Weight Loss Advice from a Skinny Girl

This is going to seem like an EXTREMELY strange post to follow the one below that talks about buying several hundred pounds of meat. But in my writing circle, the discussion question was posed this week for ideas on weight loss. Here is how I responded:

Well, I'm not exactly your target audience for a discussion on weight loss...my Grave's caused me to lose about 10 pounds in '07, which I'm still trying to regain. But here's the kind of advice I usually give to my girlfriends who are looking to lose weight...apparently, they believe the skinny girl is the authority, and I'm always happy to spout my .02 worth. (My background: I studied weight training and cardio in college - not enough credits to be a minor, but enough to learn quite a bit. On the nutrition side, I've always been a bit fanatical about counting various items like calories and fat grams and such...all in attempts to gain, not lose, weight, but still good knowledge to have and extensive reading under my belt.)

The best way to control weight isn't to enroll in any fancy or expensive programs or follow fanatical diets. The best way is through careful moderation of diet and exercise.

The best kind of exercise for actual weight loss is cardio. Weight training does not equal weight loss - instead, it sheds fat weight in exchange for building muscle weight, which actually means that you could end up gaining weight instead of losing. Muscle weighs more than fat. And while gaining muscle is never a bad thing, it's not the best thing to strive for when you're really just trying to lose a few pounds. It's actually easier to start toning your body after you hit your target weight than before...so concentrate on loss first, tone second.

Now...what kinds of cardio exercises are best? Many magazines give the advice to just walk for 30 minutes per day. In reality, this is bad advice. For cardio to actually burn enough calories for you lose weight, you have to increase your heart rate substantially above it's resting beats per minute. And regularly paced walking just doesn't elevate your heart rate enough to do much good. (See below for faster paced walking and its benefits.) Swimming doesn't do a lot either, unfortunately. Swimming is GREAT for toning, but unless you swim long laps at brisk paces, your heart rate just doesn't increase enough to actually burn pounds very quickly.

So what are good cardio exercises? Stationary bikes work wonders, especially if you're looking for a low-impact exercise. 30 minutes per day at a mid-level range that gets your heart rate up into the ideal cardio zone will do wonders for your waistline. If you're up for higher impact exercise, consider jogging or running on a treadmill. Back in the lower-impact zone is using an elliptical machine. I love my elliptical machine - it was the best purchase I ever made - but unfortunately, my high blood pressure (a symptom of my Grave's) makes it hard for me to use it for very long because of the motion of my arms and that impact on my heart. Aerobics tapes and classes are ok, but honestly won't burn as many calories as dedicated machine usage. The problem with aerobics classes is the downtime between routines - to effectively burn calories, you really need to have a set span of time where your heart rate is consistently elevated. Since aerobics classes have high times mixed with low
times, they aren't as effective as 30 minutes straight on a machine.

Now, on to diet. Low fat is a pretty good myth. Low fat does not equate to weight loss. Neither does no fat. Neither does no protein, no carbs, or any other diet that deprives your food regimen of any major food group or nutrient. The key to a great diet is moderation. Last year, my husband gained quite a few pounds while he was on day shift and as a consequence, ate bigger and more meals consistently. When he went back to night shift, and consequently, smaller meals and usually cutting one meal per day, he lost weight pretty quickly and easily.

Many food products base their serving allowances on a 2000 calorie per day diet. In reality, for the average 5'5" woman who is between 25 and 50 years of age and weighs about 150 pounds, only 1500 calories are really necessary per day to maintain that weight at a fairly sedentary lifestyle. To find out how many calories you need just to maintain your current weight, use this website: http://www.fitwatch.com/qkcalc/bmr.html.

Start a food diet and keep track of what you eat for one week - don't change your habits yet, just keep track. There's lot of great websites that you can look up calories per serving on. I use CalorieKing.com. After that week, look back and evaluate. Need 2000 calories but consuming 2250 and not exercising? You're on track to gain a pound every two weeks.

That's right - one pound equals 3500 calories! So think about that in reverse: need 2000 calories to maintain your current weight - why not cut your portions and intake down to 1750 per day instead? That's a guaranteed way to lose one pound over a two week span of time. Forget cutting certain foods - moderation is more important than deprivation. Even fat is a necessary part of your diet! And moderation doesn't mean you have to cut munchies, either! As long as you take the number of calories in munchies that you want to eat per day and subtract it from other meals, you're fine! It does NOT hurt to eat more often than 2 or 3 times a day - in fact, it can help to keep your metabolism constantly chewing on something.

Of course, one pound in two weeks isn't much. So add your exercise back in. Use a stationary bike for 30 minutes five days per week for two weeks at moderate exertion with the body stats listed above - and you'll burn about 2386 calories. Add in 30 minutes of an elliptical five days per week for two weeks at moderate exertion: about 2454 more calories. Finally, make time to walk around the neighborhood, the park, or wherever, fairly briskly, for 60 minutes per day. What do I mean by brisk? In that 60 minutes, you should walk 3 miles. That's another 2250 calories per two weeks.

Ok, so let's add that up. So the average diet is 2000 calories. You cut it down to 1750. That saves 3500 calories over two weeks. You then add in an additional 7090 or so calories burned through various activities. 7090+3500=3 pounds burned per two weeks.

Still doesn't seem like a lot? Consider that your activity burner may only tell you that you need 1500 calories to maintain, not 2000. So if you've been eating 2000 a day and cut to 1500, that's 7000 calories saved through diet instead of 3500 - an extra pound per two week period.

Four pounds per two weeks isn't really a bad schedule of weight loss - remember that you really do need a minimum of calories to function every day - starvation doesn't equal weight loss either. But if you moderate portions and add in 120 minutes of activity per day, you can lose weight healthily and steadily. Two hours seem like a long time? Buy a book on tape and listen to it while you walk for an hour. Watch your favorite TV show on while biking or using the elliptical - while at the gym or at home. Re-read one of your WIPs while on the bike - biking doesn't take any mental function, so you can can easily re-read and make edits while burning calories.

Want to know the "recommended" weight for your height? Go to this website: http://www.healthchecksystems.com/heightweightchart.htm.

Want to know how many calories you'll burn per activity? Go here: http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/jumpsite/calculat.htm.

Ok, so say you've lost your targeted amount of weight. Now what? It's time to maintain, maintain, maintain. Gradually move your portions to slightly higher calorie levels. Gradually decrease your cardio. No cold turkey on anything.

Remember that the easiest way to get sidetracked on your targeted weight loss is eating one extra dessert or missing one day of exercise. One day of exercise lost plus one extra dessert per week is 900 calories added back on to your diet. That's 1/4 pound! Perhaps not a big deal if it's only once per two week period, but if it's once a week, that's a half pound you could have lost - but didn't. Twice a week, and you've lost the ability to lose one pound. The time for indulging a bit come when you meet your target weight, not when you're trying to get to it. Then, you have more calories you can play with and more opportunity to cut an exercise or two. Until then...strict is the word.

Hope that helps!!

Tiffany