Tuesday, May 16, 2006

A Few Bites a Day

Every once in awhile I'm reminded why I named my book "A Few Bites a Day". People often discover that they're overweight after years and years, sometimes decades, of gradual weight gain. They can't seem to figure out how they got to that point. They don't feel like they are big overeaters and they're probably correct.

But doing the math tells a different story. You can eat 50 calories in 2-3 bites of calorie dense foods and maybe 5-7 bites of less calorie dense foods. Let's say you eat 50 more calories, on average, than you need to maintain your weight each day. That adds up to a calorie surplus of 18,000 in just one year.

A pound of fat contains about 3,500 calories, so the 18,000 calorie surplus translates into about 5 pounds per year of additional waistline or 50 pounds over the course of the decade. It's no wonder people can wake up after 2-3 decades of slight, barely detectable overeating to discover that they're overweight. The "wake-up" often happens when they look at their picture from years earlier and realize just how much bigger they are.

Also, based on these numbers, it's no wonder that a few bites a day can make the difference between losing, maintaining or gaining weight.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Yahoo! Answers

Lately I've been spending some time on the Diet & Fitness section of Yahoo! Answers. Yahoo! Answers is a new feature on Yahoo! where you post questions that you have on just about any subject and other users will answer you.

A very common question is "how do I lose weight?" I think most people realize that eating less and exercise is the best answer, but even that is too general for most. It's kind of like asking, "how do I get something to the moon?" The obvious answer is to put it on a rocket. But most people wouldn't even know where to begin in building and designing a rocket that could make it to the moon. Similarly, I believe most people don't know where to begin once they realize that "eating less and exercise" is the answer to losing weight.

The purpose of my book was to document how I ate less and exercised to lose thirty pounds. I first learned about calories - how much I burned and how much I ate. Then I learned to change my eating habits to balance out my calorie burn/intake equation. At the same time, I have a host of advice that I have found helpful in keeping my exercise from getting boring.

Much of this stuff is basic knowledge that I learned from a variety of sources and finally pieced it all together into a set of actions that worked for me. I think they should teach this stuff in school so that everyone will know the basics before they hit the real world.

Is it easy? Not always. It does require self-control. Once you know how to design and shoot the rocket to the moon, you actually have to go through the efort of building and launching it, which takes discipline and setting the right priorities.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

"You: The Owner's Manual"

Oprah had a great show with Drs. Roizen and Oz. These guys seem to know their stuff. While I have had great success with the information in my book, these guys taught me a few things. I plan to get a copy of their book, "You: The Owner's Manual" soon.

For instance, they said that there's a chemical in diet soda that inhibits the "full" signal that your stomach sends to your brain. So, while you think that you're saving 100 calories, you might be stuffing an extra 100 calories because of the deadened "full" signal.

They highly recommended eating nuts such as almonds, as I do. Although, they said that roasting the nuts damages the good oils in the nuts and makes them not so good.

I recommend checking your local listings to see if you can't find this show. It's definitely worth an hour of your time. They are great at getting the point across.

Buy "You: The Owner's Manual" for $14.97 on Amazon.com by clicking here. Also, purchase my book, "A Few Bites a Day" for $5.99 and Dr. Barry Sears's book, "A Week in the Zone" for $7.50 and you should qualify for free shipping on Amazon.com. You'll have a great library of health and weight loss information for less than $30. Great deal!