Tag: flexible dieting

Weight Loss And Stress: How To Deal With It

RyanMcGuire / Pixabay

Last night, I had a friend ask about managing things like weight loss and stress. It seems that he can cut out carbs and respond very well. However, he says he “self-sabotages” and ends up killing his progress.

In particular, he was looking for “rules” to manage his “cheats.” These are almost universally found to take place in most folks when they’re really stressed.

I touched on a few things, then told him I’d delve into it deeper here. The reason is that it was late and I was tired, but also because I thought others might just have the same issues.

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How Shaping Habits Helps Fitness Goals

90 Percent.

That’s the number of people who lose weight, only to put it all back on. I’ve been part of that number before, and it sucks. But there’s always a lot of discussion as to why that is.

Some argue it’s purely a matter of biology:

Unfortunately, these insights into how our bodies work have not led to reliable interventions to control them. Two lessons are clear. First, people do not regain weight because they lack willpower. Instead, powerful biological responses counter their best efforts at every turn.

But is that right?

I don’t think so, and here’s why.

Continue reading “How Shaping Habits Helps Fitness Goals”

Before And After

As you can see from the above photo, there’s a fat guy on the left and a not-so-fat guy on the right.

Well, that’s me.

Yeah, big damn difference, isn’t it? Then again, 50 lbs is a whole lot of weight. By anyone’s measure, it’s good.

So let’s talk a little bit about what happened with all of this, shall we?

Continue reading “Before And After”

I’ve Now Lost 33 Pounds, And It’s Been An Education

This morning, I hopped on the scale for my official weigh-in. It’s kind of my Sunday morning ritual, though I’m actually on the scale first thing every morning. However, I only record it once per week.

The reason for that is that you can see fluctuations from day to day and they can seriously mess with you if you’re not careful. That’s why I set a given day to count as “official.”

I always weigh myself in my underwear right after I’ve voided any waste my body stored overnight. That way, I can be as consistent as possible and not have variations caused by water, food, or clothing.

Anyway, I hopped on the scale today and looked at the weight. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but I’d recorded a one pound weight loss. I put my clothes back on and head to my laptop. I keep a spreadsheet with all my weights on it. I also record my body fat measurement as a way to also gauge my progress.

Today, I hit the 33 pounds lost mark, and I figured it was a hell of a time to talk about some of the stuff I’ve learned over the last six months of losing weight.

Continue reading “I’ve Now Lost 33 Pounds, And It’s Been An Education”

Some Thoughts On Flexible Dieting

When I recognized that I needed to drop a few (dozen) pounds, I needed to find a viable approach. Now, I’ve dropped weight before. I’ve lost around 40 lbs previously, but where I failed was in taking an approach that completely changed the way my family ate.

Then, when things got a little tough, we tried to revert back to our old way of eating and the whole thing fell apart.

Here’s the thing. When you’ve been overweight for a while, you’re not going to be able to take off the weight and everything change for you where you can go back to what you used to do. What you used to do didn’t work, so going back to it will get you right back to where you were.

And it did.

So, this time around, I wanted to clean up the diet a bit, but I also wanted to do something that would be comfortable for my family. Enter flexible dieting. Continue reading “Some Thoughts On Flexible Dieting”