30 Months to a New You
This month, Keith is only a few pounds away from reaching
his goal of losing 100 pounds. He didn’t
do it quickly; it has been a slow process of changing his lifestyle instead of
dieting. He has struggled with his
weight since he as a child. After years
of stress, travel, eating double bacon cheeseburgers, and Big Gulp Dr. Peppers,
he truly packed on some serious weight.
Keith at BMI 24.5 (above and normal) instead of 39.4 - (below and obese and close to morbidly obese at 40.0)
A few years ago, he got his wake-up call; first with heart
attack and triple bypass heart surgery, and then three years later he had a hemorrhagic stroke. He has always had high
cholesterol and blood pressure but today, they are both normal without the
medications he took for years and years.
I didn’t need a wake-up call after packing on an extra 40 pounds after I
turned fifty. I took one look at that
huge scar running down his chest and the pain that he was going through after
open heart surgery and decided; it is time for a change.
You might have noticed the subtitle – 30 Months to a New You
and think – 30 months? Are you
serious? Most of us want a 30-day quick weight
loss diet. Let’s talk about fat cells
and water first. With most quick loss diets you end up losing water; not fat.
We are born with about the same amount of fat cells as we have
today. The problem is that those cells
have fat in them and some water. If you eat a lot of
salty foods; your body has a lot of water.
No problem with that (other than salt is bad for you!) What you want is for those evil fat cells to “give
up” that fat it is holding onto. It is a
slow process to start burning fat, but it will happen and you have the perfect
tool to do this; your extra weight. That
is why Keith always loses faster than I do and more – he has more extra
weight. So, for once you’re going to use
that to your advantage. If you are willing to commit 30 months to this plan;
you should be 30 pounds lighter or more (without those daily fluctuations of
water) in 2 and half years. You might
think, “I can’t wait this long!” But for
most of us, we spent 30 years piling this on - so what is 30 months to slowly and permanently
take it off? Keto and other diets can starve your body of energy to do this and make you weak - so try not dieting for once. Don't try to live off of a 1200 a day no carb diet when you have a body demanding 2000 calories to function. You'll get weak and sick. Use that weight to your advantage to reshape your body into more muscle and less fat. At first you might even gain weight, but the long term goal is to make yourself into a lean, mean, fighting machine!
Remember when you were young and didn’t worry about your
weight? The reason why is that you had a
high metabolism and a high percentage of muscle.
Just walking around burned more calories with your young firm and trim body. That is your goal; to convert the fat filled
body that you have today into a lean, firm muscular body with great core strength that burns calories
better so that you can eat freely without gaining weight for the next 30 years. You will have better balance and prevent falls that might break your hip. You'll be healthier, stronger and have less inflammation. You'll be less susceptible to catching colds and the flu. If you have leg, shoulder, and knee problems like me - they will all get better. But don't overdo it - start slowly so that you don't cause an injury. I went overboard and decided to run a Disney 5K and ended up injuring my hip joint. It took months to heal and in the meantime I had to alter my daily routine. So be careful and this blog is not intended to provide any medical advice; rather it is a blog of what worked for us.
Here
are your steps;
Step 1 – Become vegan. Okay, this might be a tough one that will
make you stop right here. But converting
to a plant-based lifestyle is easier today than ever. If you want to be fully convinced read The
China Study and its analysis of the cancer risk of meat. I will admit we are not 100% vegan, but
close. Today’s plant-based food it tasty
and easy. Look for the brand, Gardein in the frozen grocery section. But a word of warning; vegan food does not have fewer
calories than lean meat, but here is the real reason why we follow a
plant-based diet; it doesn’t taste as good as real beef, chicken, turkey and
pork. I love KFC chicken and can eat
a whole bucket! Would I eat a bucket of Gardein’s chicken patties? No Way!
So being vegan means you’ll end up eating less and reducing inflammation. Aim for high protein and high fiber choices to make you strong.
Step 2 – Start Walking. For Keith, he started walking. Being vegan and walking is how he lost the
first 50 pounds. But he still had a
heart attack and stroke. I think walking
and being a little bit lighter saved his life. If these
life-ending events had happened before he lost that first 50 pounds, I’d be a
widow today. His type of stroke has an 80% death rate. He is part of the lucky 20% - or was it luck? It isn’t easy walking in the Florida heat, so
we eventually got treadmill desks so both of us could walk and work, Internet
browse, do email, etc. at the same time. Our brand of treadmill is LifeSpan and
Amazon has lots of desks designed to go up and down above a treadmill. For me, I lost my first 20 pounds this way,
but we were stuck. Still overweight but
no longer obese.
Step 3 – Add Yoga for Strength and Brush your Teeth. Walking can be a good aerobic exercise and
even build some muscles; but they are the same muscles. With all that extra weight, you have the
perfect body to build strength if you’re careful. I became a certified yoga instructor and
added some of those poses to my daily routine. Hopefully
in this blog I’ll start sharing my daily yoga routine that I do it all
day. Maybe even some videos! I do many of of my daily yoga poses while watching TV, so not very spiritual. If you want to get started, here is
your first lesson; stand on one leg while you brush your teeth. I have a Sonicare toothbrush that goes for 2
minutes with a little beep every 30 seconds.
Each 30 seconds I stand on one leg, then change to the other; keeping a
hand close to the counter to steady myself. Building this leg and core strength will help
you later with the Warrior pose.
Step 4 – Eat good oils to reduce body fat and inflammation.
We started replacing our oils and butter with the good oils; coconut, avocado,
and olive oil. The other "bad 8" oils cause
inflammation and increase your belly fat and make stress worse. It is hard to switch to these since food
companies often label something as olive oil butter or avocado chips, but if
you read the ingredients, they normally start with one of the 8 bad oils; Soybean,
Corn, Cottonseed, Canola, Rapeseed, Sunflower, Sesame and Grapeseed oil. These oils make you fat, cause inflammation, and increase the fat in your fat cells. The good oils "trick" your fat cells to not hoard the fat.
Step 5 – Get a Personal Trainer and Stand Up. This is something that I did that Keith did
not. I found that the treadmill and yoga
alone wasn’t doing enough to get me in shape.
The personal trainer set up a series of weight and strength training
that I follow every day while I watch TV. I use exercise bands and 10 pound weights. Covid hit and I didn’t get to go back to the trainer; but I still follow that
routine she made for me. If you want to get started,
here is your first exercise. Ever hour
stand up and sit down 12 times. My iWatch reminds me to do this every hour and by
doing this (it is harder than you think) you start building other muscles that
walking doesn’t get for you. It also increases your metabolism. I will add
more ideas in next months blog and there are some others in my older blogs.
Step 6 – Drink water.
I drink 12 cups a day. If you
study the body here is a simple lesson on how it works; food goes from your
stomach to your intestines. While it is in
your intestines; your body releases hormones that converts food to nutrients. It uses the carbs to create energy to
fuel your day, protein to make you strong and it stores that extra fat in your
belly where your anxious fat cells are waiting for it. This is one problem with
being overweight; your body is not only waiting for that food – it is demanding
it to maintain that extra weight. It not
only wants that food – it needs it. So,
the goal is to send that all that massive food you ate quickly through the
intestines before it gets processed too much.
Sure, you could take laxatives; but that will make you look old and
dehydrated. It is also very dangerous.
Instead flood your system with water; and some good belly fat oil like avocado,
olive, and coconut to keep things lubricated and moving. If you switch to vegan, you’ll be getting
more fiber and things will go easier and give fat less time to get out and over
to your fat cells for storage. I don't like drinking water, so I brew one bag of decaf green tea and one bag of caffeine free apple cinnamon spice tea. I add 6 drops of stevia and then put into 6 Rubbermaid plastic16oz containers and add water. I drink them until they are gone daily and make 6 more the next day.
Step 7 - ELF – Eat less food and Intermittent Fasting. We often go “off the plan.” I did that for Christmas and cooked a lobster pie
from Harry and David. This must be one
of the worse things in the world you can eat other than tablespoons of
butter! It has high calories and fat
(saturated) – but it tastes so good. But
in the end, “nothing tastes as good as feeling good feels.” But I wanted it and it was amazing! I only had one serving and then threw the
rest away. ELF – Eat less food. Keith was able to resist it. I didn’t feel guilty, but I made up for it by
eating Cheerios for dinner that night. It is VERY
hard to throw away food! I was raised by
two depression era parents that did the whole “children starving in China”
and “finish your dinner” routine. I’m
trained to save and hoard food. But now
I merely bury it in my sandy Florida soil to slowly transform my body and
backyard into a better place. I am experimenting
with growing Gynura procumbens or Longevity Spinach which Keith chews 3 leaves
a day and then drinks a cup of warm water to curb his appetite. I eat 3 in the morning, just for health
reasons. I also used intermittent
fasting to lose weight. I stopped eating
at 4pm and didn’t eat again until 9AM for my 30 months.
Keith didn’t do this but I did and it worked for me. Everyone is different and part of this 30-month
plan is experimenting on what works for you. Some or all of these steps might
work for you.
Step 8 – Go Slow. Keith and I have been losing weight
for 2+ years. Our goal was 1
pound a month. Yes, that is all we aimed for. It is obtainable, easy to reach,
and works. The science of it all is; to
lose 1 pound; you need to reduce your calories by 3500 a month. That works out to just a little more than 100
per day. Look at a daily food log (try
to do one for a week) and see how you can reduce your intake today by 100
calories. Eat less, substitute vegan for
something else, eat only one bacon cheeseburger instead of 2, drink one less
soda. Start with the French fries – get
the apple slices instead. It isn’t hard. Giving
up my end of the day treat did it for me.
We had little 100 calories low fat snack packs and I didn’t eat one and
stopped ordering them. It really helps
not to have this stuff in the house; so we don’t order it – or do what
Keith does- he has me hide it and asks for it only when he really “needs it.” We put our start weight (minus 1) on the top
of the calendar in the bathroom and weigh ourselves each day; looking to hit
our goal. We might only hit it once, but
that is enough. The next month it is
that weight minus 1. Somehow it works. Yes, our weight goes up and down with water
gain/loss and whether or not we got a good poop that day, but over all we’re 1 pound
lighter each month. I’m currently done;
which means I’ve achieved my goal weight, have a lean strong body and burn calories
all day long. So, I eat according to the
“plan” and plenty of good food during the week and get down to 133.
On the weekend, I go crazy and snack and eat shrimp, pizza, steak or
whatever bad stuff I crave and normally end up at 135.
Then I spend the next week back on the plan and back to 133. I'm not dieting, I always eat a lot of food - it is merely either good food; thinking of the food as making me strong - or bad food that is the treats I crave. I found my set point is 135 pounds for
someone who is 5’6” (I shrunk an inch) and my built, but when you get to your set point, you’ll
know and you might like my little fun “maintenance plan.” I treadmill, yoga, and weight train every day –
regardless of weekend or not.
Step 9 – Eliminate Stress. This was hard; both of had high-stress jobs
that meant lots of travel. When you
travel do you tend to hoard food like me?
I would even save and eat the peanuts and pretzels from the plane
because I didn’t know when I would get my next meal. Then when I did get to eat; there was an
attitude of “I deserve this” because I was so far from home and lonely – or I
was eating and drinking* with clients and who can turn down lobster and steak, followed by
chocolate mousse? There were also all
the employee birthday cakes, free cookies at the hotel, and free breakfast
buffet. We stopped traveling except maybe one vacation a year. It was hard, but traveling causes stress and
overeating. Now we are able to work out of our
home and we added twice daily mediation. I
stopped talking on the phone because it was difficult to hear and went to
“email only” with my clients. I sold our
company and started a retirement plan. I
won’t get into the science; but if you experience stress, the elevated cortisol
levels caused by your belly fat and stress promotes overeating and weight gain - along with belly fat storage. You are probably reading this because you are
my friend and most of my friends are either retired or considering it soon. If you're already retired and experience stress from certain people or events; why are you around them or doing that? Rethink your life until you are better. If you are obese, you're very sick and in danger. Time to get you well again. Feel free to email me when you start and your monthly progress at the end of the month. I save my emails forever, so I'll give you little mile marker congratulations and promise to NEVER share your personal info like I did with poor Keith. I plan to use this blog for the next 30 months to guide readers along, so ask me to email you when I have done a new blog.
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm
Step 10 – Sleep More and add Mediation to your Day. This is also hard if you’re still pulling
down a 9-5 job, but we faithfully meditate each day at 10am and 2pm. Since we’re not very deep or spiritual folks,
it might be more like a “senior nap.” I
do lots of yoga deep breathing during that time and often fall asleep (Keith
always does.) I also sleep like a
farmer; I go to bed at sundown. That
means heading to bed at about 7pm and I’m fast asleep by 8pm. If I stay up late, I'll snack, so easier to go to bed. This means that I get to wake up every morning
naturally at 3:30 - 4AM. No alarm clock
jarring me awake! I go to the bathroom,
then back to bed for some wake-up yoga in bed (quietly not to disturb Keith who
sleeps from 11pm to 7AM.) Again, this
might not work for you, but it is 6AM now and I’ve already done a 5K (3.1
miles) on the treadmill while writing this blog and Internet surfing. I remember when it was hard to do the treadmill
at this speed for more than 15
minutes. When was that? About 30 months ago….
Good luck!
Visit my website for info on my books - https://www.sandijerome.com/
* neither of us drink, but you might consider giving that up to help your willpower.
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