In this blog I will share the physical how of what I have done to loose my weight. Again, I need to point out that this is simply my own personal experience and not medical, fitness or nutritional advice. Also this physical how must be framed by my previous two blogs about turning points and stories. My assertion, weight is a symptom not a cause of unhappiness and an overactive ego.
Lets start with the food. I had all the typical physical manifestations of metabolic syndrome, which in plain English was you are too fat syndrome, so for me a healthy diet was the starting point. Between researching the syndrome and consulting a dietician I synthesised the following approach.
I eat 5-6 meals a day of which two are usually larger meals. In eating these meals I took note of three things- what I ate (what it was made of), how many calories it contained and what its Glycemic Index and Load was.
While watching an episode of Oprah with Dr. Oz I became aware of how many very unnatural ingredients we eat routinely. These ingredients are modified elements which reek havoc with our bodies. So when I pick something off the shelf I look at the label to decide if I am prepared to eat it using the following avoid list:
Having got into the habit of reading ingredient labels I am still surprised at what is actually in our foods.
A label I always like is free range and/ or an organic, not because they are more nutritious which they are not necessarily, but I like the idea that my food was happy.
Besides reading the label I also, in the beginning, used the caloriecount website (http://caloriecount.about.com) to track my calorie intake. This worked well to ensure I did not take in more calories than I needed. My baseline was to keep my calorie intake between 1800 and 2400 calories. The website helps you determine your ideal calorie intake. Also worth noting is that the site does not have many South African products so you will need to do some uploading of your own food values but it well worth the effort once set up.
Now everyone is talking low Glycemic Index (GI) foods, which is all great, but few talk Glycemic Load (GL) as the other side of the coin. In brief GL is based on the actual amount of carbohydrates eaten. If you ate a high GI food in small quantities it acts differently on your glucose levels than if you ate a lot of the same food- effectively you can make a high GI food act like a low GI food. The long and short of it is that if you keep a food’s GL in mind you can limit its effect on your glucose levels and the pursuant insulin spike. For me I like to have less than 20g of carbohydrates per serving in a snack meal and not more than 50g in a main meal. This means one must read your labels. Read more about this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_load .
These three principals guide me when thinking about what I eat, but what do I eat? I decided to follow a Mediterranean diet. It suits my taste in food and works well for snacking between larger meals.
Lets start with the food. I had all the typical physical manifestations of metabolic syndrome, which in plain English was you are too fat syndrome, so for me a healthy diet was the starting point. Between researching the syndrome and consulting a dietician I synthesised the following approach.
I eat 5-6 meals a day of which two are usually larger meals. In eating these meals I took note of three things- what I ate (what it was made of), how many calories it contained and what its Glycemic Index and Load was.
While watching an episode of Oprah with Dr. Oz I became aware of how many very unnatural ingredients we eat routinely. These ingredients are modified elements which reek havoc with our bodies. So when I pick something off the shelf I look at the label to decide if I am prepared to eat it using the following avoid list:
- Any ingredient with the word modified, for example modified starch;
- Foods containing corn syrup;
- Any ingredient with the term hydrogenated in it, for example hydrogenated oil;
- Any artificial ingredient that has a number which appears in the first five ingredients on the list;
- Nuts that are roasted;
- Products that are enriched such as enriched flour; and
- Food that has any trans fats
Having got into the habit of reading ingredient labels I am still surprised at what is actually in our foods.
A label I always like is free range and/ or an organic, not because they are more nutritious which they are not necessarily, but I like the idea that my food was happy.
Besides reading the label I also, in the beginning, used the caloriecount website (http://caloriecount.about.com) to track my calorie intake. This worked well to ensure I did not take in more calories than I needed. My baseline was to keep my calorie intake between 1800 and 2400 calories. The website helps you determine your ideal calorie intake. Also worth noting is that the site does not have many South African products so you will need to do some uploading of your own food values but it well worth the effort once set up.
Now everyone is talking low Glycemic Index (GI) foods, which is all great, but few talk Glycemic Load (GL) as the other side of the coin. In brief GL is based on the actual amount of carbohydrates eaten. If you ate a high GI food in small quantities it acts differently on your glucose levels than if you ate a lot of the same food- effectively you can make a high GI food act like a low GI food. The long and short of it is that if you keep a food’s GL in mind you can limit its effect on your glucose levels and the pursuant insulin spike. For me I like to have less than 20g of carbohydrates per serving in a snack meal and not more than 50g in a main meal. This means one must read your labels. Read more about this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_load .
These three principals guide me when thinking about what I eat, but what do I eat? I decided to follow a Mediterranean diet. It suits my taste in food and works well for snacking between larger meals.
For more on this diet see http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mediterranean-diet/CL00011 . A few of my focus points are getting in the oily fish at least twice a week and limiting red meat as far as I can. I like nuts, but I must measure it out otherwise I finish a packet.
My last eating experiences that worked for me include eating every three hours and using the plate portion model.
Ask anyone who knows me I seem to be a little obsessive about when I eat. Yes I time myself from my breakfast to supper. For example if I only take breakfast at 9 am then my day goes, snack at 11 am, lunch at 2 pm, snack at 5 pm etc. I’m so committed to my schedule I even take food into meetings so I can eat on time and perhaps more importantly so I also get the right nutrition. Do not allow stories about what you cannot do stop you form eating when and what you must.
The plate portion model is a great tool to set out your portions. It is very simple. A quarter of a standard plate (no not that hotel platter) should be protein no thicker than your hand. A further quarter should be starch which includes potatoes, rice or pasta. The rest of the plate should be green vegetables with very little yellow or orange vegetables.
Exercise, yes there is a lot of it but again do not allow stories to stop you from achieving your best life. Using my own story as an example, I firmly believed that I could not exercise too early or too late. As such I did not exercise unless the time was “perfect” which ultimately it never was because I would delay until it became too late. This changed after a very stressful day when I arrived very late one night at my hotel room in Durban. As I unpacked my day suitcase I mumbled about “missing” my workout. Just then I realised that the reality was that I could just do it right now, why was it too late and besides I could do with the physical release of my stress. I did and now never allow stories to stop me from investing in my physical wellbeing.
Stories aside I have had two exercise routines, each fulfilling their specific purpose. The one uses interval training and the other base training. I will share my interpretations but there is a lot written about each which you can research on Google.
Both these routines will require you monitor your heart rate. I invested in a heart rate monitor which is great to keep track of your workout, so it comes highly recommended. All you need is your heart rate so do not buy a top end model at first.
When I was heavy, obese, I read in a Mens Health that walking on a treadmill for interval training could be a great way to loose weight without hammering your knees. I tried it and found it a great way of getting going, and perhaps more importantly it was so quick I had no excuse for not doing it.
To follow the same programme first workout your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR). This is done by subtracting your age from 220. The workout is based on 60%, 70% and 80% of that MHR. This can be calculated by multiplying your MHR by 0,6; 0,7 or 0,8.
With these numbers in hand or mind you start off with a 3 minute slow walk, 3-5kph with a 1% incline, to warm up. Then set the treadmill at a very fast walking pace. For me that was 6.6-7.1 kph. This will be the treadmill speed for the rest of the work out.
The aim of this interval programme is to adjust the incline and not the speed of the treadmill for one minute intervals to get your heart rate into the target range of 60%, 70% or 80% of MHR. What you want is a programme like 60%, 70%, 70%, 80%, 80%, 80% intervals with 90 second rests in between at roughly half the incline of the interval. If you go out of the target range adjust the incline not the speed unless you exceed 90% of your MHR. It may take a day or two for you to get the right inclines and speed. Also after first week you will be adjusting your inclines as you will find the improvements in what you can manage come quickly.
My first interval treadmill workout looked like this.
My last eating experiences that worked for me include eating every three hours and using the plate portion model.
Ask anyone who knows me I seem to be a little obsessive about when I eat. Yes I time myself from my breakfast to supper. For example if I only take breakfast at 9 am then my day goes, snack at 11 am, lunch at 2 pm, snack at 5 pm etc. I’m so committed to my schedule I even take food into meetings so I can eat on time and perhaps more importantly so I also get the right nutrition. Do not allow stories about what you cannot do stop you form eating when and what you must.
The plate portion model is a great tool to set out your portions. It is very simple. A quarter of a standard plate (no not that hotel platter) should be protein no thicker than your hand. A further quarter should be starch which includes potatoes, rice or pasta. The rest of the plate should be green vegetables with very little yellow or orange vegetables.
Exercise, yes there is a lot of it but again do not allow stories to stop you from achieving your best life. Using my own story as an example, I firmly believed that I could not exercise too early or too late. As such I did not exercise unless the time was “perfect” which ultimately it never was because I would delay until it became too late. This changed after a very stressful day when I arrived very late one night at my hotel room in Durban. As I unpacked my day suitcase I mumbled about “missing” my workout. Just then I realised that the reality was that I could just do it right now, why was it too late and besides I could do with the physical release of my stress. I did and now never allow stories to stop me from investing in my physical wellbeing.
Stories aside I have had two exercise routines, each fulfilling their specific purpose. The one uses interval training and the other base training. I will share my interpretations but there is a lot written about each which you can research on Google.
Both these routines will require you monitor your heart rate. I invested in a heart rate monitor which is great to keep track of your workout, so it comes highly recommended. All you need is your heart rate so do not buy a top end model at first.
When I was heavy, obese, I read in a Mens Health that walking on a treadmill for interval training could be a great way to loose weight without hammering your knees. I tried it and found it a great way of getting going, and perhaps more importantly it was so quick I had no excuse for not doing it.
To follow the same programme first workout your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR). This is done by subtracting your age from 220. The workout is based on 60%, 70% and 80% of that MHR. This can be calculated by multiplying your MHR by 0,6; 0,7 or 0,8.
With these numbers in hand or mind you start off with a 3 minute slow walk, 3-5kph with a 1% incline, to warm up. Then set the treadmill at a very fast walking pace. For me that was 6.6-7.1 kph. This will be the treadmill speed for the rest of the work out.
The aim of this interval programme is to adjust the incline and not the speed of the treadmill for one minute intervals to get your heart rate into the target range of 60%, 70% or 80% of MHR. What you want is a programme like 60%, 70%, 70%, 80%, 80%, 80% intervals with 90 second rests in between at roughly half the incline of the interval. If you go out of the target range adjust the incline not the speed unless you exceed 90% of your MHR. It may take a day or two for you to get the right inclines and speed. Also after first week you will be adjusting your inclines as you will find the improvements in what you can manage come quickly.
My first interval treadmill workout looked like this.
Intervals in orange are 60 seconds while rest periods in green are 90 seconds
After your last 80% interval, time how long it takes your heart rate to reduce from its maximum rate to 25 beats less. For example, you had a recover from 160 bpm to 135 bpm in one minute. If it takes less than 1 minute this indicates good heart health. When I started it took nearly 90 seconds to reduce my heart rate by 25 bpm during my cool down. Now it only takes 40 seconds.
After 3 months of following my interval programme I started to cycle. For me this has been a great personal success since I enjoy it tremendously. Before starting I found someone who could advise me on what I needed and what to do. This really helped me in getting a handle on what to expect. I set myself the goal of cycling in the Baviaanskloof in 4 months (April 2010) and started a base training programme which is time and not kilometres based. I cycle 10-12 hours a week, yes that takes a lot of story busting, but the reality is simple if I want to achieve my goal I must get out there and put in the time- mud, sun, dust and crazy hours to boot.
A final experience I want to share is about recording your results. From day one I measured myself to get a sense of my progress. This includes weighing myself every Friday morning before I grab a cup of coffee and measuring my true waist circumference (which is just under the belly button). I created an Excel file were all this is recorded so I could understand the reality of my efforts. When I started to cycle I also started to record all my trip data on the Polar website.
These truths about how much you have lost and what effort you have put in is very important in confronting your stories about eating and exercising.
In conclusion I hope these experiences are useful for you to augment your plans, but as you can see I have made frequent reference to getting through your stories which will stop you from achieving your goals.
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