The Two Week Hump

   Sunday through Friday are pretty much the same for me. I eat 5 balanced healthy meals a day. I also workout during my lunch break at work for an hour and run roughly 3-4 miles every day when I get home. As I type this out, I laugh because this is not how I pictured my days being when I first started this journey back in January. To be honest I was very nervous to workout at all when I first started. I was extremely out of shape and didn't even know where to begin exercising. As for the eating, my body knew there was something up on day 1 when  I opted for the oatmeal instead of the McDonalds McGriddle sausage and egg sandwich. Needless to say, the thought of losing weight was daunting, even trying to achieve the 2.5lb goal that I had set for that week seemed far away. Every day during the first week was worst than the last. I began to develop headaches. I was sore in places I didn't know could get sore. The first 2 weeks of your weight loss journey will not be fun. This isn't the Biggest Loser, where you will step up on a scale and lose 12 pounds the first week with a room of people clapping for you on national tv. Most likely you won't have a personal trainer and won't nearly eat as strict or workout as hard as you would be made to do by Jillian Micheals. You will have headaches, you will be sore. As an added bonus, you will probably also have a stressful life circumstance come up during your initial weeks which will make you want to throw in the towel and head to the nearest Dairy Queen. But this is where the most important character attribute gets developed that will help you last through this multi-month journey to reach your end result, its call perseverance.

    The truth of the matter is, your body does not want to change habits that it has developed over many years. Like a recovering drug addict, you will feel your body and your emotions going against you at every turn. But the key thing to understand, is this will not be permanent. You are retraining yourself physically and mentally and it is going to take time for your system to adapt. For me this change took roughly 2 weeks to happen. Thats not to say that the journey became a breeze after it, but the intensity of resistance from my body subdued greatly and I found myself growing a muscle that I had been lacking for many years, perseverance. Every day I looked at the "before" picture of myself that I took as motivation to not give up. Being great at procrastination, I even found myself what was formerly a vice to assist me in making it through this tough time. I would tell myself "I'll grab that Chic-Fil-A milkshake next week." There were even days when I just had to curl up in bed and hope to sleep away the pain. Whatever you need to do to make it through this time period, make sure you do it. Its going to be rough, but it is my experience that with radical change comes radical results!

How and When to Eat

  When I joined weight watchers a couple years back, I was infatuated with the point system. It seemed so simple. As long as I stayed under 40 points, I could eat whatever I want and still lose weight! I abused this system, I would eat virtually all of my points in one salty fat laden meal and then starve the rest of the day, maybe eating an apple or something until the next day came around. I remember proudly marching into Krispy Kreme and grabbing a donut thinking "these are only 4 points, I can eat 10 of these a day and still lose Wieght!!" But what I failed to realize is that my body cared nothing about points. What it really cared about is that I supplied it with the right type of nutrients to serve its functions. By eating one horrible meal a day, and starving it for the rest, I was essentially starving my system of the things it depends on to properly function. The result is that I was constantly hungry, I was low on energy, and I eventually breached that 40 point ceiling in an attempt to satisfy the deficit that I imposed on myself. Obviously there are people who have done weight watchers the right way, and have succeeded, But my issue with Weight Watchers is that it didn't teach me anything about food. I only had to look at the points, not the nutrition facts and as long as they didn't add up pass 40, I was going to be on the next commercial of weight watchers standing next to Jennifer Hudson.

When I started this journey in January of 2011, I decided that I was going to teach myself about food, and more specifically how food and weight loss really go together. I discovered two key things in my research.

1. Your body can only absorb a finite amount of calories per meal

2. Your body can store less fat when you eat more often

Most experts say that your body can only really process about 300-500 calories at a time. This means if you eat a #1 combo from McDonald (1130 calories) your body has at least 630 extra calories that It can't do anything with. That 630 spare calories will actually be stored as fat which your body wont touch unless it absolutely has to. Having learned this, I begin splitting my meals into 5 separate small portioned meals a day. I followed a schedule of:

6:30am- meal 1

10:00am- meal 2

1:00pm- meal 3

3:30am - meal 4

6:30pm- meal 5

At the end of the day I was taking in roughly 2000 calories and because I was eating appropriate calorie portioned sizes, My body was making use of every single calorie I put into it, there was nothing left over to store as fat. Of course you will have to make some determinations and adjustments to your eating schedule. The first thing you need to determine is how many calories your body needs. On average this tends to be 2000 calories for guys and 1500 calories for women. There are plenty of sites that give you calculators and other tools to determine this, but the most effective way is to listen to your body and adjust as you go on. You won't get it perfect week 1, but you will have it down after a couple of weeks.

How Calories Work

In my previous post, I stated that you need a deficit of 3500 calories in order to burn 1lb of fat. However the issue of weight loss is a little more complicated than a simple math equation. Also all weight loss does not equate to "fat loss". The food you eat are going to account for 85% of your weight loss effort at least. In order for you to be successful on this journey, you must pay attention to what you eat, how much you eat, and how often you eat. Despite what most people think, cutting calories across the board does not lead to long term weight loss and in fact will most likely lead to even more weight gain over a long period. So how do calories work and how can you get them to work for you?

   Calories basically come from 3 things: Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fat. Your body needs all 3 of these things to survive and maintain good health. Each of these 3 items are what nutritionist call "macro nutrients". Each of these macro-nutrients break down into different types of sub nutrients which I wont go into detail in this blog, but there are general rules regarding these what will help you to begin burning fat when applied properly. 

Protein: Calories from protein are the most difficult type of calories for your body to absorb. for every 100 calories of protein you eat, your body expends roughly 15 calories to try to absorb it. This means that you only net 85 calories for every 100 calories eaten of protein. The other good thing about protein, is that unlike simple carbohydrates that spike your blood sugar and lead to fat storage, protein leads to what is called "muscle synthesis" which is the repair process your muscles go through that makes them stronger and bigger. Since your body has to burn a lot more calories to maintain muscle than it does fat, you are increasing your natural metabolic rate by eating high protein foods. You need to eat protein every chance you get. The average person should eat between .5g-1g of protein per pound of target weight. This means that if your target weight is 160lb. You need to be eating between 80-160g of protein a day. Increasing the amount of protein in your diet will help you stay satiated longer because of the longer digestive process, but it will also help you maintain more fat burning muscle which will increase caloric burn and help the fat stay off once its gone.

Carbohydrates: Carbohydrates are probably one of the most misunderstood macro nutrients. The fact is your body needs carbohydrates for energy. The problem with our society now is that we overindulge in processed foods that contain large amounts of simple sugars (carbohydrates) and we end up taking in a disproportionate amount of carbohydrates than our body needs for energy. The result is extra stored fat. The key to dealing with carbohydrates is to let nature handle it. In other words, whole grains, vegetables, and fruits  should be your primary source of carbohydrates. The reason why is because these carbohydrates are more nutrient dense and complex then their refined counterparts. Swap out all of your white breads for 100% whole wheat. Swap out your white rice for brown rice, and swap out your crackers for something like Trisquits and what you will find is that you are almost tripling your fiber and cutting in half the amount of sugar you are taking in. The enhanced amount of fiber can cut the calorie absorption by 15%. The decreased blood sugar spike from eating these more complex carbohydrates will also slow down and reduce the amount of fat storage. You will also recieve greater gains on the treadmill during your workouts. If done right, carbohydrates will actually fight against your fat instead of adding to it.

Fats: So lets go ahead and get this out of the way, FATS ARE GOOD FOR YOU! Like carbohydrates, fats are often misunderstood, but they are extremely important when it comes to cholesterol and heart health. While the smallest percentage of your diet should still come from fats, you should maximize the fats you do eat by eating the healthy ones. Fat breaks down into 3 types: saturated, mono-saturated, and poly-saturated. The key is to focus on getting most of your fats from mono and poly saturated sources. Healthy lean meats like salmon as well as nuts are good sources of these fats. Butter (in moderation) is also another good source of fat. Fats absorb into your body the easiest of all the macro nutrients so you do want to limit how many calories come from fat, but if you focus on getting fats from lean meats and nuts, you will increase your heart health, joint health, and many other aspects of your bodily functions that may have been lacking before when the majority of your fat was coming from saturated fat.

Understanding these macro nutrients and how they interact with your body is important to making good food decisions when you are in the grocery store or at restaurants. Even without exercise, effectively combining these foods will work extremely well towards helping you lose extra pounds and keeping them off.

The Starting Line

 
  When you are obese, being able to see the finish line is extremely difficult. You've spent years living a lifestyle of bad nutrition and little to no exercise. Often the natural inclination is to try and find a quick solution. Weight loss commercials that you have seen in the past now catch your attention promising quick and effective results. You start reading online articles on how to "shave off 20 lbs" or "Get 6 pack abs by the summer." The reality is, a very small percentage of obese people see these programs through to completion, and even less keep the weight off once that program is complete. I've been there and have tried just about every fad and diet there was. I've done the following:
Lemonade Diet
Atkins Diet
P90
Weight Watchers
Nutrisystem
Southbeach Diet
Juice Diet
Vegetables only

With some of these diets I had a little success here and there, but was never able to finish. My problem is that much like a race, the diets had me come out the gate to fast and I was unable to sustain myself till the end. So what is the key to really making this transformation?

The key is to be realistic. It takes a calorie deficit of 3500 calories in order to lose 1 pound. Weight loss is not a speedy process and its not meant to be. You are retraining many elements of your lifestyle that led you to get to the place where you are now and that is going to take time. What I decided to do was take steps. Going from 245 to 180 was too much for me to tackle all at once. Instead I decided to divide my main goal up into monthly goals. 10 pounds a month is what I aimed for, meaning I only had to average about 2.5 pounds of weight loss a week. Only having to focus on the 2.5 pounds of weight loss made what originally seemed like a mountain to be no more than an ant hill. I purchased a calendar and labeled each week with my targeted weight loss goal and soon I had a road map and a direction. I also had to come out with a strategy. I was eating to much fatty, fried and sweet foods, and while I knew I was going to have to drastically reduce my intake of those items, I knew I couldn't give them up for good (nor would I need to). The key was to begin incorporating moderation into my lifestyle. Often times people go cold turkey into a diet, and like a drug addiction, your body goes into shock. You begin to get headaches, your energy feels low, and eventually the person runs into a road block and go back to the old habit with even more intensity than before. I knew that I was going to need balance, and so I broke my week up into 2 parts. 5 "health" days and 2 "off" days. This means that 5/7 days of the week I was going to consume a very healthy and nutritious foods. But on my 2 "off" days, I would be able to eat some of my favorite foods. Through out all of my planning , the primary purpose was to maintain a level of balance and moderation. With the framework in place, I needed to begin educating myself on nutrition and exercise, and how my body could combine to two to get me to where I wanted to go.