Help Me Lose Weight

Help me lose weight. Ask and you shall receive. I have lost over 60 pounds now, without magic or starving myself. You can too, and for free as well.

Are you pulling your hair out trying to find the magic cure for weight loss, only to come up short, and several pounds heavier? Maybe its because you're trying too many “magic solutions”. Here is the absolute, bottom-line, complete truth about diet plans: almost all of them work. Well of course they do, you're thinking, because if they didn't all these people wouldn't be announcing that they've lost all this weight. They wouldn't have all these pictures of celebrities “before and after”. So if you want to lose weight, you can try any diet in which you know you will follow, religiously.

What doesn't work? Magic. Listen you're not going to be able to drink cat urine saber-tooth excavated from an archaeological dig and transform yourself into Twiggy. It's just not gonna happen. It's possible some of those fads work. For instance, green tea works, but you'd have to drink a deadly amount to make you lose weight alone. It helps, just like vitamins help. And just like all those diet plans help. Stick with just about any diet and it'll help you lose weight. But that's not the real problem with weight loss, is it? When you scream: Help me lose weight, you should actually scream: help me change my metabolism.

The real problem with weight loss is that it comes back, with a vengeance. Doesn't it seem sometimes that weight loss is like yin and yang or up and down. Speaking of up and down, I don't believe the Law of Gravity was right. It's not what goes up must come down, it's actually:what goes down must come up, and then slap itself on your ass and hips and laugh, evilly, as it runs away. The law of weight loss should be adopted as such. Or just assert that Murphy's Law to weight loss, what can go wrong, will go wrong.

Speaking of religiously (up above remember that boring first paragraph?), how many times have you asked God:'Help me lose weight'? I'm sorry, but God doesn't help you lose weight. But it sure doesn't hurt to be inspired by your faith in God. Faith is a beautiful thing, use it. God gave you this wonderful, fragile yet strong, machine, don't you owe it to God to take care of it as best as possible? Listen I'm Catholic and not above making you feel guilty about taking care of your body! However, I have much bigger plans for your weight loss, than guilt. In the meantime, God isn't going to cure your weight problem, that's your job. He gave you life and hope and nature, the rest is up to you.

If anyone is still with me after my lecture, pull up a chair and read. To lose weight you only need to do two things. These aren't easy things. And you probably know whats coming next: Eat Less and Exercise More! I hope if you're reading all of my weight loss hubs and blogs, that you realize I preach the exact concept in each one. Count calories and exercise.

One pound = 3500 calories. So for the non-math adept people, like me, to lose one pound you need to burn or reduce caloric intake by 3500 calories. Reduce your calories by 1750 and exercise for 1750 calories a week. 5 days a week exercise for 350 calories, or 30-40 minutes (for heavier gals its less, for thinner gals its more). Reducing the calories you eat by 250 7 days a week. Those two little things combined will cause 1 pound of weight loss a week. 52 pounds a year. Sounds pretty easy? It's not quite that easy ( it never is, is it?). Two points which are really important to weight loss. Changing routines and eating enough.

Firstly, along with reducing calories ( I recommend calorie counting from Sparkpeople.com), you'll need to change your eating habits. Eating a set amount of calories a day is a great way to get into a rut, become bored with a routine and reach a plateau. Vary up your calories. One – two days a week eat a little more calories. You should stick with a range of calories a week. For example; you're reducing your calories by 1750 calories per week (about 250 a day) some days reduce them by only 100 and some days reduce the full 250. Even better reduce 500 calories a day. Always make sure you're eating at least 1200 calories. This is really important. If your body goes into starvation mode it will freeze up your weight loss. Once that happens it can be weeks before you begin to lose weight again! Worse than that you'll lose precious muscle, which is more compact than fat and burns more calories! That will affect all your future weight loss efforts.

Secondly, you're going to need to vary your exercise routines. That ugly word is coming again: plateau. Want to avoid the dreaded plateau? Happy about how you don't breathe as hard when you're working out for a few weeks? Guess what! When you're not breathing hard enough, you're not burning as many calories! When you start to get used to your exercising its time to change it. Add some intervals. Go swimming instead of running, use a bike instead of aerobics. Whatever makes you breathe harder (more weights, hills). Always always always weight train!!!!

Lastly I want to make this point. If you stop exercising and watching what you eat, you'll be in the exact same place in a few years.