Fast and Easy Weight Loss - What's the Strategy?

Alright people, I've got a starting place and an end for my fast and easy weight loss quest. But how do I achieve the goal?

After doing even 5 minutes of reading on the internet you come to realize that there is more than one way to skin the fast and easy weight loss cat. I think most weight loss options can be grouped this way:

- surgery
- supplements
- dieting
- exercise

Surgery

Now the first option - surgery - is out. I'm not so overweight that it would be a choice that makes sense for me. But I know people who've had it - for those who have spent a lifetime of being significantly overweight, you might want to visit a doctor and find out what your options are. However, even Wayne Knight - the recurring character "Newman" on Seinfeld was reaching a point of morbid obesity when he chose to opt for a diet and exercise program that allowed him to lose 117 pounds. For most people, I think imminent death rates pretty high on the motivational scale.

Supplements

There are many different types - some to speed up your metabolism, some to block your body's tendency to turn carbs into fat, some to suppress appetite, etc. etc. ad nauseum. There's a whole rainbow of supplement flavors out there to consider when trying to achieve your fast and easy weight loss goals.

When I was in college I was very much into weight lifting and for several years supplemented my workouts with the then in vogue cafeine, aspirin and ephedrine (now illegal) coctails that were floating around. Combining that with creatine got me some great results very quickly when I was working out several times a week consistently. Of course, in those days I was very conscious of what I was eating and I had specific goals in mind and while I did want to lose weight I was going for adding significant muscle mass too.

All in all, I had a pretty good experience with supplementation and did not experience any negative physical reactions.

Dieting

It seems like most of America is dieting these days. It's funny though how we all seem to be gaining more weight. As usual we have a couple of things to consider - dieting can consist of a simple change in eating habits. For example, all those years ago when I was working out consistently I needed more calories throughout the day to sustain my routine. I was eating for or five small meals throughout the day. This had a great benefit - it kept my metabolism up as my body was constantly burning calories to process the food I was taking in.

Then of course, you've got everybody's favorite math. Calorie math. How many calories you take in versus how many calories you burn throughout the day. If you've got the will power and the mind of an accountant, this may certainly an option. Without exception if you are burning more calories than you take in, your body will shed the weight.

Exercise

Despite what my friends may think, the biggest obstacle to my lack of exercise is actually time and I think most people can probably relate. I'm very busy throughout the day and typically work 60 or 70 hours a week. For others though the biggest obstacle is will power. My best recommendation as someone who has done the whole exercise bit in the past is to find something you actually like to do. You don't need to do a treadmill if you like to play tennis. Just go play - and I don't mean video game tennis.

You can also slip in simple choices throughout the day that will help you to gradually become more active - take the stairs instead of the elevator, during your lunch break and once or twice throughout your workday get up and walk around your office or outside, etc.

What?!?!

That's right people. You'll want to do some weight training to build muscle mass so that when you are at rest, your body is burning more calories to maintain that mass. I can already hear the smart asses in the background - well why doesn't that work with fat?

It's simple. When your body has used the 5 to 10 grams of glucose (read that as sugar) floating around in your blood at anyone time, something interesting starts to happen. Your body goes into ketosis. Ke-what? Your body's first choice of fuel is the fuel that is already in your blood - glucose. If that is not available because it was already use up (during aerobic activity for example) well then your body moves on to the next fuel source - fat.

But this is the cool part - with more muscle mass to maintain (think of them as constantly running engines that always require fuel) your body goes into ketosis more easily. You start living off of the fat in your body and those fat cells (that can increase to 1000 times their normal size) start to shrink. Once you are an adult you cannot naturally lose fat cells which makes it very difficult to lose weight if you were overweight as a child...more fat cells to contend with. Unfortunately, as an adult your fat cells can still divide and multiply which make maintaining a healthy weight all the more important.

Conclusion

All these "fast" and "easy" weight loss methods out there are more or less about the same thing, including bariatric surgery. Think about it - they are reducing the size of your stomach so that you east less. You take in less and less calories per day, basically forcing your body into ketosis more and more frequently and you are kept alive literally by your own fat because you are not physically able to consume the calories that your body needs to burn in order to maintain it's own mass. Bassically, your body starts feeding on itself...eeewwww...

Weight loss supplements across to board look to do the same thing in different ways. Carb blockers block excess glucose in your blood from become more fat. Metabolism boosters try to increase those times in which your body is in ketosis. Reducing the amount of food you eat or changing the types of food to reduce both calories and consumption of carbs (especially refined carbohydrates like candy) will have the same effect.

So now that I've blabbed on and on about what's out there - what am I going to do?

Well the plan is a combination of aerobic exercise a few times a week for approximately 20 minutes. If I can squeeze it in, I plan on taking another 45 minutes a couple times a week for weight training. I will also supplement my moderate diet and exercise program with some combination of supplements. In addition to increasing my body's energy expenditure with activity and (possibly) metabolic boosters, I am also going to go on a calorie restricted diet.

My fast and easy weight loss goal is to lose 45 lbs over the course of the next 30 days - sound impossible? Maybe...maybe not. I guess you'll have to read and find out!

Not too hard for a busy guy to work into his schedule...hopefully. I'll certainly keept everybody posted!

From 220lbs to...?

On any quest, you've got to have a beginning and an end. The beginning is easy - that's where I'm at already. I'm 220lbs of sexy, baby.

Okay...if you're going to puke turn your head to the side. Now where do I want to go? I'm on a quest for the "ideal body weight", the holy grail of dieters...

(trumpets sounding...crowds cheering...)

Well, apparently there are a mess of different ways to calculate this mystical figure mathematically. My personal feeling about "ideal weight" is that all of those formulas floating around out there should really only be used as a guide and not as a flat out rule. I went to a bunch of different websites out there trying to figure out what the heck is my "ideal" body weight.

After much searching and reading through all kinds of websites, and articles, I finally did what I think everybody should do who is searching for a way to lose weight and that's ask my doctor. Now, I'm not fond of doctors in general and the health care system in particular - but that's another blog. But if I'm going to have a goal for my fast and easy weight loss quest, I want it to be realistic. So I call up my PPO, find out who the hell I can go see, and set an appointment.

After several weeks and a four hour long wait, my Dr. sees me and goes through the regular questions:

"How old?"

Four hours older than I was before I came here.

"Do you do drugs?"

Only when I'm operating heavy machinery.

"Are you sexually active?"

Depends on who's on top.

"Is your job stressful?"

Yes. I deal with morons who keep asking me things they should already know.

"Based on your age, height, weight, and stress factors I highly recommend that you lose some weight."

Say it ain't so! So how much do I need to lose, Doc?

"Well, I'd say anywhere from 40 to 60 lbs."

Now at this point, I'm thinking to myself that in most scientific disciplines a margin that differs by more than 25 percent could hardly be called accurate. But apparently that kind of answer is the one everybody gets when asking this question.

After more research and remembering back to the glory days of my youth - I decide to target my fast and easy weight loss quest and shoot for a moderate 175lbs. I used to weigh that much back in the paleolithic era and seem to vaguely recall being pretty okay with my body image.

So I've got a beginning...and an end. Now I just need to figure out how to get there.

Why Blog About The Weight?

Here's the deal. I'm a 30 year old professional who is about 60 pounds overweight - I weigh more than I ever did in my life and all I want to do is lose it. But time, (or a lack thereof), stress, and an aparent steadily decreasing lack of will power when it comes to eating and making the right kinds of food choices are starting to work their voodoo on me. I need fast and easy weight loss. I just don't know if I'm going to find it.

Now I haven't always been the weight that I'm at. At 5'9" and 220 lbs, I'm not increadibly huge, but for a guy whose family has a history of heart disease and diabetes, I'm headed for an early coronary if I can't get my ass out of the chair I'm sitting in and start really making a commitment to taking care of myself.

The weight actually snuck up on me. I remember thinking when I was 20 that I didn't understand how guys just tend to lose "it" and let themselves go. Well guess what? I bloody found out. It's real simple. At 20 years old my body was in overdrive still consuming way more calories than I took in even if I was not completely perfect in adhering to my work out routine. I could almost watch TV and channel surf and loose a pound or two switching between Dawson's Creek and Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Ten years later, biology and chemistry are simple facts of my life. Without a metabolism that could turn beer into rocket fuel, my body is burning less and less calories at rest. Add to that a job that is extremely stressful and I'm a recipe for coronary bypass. The facts of the matters is that I need to loose weight fast.

Anyway this blog is about my ongoing efforts to loose weight, how fast (or slow), how easy (or hard) it is, and if what I attempting is working. My most successful projects in life so far have been when I have been tracking daily my progress. Here I'll share that with you and if it's a good read or you have questions - feel free to email me!

Cheers!