Over 1000 page views celebration! My best tips in my 2 year journey for weight loss!

 

This week, I started the plan over, (yes for the one millionth time). I also bought the 7 day detox kit from GNC (see my earlier blogs). I am on day 5 of both the detox and “The Plan.” I have not had any sugar or wine (eek!) either just because I sincerely think that I am (or was) addicted to sugar. While I was indulging myself and feeling sorry for myself the past month, I would have a few glasses of wine, and some sort of small chocolate several times a week. This week I’m doing good! (So far!)  This week, I also did my personal training followed by the training for warriors program that I am trying out at galaxy fitness. It is very intense and I do think that it has its benefits. There are still pros to doing personal training for me because no one pushes me harder than Brad (and I need that) and I don’t cheat on something when I am doing it in front of Brad.  I am highly motivated to do it correctly and get my “good girl” at the end. What can I say? I am well trained, perhaps.

 

So, what are the most important things that can help you to lose weight? Complete strangers ask me all the time what my secret is. Well, as you all know the first thing that rocked my world was “The Wheat Belly” by William Davis. It cured my insulin resistance, helped with my thyroid, helped with my blood pressure and resulted in a large initial weight loss. I still say that gluten and wheat are evil and you should avoid them at all costs. If you insist on eating bread, get a book on the glycemic index- see how sugars in your body are being jacked up by eating certain foods- like bread. Remember, eating a piece of bread is like eating a candy bar, so if you’re eating your multigrain tuna fish sandwich from subway everyday for lunch and wonder why your not losing weight. Well, there you go.

 

Food is everything. I had a reaction to mustard yesterday. A small one- but enough that I couldn’t lose weight because my body was in a state of inflammation, inside.  “Internal” reactions may not show up like an allergy. A sneeze or an itch may or may not appear. Some people have bloating or a stomach ache after eating dairy products. Other people may not notice it because they have damaged their bodies for so long, but each time they drink a glass of milk, inflammation appears and you can say forget it to weight loss. This is the basis of “The Plan” that I have talked about by Lyn Genet Recitas. There are foods such as salmon, greek yogurt, and oatmeal that you think are healthy but could be secretly sabotaging you. If you don’t believe me, eliminate certain foods from your diet and keep a food diary. The two times these past several months I followed “The Plan” the whole way through 20 days, each time I lost 13 pounds. Numbers don’t lie.

 

But Sarah, (you whine), aren’t there any simple tips you have for weight loss and better health? Why yes, there is. First of all, I drink half my body weight in ounces, each day. So if you weight 100 pounds, you need to drink 50 ounces of water each day. Many, many, different health experts agree about getting enough water. Sleep is absolutely crucial!!! You must get at least 8 hours of sleep every night. Your body needs that time to process your food, and recover from the day's activities. If you are regularly not getting enough sleep, don't bother getting on the scale.I promise you that while you are tired and playing catch up, inside your body is struggling too and you will not be able to lose weight. It has happened to me over and over. Also, I take a 20 billion or above probiotic every day. Wal Mart has an ultra flora 30 billion probiotic for $18. Probiotics help the balance of the intestines, and can help with stomach problems as well. Further, probiotics help the flora in your digestive tract to maintain a natural balance and break down foods. Foods like dairy or wheat can be hard on the system and help restore balance. I also drink a lot of green tea (lots of antioxidants and what not) as well as other teas. Dandelion tea and detox teas with help clear the toxins from your liver and are also teas I highly recommend. I also drink ginger tea, being that ginger is a natural anti inflammatory. Giant Eagle and your larger grocery stores have a huge selection of medicinal sort of teas over in their pharmacy section. Check it out! Ginger and carrots are a big part of “The Plan” because they are both really helpful in bringing down internal inflammation.  My final small tip is eating more vegetables. Seriously, I eat a salad every day and for dinner have a huge serving of fresh vegetables such as carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, squash, etc. When I say vegetables, I’m not talking about your starchy potatoes, your corn on the cob (corn has no nutritional value at all by the way), or your canned peas, ok? Put those away. Stop calling them vegetables. They are not going to help you. Go buy some fresh green beans, asparagus, onions, carrots, kale or broccoli (if you don’t have thyroid issues kale or broccoli will work). Anything fresh. Not starch. Not in a can. I’m serious here, this is important. I lost the most weight when I had two at least 1 cup servings of vegetables a day (one of those can be salad, but you can’t eat all salad. Also, if you are drenching the salad with cheese, dressing, and well, crap then just forget it). A variety of fresh vegetables provides fiber and other antioxidants and vitamins that I can not even begin to tell you the value of. I also eat one or two fruits a day as well.

 

Exercise: How much do I need? What should I start with? If you are just starting exercise, try to do some bodyflow or any combo of yoga and pilates together. Try a cardio class that you like or a lifting class that you enjoy. Just get into the gym a few days a week, and do a class or even get on the treadmill for 20 mins. If you’ve never exercised before, start easy and find things that you like. The point is to get moving. As you go along, you will see that sustained weight loss, and serious results must be done when combining cardio with strength training. There are a thousand articles out there about this. I found the same to be true for myself which is why I am trying to do the TFW a few days a week. It is both cardio and strength training at the same time which will help build muscle and burn fat. The types of exercises that are done (lunge presses for example) have been shown in particular to burn belly fat. Belly fat is the hardest for me and for everyone. Weight lifting or strength training exercises with cardio and when possible, combining the two at the same time by doing kettle bell exercises, box pushes, squat presses, or doing a circuit (i.e. combination of something like a sprint or run a few laps, do some pushups, then do some squats presses, then repeat the three exercises three times) will help you to get the most out of your workout. Kettle bells are pretty amazing things that can even be done from home that also combine strength and cardio.

 

 In the new class, Training for Warriors (TFW) I feel a little intimidated. I am not the most athletic person there, although everyone seems nice. Nate, (another personal trainer at the gym, and in fact he is my son’s personal trainer and is also excellent at what he does. I highly recommend him as well), is the TFW coach and he knows a thousand different fucking pushups I swear I thought I was going to die. Also, he mentioned something about chin ups which at my weight, a chin up seems…impossible….I don’t want to relive my high school gym class days of me feeling like the fattest person there, and also the only person who can’t climb the rope or stand on the balance beam or do a “chin up.” So basically I love it and hate it at the same time. It kicks my ass, but I’m still insecure (so sue me). I’ll keep you posted as I continue to do some more classes next week. More on that and the continued success of the plan (I’m down 4.6 pounds this week in 5 days whoo hoo!) in my next post! Thanks for reading and I hope some of my tips helped you! Stay healthy!