daily calorie allowance to about 300-400 calories below what I require via lDaily Calorie Needed calculator. There’s lots of them via Googling. Below is one I used cuz easy to input. Just be honest about how active or sedentary you are.
I don’t know why I picked 1800 calories when I started my fitness journey (maybe I used the calorie calculator long time ago and I remembered it) but when I used it recently I realized that for my lazy sedentary lifestyle, I should be eating about 2150 cal/day in order to maintain my body. But who would want to maintain this body! Lol
To me, losing this extra 7 lbs when I binged ate at least 3-4 days these past 2 weeks is like a Xmas bonus that I wasn’t expecting just for continuing what I’ve been already painlessly doing. However, as I lose weight I know I’ll need to lower my daily 1800 calorie allowance more or amp up my physical activity.
Even though I failed in my last goal of walking 10,000 steps a day, I like the accountability of checking in every two week cycle because I see it as another opportunity to reset my failure and try again.
Hence, my goal for next two weeks is to burn off at least 300 calories/day thru some physical activity. That’s 6000 steps or walkimg 3 miles or doing some strenuous workout for 30-45 mins.
One odd thing that I’m bummed out is that none of my weight loss has decreased my waist size as measured around my belly at belly button level. This measurement is different from my pants size, which is below my gut and I feel my pants are looser.
They say your waist size in inches should only be about half (50%) your height in inches in order to be deemed at “healthy” weight. My waist size (at belly button level) to my height is about 70% of my height so that’s no bueno. They say this fat buildup for men is the worst for getting Type 2 diabetes and is evidence that fat has started to build up around certain organs. Scary!
Maybe the only way to lose the belly fat is by working out ? Not sure but I’ll know in a couple of week if working out 300 calories/day will help.
|
| There are 4 comments on this blog. |
|
