"What a Difference a Week Makes" or "How He Do It?"

Day: 9 Weight Loss: 4lbs

As it stands, 8 days later, I am a full fledged gym goer. How do I know this? Why because the High School kid that has to wipe down sweaty machines and windows knew my name without looking at my card. Yes, what's his name knows mine. It's a great feeling. This past week has been what we in the b-logging community call "a win." I am four pounds lighter, I beat the stairs of death (well, 90% beat), and even did some running. Yes you read that correctly. How did I accomplish such things in 8 days, you ask? Well, thanks for asking. I will tell you now.

THE PLAN: FOOD

By using my eyes to read, I have come to the conclusion that successful weight loss comes from a combination of eating right and exercise. The New England Journal of Medicine must be looking up my number now - what a discovery. And so, a week before my adventures at the gym, I started the first phase of my two phase plan. By calculating my Base Metabolic Rate (the amount of calories I would burn if I stayed in bed all day), I determined that my caloric intake should be 2400 calories per day. This gives a 400 calorie deficit from my BMR.

Now that I had my limit, I needed to figure out how to eat enough Pizza Hut pan pizzas and ice cream to both satisfy my stomach & caloric limit. But alas, I had to look at the book Eat This, Not That. It turns out that some foods are bad for you and should be replaced with healthier options (aaaaAAAAAAaaahhhh). So I looked for food that had limited amounts of fat, calories, sodium, sugar, and HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup, the bane of the American stomach). The amazing thing is that this is not that hard to do. All you have to do is read the label on the product. Of course, one side effect to following the labels is that the person at the deli counter at Albertsons gets a little annoyed with you asking to read the label to each package of slice-able meat.

Now one thing to keep in mind, just because you are satisfied spending your entire day's calories on a deep fried, cheese covered, triple bacon cheeseburger, your body is not. The secret co-ingrediant to having the right food is eating 6 small meals instead of 3 (or less) big ones. FYI - easier said than done.

"But Dan," you may ask, "how does a fatty like you successfully ward off the seductive ways of foods you're not supposed to eat?" Well, inconsiderate so and so, the answer is easy: cheat meals. Let's say that I am a slave to cheesecake (which I definitely am not). If I were to completely rid myself of the dessert, I would spend every waking hour thinking about how much I miss the cream cheesy goodness. This would make everything else taste like unimaginative poo, and I would eventually break into a Cheesecake Factory and wipe them out. This isn't good for you or the local economy. And so, the cheat meal was given. After seven consecutive (successful) days of sticking to my dietary plan, I allow myself one meal of whatever I like. The schemer in me loves the idea of having a "meal" of pizza, meatball subs, chips, and forty five liters of Coke. This is not a cheat meal (it is in fact, tasty suicide). A cheat meal allows me, within reason, to have that burger that's been winking at me. A cheat meal lets you go out to the baseball game and not feel guilty about those garlic fries. Think of it as relieving the pressure so Chernobyl doesn't happen. This past (Super Bowl)Sunday, I had my first cheat meal. it consisted of a chicken sausage, some homemade BBQ chicken pizza, and a glass of Cherry Coke zero. Man, what a cheater!

All this talk about food makes me want to SWEAT!

THE PLAN: EXERCISE

It's simple really. I mix weight training and cardio training. While DJ Tanner and Jessie Spano have taught us, running on a treadmill & riding an exercise bike help us lose weight. But why weight lifting? doesn't adding the weight of muscle counteract the idea of losing weight in general? For those of you asleep in 8th grade health class, no it doesn't. You see, fat burns calories. Don't get excited; a pound of fat only burns about 3 calories a day. A pound of muscle can burn many more calories in a given day. So, by replacing the lazy fat with active muscle, I don't have to work as hard to drop the pounds. Plus, chicks dig muscles.

Here's an average week (taking the average from two weeks):

Monday: 10 minutes warm up cardio, 30-60 minutes weight lifting/stairs of
death, 30 minutes of constant cardio
Tuesday: 60-80 minutes of cardio (split between cycling, treadmill, &
interval training.
Wednesday: See Monday
Thursday: No gym (I have evening meetings. So sue me.)
Friday: A mix of Monday & Tuesday, followed by hitting a racquetball
Saturday: See Tuesday
Sunday: Observe the day of the week that the Lord rose from the dead


So can a person see physical results after just 8 days? Well, when I look in the mirror, I'm still fat. But here's what I can tell you. On Tuesday, I introduced interval training into my repertoire. Interval training is a mix of walking and jogging designed to prepare your body for events such as 5,10, and 401k's. As my last post showed, jogging has made me tired quickly. However, yesterday, while I felt like stopping, it was not due to being out of breath, but because my thighs hurt. I did stop twice, but it was because my shoe was untied.