Here is an article that has become quite popular on the internet as a bit of information on what one person did and looked at things to Not Learn The Hard Way how to get in shape and improve his health.
This article proves that those that are sick can get themselves better by simply doing the right things and avoiding the wrong thing on a more general basis. sometimes I go into a little too much detail on how to get healthy when the most basic things are not being done by so many people.
1) If you want to lose more then a few pounds, you must exercise.
2) Be disciplined. Cardio 5 to 7 days a week, weights every couple of days. Muscle will raise your metabolism and help you burn more calories while your not in the gym. I have had lots of people (including professionals) downplay the value of weight lifting. I didn’t listen, and I think I am better off for it.
3) “I don’t want to lift because I don’t want to look ‘ripped’”. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this from women. Getting ripped is alot harder then it looks. If you are trying to lose weight, its pretty safe to assume you won’t look ripped until you�re at your ideal weight. My respect for those who are �cut? has greatly increased when I realized the difficulty in getting and keeping those muscles.
4) You gain muscle at rest, Don’t over do the amount of workouts per muscle. When I wasn’t gaining muscle, I just kept working harder and harder. It took quite some convincing that I needed to work less. I’ll be damned if they weren’t right…
5) If your smoking, try to quit. Unless you’re Axle Rose, aerobic exercise and smoking gets really tough.
6) The little things add up!
Cut soda out of the picture
If you don’t have time for a full workout, do what you can. You do this so that you stay mentally disciplined and in the habit of working out.
my “no-time-to-workout” workout is a set of 50 crunches, 50 lunges, 50 pushups. If I burn through it and I have time to spare, I keep doing it until failure or my allotted time is up.
know it’s cliche but hear me out: do things the hard way (take the stairs, park far away, do pushups while you wait for the microwave, etc.)
doing things the hard way DOES NOT count as exercise. The hard way is strictly bonus material on top of a regular workout schedule.
7) If your not sweating, breathing hard, or at your target pulse rate, you’re just fooling yourself. I can’t tell you how many people I see every day who come into the gym, put in the time, put in the money, and walk back out the door looking just as good as when they came in. If you feel you can walk out without taking a shower, you need to turn around, cowboy up, and work your ass off or die trying.
If you can read magazines while your doing your aerobic exercise, your not doing it hard enough or fast enough.
Honestly, you should be sweating, moving, and if your lucky, praying for death (”5 more minutes, 5 more minutes, 5 more minutes”). Your muscles will eventually stop aching, and you will get your second wind. If you fail, so what? You’re done early for the day.
9) If you can talk to your buddy, girlfriend, coworker, etc. while you are on the treadmill, you need to reread #8.
10) If you’re doing a good job with losing a significant amount of fat, you will probably plateau a number of times. Don’t Panic! Make sure you are eating a balanced diet, change your workout to something new, and you will leave the plateau more quickly. If you try to brute force your way through it with out any change, it will be tough going.
11) Get your diet squared away.
focus on small life changes, and skip the low carb / high protein diets. They work in the short term, but not in the long term.
For bonus points, try eating whole grains and lose the preservatives.
I switched to a healthier diet during scuba diving certification. While this was going on, I had to skip the workouts completely. When I returned to the gym after certification I noticed a distinct increase in performance despite my absence.
The only thing that changed was my diet. Honestly, while I can see the performance boost in the gym, I can’t really feel a boost outside of the gym.
12) Don’t eat less, work harder (if your diet is balanced). I learned this one the hard way. If you get too few calories, your weight loss will grind to a halt no matter how much time you put in the gym.
13) Log your eating and workouts. It makes it easier to honestly assess your efforts. What you think you eat, and what you really eat are two totally different things.
14) Take a picture (preferably), or if you really don’t want to, make a commitment to keep a pair of the pants you are currently wearing. Your body will change as you progress, and everyone except you will see it. These items will help keep you motivated. Conversely, I also keep a few pieces of clothing which are a size or two too small and make it my goal to eventually fit into them.
15) Don’t worry too much about your weight, focus on losing inches.
by no means, should you stop weighing yourself.
Until you get used to how your body operates in weight loss mode, fat loss, muscle gain, and fluid levels will all make your weight flop around.
16) Drink lots of water. Water is like motor oil for the human body. Drink lots of it. It will make you feel tons better. Bonus points if you get rid of the soda and replace it with water.
16) if you are addicted to a food, finish what you have, and don’t buy any more. If you can avoid it for a month you will forget what it tastes like, and it will no longer have its hold on you (even if you have a taste later down the road).
17) Don’t be hungry! Make sure you have healthy food always available. If you are hungry, you are more likely to eat whatever you can get your hands on. Hopefully you have good food available so you don’t go after the wrong foods. if your are hungry, you will end up eating more.
hungry people eat faster, which leads to eating more then you need.
You can’t eat 3 meals at once even if it is within the recommended daily allowance. Your body can only handle so much at once. Guess where the rest is going…
For years now, I have always been a 1 giant meal per day kind of person. This is bad for you for a whole slew of reasons. I couldn’t have beaten the Diabetes on 1 meal per day.
18) A salad is not always a salad. Stick with oil based dressings, and get rid of all that cheese and bread crumbs. Be careful of the meats too. Restaurants like to stick high calorie, high fat meats in your salad.
19) Try to lower the amounts of red meat that you consume. I am still trying to get this down. If you can eat more chicken and fish, you will be in a better position.
20) if possible, try to eat 6 times a day (every 2 or 3 hours)
plan what you eat, and eat what you plan. This usually isn’t possible, but the closer you can get, the easier life will be.
3 meals, and 3 snacks or 6 small meals. The meal sizes should steadily decrease throughout the day to match your decreasing metabolism.
eating something every 2 or 3 hours will help prevent insulin spikes. Insulin spikes encourage fat storage and they can leave you feeling tired after the spike is done
That’s it for now. If you can think of anything I�ve missed that has worked for you, add it to the list!!
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I think the best thing to do is keep it simple. As far as diet, fruits, vegetables, omega 3’s and lean proteins are the way to go. Make sure you train your whole body upper body, abs, lower body. Get cardiovascular exercise everyday, get plenty of rest.
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