It’s that time of year again. The time when most who've made a fitness resolution have either already given up on it, or are still maintaining that can-do attitude. Right now, I am doing pretty good and keeping up with a fitness routine. We've joined a gym, and I think the newness, the excitement of this newfangled place, has helped. Fingers crossed I can stick with it after the novelty runs out.
A couple years back, I was required to put my nose to the grindstone. If I lost a couple inches around my gut, we could save ourselves eighty dollars a month. During this time I did very well. I'd gotten lighter than I had been in a long time. I got to where I needed to be. Then slowly but surely, I let some of those habits slip. By golly, I'm going to get back into them. So, here five tricks that helped me lose weight. And, I'll add why those habits slipped away.
1. Drink a lot of water and green tea. I have noticed that when I made a concerted effort to drink more water and less other stuff (even if it didn't have a lot of calories), the pounds shed easier. In addition, I heard green tea was a metabolic enhancer. But, the articles I read said you had to drink a crazy amount of it to have an effect, like 8 cups worth a day. This tip was actually the easiest for me to stick to. So, why did I fail keeping up with this one? I like my other drinks. Coffee, pop, the occasional libation. Plus, it is hard to remember to consciously keep up water and tea consumption.
2. Cut the sweets and other simple carbs. I am no fan of protein only/mostly diets, but sugars and simple carbs carry way too many calories. I really noticed my weight start to drop when I went a spell where I focus on getting my carbs mostly from fruits. Why did I lax in this discipline? Isn't it obvious? Sweets are so good. And white pasta and hot buttery breads are heavenly. When I hit my weight goals, I didn’t want to lose my yummy carbs.
3. Eat more raw vegetables. Broccoli and cauliflower were particularly great. Something about eating raw veggies often made me feel better. For the most part I am still pretty good about eating my vegetables, but from time-to-time my taste buds just don't crave them. Their a chore to eat. Other times, it's just a pain to prepare them. And, the ready to eat packages cost so much.
4. Circuit training. Just being physically active helps as well, but I think when you simply do the same thing your body gets used to it and says, "eh, we got this. We don't need to burn any calories for this exercise.” For instance, when I trained for a marathon, I was surprised by how little weight I lost. Yes I lost weight at first, but then plateaued. Here I was running up to 30 mile a week and no longer losing weight. Exercise variety and intensity is key, and that's all circuit training is. When I stayed true to a circuit training regiment (1 hour 3 times a week), the weight melted off me like butter on a hot biscuit. (Uh, maybe I shouldn't have used that metaphor.) Seriously, circuit training is awesome for losing weight. If it is so great, then why did I stop? Because I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate circuit training. I hate the intensity. I hate the misery. I hate pain. I'm a naturally lazy individual, and circuit training takes so much effort. When I exercise, I like to escape into a mental zone, but the rapid change up in circuit training doesn't let me zone out as I am exercising.
5. Eat less. I was watching an episode of The Doctors once, and the main doctor said, if you're going to lose weight you have to eat right. It's true. If I could just exercise and lose weight, that would be great. Now some people do exercise like crazy, and eat whatever they want. But, really one can overdo an exercising routine. One time, when my job was doing a biggest loser competition, I was having a plantar fasciitis issues. And, I just couldn’t exercise like I wanted. So, instead, I ate less, and I ate better. It worked. I won the contest. I almost said to myself, "It shouldn’t be this easy." It was. So, if it was that easy why didn't I stick with it? Because I love food. I love food almost as much as I inversely hate circuit training. I love grilling a fat hunks of juicy meat on the grill, with all the fatty, carby fixin's. Everything is better deep fried. Plus, here in South Dakota, there are always so many opportunities to get free, delicious goodies. How does one find the willpower to turn down a free food. And, then at these events, they often make too much. Your stomach and people are saying you can't let that go to waste....
I need to stop talking about food... Maybe some circuit drills will help me get my mind off it.
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