ThinkSlim

My 90% Rule For Taking Off The Belly Jelly – Guilt Free Dieting

This guest article was provided by my friend David Huckabay from HowtoBurnStomachFat.net who believes in a sensible approach to losing weight. Just see how successful he was himself with this.

Hi all – I'm going to show you how I got back into shape without beating myself up.

If you will just take a few minutes to read this, I believe that I can show you how to make a lot of progress very quickly – without much of the waste of energy, self doubt and guilt that can be part of a diet program.

Once you read this, you will be able to move forward with any plan and make better progress with less stress!

First of all, remember that none of us are perfect. Forget the celebrities (they have trainers and dieticians), forget the weight loss gurus (they do this full time) and remember that you do have a life outside of your weight loss program. You are not a “professional weight loser” so don’t judge yourself as if you were. My technique is all about being as kind to yourself as you are to others.

The technique that I used to drop 43 pounds of weight back in 2006, and keep it off since is simple. 90% compliance. That’s it. Simply do what you are supposed to do about 90% of the time, and you will see progress. Will you burn stomach fat as quickly as you would have with 100%? Probably not, but there won’t be all that much difference.

At this point you may be thinking “So what? I cheat all the time and sneak a snack or two.” Exactly. You call it cheating because you are breaking the deal you made with yourself to lose weight and get in shape. So you cheat, feel guilty, slip again, and eventually give up altogether. Why do this to yourself?

Let’s take a look at a weight loss plan implemented with the 90% rule:

For the sake of simplicity, we’ll assume that you are eating three times per day, and working out three times per week. So we have 21 meals per week, about 90 meals per month. We have 12 workouts per month.

Right off of the bat, we know that we can go off of our plan for 9 meals! Awesome!

Now, we need to define what I mean by this. I’m not saying that you should go to some buffet and attempt to eat an entire cow. More like this: You are at a cookout, and yes, you can have a normal plate of food just like everyone else. A burger, some chips, some salad. This helps more than you can imagine. Just knowing that if you find yourself at your niece’s birthday party, you can have a piece of cake like everyone else is a tremendous help. Feeling like an outcast, who has to do things differently from everybody else is no fun, especially at a party. The rest of the time (80 meals!) we stick to our plan.

Personally, I saved my special meals for times when I was out with friends or parties. If I was having dinner at home, I stuck to my plan.

Exercise is even easier to handle with this technique. A lot of it has to do with actually counting all of your activity. Ok we have 12 workouts set for this month. So we know we can only skip one or two. But there is a lot of leeway when it comes to exercise, and we can make up workouts fairly easily.

Let’s say I missed my workout on Wednesday of week two this month. Fine, but then on Friday I mowed the lawn – continuous walking and pushing for over an hour! Does anyone want to try and convince me that that is not a workout? Then on Saturday, we went to the zoo. We walked, looked and laughed for 3 hours. Again, does anyone doubt that we burned up a lot of calories doing that?

I give myself half of a workout for my activity in these situations. In the case above, I would actually have my 3 workouts for the week! Take stock of your activity, and be honest with yourself. I think you will see that you are doing a fair amount of uncounted exercise.

Friends, I’ve shown you how to apply the 90% rule to your diet, and to your workouts. It’s up to you to do it – but I know you can. This is a way to take the pressure off, enjoy family outings and parties, and still meet your weight loss goals. So stop beating yourself up for little slips, and give the 90% rule a try. You’ll be glad you did.

David Huckabay

All You Can Eat

I had dinner out at one of those Chinese all you can eat buffet restaurants last night.

Great food and I sampled lots of different dishes (in small quantities, of course!)

But, I couldn't help noticing that the place had more than it's fair share of overweight people (mainly women it has to be said) who didn't seem to have the small quantities approach but seemed to be intent on getting their money's worth.

The plates were tiny which should be an advantage to those of us trying to eat moderately but I was amazed at how much food some people managed to pile on them - like it was a personal challenge or something.

If you have weight to lose and you know temptation will get the better of you then this is probably the last type of restaurant you should choose - other than the one you know will serve you food for a small army whether you ask for a small portion or not.

 

Diet Scams - Lipo-Slim and GI Capsules

I have been writing for years warning about diet scams such as Lipo-Slim and GI Capsules.

But there's no doubt about it these products still sell - the ads are still getting posted into mail boxes worldwide and hard-earned cash is still being spent on trying to lose weight the easy way. (Though the easy way in the ads turns out not to be effective)

If you don't believe me and take heed of what I say then please read these reports from the UK Government body - the Office of fair Trading and don't part with your cash.

The Office of Fair Trading can stop diet scams only within in the U.K. but believe me it is the same scam wherever you live.

Lipo-Slim Scam

GI Capsule scam

Dieting Problems: This Makes Me So Sad...

I received this from a reader yesterday. Let's call her Mary as I don't want to reveal her real name.

"I am 22 years old and losing 1 lb/day by not eating.  I know this is unhealthy but this is how I lose weight (I have been doing it since 7th grade)  but this time I am 250 lbs trying to lose 100 lbs instead of 130 trying to lose 10 lbs.  Will I have hanging skin?  I just want my life back."

It made me so sad.

Because I know there are lots of others like Mary who would like to lose weight fast.

Maybe they have the willpower to succeed like Mary obviously has, maybe not. But the desire is there.

Now Mary knows this way of losing weight is unhealthy.

I agree.

You see you can't lose a pound of fat in a day - you are losing something else as well - a combination of water and vital muscle along with the fat.

I can hear some of you saying "So what! If it works, it doesn't matter. I'm desperate - I'll try anything".

Well just look what happened to Mary.

She started off her drastic weight loss method when she weighed 130lbs - no huge weight at all.

And she starved herself into losing 10lbs or so and at the same time trained her body to survive on very little food - to go into the starvation mode I often talk about where your metabolism slows down to preserve as many precious calories as it can.

So what happened when she got to her goal weight of 120lbs. She felt great and went back to eating normally again.

But her body remembered that it needed to hold onto as much food as possible and that's exactly what it did!

Result: Mary gained weight again - and fast.

And if Mary continued to diet off and on (and it seems she did "this is how I lose weight") the cycle continued with Mary's weight spiraling upwards.

If you are following this kind of weight loss pattern, each time you finish a period of drastic dieting, a little more weight will be gained and the pounds will be harder to lose the next time you go on a diet.

You have to get out of this kind of yo-yo cycle.

It is like feast and famine. You are either getting too much food or you are starving yourself and at the same time you are training your body to get fatter and fatter to preserve itself.

How do you escape from this vicious circle?

You need to retrain your metabolism to work normally by feeding it nourishing food in the right amount for your body so that you are neither gaining weight nor losing it.

Only when your weight has stabilized should you start to reduce a little so that you gradually lose weight.

Above all, work on boosting your metabolism rather than reducing your calories.

It's not an easy process to kick start it but it can be done. See my article 15 Simple Metabolism boosting secrets for some tips on that.

Now for the loose sagging skin question.

If you lose weight slowly your skin will suffer less than if you lose weight fast. Above all stop yo-yo dieting because constantly stretching and shrinking your skin is not doing it any good at all. It's like constantly stretching and releasing a piece of elastic - in the end it loses its ability to ping back into shape. See my article about avoiding loose skin problems for more information.

Despite these practical problems, what made me the most sad about this email was the final sentence in Mary's note "I just want my life back".

You know weight does not actually stop you doing anything - you can still have a fantastic life no matter what size you are. Live life to the full because you only have one - and there are so many things out there to enjoy whether you weigh 120lbs or 250lbs. You are just the same person whatever your size.

The more you do, the less you will have time to brood about your weight, the less you will think about food, the fewer negative feelings you will have and consequently the less you'll think about comforting yourself by eating.  And every activity that gets you out and about burns calories and gives your metabolism a bit of a boost (provided you're NOT starving yourself!)

And if you are really struggling with these issues (Mary or anyone else) then please seek professional help wherever you are - there are many cases where a blog post or an email is just not enough and you may need more support in getting over these deeper personal issues.

I hope this blog post helps any of you "Marys" out there - please get sensible about losing weight

Janice

Bad Weight Loss Coach?

I broke many of my own guidelines on Saturday - especially the ones about stopping when satisfied rather than stuffed and choosing the healthiest options you actually like on a menu, as well as NOT drinking your calories but eating them.

My excuse?

My friend Ros's 50th birthday party at Valvona and Corolla in Edinburgh - 8 friends having lunch together and a great time being had by all.

Now, I really could have said no to the delicious chocolate truffle torte or the third glass of prosecco and I could have chosen something healthier than lamb and beef pine nut meatball lasagne as a main course but I really didn't want to.

And so I didn't.

The good thing about this?

If you eat well most of the time, the odd blow-out like this really doesn't matter. You can enjoy special occasions without guilt and not end up looking twice the size you should be. (but remember this means about once every month or so not once a week!)

Another tip - if you go out for LUNCH rather than DINNER you end up eating less overall - because the meal lasted from 1:30 until 5 or so, for the rest of the day I couldn't eat another thing so overall the calories probably weren't too staggering (although who knows - I never count calories!)

Controlled Indulgence

I just read a great Weight Control article  from the NY Times by Jane Brody who has lost weight and is maintaining her new shape by eating what she likes but in controlled quantities. For example, she treats herself to ice cream but only in half cup measures and only once a day. Read the article for a lot of common sense that you rarely find in the dieting world.

Forbidding food you like is really not wise because you always end up craving the food and eating it anyway. What has got to go, if you want to lose weight, is overindulging in the stuff you like, in fact overindulging in anything whether you like it or not!

Eat modest amounts of healthy foods and small amounts of foods which are not that great nutritionally but do you good emotionally. And make sure you enjoy them rather than eating them guiltily - guilt just takes away any pleasure in the moment and is just a waste of good calories!

Another Diet Scam?

Well I have to say that despite the fact  I should know better even I get taken in sometimes by the media hype surrounding one diet or another and it seems that this is the case with the Kimkims diet which appeared to be one of the most successful of the low-carb diets out there.

I mentioned it on my blog a few times, maybe even drove people to the site. The before and after pictures were just fantastic - and though it was a low-carb diet and I'm not keen on these (or on diets at all for that matter) I left people to make up their own minds.

Kimkims has had something like 40,000 members. Could they all be wrong?

Well it seems that a tale is emerging of false representation, faked before and after pictures and a sad woman at the head who looks like she is a good 300lbs if she is an ounce and who is refusing to appear in public to refute claims she is a fraudster.

You can see the whole sorry tale at the slamboard site - on the right you'll see a link to a  KTLA TV  news report which gives the story in a nutshell.

Obesity : This Takes the Biscuit

Newsbiscuit talks about the link between obesity, overeating and lack of exercise. If you haven't got the news yet and you're still wondering why you or your kids have weight problems read this tongue in cheek report.

In many ways this is not funny because there really are so many people I meet in my profession as a weight loss coach who believe that they are destined to be fat forever but have never wondered about what makes them fat in the first place or looked at what they are putting into their mouths day after day and how little they are moving their bodies.

Except for those with a diagnosed medical condition (and if you suspect this is the case are you being treated for it or using the possibility of it as an excuse?) it always boils down to what they are doing to themselves, how they live their life.

But many just don't get it - they continue to look for the magic diet pill patch or potion or the diet that will end all diets.

You know it's very sad when all that is between you and looking good and feeling good is  what you are in the habit of doing to yourself. Take a closer look at your habits this week and see what they are doing to YOU!

NewsBiscuit: Childhood obesity linked to 'eating too much'

technorati tags:obesity, diet, lose+weight, food+habits

More on Alli from Kimkins

With results like these for so many on her low carb diet it's no wonder Kimmer of Kimkins diet fame is critical of the new over the counter diet drug Alli which needs to be accompanied by a low-fat diet.

She says in her blog entry that on top of the worry of soiling yourself with a "greasy anal discharge" it appears that the drug only blocks 25% of dietary fat - it's basically half-strength Orlistat.

And you need to be on a low-fat diet and exercise routine for weight loss to happen at all - same as with any of those wonder pills.

Now get this, Kimmer has calculated that if you have a modest fat comsumption of 30g a day you will save precisely 68 calories a day by taking Alli - hardly worth the worry of not being able to reach the bathroom on time or the $60 a month price tag.

I still say you're better to change your habits into healthier ones you can live with for the rest of your life and spend that hard-earned $60 on something else entirely.

technorati tags:Kimkins, Alli+diet+drug, kimkims, kimmer, orlistat

Changing Habits is the Only Way to Keep Weight Off

I just read an article by Julia Harvey talking about the almost unbelievable statistic that half of gastric bypass patients put the weight back on.

Now these people wanted to change their shape so badly that they were willing to undergo life-threatening surgery to lose weight.

But they weren't wiling to change their eating and exercise habits to avoid it.

So it's no wonder that they are unwilling to change them either to avoid putting the weight back on after the surgery.

If I could only make you see one thing it's this : there are no magic pills, patches or procedures which will let you eat and do whatever you want without putting on weight.

Either you have habits which allow the weight to drop off and keep you slim forever or you have habits which will ultimately keep you fat no matter what temporary diet you follow to lose weight now and again.

It's your choice and you can make it today if you want - it's up to you whether you want to be slim or struggle with diets all your life.

technorati tags:keeping+weight+off, gastric+bypass, regain+weight, healthy+habits