I put off this podcast for several reasons.  First, it’s been a different type of week since my schedule has been disrupted by training.  I’ve been in training all week which disrupted my usual recording time on Tuesday when I’m telecommuting. Secondly, I was dead sure that I was going to be gaining this week.  For some reason my whole mentality went out the window when it came to eating.  I started binging in the middle of the night again.  I stopped recording my food as much, and I just flip flopped between either not caring about what I ate and being whiny when I had the option of eating pizza.

Since it’s Thursday right now, which is my weight-in day, I’m going to go ahead and give a progress update for this week’s and last week’s weigh-in.  Last week I gained .8 lbs or .36 kg, but I went down .1% body fat.  I’ll count that as a non-scale victory as it seems to me that while I still went up in weight at least a portion of that was muscle; which I’m OK with for the most part.  I will admit that I’m still a bit of a slave to the number on the scale, which I’m sure most of you understand.  However, we need to concentrate on the facts and remember that gaining weight isn’t always the same as gaining fat especially when we’re exercising and there’s the distinct possibility that we built up muscle.

This week I lost 1.6 lbs or . 7 kg and .4% body fat, which is a good rate for me.  I’m pretty happy with that change considering I gained the week before.  I was pretty sure with the binging that I’d actually gain.  However, it just goes to show that sometimes we are pleasantly surprised.  Oh, I also want to give a shout out to my wife who lost 4 pounds this week.  I have to say she’s been doing awesome lately and I’m really pround of her.  She’s awesome.

Gym talk:

I’ve been asked when I’m going to level off and I think that I’m going to start leveling off around 18-15% body fat, so I’m not really sure what that weight will be.  I’ll also need to consult my doctor to see if extra skin affects that number.  For now though I still plan on continuing with my weight lifting program and cardio as-is.  I think I’ve got a good system going for now.  I’m pretty happy with the length of the workout and the difficulty.

I want to take a brief moment and mention my thoughts so far on the Runtastic apps I’ve been using for squats and push-ups.  I think that they do help.  I’ve been doing them on the same day as my weight training and I feel like they have helped make me a bit stronger and helped my form; in my experience the squats more than the push-ups.  That could be because I have weak shoulders, though.  My only contention is that as the programs are progressing I feel like they’re starting to be borderline excessive rather than a compliment to my workouts.

Diet talk:

My main concern this week has been the binging.  If I had to guess as to the reason as to why I’m binging again, I would say that it might be that I’m in a bit of conflict internally about being the guy who is trying to lose weight (who I’ve been) and the person who doesn’t (who I’m becoming).  To be frank it feels like a bit of an identity crisis and from what I’ve heard it’s fairly common.  However, after working out this morning I feel more grounded.  I realized that I need to listen to my own advice a bit more and that I shouldn’t base my stability on a number on a scale, but rather on how I feel and the effort that I put forth.  And I knew that I had put forth a lot of good effort the last several days (minus the fit I had about pizza), so if I lost weight that would just be a bonus.

Main Topic: Exercise with Kids

Katherine M asked me about exercising with her daughter.  I wish I could find the specific message, but I can’t seem to locate it.  However, she wanted to know about what thoughts I had on exercising when you have a young child.  She specifically mentioned that she was using a stationary bike to exercise and after a while her daughter wanted to sit on her lap.  She wondered if I had these same issues and if so how I dealt with them.

My first comment was that I have an outstanding wife who does run a lot of interference for me.  She also allows me to get up early in the morning to go work out which also grants me a lot of freedom.  So while I do avoid the situation most of the time by taking advantage of my child being asleep and my wife being there should there be an emergency.  But sometimes I don’t have the time to do things in the morning or there are times on the weekends where we as a family get bored, we want to go do something outside, or I want to repay my wife back for taking care of things in the morning.  So what do I do?

First off, in my opinion the best thing to do is to find something that includes her such as:

• Going for a walk
  • Push her in a stroller or carry them on a back carrier
  • Pull her in a wagon
• Walking to a destination
  • The park
  • Movie theater
  • Ice cream shop
  • Go swimming
  • See if there are any water features or pools
• Sports
  • Tag
  • Tennis
  • Baseball
  • Go bicycling
• Community events F
  • Festivals
  • Bike and car shows
• Go to state or national parks
• The zoo
• Geocaching

Admittedly if it’s the winter I’m in trouble here in Michigan.  Frankly, there’s not much that we can do outside because it’s cold and she is still only 4.  However, as she gets older there may be things that we can do together such as going to the gym, going sledding, winter sports, or finding other indoor activities such as rock climbing, gymnastics, or roller skating (although we took her last winter and she hated it). But there are things that you can do indoors that include her such as:

• Dancing in place
• Trying an exercise routine or app
• Getting in a fast exercise while they are playing, taking a bath, or otherwise amused.
  • Kettlebells
  • Body weight exercises
  • Yoga
• Try engaging them in an exercise video or app
  • Try using the Wii, X-Box, or PS3 to play a game
  • Dancing game
  • Rock band
  • Sports/exercise game

Contact Me:

• The website is located at http://www.shakeitoffcast.com
• Leave a Voicemail on the Site
• Send me a review in iTunes
• I’m on Twitter as @tdhowell
• Email me at podcast@shakeitoffcast.com
• And on Facebook

Disclaimers:

Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content isn’t a substitute for any medical advice and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all related health care questions and issues.

All links to products within this post are affiliate links (even if they’re free).

The post Exercise with Kids – Episode 056 appeared first on .

When I weighed myself this week I was unsure of how I felt.  My weight loss was a total of 7.2lbs or 3.3kg.  This puts me at 204lbs lost!  It was a pretty amazing feeling.  Even though I was fairly sure that I’d reach that goal it seems a bit unreal.  I’m not ashamed to admit that I did cry a little when I told my wife.  Even now I’m still overwhelmed at the amount of weight I’ve lost.

Gym talk:

I mentioned that I’ve been reading “Starting Strength” and it’s been teaching me the correct form for squats.  I’ve come to discover that I still have a lot to learn when it comes to lifting weights.  I also found out that I probably need to reduce the weight of my squat as when I perform the lift correctly I find that I’m weaker than when I cheat.  I believe that I will reduce the weight in order to work on my form and let the rest come.  Although there is a part of me that is frustrated that I’ll have to reduce the weight I’ve come to realize that I need to define the workout and not let the workout define me.  If I move forward and allow myself to have poor form I’ll either have to correct it later or admit that I’m cheating myself of the full benefits when it comes to gaining strength and weight loss.

Diet talk:

I was pretty on-point with my diet and weight loss this week.  However, I’ve been a bit flaky after losing 200lbs.  I could hear voices in my head telling me that it was time to party and to go nuts on food; even though another voice was paranoid that I’d lose that 200lb mark.  It just goes to show you that even after a year of working on myself I still have progress that needs to be made.  I still have tendencies that make me want to go bezerk when it comes to food.  I just need to recognize the signs and try to figure out alternatives other than eating when I start to feel the urges to binge.

Main Topic: How I lost 200lbs without Weight Loss Surgery

How do you talk about something such as a weight loss of 200 pounds?  How do you describe almost a year-and-a-half of work?  No; make that 30 years of work.  You know one of the things I remember from Elementary School was a girl who was mad at me pointing out my “man boobs” (I don’t remember what she called them) because she was so angry with me at the time.  I don’t remember what I did to make her so angry (it was probably normal horrible boy behavior), but that shut me up.  That was the first time I think I really started to grasp that I was overweight.  And worse, other people knew it too.  I wasn’t just a normal kid.  Or rather, I didn’t feel like I was (which probably did make me normal).

The truth is that a weight loss of 200 lbs. starts with small changes.  It comes with the decision after decision to move in a progressive nature to your goal.  It’s not letting yourself give in to the temptation of negating your health.  It’s the acknowledgment that things are not what they should be with you and that you’re willing to do your best to change your mind and your body to improve your health.  And most of all it comes with the determination to keep making all these changes even when you don’t want to; when you can’t stand them; and not giving up on yourself when you fall short of your goals.

• Starting out
  • Walking 1-2 times-a-day for 15 minutes each.
  • I started tracking my time and length with Runkeeper
• I started taking Herbalife supplements once again.
• I started ShakeitOffCast.com
• I started reading Full-Filled
• I eventually moved to using my BodyBugg, which I used to track my calories and steps
• My wife turned me onto MyFitnessPal, which I thought was superior for counting calories
• I then started recording steps with a Fitbit Ultra
• Eventually I started working out in a gym using Jefit to create and record my workouts
• Over time I’ve modified my calorie intake and my workout to fit my life.

I update the questions:

• What do I eat?
• How often do I work out?
• How do I feel?
• Do I feel like I’ve missed out on anything?
• How far do I have to go?
• What tips would I pass on to someone who is having a tough time?
• How am I going to celebrate?
• What were the keys to my success?

Contact Me:

• The website is located at http://www.shakeitoffcast.com
• Leave a Voicemail on the Site
• Send me a review in iTunes
• I’m on Twitter as @tdhowell
• Email me at podcast@shakeitoffcast.com
• And on Facebook

Disclaimers:

Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content isn’t a substitute for any medical advice and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all related health care questions and issues.

All links to products within this post are affiliate links (even if they’re free).

The post How I Lost 200 pounds without Weight Loss Surgery – Episode 055 appeared first on .

This week I lost a total of 6 pounds or 2.72 kg.  This puts me 3lbs or 1.36kg away from the massive goal of 200lbs.  It’s almost unreal that that I’m so close that I don’t know what to think about it.  I’m looking at my body and I’m seeing definition and muscle where there wasn’t before; or maybe there was and it was just covered up.  It also leaves me at a bit of a quandary as I’m not sure what my final goal should be before I enter “maintenance”.  Do I keep going down until my body fat is at 15%?  To me that seems to be the most rational decision since that would put me into the “athlete” section of body fat.  Currently I’m at 27.8 so it’s a ways to go.  My main concern is remaining healthy without getting so obsessed with dropping pounds that I go too far down on the scale.  In trying to find this goal I’ve emailed some of the people who are fitness podcasters that have medical and nutrition degrees to see what they might recommend.  It’s also an issue I will be bringing up with my Doctor.

The weight loss challenge I was running came to an end and it was a lot of fun.  I can’t stress enough how the main point of having a challenge that has a “meeting” is that it creates a place of support for people.  In fact, once one of the participants is done with school in a couple of weeks we will be starting up a new challenge.  I was surprised to discover I didn’t bore the pants off of people and that they were interested in continuing.  I myself signed up for a new challenge this week in order to keep myself going and on-track as well. I highly recommend that if you’re looking to keep yourself motivated to start your own challenge.  You really only need several components which include:

• An amount of money that everyone puts to start
• Deciding how that money will be distributed at the end of the challenge
• Someone who is willing to lead the challenge and discuss a nutrition topic each week.

I also personally found it good to make sure that everyone discusses how they felt about their week, congratulate themselves on a victory, and make a goal on what to improve the following week.  We all need encouragement and so much of weight loss is mental.  I feel that sometimes that gets left behind.

Main Topic: Gym Intimidation

When a friend and I recently went to check out a local gym, we came out of it with different opinions.  I was disappointed with their free weight selection, while she said she felt intimidated by the amount and size of exercise machines that were right at the entrance.  She said this could have been because the gym was a smaller one and they had to cram them all together, but she brought up a good point.  Gyms are intimidating.  As someone who goes to the gym 6 days out of the week, I still find the gym somewhat intimidating at times.  So let’s take a look at some of the typical reasons why we may feel gym intimidation and what we can do about it.

• We’re overweight
• We’re out of shape or weak
• Male or female-dominant decorations
• Mirrors
• Too large or too small
• Lack of instruction

Contact Me:

• The website is located at http://www.shakeitoffcast.com
• Leave a Voicemail on the Site
• Send me a review in iTunes
• I’m on Twitter as @tdhowell
• Email me at podcast@shakeitoffcast.com
• And on Facebook

Disclaimers:

Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content isn’t a substitute for any medical advice and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all related health care related questions and issues.

All links to products within this post are affiliate links (even if they’re free).

The post Gym Intimidation – Episode 054 appeared first on .

My weight did go up this past week as expected, but only by .6lbs or .27kg.  Considering that I had weighed myself on Monday and I was 8 pounds heavier I was OK with the .6 gain.  Even though that does continue my trend of gaining weight for the past several weigh-in’s it’s also pretty good for being on vacation.  So all-in-all I consider it a win.  I’m pretty sure that my next weigh-in will be a loss as I’m now focused, energized, and back on track.

In the gym I’m now in the second cycle of my workout routine and the new weight is pretty tough!  I felt myself really starting to struggle on the squats and the bent-over-rows, while the rest of the exercises seemed to be OK.  I can’t seem to get over how amazing it is to me to have a routine that focuses on a schedule with planned goals and increases.  It’s also making me consider my cardio routine of walking (which isn’t bad) and how I might shake things up in the summer by trying things such as sprinting and bicycling when the weather starts to straighten up.

Also because my gym membership expires at the end of May I’ve been looking around at different gym options.  I was actually happily surprised at the number of options that are available in my town.  It was neat to see the different options that were out there.  The YMCA has a decent setup, but they aren’t open 24/7 so I wouldn’t be able to go in the morning like I have been.  Another gym down the road is 24/7, but they didn’t have much of a free weight selection.  They did offer me a week pass to try it out, which I may take them up on.  I’m also considering visiting there in the future to take some “Boot Camp” classes now and again.  The final gym is more of a cross-fit gym and they seem to center around training individuals, which would be great.  However, they aren’t 24/7 either so that leaves them out too.

Most likely I am going to stay with my current gym, which isn’t a bad thing.  It’s familiar and I know what equipment it has.  After I visited with the manager of the gym I was also able to get a discounted rate for being “loyal” and with the conditions that I prepay for a certain amount of time.  I’m not sure if I will sign up for a 1-year or a 2-year contract, but either way I’m pretty good with staying at my current location.

Main Topic: Why Restaurant Healthy Menu Options aren’t what they Should be

Let me start off by saying that any restaurant that makes an effort to have healthy menu options beyond salads earns my respect; especially if they’re not a chain restaurant. It takes a lot of effort and consideration to put together a healthy menu and make things specifically for those of us who may not want to order something that might not be healthy, or who don’t feel like spending five minutes asking the server to make the order “healthier” (dressing on the side, no cheese, no butter, etc). Heck, these days if the restaurant even has a salad bar I’m usually happy.

However, I still feel that here in the United States we’re still not where we should be when it comes to healthy restaurant food. That being said, while effort is appreciated there are several issues I have with the healthy menu options that I see at most restaurants.

1. Flavor
2. Variety
3. Portion

Contact Me:

• The website is located at http://www.shakeitoffcast.com
• Leave a Voicemail on the Site
• Send me a review in iTunes
• I’m on Twitter as @tdhowell
• Email me at podcast@shakeitoffcast.com
• And on Facebook

Disclaimers:

Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content isn’t a substitute for any medical advice and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all related health care related questions and issues.

All links to products within this post are affiliate links (even if they’re free).

The post Healthy Menu Options – Episode 053 appeared first on .

So I’m back from my vacation from Dallas.  It was a pretty good time and I was glad to be away from work.  We had some good food and it was special in that it was my first trip since Florida last year.  I wasn’t sure how it was going to be since I wasn’t sure how I was going to react to being out of my normal pattern.

Let me preface that I did think about the advice from Marty Gallagher that taking time off from the gym is not a bad thing and that he recommends training hard before vacation and then during that time don’t worry about training, exercise, or what you eat; essentially just take a break.  I did keep this in mind, but I decided to only partially take his advice.

For my own purposes I decided that while I was in Dallas I wanted to see if there was a gym that would allow me to have a guest pass for a fairly inexpensive price.  My Dad decided to take up this task and he found one that cut me a break and so I took up the offer and trained at a local L.A. Fitness for 3 days that I was there.  In referencing last week’s episode about Non-scale victories I count that as being a definite victory.  I also was able to get in a good amount of walking several days either outside around my parents’ neighborhood or when we went to Great Wolf Lodge and played MagiQuest.

As for food and diet this is where I decided to take Marty’s advice and chill out a little bit.  Now there were occasions where I cut back on food or made smarter choices, but for the most part I relaxed on what I ate.  I had everything from burgers, to breakfast burritos, to baked salmon; and all-in-all I feel pretty good about my choices.  Sure, I’ll probably see a gain in the weight when I measure myself on Thursday, but I’d rather gain a few pounds than drive myself nuts while on vacation trying to be “good”.

Now that I’m back I’m doing my best to get back into the swing of things.  It’s hard getting up at 3:30AM after being able to sleep in until 6:30AM Central, which is 7:30AM Eastern (where I live).  But I am back in the gym and it feels good.  I’ll be starting up a new cycle in my program which means increasing the weight in some of my exercises, reducing the repetitions, and building it back up over time.  It also means getting back into the habit of recording my food which will probably be the biggest challenge of all.

Oh, and one last thing that I’d like to mention as far as non-scale victories go.  This was the first time in a very long time where I was able to get on a plane and fit in the seat.  I didn’t have to worry about my hips pushing the arm of the chair out into the aisle or ask for a set belt extender.  Of course we also were able to upgrade to First Class which also allowed for some additional comfort, but I’m going to pretty much tag that as a “win” on my part.

Main Topic: Don’t be Afraid of Change

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my weight loss journey it’s that there is no one solid answer.  There is no one  supplement that will make you skinny, there is no one exercise that will tone your body, there is no one food that will  help you lose weight, and so on and so forth.  Of course that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways of doing things correctly.  There are a ton of fad diets, charlatan products, and horrible exercises that will at best produce little to no results and at worst injure you.  But that doesn’t mean that every now and again we shouldn’t stop and take stock of what we are doing and assess what we need to change and what we should keep on doing when it comes to:

• Exercise
  • Time of day
  • Our form
  • Routine
  • Types of exercises
  • Equipment
• Nutrition
  • Supplements
  • Diet
• Motivation
• Rewards
• Mental state

However, let me stress once again that you should always be aware of charlatans and inaccurate information.  Always consult your doctor first.

Contact Me:

• The website is located at http://www.shakeitoffcast.com
• Leave a Voicemail on the Site
• Send me a review in iTunes
• I’m on Twitter as @tdhowell
• Email me at podcast@shakeitoffcast.com
• And on Facebook

Disclaimers:

Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content isn’t a substitute for any medical advice and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all related health care related questions and issues.

All links to products within this post are affiliate links (even if they’re free).

The post Don’t be Afraid of Change – Episode 052 appeared first on .

This week I actually gained 2.6 lbs. or 1.2 kg.  In a twist I dropped .7% in my body fat, though.  So what does this mean?  Well, in my opinion it means several things:

1. I went over my daily allotted calories due to not tracking.
2. Thankfully those calories went to building muscle.
3. I most likely did not burn as much fat as I would have if I had stayed “on track”.
4. This is still a positive week because it’s essentially a “non-scale victory”.

I can’t say that I was truly pleased about the weight gain, but I understand why it happened.  Last week after my weight loss challenge concluded I went into a mindset that was a little bit self-sabotaging.  Namely I started binging.  Not only binging, but binging on food that wasn’t good for me like candy and snacks.  Things that were mostly high calorie, but low on the “filling”.  I also didn’t track my food a large portion of the time and I just made bad choices all around.  That’s OK though, because I gained in muscle thanks to my workout schedule.  Essentially I ate like a powerlifter, even though that’s not my goal. Another positive that is coming out of it is that currently I’m in a better frame of mind when it comes to eating and I’d rather get it out of my system now than while I’m on vacation in Dallas.

I did take some steps to help me while at home though.  I threw out all the candy that I found tempting.  I also started making myself journaling once again.  I’ve also started mulling over my attitude of restrictions towards food and if I’m depriving myself rather than passing on something that I just don’t crave anymore.  For example if I want to eat a burger, that’s fine.  I can find a way to fit that into my daily diet.  However, if I find myself at McDonald’s do I still want that burger, or would I rather have one that’s quality?  And if I pass on that burger, am I being selective or restrictive?  I’m also starting the book “Full-Filled” over again and working through the exercises to try and get a better grip on my mental state and see if I can analyze why else I may be having issues with binging.

So yes, I’m going on vacation next week and I’m pretty excited.  I’ll be seeing a number of people that I knew in High School, both friends and their parents.  I’m looking forward to seeing them and seeing how they react to my current body.  The last time they saw me was just over 3 years ago and I wasn’t in very good shape.  I’m still not in prime condition, but I’m probably in the best shape I’ve ever been in.  I’m interested because I remember a podcast where someone stated that when they went to a job where people hadn’t seen them lose the weight they felt that there was an adjustment they had to go through mentally because they were no longer getting “kudos” from people.  She was no longer the person who lost weight, she was just that person.  So she had to adjust to this new role and it threw her identity off a bit until she finally adjusted.  I know at some point I will reach that point in my life and I wonder what it will be like for me.  There’s a part of me that’s wondering if Dallas will be a glimpse of that.

As far as the gym goes, things are going well.  I have been pretty tired a couple of days this week, but I’ve been to the gym every day.  The new routine is progressing well, but I did find that I failed on the last rep of my last set of bench presses.  For those who may not remember, but what this means is that I may not be able to progress in that exercise if I do not gain in my strength in the next couple of weeks. If in two weeks I cannot finish any of the sets on my “heavy day” then I will have to keep that exercise at its existing weight for the next cycle.  Not that it would be a bad thing since obviously more weight would be counterproductive, but it would be a bit of a disappointment to me.  In order to try and help myself I’ve started up the push-up regimen in Runtastic’s SitUps Pro again to see if I can gain some more strength that way.  I’m not sure if it will actually help or not, but it’s an experiment.

I’m also going to try going to a gym while I’m on vacation in Dallas.  My father contacted several gyms to see what they would offer for someone visiting and he was able to find one relatively close to my parents’ house that will let me have a week-long guest pass for only $15.  I consider this to be a pretty good deal so I’m going to take them up on it.  However, if this gets in the way of my time with my family I’ll throw it out the window and take the time off.  My little brother mentioned to me that he’d like to go to the gym with me while I’m there, so we’ll see how that turns out too.

Main Topic: Non-Scale Victories

So often we concentrate on the scale, but we can’t always allow ourselves to be fooled by those.  There are many reasons why these numbers go up and down including water loss, body cycles, muscle gain, and even the climate changing.  Bodies are mysterious things and they tend to be very frustrating at times.  For example if I didn’t have an Omron to measure my body fat I’d never have known that muscle gains attributed to my weight gain this week.  I would have just concluded that it was all fat.  So sometimes what we need to concentrate on are factors outside of the scale.

1. Planning a meal menu
2. Lifting more weight at the gym
3. Finding your cardio easier than it had been previously
4. Losing weight on vacation
5. Exercising consistently (or at all)
6. Putting importance on your health
7. You start bringing your lunch to work/school
8. Feeling more confident in your appearance
9. Fitting into old clothes or noticing your current clothes are too loose.
10. You make healthy choices when dining out
11. Researching a restaurant before you go there.
12. Feeling better physically and/or mentally
13. Tried a new healthy recipe
14. You start a new hobby
15. Notice a physical change in yourself

Letters and Correspondence

Dodge,

All caught up on my SIOC podcast listening.  Love the updates, and your insight.

Keep up the good work.  Your time/efforts are much appreciated.

Can’t wait for the next release.

Jason

Contact Me

• The website is located at http://www.shakeitoffcast.com
• Send me a review in iTunes
• I’m on Twitter as @tdhowell
• Email me at podcast@shakeitoffcast.com
• And on Facebook

Disclaimers

• Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content isn’t a substitute for any medical advice and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all related health care related questions and issues.
• All links to products within this post are affiliate links (even if they’re free).

The post Non-Scale Victories – Episode 051 appeared first on .

This week I lost 2.6 pounds, but only .1 body fat percentage.  This makes me think that I went a bit “off the rails” when it came to making sure I lost weight.  Although to be fair it could also be my body compensating for such a huge loss last week.  Either way it was an interesting development and something that I’ll keep my eye on. While it would be easy for me to blame it on my switch over to a new routine at this point I’m more inclined to think it was a dietary issue.  I’ll have to watch and make sure that I am taking in enough food as well as the right kinds of food in the future in order to better regulate the situation.

Both my weight loss challenges are wrapping up.  I have no idea if I’ll win the one I’m participating in.  Since it’s based on body percentage lost, those who started off weighing less have a slight advantage.  It will be interesting to say the least since the person who beat me last time is in this same competition.  Overall I’ve done pretty well this go-around though.  As for the one that I’m leading it’s going all right.  I don’t know if I’ve really found my stride leading the group, but I’ve been learning.  I’ve been trying to make the slides more fun and encouraging interaction between those who are participating.  I’ve also been trying to allow people to focus on the “why” of their eating as well as the “how”.  Everyone in the competition has done fairly well and I’m encouraged enough to keep going.  I’m toying with the idea of a Saturday morning class, but I still need to iron out the details with the folks of Nutrition Connection since that’s where I’m thinking of holding it.  I’m going to try and get some feedback from our outside participant about what she thinks of their standards versus ours.

I’ve also had some interesting feedback this week.  I went to get some lab work done in order to see what may be causing the redness and swelling in my legs.  They took a copy of my driver’s license for their records and the clerk just about had a fit at the difference between my picture and my face.  She asked all the normal questions such as “how did you lose the weight” and “how do you feel”, but she was the first person to ask if I got any surgery done.  I don’t know if people feel that’s more of a personal question or not, but I am a bit surprised that I don’t get asked that more often, although I guess “how did you lose the weight” kind of covers all avenues.

I do admit that I was brave enough to mention Herbalife, although I wish I knew how to introduce and follow-up on that fact a bit better.  I think most times people either gloss over that fact by pretending they know what it is, or it immediately turns them off.  I probably undersell it too by saying that I did a lot of exercise and tracking of my food as well, but I feel that’s the most honest answer:  “I used Herbalife nutritional supplements, I kept track of my food, and I did a metric ton of exercise.”  That’s what worked for me.  Will it work for you?  I don’t know, but it could.

Back to the lab though, that brings me to my main topic.

Main Topic: Your Doctor and Weight Loss

I don’t  know if I mentioned it recently, but I finally switched doctors.  Well, I actually switched back to one that I saw in 2004, but had left due to office hours.  My previous doctor was one that initially worked out well.  He got me on medication that I needed without any issues and he helped me reign in my blood pressure and depression.  However, over the years the service and advice that he provided steadily degraded to the point where it was a rampant pile of crap.  Finally, I had enough and decided to switch doctors to one that I had more faith in and should that not work out I will switch again.  But it got me thinking about what we should look for in a Doctor; especially when we’re trying to lose weight.

Basics:

• Get a referral
• Generalist or specialist
• Check credentials
• Determine if age is a factor
• Male or female
• Partner or leader
• How long is the appointment wait
• Paper or Electronic records
• Questions by email

Weight loss specific:

• Ask if you need to lose weight
• What should your goal be?
• What are any health related conditions
• What other conditions may develop
• Do my prescriptions contribute to my gain
• Is weight loss medication right for me?
• What about weight loss surgery?

Letters and Correspondence:

Daniel writes:

Just listening to the latest cast.  Binge eating? Man, it keeps kicking my ass. And once the junk craving starts I find it so hard to get back on track. I am off the rails today, but I am just gonna enjoy it and not get down on myself.

But tomorrow is another day…

I’d also like to thank Jason Fitness Gym Life (@fitover30) for sending out a Tweet and promoting the blog

Contact Me:

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Disclaimers:

Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content isn’t a substitute for any medical advice and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all related health care related questions and issues.

All links to products within this post are affiliate links (even if they’re free).

The post Your Doctor and Weight Loss – Episode 050 appeared first on .

This week’s loss was pretty good.  I lost 2.8 pounds (1.3kg) and 0.7% body fat.  This puts me at 29.3% body fat; only 5.3% away from “Average”. I’m also happy that I was able to meet my goal of journaling the majority of my dinners before actually eating them.  This helped quite a bit when it came to figuring out what I could eat and when I would eat it. I was able to carry this over a bit into the weekend, but I completely dropped the ball when it came to Sunday.  I didn’t take the time to journal so that I could excuse what I ate.  In essence I fell into an old behavior.  I can’t get too down on myself though because I did make progress.  All I need to do is to move forward and keep pursuing my goal of journaling all my food.

Workout-wise I was able to get in all my days.  I also said goodbye to my old workout and I’ve started in on my new one. I may have not made it clear in Episode 45, but I’m actually starting the routine that Jason wrote in about which focuses on introducing people to Bodybuilding workouts.  The workout is fairly different when compared to my previous ones.  It has about half the amount of exercises, 4 sets instead of 3, varies the weight quite a bit, only includes 3 days of lifting, and it repeats the same exercises each day.  Combine all this with the fact that it has a measurable way to keep track of your gains I’m left feeling pretty excited about the change.  I know I had some apprehension about making the change, but my first workout left me exhausted and famished.

I know I was apprehensive about this exercise routine, but so far I really like it.  It’s about a half hour shorter than my routines and it has about 6 exercises instead of 13.  Also, the fact that it has a built-in way to measure your progress through a five week cycle of increasing your reps really has me excited.  I didn’t build this into my previous routines because I didn’t know any better.  Now that I have a way go judge my success I’m excited to see where it takes me.  I’m already realizing that a large number of the other routines I’ve been finding in books and magazines are build around these same principles and they make a lot more sense than they used to.  I can’t thank Jason enough for the help.  My only hesitation is the ab workout is something I came up with by myself, so I’m going to have to do some research and make sure I made some wise choices.  So far though I think I did a pretty good job of mixing in a decent amount of bodyweight and weighted exercises.  I also kept it at 6 exercises making it reasonable.

I also want to stress something that I saw in the gym the other day.  There is a gentleman who comes in a bit after I do in the mornings and works out.  Now this is great and I hold nothing against him for that.  However, the other day I saw him wrapping his knees and I wondered what he was doing.  He then proceeded to put over 600 pounds on a leg press machine.  Let me explain that this guy is probably 175 pounds and although he is very enthusiastic I’ve noticed he has horrible, horrible form.  He then proceeded to get on the leg press machine and to his credit he pressed the weight, but he maybe bent his legs 4 inches down and back instead of using full range of motion.

First off, let me say that this general behavior is understandable.  When I first came into the gym I was really embarrassed that there were kids half my age lifting more weight than myself on certain exercises.  Then I started to notice their form, how many reps they were doing, how many sets they were doing, and how long they rested in-between.  One thing that I’ve learned is that it’s easy to go into a gym and lift some weight.  It’s a lot harder to do it correctly and in a beneficial manner.  If you’re lifting weights forget about the amount of weight on the bar and worry about your technique.  The increase in muscle and weights will come with time, but it’s better to learn technique first.  Not doing so can result not only in a lack of progress, but serious injury as well.  If you find yourself caught up in the hype of being in the gym, then just take a step back, breathe, and realize that to get the most out of exercising you need to let the ego go.

Main Topic: Losing Weight by Not Dieting?

Can you lose weight by not dieting? I’m not really sure, however an article in Fitness Magazine pointed out to me by my lovely wife has me thinking about how we can modify our behaviors without having to follow a traditional diet.  The word diet when used as a verb means to:

Restrict oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight: “it is difficult to diet in a house full of cupcakes”

Which is why they mostly fail in my opinion.  If you tell someone that they can’t eat something then they’re most likely going to want to eat it.  It’s no different when we do the same thing to ourselves. That’s why more success is found when you change your lifestyle rather than attempting something that’s temporary.  The trick is finding a way to live your life that’s more healthy that you can tolerate; whether it’s restricting how much you eat, keeping track of what you eat, cutting out certain foods, all the above, etc.  But when we forcibly tell someone they can’t do something or eat something, that certain something becomes all that more tantalizing.  This article takes a look at this behavior and a few others and gives examples of how some women fought against their habits and won.

• Most people regain all the weight they lose
• • 2/3 of those people gain back even more
  • chronic dieting can cause moodiness or a preoccupation with food.
• Jill, 36 had issues with binging on ice cream
• • She made herself stock 10 pints
  • Granted herself to eat it whenever she wanted as long as she stayed fully stocked
  • Eventually the ice cream wasn’t special and she no longer wanted it
• Habituation
• • Michelle, 41 was out of control around cookies
  • She had to keep her cookie jar full of homemade cookies
  • Found she was OK with just three
  • Eventually they lost their luster, just like with Jill
• Pace Eating
• • Gabby 29 felt her plate always had to be “clean” and didn’t know when to stop eating.
  • She divided her plate in half
  • Ate the first half and then sat for 5 minutes and self-evaluated to see if she was still hungry
  • She found it strange at first, but discovered that she needed much less food than she thought.
• Silent Meal
• • Amanda 28 “multi-tasked” while eating and found herself dissatisfied and hungry after most meals.
  • She couldn’t use any technology
  • She had to check in with herself every few minutes
  • • Put down her fork
    • Take a couple of deep breaths
    • Notice if she was satisfied or hungry
    • Decide if she was going to continue eating
  • It felt strange at first
  • When she was alone and focused on the food it seemed more flavorful and she could tell when she was satisfied
• Eating behaviors that sabotage us happen across all sexes and ages.
• Changing these habits will not happen overnight
• The following books may be worth looking into:
• • Women, Food, and God
  • Intuitive Eating
  • Eating the Moment

Source: Fitness Magazine

Contact Me

• The website is located at http://www.shakeitoffcast.com
• Send me a review in iTunes
• I’m on Twitter as @tdhowell
• Email me at podcast@shakeitoffcast.com
• And on Facebook

Disclaimers

Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content isn’t a substitute for any medical advice and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all related health care related questions and issues.

The post Lose Weight Without a Diet – Episode 049 appeared first on .

This week I had a loss of 1.2 pounds, but I gained 0.2% body fat.  This was on-target for my goals weight-wise, but nutritionally I can’t help but feel I must have taken a dive.  I’ve really been struggling with binge eating lately.  I don’t know what it is, but I seem to be going a bit nuts when I’m at home too long or at social gatherings.  I don’t believe that it’s physical, but instead completely psychological.  I will try and justify eating by saying I work out a lot, but then I’ll go and devour a ton of calories.  Of course I don’t keep track of what I’m eating either.

Today I’ve been focused on trying to keep my goal of journaling before I eat things and I’m starting to reign things back in, but I need to explore where this desire to binge eat is coming from.  I do have a couple of ideas.

1. I’m bored of what I’m eating most of the time.  Now my wife has done a great job of making the dinners very interesting.  However, my daytime meals have been static for several months now.  I think I’m getting burned out on salads and I need to look into making them more interesting.  I don’t want to give up the salad, but I think I need to change it up so that it’s more interesting than just tomatoes, Light Italian, egg whites, and cheese.  I’ve been adding some deli meat and that’s been good, but I think changing up the salad dressing and the cheese might help quite a bit too.  I’ll have to do some looking around for exciting salads.  I recently heard one podcaster say she had the recipe for the Best Ever Greek Salad, so maybe I’ll give that a try since the ingredients are pretty similar to what I have and it looks fairly inexpensive.
2. I’ve been restricting myself when I should be lax, and I’ve been lax when I should be restricting myself.  This may seem confusing, but let me explain.  There are a couple of meals each week that I cut back a bit: my weekly cheat meal (Thursday evening) and Saturday afternoon (weekly family meal).  Now while I allow myself to go a little crazy (but hopefully not too crazy) I sometimes find myself trying to restrict myself to a salad bar or something else.  The problem there is that I start overeating in order to compensate for feeling like I’m missing out on something.  Also, there are times when I know that the weekend holds an event where there will be food (such as a birthday party this weekend) and I should show some restraint both on my cheat night and the night of the party, but instead I go crazy at both.  I really need to focus on preparing for these abnormal events and taking steps to try and enable my willpower, such as listening to podcasts, eating something before the events and recording my calories before eating.  I know what to do; I just forget to do it.
3. Eating while I’m bored, tired and stressed have also been issues for me lately.  I’ve found that while I have long stints at home and I’m tired or have nothing much to do (other than play ponies) I try to manage things emotionally and psychologically with food; and not good food either.  Why is this food in the house?  Mostly because I haven’t thrown it away.  I have treats from Christmas and Halloween still that I told my wife I would sort out and throw away, but I still haven’t.  At least not to the extent that I should.  So when I’m feeling tired, bored, or stressed I go and get some candy or something else, eat it, avoid recording it, and before you know it I’ve successfully sabotaged myself.  What I need to do is channel that compulsion into something constructive such as reading, doing something active, or doing something creative.  I also need to go through the candy and throw away all the stuff I was keeping for myself (because honestly the girls are blessed to the point where they forget about that kind of stuff the moment it’s out of their sight).
4. I need to do some internal inventory of myself, my goals and my attitude in general.  When I first started out I was pretty focused on why I had gained weight in the first place.  Along the way I think that I’ve slowly replaced that work with fitness and I’m starting to feel like I’ve traded one addiction for another.  While being addicted to fitness isn’t necessarily a bad thing; obsession can be.  I seem to sway between the two; either overindulging in food or in exercise.  I’d like to get more focused on my internal dialogue and make sure I’m doing a good job of getting my head on straight for the future.

Main Topic: Building a Home Gym

Building a Home Gym isn’t at the top of my to-do list, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about in the future.  Now while some people may purchase an exercise machine such as an elliptical or a treadmill, what if you’re looking to do a bit more?  What should you look for in a home gym and when is the best time to invest in one?

The Purposeful Primitive :

• Free weights are the best
• Olympic Barbell
• Dumbbells
  • fixed poundage
  • empty handles w/ plates
• An adjustable bench with leg extension/leg curl device and an incline curl pad
• Power Rack
  • Supplemental pulley for cable work
  • front crossbar for pull-up’s and the like
• Jump Rope
• Gymboss
• Save money and buy used

Men’s Fitness (February 2013)

• TRX Home Suspension Kit
• Chin-Up/Pull-Up Bar
• Adjustable Dumbbells
• Foam Roller
• Stability Ball
• Gymboss
• Kettle Bells
• Medicine Ball
• Wood Plybox
• Heavy-Bag
• Battling Ropes
• The Prowler 2

The Ultimate Home Gym Guide

Letters and Correspondence

Hello Dodge,

Just getting around to listening to Ep.46 (Kickstarting your Metabolism…).  I got about half way in and listening to you talk about your apprehension for changing workouts from 6 per week, to 3 per week. On that topic, I thought you would find this interesting:

Daily Workouts May Not Be the Healthiest Approach

- http://wellbeingwire.meyouhealth.com/physical-health/daily-workouts-may-not-be-the-healthiest-approach/

” the highest-intensity workout group “complained to us that working out six times a week took too much time”

“Remarkably, the women who worked out six times a week actually were expending 200 fewer calories per day at the end of the study than they had been at the outset, whereas the twice-weekly group was expending an average of 100 calories more per day, and the four-times-weekly workout group was burning 225 more calories per day.”

Keep on keepin on!

Jason

Contact Me

• The website is located at http://www.shakeitoffcast.com
• Send me a review in iTunes
• I’m on Twitter as @tdhowell
• Email me at podcast@shakeitoffcast.com
• And on Facebook

Disclaimers

Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content isn’t a substitute for any medical advice and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all related health care related questions and issues.

All links to products within this post are affiliate links (even if they’re free).

The post Building a Home Gym – Episode 048 appeared first on .

Well my body made a comeback this week.  I lost an even 8 pounds and .7% body fat.  I can’t say that I’m all that disappointed with the results; although I am anticipating a possible break even or gain this week due to some abnormal behavior on my part.  In episode 45 I mentioned that I purchased an app called  “Wake N Shake” to be my new alarm.  For the most part it has done an excellent job of waking me up in the morning.  However, for some reason last Wednesday it froze up (for the first and only time since) and didn’t go off.

At first I was going to let it go, but as the morning went on I thought to myself how I was going to be skipping my most intensive workout of week; plus the one right before my weigh-in day.  So after clearing my schedule with my wife I decided to head into the gym that evening.  I got home around 11:15 PM and went to bed.  At 3:30 AM I got back up and went to the gym again for my usual Thursday morning workout.  All of this may have compounded into some pretty serious loss of water-weight and may account for the massive amount of loss.  Of course I could also be full of poop and lose again this week.  Either way though, I am moving forward and that’s what matters.  I should probably just shut my trap and not spend any energy worrying about that.

I will say that I’ve had a flip-flop in my attitude about my workout routine.  Now that I’m moving towards changing things up I’m starting to feel a bit sad.  While I still think that the change will be good and that I have too many exercises I’m just feeling nervous about the whole thing again.  I’ve also fallen behind in utilizing the iPad apps I had been using for sit-ups, push-ups, and squats.  I plan to get back into them and if need be just start using them whenever I think about how it’s been a while since I used them.

Finally, I have a couple of vacations coming up in March and May.  In the Purposeful Primitive Marty Gallagher states that when it comes to vacations he trains as hard as possible in the 3-4 weeks before his vacation and then lets loose for the duration.  He doesn’t worry about lifting, he doesn’t look for a gym, he doesn’t worry about what he eats or anything.  All he does is he tries to get in some cardio work while he’s there, but even then he doesn’t focus on that too much since he figures that he will spend plenty of time walking around wherever it is he’s visiting.  Then, when he comes back from vacation he immediately himself back into his routine once again.  This is where he admits that most people fall short.

While I’m not worried about picking things back up I can say that I’m not sure if I can take his advice.  I am already thinking about what I can do in order to get access to a gym for free or for a very low cost ($10 or lower).  I’ll probably just have to force myself to relax in the end.  I’m not sure what the fear of not working out is caused by since I have been in a situation where I have been on vacation, gained weight, and then dropped it again; but it’s there and it’s something I’ll have to deal with.

Main Topic: Weight Loss by Example

This week I listened to an episode of the Jillian Michael’s podcast where a mother called in to discuss what she can do to motivate her daughter to get into shape and lose weight.  Jillian had a lot to discuss with the woman and most of what she said reminded me of when I was a teenager and my family would confront me about my weight.  Needless to say although their intentions were good I don’t think they did much good.  It wasn’t until I was ready to lose weight that I started to do it.  It also got me to thinking about how we sometimes spend too much time trying to change people instead of supporting and accepting them.

Letters and Correspondence

DJ PimpDaddy Reviews the Podcast

Contact Me

• The website is located at http://www.shakeitoffcast.com
• Send me a review in iTunes
• I’m on Twitter as @tdhowell
• Email me at podcast@shakeitoffcast.com
• And on Facebook

Disclaimers:

Please note that all content here is strictly for informational purposes only. This content isn’t a substitute for any medical advice and does not replace any medical judgment or reasoning by your own personal health provider. Please always seek a licensed physician in your area regarding all related health care related questions and issues.

All links to products within this post are affiliate links (even if they’re free).

The post Weight Loss by Example – Episode 047 appeared first on .