Step 1 – Getting Started – Weight Loss 101

Weight loss is not easy – I know the bajillion books in the diet industry and The Biggest Loser makes it seem like the weight should just fall off, but that’s not the reality. The Biggest Loser isn’t a typical weight loss situation (nor should it be) and the whole journey can really screw with your mind sometimes.

That being said – if you are overweight or obese, losing weight is going to take work and commitment on your part. You can’t blame anyone else or anything else if you are overweight. You made the choice to stick more food in your mouth that your body needs to operate. And your journey to lose weight will not end when the pounds come off. If you think you’re going to live on 1200 calories a day and then go back to your old habits when you are “done” - you will fail. Losing weight and keeping off is a total life change.   

The goal of Weight Loss 101 is to write down the things I wish someone would have told me up front when I started losing weight 4 years ago. I’m still a work in progress and I have a ways to go, but I have lost and kept off 60 lbs over the last 4 years. Weight Loss 101 gives you baby steps to build a foundation for the life changes that need to be made in order for your journey to be successful.

Here’s the first three blocks of your foundation:

1) Know where you are starting from. You need to know where you are at right now so you can know how far you’ve come. One of the things I regret is not taking measurements four years ago when I started. I know my weight was 315 at the time, but that’s all I really know. 

The Bare Minimum you need to do:
Weigh.

The Middle of the Road approach:
Weigh
Take the following measurements:
Neck
Chest (Nipple Level)
Upper Arm (I take both right and left)
Waist (this is the Narrowest part of your Abdomen)
Stomach (at the bellybutton)
Hips (I take both right and left)
Thigh (I take both right and left)
Calves (I take both right and left)

If you are going full bore, do the middle of the road approach plus:
Front view picture
Side view picture
Back view picture

And if you feel like going over the top, do the pictures in a sports bra and shorts if you are female or in shorts if you’re male.

2) It’s about energy in and energy out. The energy out has to be more than the energy in for the body to access the fat stores. 

In order to figure out what you’re eating and how much you are expending in energy, log your food and exercise. Start by tracking what you are eating (no fibbing!). Figure out how much activity you are doing. 

Your Food and Exercise Diary can be a notebook, a spread sheet or a food and exercise logging system such as the one found at Sparkpeople.com. If the number of calories being eaten is greater than the number being expended, you’re gonna gain. If the number of calories being expended (through exercise and other activities) is greater than what you are taking in through eating, you’ll lose weight.

3) Weight loss does not happen sitting in front of a computer.

I lost the first 40 lbs just by getting a job working retail. I’m not saying you have to work retail to lose weight. What I am saying is that I wasn’t sitting on my keister in front of a computer all day like I had been, my eating habits were still crap,  but I still I lost the weight because I was more active than I had been.

Start with walking. Start with doing yard work. Aim for a minimum of 30 minutes a day. If you can’t do 30 minutes all at once, do two 15-minute periods or three 10-minute periods.

Log it.

I’ll post a general calorie burn for general activities in the next few days.  

Do this for a week. Then we’ll talk about the next blocks of the foundation.