LOSING WEIGHT WITHOUT THE PROPAGANDA

Over the years, more and more weight loss programs are introduced to Americans. We have seen everything from Jenny Craig to Weight Watchers to South Beach; the diets are created in such a way that the user doesn’t need to do much of anything other than buy their overpriced food  and hope that they can stick it out. 

People – wake up – it’s a waste of money!!!

Weight loss is simple – eat less, burn more! This statement is so rudimentary yet people turn it into some complex science problem that they feel needs to be solved to end world problems.

Imagine waking up one morning and eating whatever you desire, but doing so within the limits of your diet. I'm not talking about eating McDonald’s every day or loading up on the calorie intense specialized coffee drink at the Starbucks. I am referring to the elementary school lesson:  eat fewer and burn more calories.

I find it fascinating that Americans who are seeking weight loss spend more money and energy on trying to find the perfect weight loss program.  In the infancy of my own weight loss journey I found myself caught up in the same experiment, but this approach lasted about 5 hours as I returned to the grassroots of what weight loss is all about.

I follow the weight loss programs like Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers, not that it’s because I need to, it’s because I like to hear the propaganda being shared. Some people will swear by their membership at Weight Watchers and some people live and die by Jenny Craig, lovely, splendid, but for a majority of Americans these programs are not cheap, they are not worthwhile, and in the end their frustration trumps any fruit they will see of their efforts.

The end result of these commercialized weight loss programs is that you will spend more money losing weight than you will if you go to your local grocery store and buy the right foods. It sounds in many ways like an oxymoron; spend more money to lose weight when the reality is if you eat less your grocery bill should be less.

In order to effectively lose weight and to do it proficiently, the person needs to know five important steps in order to make this successful.

The first step is to know that a negative 3500 calories equals one pound of weight loss. If you know this, then everything else will fall into place.

The second step is understanding the minimum calories a male or female must consume each day to meet the basic functions. A score of doctors and experts have pin pointed that number to be 1800 for males and 1200 for females and as so your caloric intake must never go below these one of these numbers. If you carefully watch what you eat, exercise in some capacity, and eat x amount of calories while burning the additional you will lose weight – guaranteed! And that didn’t cost you a membership fee.

The third step is your knowledge of BMR. BMR is a fancy medical term that stands for Basal Metabolic Rate. Its basic definition is natural burn calories. It is the number of calories a person can burn by simply doing nothing and nothing means staying in bed and sleeping all day.

Your BMR decreases with age, but it factors your current weight, height, age, and gender into the equation.

The fourth step implores us to know what you actually burn with specific activities. What does a 180LB male burn by sitting at a desk and working on a computer 8 hours a day?

The fifth step and the most the critical component is how it all ties together.

These five steps are not revolutionary. I didn’t sit down and have wisdom bestowed upon me. These steps are a compilation of what people have used to hasten their efforts in dropping the poundage.

There are a number of programs out there that you can utilize to your advantage if you’re planning to lose weight and to do it inexpensively. I personally share with you two tremendous, FREE, not a single cost to utilize in your weight loss efforts. You can review them both at www.fatscecret.com AND www.fitwatch.com. These two websites are the only ones that you will need to utilize. FREE is good and even better is that they are not some cheap garbage program that is hard to understand or some shareware nonsense that works half the time, these are real applications that will do everything you need to do.

The commercialization of weight loss is overkill. It overwhelms the person wishing to lose weight and obnoxious to the point that each of these companies primary goal is to sell you their food, not their wonderful calorie reduction program. 

Let’s face the facts, read the label, document what you eat, and in the end, you will be better served because it works. Before these fancy programs came out people used common sense and just watched what they ate.

On January 16, 2010 I weighed in at a whopping 245lbs. I was 5’9, male, and way out of shape. For most of my natural adult life I lifted weights off and on, but for the better half of the last 12 months I have struggled with lifting due to carpal tunnel. I found that I needed to make significant diet changes and drop this weight. I was tested for sleep apnea and it seemed the only thing the doctors could pinpoint was my weight. My weight was a combination of fat and muscle. I realized that I didn’t need a back the size of the Grand Canyon in order to be fit.

This article is now almost 5 months later and I am still 5’9, but I now weigh 192LBS, a weight loss of 53LBS. My weight loss goal is to be in line with the military fitness standards for my height and age which is a maximum weight of 185LBS.

I did it the same way that was described in this article AND using my knowledge of exercising.  I designed an exercise program that worked for me – simple, effective, and worthwhile. I understand not every person can pen a workout program without research, but there is a ton of research and routines already prepared for you. Check out www.muscle-fitness.com. Sure you will see beastly men, who could bend steel with their arms, but it’s there, the national magazine published monthly, 100 plus pages thick of articles, photos, and excellent information will lead you to the exercise program you will want or need.

I am now in the process of training for a duathalon sometime this year or next. A duathalon is a run/bike/run, similar to a triathlon, except there is no swimming, just a run to replace it.

Is this article meant to sound pretentious? NO! This article is meant to provide a tool, a way and means, for the reader who is looking to lose weight to focus on the core of what they need to know and not the madness of these weight loss programs.

Future articles in this section will provide more detailed insight on your weight loss expedition. The average person can read this, understand the basics, and start losing weight today and it won’t cost you a single extra dollar other than the food you are eating today that you buy in the local grocery store or the neighborhood friendly Wal-Mart.