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The Basics to understanding Weight Loss...

DemoN

By DemoN
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DemoN

DemoN

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...and rants on myths as I’ve learned them

According to DemoN ;)

 

I’m not a fitness trainer. I’m not a Nutritionist. I’m not an athlete. I’m just a fat guy who one day decided to do something about my weight problem. I personally dropped from 304 pounds to 161…with a lot of struggles and triumphs along the way. I’ve learned a lot over my time….and I still learn every day. This isn’t a quick story to pat myself on the back here and give myself a “way-to-go!” for that accomplishment. I write this in a hope that I can give you some personal experience to help you focus on YOUR goal and give you tips and thoughts on how to get there. If you are 183 pounds and you are looking to shed 10 pounds in 3 weeks for the summer….this isn’t for you. This is for my friends who are significantly over weight and are looking at a long term weight loss.

 

Low Carb. Over my time, I’ve decided there’s two good, real, ways to go about changing your eating. The first is Low Carb, or “Atkins.” Low Carb is simply removing carbohydrates from your intake and force your body to burn stored fat for energy. You eat a lot of meat, cheese, eggs, veggies, ect. No breads, rice, pasta, ect. Low Carb is a bit stricter of a diet, in my opinion; simply because you don’t LIMIT certain foods…you remove them completely. But it works. That is a FACT. And the stricter you are, the MORE it works. I know this because Low Carb carried me from 304 to 204 in less than a year. Google Atkins and read over the induction phase. Any questions from there feel free to hit me up.

 

Low Calorie. Surely you know Low Calorie. Eat fewer calories than you body needs. Black magic happens. *POOF* You get thin. Most of you are on, or HAVE DONE, a low calorie diet at some point in your life. And that’s part of my problem with low calorie dieting. Even though almost everyone has done it…so FEW know how to do it RIGHT. I’m free writing this…but I having a feeling that most of this will focus on what I feel people are doing WRONG when it comes to low calorie.

 

“I’m Starting a Diet.” Personally…I’ve come to hate that line and mainly because what it implies. “Diet,” means “temporary” in most people’s mind. Add in the fact that it’s normally it’s a fad, or a quick fix diet, those people are starting when they drop that “I’m on a diet” line and it’s not surprising that so many people fail. Will drinking nothing but chicken broth and eating 2 peanuts 3 times a day make you drop weight? SURE. Are you going to gain it ALL back when you go back to pounding pizza and beers? OF COURSE. To do long term weight loss, and to KEEP it off, that mentality of temporary diets HAS to go. You are looking for a life style change. You are looking to completely modify your eating habits. Because, my friend, you HAVE to. I can show you how to drop weight. I CAN. But if you go back to eating EXACTLY how you are eating NOW…guess what? You’re gonna be fat again.

 

“I’m gonna start eating right!” Yeah? That’s great! Get OUT of that “fad diet” mentality and actually take control of your nutrition! Except you have NO real idea what that means, do you? We hear people throw around the “eat healthy!” line…but you think that means eat plain salads and boiled chicken breast 3 times a day, don’t you?

 

“I wanna lose weight. Better eat another salad.” MMMMMM!! Maybe a nice, plain, tiny, grilled chicken salad with light dressing (DON’T PUT IT ALL ON SALAD THOUGH! DIP YOUR DAMN FORK IN IT!) with a side of NOTHING and please don’t put anything awesome like cheese or bacon? Doesn’t that sound GOOD!? You know how many 200 calorie (150 of those calories come from your damn dressing), tasteless, salads I eat a month? ZERO. When I DO make a salad, it’s normally piled with some awesome garlic wheat croutons, buffalo chicken and grilled veggies on Spinach leaves because they taste kickass. But that is RARE simply because of how BIG those salads are for me now. Which brings me to my next one…

 

“I eat what I want, but I PORTION CONTROL! WEEE!” This is a set up for failure to me. You buy a whole pizza….but you only eat one slice? You buy a steak dinner….but only eat half the steak? Be honest with yourself…how long until that 1 slice becomes…2? And then 3? Or that half a steak becomes the whole steak? A week? Two? Then you are right back to where you were before…and you just failed another diet. OR you fight through it, credit yourself with that INSANELY impressive amount of willpower THAT just took and….

 

“I’m ALWAYS hungry now!” So you pound crappy salads and portion control every meal and for some reason your stomach is CONSTANTLY growling? How odd.

 

All that sound familiar? I bet it does. Allow me to present exhibit G (for GET BENT):

2012-06-09_12-51-11_313.jpg

This, my friends, is a WHOLE FOODS dinner…one of my design. That’s grilled chicken on a bed of whole wheat pasta, all natural marinara sauce, and a pile of chopped grilled veggies. That meal? 400 calories. Wait-a-minute! That’s the same calories as our crappy plain salad and twice the size?! What sorcery is this!! It’s not a trick…It’s simply natural ingredients. Whole wheat pasta instead of enriched flour. Grilled chicken instead of breaded. Natural marinara sauce instead of some over processed, sugar loaded crap.

 

“I don’t have time to cook!” No? But you have time to sit around 30 mins for that supreme pizza to show up, huh? My meals average 400-500 calories, and take around 15 mins to make.

 

“Fast Food is cheaper!” Oh yeah? A standard Big Mac meal, with fries and a drink, runs about 7 bucks…yes? Figure that twice a day….for one person… lunch and dinner…7 days a week. That’s right at 100 bucks a week in fast food. Not EVEN counting breakfast. My weekly groceries for one person average 65-70 a week for all 3 meals.

 

And just some fun facts about those two meals we are comparing:

chart.png

How's THAT taste, Ronald?

 

“I need a cheat day.” You’ve choke down salad after salad while following your poorly planned DIET…and, damn it, you DESERVE a treat! Sigh. This is the WORST kind of thinking. You, very literally, work your *** off for 6 days a week…only to take that 7th day and SCREW UP as much of that progress as you possibly can? I’m sure you say “one meal/day won’t KILL me!” yeah….but it damn sure won’t HELP you either. My favorite is that most people weight themselves at the end and beginning of the week. So they weight themselves Friday…see that they DROPPED weight, get all proud, then “reward” themselves with a huge pile of crap food…THEN get on the scale MONDAY, see they’ve GAINED a few pounds back…and get depressed. What a way to go about your life, sheez. “But I need it!!” You know why you NEED a “cheat day?” Because your meals every OTHER day BLOW. So instead of looking FORWARD to those meals….you look forward to the one day you don’t HAVE to eat them.

 

Look. You can keep starting and failing diets if you like. Hammering salads like you’re half RABBIT and feeling like you’re gonna starve. Stepping on that scale Monday being pissed about what you did Saturday. If it works for you…then, by all means, have at it. Just don’t blame me when you either FAIL that diet and gain the weight back….or meet your GOAL, quit the “diet” and gain the weight back.

 

But if you actually WANT to change who you are then you need to design a plan that you can actually LIVE with….not simply DEAL with. Take your favorite foods; work on ways to make them better….cleaner….smarter. Learn to give up those things you simply CANNOT eat anymore…and learn to replace it with something that’s equally good to you but also good FOR you.

 

Get rid of preservatives. Condiments. Dressings. Enriched Flours. Artificial ingredients. Fats. Oils. And you’ll QUICKLY find that your “low calorie meals” will start getting bigger and tastier. Your options will start opening up beyond salads and boiled chicken breasts. And maybe you’ll start looking forward your next meal…instead your next cheat meal.

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Z71_Denali

Z71_Denali

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couldn't have said it better myself!

 

i went on a low cal diet when i started losing weight (Jenny Craig food) and lost about 40 lbs in 9 months doing that. this really trained me to control my portion sizes, but i was tired of the same food week after week so i tried something else... went on hiatus for a few months watching what i ate and was able to maintain the weight.

 

i started eating My Fit Foods which is a healthy portion controlled meal plan that is strictly made with whole foods. this really got me to concentrate on avoiding carbs after lunch. while on their 21 day challenge i lost 9 pounds. and continued to eat their meals until i moved in May

 

i've been on my own since, cooking for myself, maintaining my weight, but since i started training with P90X (thanks to you, Demon) i've burned off more fat, but gained muscle. my net weight loss is at 60 pounds now since day 1 18 months ago.

 

i guess what i'm getting at that i could add, is you are what you eat! sure a miracle weight loss pill might work for the short term, but your more than likely going to gain all that weight back and then some sooner or later (trust me, i've been on that merry go round a few times)

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DemoN

DemoN

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i started training with P90X (thanks to you, Demon) i've burned off more fat, but gained muscle. my net weight loss is at 60 pounds now since day 1 18 months ago.

 

i tell you...in complete seriousness. stuff like THAT makes me feel like all the effort and rants and convos and emails and texts i go thru and respond to daily....that it is ALL worth it. Helping one friend change his/her life for the better by using the information and experiences i've gone thru = GREATEST FEELING EVER. :rockon:

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DemoN

DemoN

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Are you by any chance a member of TheSandTrap forums? I saw something eerily similar to this not too long ago. Nevertheless, it's a good post and very informative

 

lol the WHAT? is that Golf?

 

no...not a member of that forum. i wrote this up over the last two days...in response to a simple little one-line posted on my FB wall.

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Redbeard

Redbeard

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This is a great post, and I've witnessed James live this the last two years.

 

It's inspiring to see him do what he did, and inspired me to gain all that weight I needed to gain.

Gain? So you ate all the food he gave up?

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DemoN

DemoN

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funny thing is...to properly GAIN weight. the RIGHT weight...is the EXACT same thing as the proper way to LOSE weight, save for one difference. whole food, high protein, healthy eating....just in a calorie surplus instead.

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