Fitness
Weight Loss Tips From the Woefully Out of Shape: Starting Out
As you can see from looking at any image containing even a facsimile of my likeness, I am not the picture of health. Happy Meals for dinner growing up was the rule, not the exception, and I was basically born with a bottle of Coca-Cola in my hand (not really. No need to get child services involved. Let’s just forget I said anything.) Growing up, it didn’t seem to matter, as I was actually active as a child, being extremely into sports, and I apparently had a nice, efficient metabolism that could sort out the heaps of utter garbage I threw into my stomach with impressive aplomb before the sludge seeped into my system and slowed it to a halt.
As a 26 year old who spends his work day sitting down in front of a computer only to come home and sit in front of a computer, however, my metabolism has basically just banged in sick for the last decade. It has seemingly adopted my Gen-X hopeless apathy and it just doesn’t care anymore. However, being the narcissist that I am, I can’t just let that fly. I’ve made efforts to get back into shape before, but they have always involved half-hearted trips to the gym where I watch episodes of Seinfeld while moving at a pace on the elliptical that would infuriate the elderly before congratulating myself on a job well done by stopping off on the way home for a nice Baconator. I earned it, right?!
Incredibly, this system didn’t work so well. So after about a six month long “fuck it, who cares” binge, I’m back on the fitness gravy train (gravy…god, I miss gravy) and this time it’s for real. I’m about a month into it so far, which makes me about as qualified to dispense fitness advice as the cast of Jersey Shore is to conduct a seminar on humility. But it’s working for me, and if I don’t think about it every moment of every day, I’m bound to screw up and go back to my old ways of dressing chicken tender sandwiches with Doritos. So humor me, will ya?!
In my journey, I’ve found out some things that I had never thought of before, dispelled some myths I had preconceived in my head, and have even came up with a trick or two myself. I bestow upon you, 5 weight loss tips from a sedentary, lazy jerk.
Turn it Into a Game
Being a product of my generation, I am all at once shamelessly self-involved, only motivated in a competitive sense when it comes to video games, and addicted to social networks. What better way to motivate myself to lose weight than to turn it into a game of sorts and share my progress on a social network, satiating my need to tell the world about every trite, minute detail of my life?
With this in mind, I’ve been using MyFitnessPal. It’s a calorie counter, but it also has an engaging community of people going through the exact same thing. A lot of my discouragement when dieting comes from the fact that seemingly everyone around me can basically have jovial contests to see how many McGriddles they can shove into their mouths at one time whereas I’m stuck picking mere fronds off of tomato vines and calling it dinner. So it’s good to have an entire forum of people trying to accomplish the same thing.
The other great thing about MyFitnessPal is that based on your weight, height, and target weight it formulates guide for you, with maximum limits for calories, fat, carbs, sugar, and everything else you find apropos to track. This not only makes it infinitely easier to track what I’m putting into my body, but also gives it that video game-esque, number-crunching, min-maxing aspect that I so solitarily excel at (my idea of math is staring at a spreadsheet explaining which gear in World of Warcraft will yield a decimal point more damage than another piece).
For a system like MyFitnessPal to work though, you need to track everything. For every time you’re proud to log that grilled chicken salad, there are going to be times you’re tempted to just pretend that that morning where you had pancakes and a chocolate milkshake for breakfast never happened (oh how I wish that never happened). Honestly though, you’re only hurting yourself. Instead of lying, you should be striving to truly eat better, so you can proudly display your digital award to your Facebook and Twitter friends.
Another aspect of this is exercise. With an app like Nike+, my iPhone logs how many calories I’ve burned running on the treadmill in many cases more accurately than the treadmill itself. You can also set your own playlists, and even receive a chorus of cheers and wild applause every time someone “Likes” or Retweets the fact that you’ve started a run. A little too self-aggrandizing for my likes, but a nifty features nonetheless.
You Don’t Have to Eat Nothing But Salad
As the international leader in morbid obesity (one of the few areas where we lead the rest of the world these days), the good ole’ US of A plays host to some interesting theories about what does or does not cause weight gain, which in turn spawns bizarre crash diets that may drop weight technically, but will leave you looking like Fat Bastard after Atkins:
You know, “carbs are the enemy”…
As a result, there are a lot of convoluted notions about how to actually lose weight. Does saturated fat make you gain weight? Do carbs? Does sodium?
The answer is that we’re making it a lot more difficult than it really is. The equation here is very simple, scientifically backed, and really just common sense. The magical equation that will make you drop pounds efficiently and reliably is as follows:
Calories Eaten – Calories Burned = Excess Calories
If you eat more calories than you burn off in any given day, you’re going to gain weight. It’s simple. It’s important to track things like fats, sodium and sugar, most definitely, but even if you ignore that completely and do nothing but stay under your calorie limit, you will lose weight.
Just like how women have smaller brains than men do. It’s science.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to strenuously jazzercise off every mere morsel, either. Your body burns plenty of calories just, well, existing. So, how many calories should I be eating in a day? Well, that requires a little more research. There are two major complex equations used to determine how many calories your body burns just doing normal body things, affected by your height, weight, sex, and age: The Mifflin-St. Jeor Equation, and the Harris-Benedict Equation. MyFitnessPal prefers the former for reasons I’ll leave to smarter people than I to disseminate, but I’m going to go with that one. Both equations are thought to be reasonable guides, and they may not be what you think.
For instance, according to the Mifflin-St. Jeor Equation, at my current height, weight and age, my body burns 2,200 calories a day doing normal, everyday body things like, I don’t know, blinking and taking dumps and stuff. So for now, if I consistently eat less than 2,200 calories a day, I will continue to lose weight until I’ve lost enough to where it changes the equation. If you keep in line with what the equation says, you should lose weight. I’ve been following this, while generally attempting to eat healthier foods, but not becoming discouraged if my friends are going out to eat and I grab a burger (so long as it fits within my calorie limit), and I’ve been shedding the pounds.
Nutrition is 85% of Weight Loss. Exercise is 15%
A lot of people seem to think that as long as they hit the gym for a couple hours every day, they can absolutely gorge themselves on whatever unholy concoction of death they can imagine afterward and still lose weight. Being the kind of person who skipped class constantly only to make up a mountain of homework the day before the semester ended, I truly wish that this sort of “meh, I’ll deal with my mistakes later” system worked when it comes to weight loss, but it doesn’t. The following sentence is unfortunately a fact of life you’re going to have to accept if you want to lose weight: You can’t out-exercise a shitty diet. Just hopped on the treadmill for a half hour? Congratulations, you’ve just worked off about two thirds of that large order of fries you had with your Big Mac for lunch. Not to say that if you go a little overboard exercising that little extra isn’t a good idea, because it is, but you just can’t keep that pace up forever.
If you’re lazy and resistant to change like I am and don’t have the time nor desire to exercise, take solace in the fact that you can and will lose weight if you trade the gym membership in for some actual decent food. Exercise definitely is important to the tone and shape of your body, though. If you only watch your eating habits and don’t give one single damn about physical exertion, you run the risk of turning into a “skinny fat person”; or, the aforementioned “Fat Bastard syndrome”.
Sugar & Liquid Calories = BAAAADDDDD
I have something of an addictive personality, which is another way of saying that I indulge every damn whim that I please. That’s how I got into this whole “needing to lose a bunch of weight” mess in the first place. I’ve spent my entire life convincing my body that Coke and Mountain Dew are analogous to water, and since I’m on a mental maturity timeline that’s about a decade before everyone else’s, I’ve just recently developed an affinity for partying and imbibing sweet, sweet alcohol. One of the hardest things to do in this whole mess was giving up soda, but once I did the pounds just came shedding off; I lost ten pounds my first two weeks, which can be mostly attributed to soda. Soda has an ungodly amount of sugar, which translates into an ungodly amount of carbs, on top of the 200 or so calories per 20 oz bottle. I didn’t even eat 200 calories for breakfast this morning; why would I want to throw 200 calories of pure sugar and carbs down my throat to wash down more calories? Especially when water is free, undeniably great for your body, and just feels great. And I don’t think I need to mention profuse ingestion of Little Debbie’s or Hostess variety snack cakes or cookies. Basically, sugar’s dangers to the body are multi-layered, and excepting natural sugar from fruits, should be avoided if at all possible.
Beer is very similar. While beer’s sugar content is nowhere near that of soda’s, it does contain plenty of carbs and calories in its own right. So if you’re looking to get drunk on a calorie budget, liquor is your best option (not mixed with soda or juice—don’t defeat the purpose!) I try not to drink very often, and when I do, I try to account for the calories by eating less during the day (unless my horrific, drunken alter ego comes out at a party. There’s really no stopping that guy. Dude’s a tank), so if you can fit it into your budget, go for it.
Keep Track of Your Progress
I spoke above about the importance of a calorie tracker like MyFitnessPal. It’s not only important to count calories though, it’s also important to keep track of your progress. Weigh yourself at least once a week. Note the difference (MFP can keep track of your weigh-ins and their fluctuations, as well as waist measurements if you’re so inclined.) Take a picture of that offensive, ungainly gut of yours every week and watch it disappear before your very eyes. That’s why you’re doing this, right? To get back into shape? There’s no better motivation than literally watching the pounds shed off your body.
Of course, you can always just use the same tired “A beer belly is just a fuel tank for a party machine” anecdote for the rest of your life.
So keep it up, stud. I know you can do it. Hell, if I’m doing it, being one of the most sedentary, lazy, unmotivated inhabitants of this very planet, anybody can.
If anything is factually incorrect in this article, feel free to castigate me, but I am no expert in the field. I am merely sharing what has been working for me, and my perceptions on the subject of weight loss.
Related posts:
- Do This, Not That: Easy, Everyday Tips For Living a Stronger, Healthier Life (Even at the Workplace)
- 5 Tips For Sticking to your New Year’s Resolution of Working Out
- 3 Tips For Keeping a Strong Digestive System
Tagged beer, biggest loser, calories, fat bastard, featured, fitness, guide, health, myfitnesspal, nike+, ron burgundy, scale, soda, tips, weight loss
