| ~Body Image~ |
| I Have Decided I have decided that just because I do not embody the idealistic beauty I have envisioned in my head for so long As my perception of feminine beauty and power.. Does not mean that I am ugly. Just because I am not beautiful in my own opinion, Does not mean that I am not truly beautiful, if not to myself Then to someone else. Perhaps to someone else I embody the idealistic beauty The ultimate feminine beauty and power that they have envisioned in their minds. I have decided. I have decided that I can paint my toe nails without being in love. I only would paint my toe nails when in love, or in an affair. Since I have no new lover or passion to speak of I have decided that perhaps this time.. I have fallen in love With myself. I have decided. I have decided that I do not have to fall into any one else’s code of conduct. I do not have to follow the rules of fascist, dictatorial, toxic people Those who do not have my best interest at heart have no bearing on my future That I alone will sail my ship That I alone will call the shots That I alone am living this life To the end I have decided. I have decided that I am not perfect, but I have allot going for me I have decided that I am still young, and that I have my whole life ahead of me I have decided to stop being afraid of my honesty. I have decided to try and make friends with ME. I have decided. (c)2008-Present Mermayd Music/SMB All Rights Reserved |
I've struggled with my own body image and self esteem since I can remember. I've wanted to write an essay about
body image for my site for a long time, but never really knew what I wanted to say or how to say it. I'm not here to
talk down to anyone about what they look like, I can tell you that. I believe beauty comes from within. I do not
subscribe to the notion that beauty is America's top actress, model, musician, or celebrity either. I think, beauty is
different for every person and that each of us is beautiful in our own way. What I do want to here is talk about my
experience with the weight issue, options for loosing weight if you want to, and an attempt to de-mystify all the
hype surrounding weight loss. Something I have decided lately is that weight loss and healthy eating and healthy
body image all go hand in hand. I'm not trying to be preachy here, just honest. Just tell what I think, and what I
know.
The Golden Rules Of Positive Body Image:
1.)Love Yourself The Way You Are.
The power of those words cannot be underestimated. Self acceptance is the key to confidence, and inner peace. If
you have medical/psychological issues that you constantly deal with you realize that there are things that you cannot
change. You accept that. You live with it. Weight is something you can *usually* change! It is one of those things
that can be modified, that you do not have to suffer with forever. But you have to want to.
2.)No One Can Change You, But YOU.
If you don't want to do something, you never will. You have to have self discipline to learn a skill. To read the text
books or take part in a class. You have to go. Open your mind, absorb, do the busy work and grow mentally. If you
don't want to, you will filter it all out, going through the motions and forgetting it all as soon as the class is over or
book is finished. It's the same thing with weight loss. If you want results, you have to do the work to see them. You
can't expect it to happen on it's own. Anyone or anything that tells you that you can loose weight without lifting a
finger should not be trusted. It just isn't true, I'm sorry.
3.)Do Not Care What Other People Think About You.
It does hurt to be called "fat", and all the other words associated with it. But it also doesn't change anything. They
only say it to make themselves feel better about themselves, because they have low self esteem and somewhere
along the way they learned that putting other people down lifts them up. It never worked for me, so I don't know
why other people do it. *shrugs* Don't change yourself because someone else wants you to. Because your family,
friends, or co-workers or whoever make you feel guilty or bad about yourself.
4.)Be Good To Yourself.
Eat good, healthy foods in moderate portions. Take care of your hair, skin, nails and health. See your doctor and
dentist regularly. See a therapist or counselor or guidance counselor if you struggle with mental health issues. Take
time for yourself. Do Yoga or other relaxing meditations to relieve stress. Get out and stop to smell the flowers. Go
shopping and try on a size that you think won't fit, you might be surprised. Read books and watch shows on TV
that promote positive body image and healthy eating. Do not be hard on yourself. You are the only you you've got.
You cannot change this.
5.)Look At Yourself In The Mirror.
Close your eyes, stand in front of the mirror and open them. If the first thought that pops into your mind is, "Oh!
That pimple/my hips/belly/etc"..Close them again. Open them up and keep trying to find something beautiful.
Don't let yourself fall into old habits of self hate. Keep doing this until the negative tendency to pick on your "flaws"
passes. Try this on yourself all the time.
6.)Don't Be Friends With Negative People.
If your family is the source of your self esteem issues, it's harder to distance yourself from them. But there are ways
to disconnect with those you dearly love, if they are hurting you without walking away completely. I'll leave that to
the "pros" (mental health care faculty) to tell you how to do that. But the bottom line here is, if someone makes you
feel bad about yourself, you do not need them around. Sometimes you have to cut down a branch to save the whole
tree.
So You Want To Loose Weight? It's not impossible. It's a simple math equation. Check this out:
1.)Determine Your Weight Loss Goal
Check your BMI online. Go HERE. You will need your height and weight to know your BMI (body mass index).
Let's say for example, you are 5' 4" tall, a female and weigh 169 pounds. When you input that info into the BMI
calc on the site, you get a response of 29.0. This is the BMI. A BMI of 29.0 is considered "overweight". To be
considered "normal or healthy" you would need a BMI of 18.5-24.9. So now you want to play with the BMI calc and
find out what weight you would need to be at your height to have a BMI within the "normal" range. A weight of
140 equals a BMI of 24.0. Find the difference between 169 and 140 and that is your weight loss goal. In this case,
the difference is 29 lbs. The weight loss goal is to loose 29 lbs. Now you know
a.) what is a healthy weight for you
b.)what your goal weight is
Other things need to be considered in this equation, and to delve deeper into a body assessment you would need to
consult with your doctor and any specialists on weight management. But this is a simple way to start.
2.)Determine How You're Going To Get To Your Goal
In my opinion, there are 2 ways to loose weight, but only one way to keep it off forever.
1.)reduce caloric intake
2.)exercise and reduce caloric intake
Number two is the only permanent solution to weight loss. That's right, I said it, the dirty word exercise. I'm not
going to sugar coat it for you. There are no easy ways out. I say this after years and years and years of yo-yoing. I say
this after watching and reading countless stories of women and men who have come back from severe obesity. Even
people who have gone under the knife and undergone gastric bypass surgery are not magically thin the next day.
They have a constant battle for the rest of their lives including a modified diet and exercise regimen to keep it from
coming back. So let me side step while I am here, and talk about how not to loose weight safely.
Do NOT try to loose weight by:
~Starving yourself. Here's why.
~Binging and Purging food after you eat it. Here's why.
~Taking stimulants. Here's why.
~Over Exercising. Here's Why.
~Falling for a fad diet. They are all bogus.
So now that you see all the ways you can harm yourself by trying these ways to quickly loose weight, why would you
ever do this to yourself? Right.
Here are ways you can safely loose weight:
~Join Jenny Craig/Weight Watchers and exercise.
Why This Works:
If you cannot stand the idea of counting calories, and worrying about what you are eating, and have too much to
do, these diets work. However, in my humble opinion, they work only because of the fact that if you stick to eating
the foods they provide to you it's a no-brainer. It just happens because your calories are being carefully thought out
by the people who put together the food items that are mailed to you. Many people cannot handle counting
calories and I know just how hard nutritional labels can be to understand, and how sneaky/tricky they are too. It's
unfair. Yes. So if you just want to concentrate on eating, and Exercising and need a little moral support (via a "life
coach/weight loss coach") then these programs are for you. The down side? You have to realize that loosing weight
is a life long challenge. It's a temporary struggle, for some..a life long for others. Do you want to eat pre-packaged
foods high in preservatives and sodium for the rest of your life? Think about that. When you stop eating the
program foods and are on your own if you have not taken the time to learn how to eat "regular" food properly you
will gain it all back! So, to me I would rather teach myself how to eat more healthily and commit to doing so for
the rest of my life consuming foods I LIKE, that I know are fresh cause I just cooked it! LOL. But it's up to you!
~Reduce overall fat and calories and exercise.
Why this works:
Have you ever taken the time to count up all the calories you have consumed in one day? One week? It's hard to do,
I know. It's time consuming, I know. But if you honestly think to yourself, "what's wrong with the way I eat? Why
can't I loose weight-ever!?" this might just be why. You are consuming more calories than your body can burn, it's as
simple as that. So consume less, burn more. *Poof* permanent weight loss. Sounds too good to be true, but it's not.
The truth is, it all depends on how hard you work at it, how committed you are to loosing and what your body is
dealing with. Some people only need to loose a fraction of their overall weight to become healthy and the battle is
over quickly. But for some, like me..it's harder because of medical reasons and genetic reasons and such. If you have
a organ fighting your weight loss efforts such as in Thyroid disease..well it's allot harder. But it still can happen.
Once you've decided how you are going to get there, now it's time for more math *joy*.
All About Exercise.
Walking only 30 mins once or twice a week to loose weight is futile. In this article, it says, 30 mins of moderate
exercise per day is only good for keeping your heart and organs functioning properly. Not for weight loss. To loose
weight, 60-90 mins of moderate exercise per day is required. I can barely stand 25 minutes on the treadmill! I can't
handle monotony. So if you are like me and get bored easily, you're going to need to be prepared to find exercise
that you like and enjoy, so that you want to do it each day, you look forward to it. In my opinion it's the only way. If
you aren't into it, you won't keep doing it. You have to find something you can afford too. Not everyone can just
pop into the gym every day let alone afford a membership to one. The answer to this is home Exercising with
rental dvd's/tapes and a few purchased equipment pieces. We'll get to that in a minute.
People who are out of shape need to work up to that amount of exercise, not jump into it right away or you'll get
hurt. I like to walk, I'll keep doing it, even though it's just for my heart I sort of depend on it. I just don't expect
weight loss from it. I like the fresh air and spending time with my "guys" and setting a good example for my son! I
loathe repetitive aerobic routines. Within a week, the instructor will drive me to insanity and the repetition of it all
just makes me nuts. Aerobic exercise dvd's and tapes are widely available for rental and purchase these days, and
media is pretty inexpensive these days so you can probably afford to borrow or buy several different ones to try. If I
cannot tolerate the instructor I won't watch a tape. Period. So you'll need to find someone you connect with.
Richard Simmons is not for everyone. LOL!
I hate jogging and refuse to run (because I look like an idiot!) but I LoOoOve to DANCE! (at home, in private of
course!) Today you can find all sorts of dance recordings, there's ballet, hula, belly dance, jazz, hip hop, Latin or
salsa, etc.
Check it out HERE. They have allot!
If you have trouble with flexibility or relaxation, try Yoga and Tai Chi.
So now that you've figured out what you like to do, that makes you sweat you need to figure out how many calories
you're actually burning by walking, dancing, etc when you do it. You need to find your target heart rate. This will
take some testing with a heart rate check. Learn how to do this HERE. You should also invest in a pedometer, they
are really inexpensive. If you work in an office all day you can see just how inactive or active you are by wearing one.
The bottom line about exercise: When you're trying to loose weight or maintain a certain weight it will be easier for
you if you do some exercise and in some people, it will be the only way to loose or keep it off it all depends on your
own body.
All About Calories:
More math!
Here is a formula for figuring out a person's energy requirements for 24 hours:
Convert your pounds weight into kilos by dividing your current weight
by 2.2. Then multiply your kilos by 0.9 if you are female (by 1 if you are
male) Then multiply that number by 24. I am going to use the same example weight as above.
169/ 2.2 = 76.8181_ kilos
76.8181_ kilos x 0.9 =69.136_
69.136_ x 24 = 1659.27_ calories per 24 hours to maintain current weight.
So, if you want to stay at 169, eat 1659.27 per day.
If you want to loose:
One pound of fat =3,500 calories. If you eat 3,500 calories you will gain 1 lb. If you burn off (via exercise) or reduce
3,500 calories from your diet you will loose 1 lb. (theoretically). A reduction of your body weight at a safe pace of
about 1.5 lbs. per week = reducing 5,250 calories from your diet per week or 750 calories daily. (5,250 / 7 = 750).
Subtract your daily caloric intake by 750 to loose weight!
1659.27 - 750 = 909.27 calories per day to loose 1.5 lbs per week. But wait, there's more. That's not considered a
"safe" reduction! I have read that women should consume no less than 1200 calories per day, and men should
consume no less than 1800 calories per day. So what you would want to do is find a happy medium here. You could
shoot for a number between 1659 and 1200. Or you could shoot for 1200. I've set mine at 1350-1429. I don't know
about you, but I'm sick of math now. X0(
How To Count Calories (Without Going Mad)
When you decide that you are going to start monitoring your caloric intake you need to purchase a few things.
~A blank Journal to write down everything you eat into. One for home, one for the office etc. I purchased a pack
of little tiny lined paper filled spiral notebooks from the grocery store for about $2.00. Set of 5. Brand was Staples,
so Staples has them too.
~A calorie counting tool. You can buy a book, a calculator, or a specialty food scale with on board computer to help
you do this. But you need at least the calorie counting book. Start there. There are also web sites you can use now.
Make sure it has a wide range of food types, not just the freely available type. Things that will trip you up on your
calorie counting journey are foods like 1 lb of raw chicken..well, how much calories is in there? You need to know
how much it weighs first, then look up raw chicken in the book/calc/computer to determine the caloric value. *oh
boy more math!* Then once you have that caloric total, plus anything you add to the meat by way of marinade
etc..then figure out a serving size and divide the total amount by the servings presented to you. Here, like this:
One pound of chicken is x calories.
You look at the chicken and see there are 3 large raw boneless skinless breasts of chicken there.
Three people eat one breast each, making 1 breast a "serving". Divide x by 3 to obtain the calories you consume.
It's easiest with foods that come with nutritional information on the outside of the packaging. But there are pitfalls
there too. Read nutritional labels carefully. I have thought I was consuming 1 serving, when I re-read the
nutritional label only to discover that one container of soup is actually TWO servings. Sometimes I think the food
companies only care about making their product look good to the busy shopper. You're in the store, your kids are
nagging you, you're trying to pick out a few pre-packaged meals for yourself for the week and quickly read the label
and see, "100 calories per serving" and think to yourself, well that works for my diet. Into the cart. You're sitting
there in the kitchen eating the soup and you re-read the label to discover it's actually 200 calories per container and
that the little tiny cup of soup is supposedly TWO servings. Like, who eats half a take and heat soup cup? W.T.F!?
Seriously though. Go "label reading/calorie shopping" on a separate day or if you can do it online. I have a local
grocery store which is called Safeway. They have their own web site. I can browse products in the store online and
read labels at my leisure and know what I want when I get there. If you don't have that option, let someone watch
the kids, eat a full meal (so that you are not tempted in the store and are thinking clearly) and go browsing..Pick up
things that look good to you taste wise and read that label. Check the servings per calories.
It does get easier, trust me. Once you get used to what a 300 calorie meal looks like and what combinations you can
put together equal what caloric total you can pretty much go it alone with occasional calorie checks to make sure
you're consuming what you think you are.
Did you know: most if not all of the fast food chain restaurants have nutritional data freely available?
McDonald's
Jack in the Box
Taco Bell
In-N-Out Burger
KFC
Burger King
There are many more out there, go surf for the places you frequent and find them. What I do is use the caloric info
on the site and come up with a menu based on my caloric objective. I print it out and put it in my glove box and
when I am out and have to eat fast food (rarely), I can still stick to my calories for the day! You'll be surprised to see
just how many calories you've been consuming when you look at the nutritional info at the fast food places. Wow.
~Learn to portion control. Buy yourself a big pack of single serve food storage containers. When you put dinner's
left overs away, put a single serving into each food storage container not one large one. Freeze them and pull them
out as you need them and you'll d sure not to feel compelled to eat the whole container of left overs so that it won't
go to waste. Here's a cool web site:
What do 300 calorie meals look like?
Portion Control Slide Show
Pictures of 200 Calorie Foods
The Snack Gallery 120 calorie foods
~A scale. An old fashioned dr's office scale is probably the best. But they can take up allot of space and can be quite
expensive. A digital scale with body mass/water/memory settings for multiple people is a really good deal but can be
quite expensive. A dial scale works just fine too. The scale I purchased instruction booklet tells me that you should
weigh yourself once a week max, and during similar conditions. So before bed at the same time each week. It tells
me that if you've been swimming, bathing or had a large meal, having your monthly cycle can all affect your weight.
So try not to freak out or be harsh on yourself if it fluctuates. That's normal. Get an overall baseline from month
to month and if you are watching what you eat and how much of it, plus exercising too month by month you will
see it slowly go down. There are plateaus. Sometimes you have to rev up your workouts or change up your diet to
break through a plateau.
~Oh, and One More Thing..
If you're a parent, don't finish your kid's food. This is hard to stop doing if you have picked up the habit. You give
them food, they eat half of it, you feel guilty throwing the other half away. So you eat it. DON'T.
Try This Instead: Give them less than they normally eat, and if they ask for more give a little more until they say
they are full. That way nothing gets wasted. What makes you feel worse: eating more than you should or throwing
away a little bit of food? RIGHT.
So, How Long Will This Take?
If you have genetic traits that predispose you to obesity and other medical or psychological conditions against you,
you can pretty much figure you will need to watch what you eat, how much of what you eat and exercise for the rest
of your life. I feel you. I really do. If you have less problems and less weight to loose, you can pretty much count on a
year or so of weight loss followed by several years of maintenance.
If you actually manage to loose 1.5 lbs per week, after a month you would have lost 6 lbs. Six pounds per month,
times 12 months is 72 lbs. in one year. With reduced calories and exercise, depending on your weight loss goal,
you're looking at "hard time" of at minimum 1 year, possibly more, possibly less. It all depends. I began using these
tools and this way of thinking in January of 2008 and it is now March 2008 and I have lost 7 lbs. So what's that, 3.5
lbs per month? See..but it is WORKING! 80O
Books on Self Esteem/Body Image
The Self-Esteem Companion
Recovery of your Self-Esteem a Guide for Women
Creating a Positive Self-Image: Simple Techniques to Transform Your Life
It's not about food: change your mind, change your life
What Not to Wear ( I <3 Trinny & Susannah!)
The Rules
The Body Shape Bible
What You Wear Can Change Your Life
What NOT to Wear
body image for my site for a long time, but never really knew what I wanted to say or how to say it. I'm not here to
talk down to anyone about what they look like, I can tell you that. I believe beauty comes from within. I do not
subscribe to the notion that beauty is America's top actress, model, musician, or celebrity either. I think, beauty is
different for every person and that each of us is beautiful in our own way. What I do want to here is talk about my
experience with the weight issue, options for loosing weight if you want to, and an attempt to de-mystify all the
hype surrounding weight loss. Something I have decided lately is that weight loss and healthy eating and healthy
body image all go hand in hand. I'm not trying to be preachy here, just honest. Just tell what I think, and what I
know.
The Golden Rules Of Positive Body Image:
1.)Love Yourself The Way You Are.
The power of those words cannot be underestimated. Self acceptance is the key to confidence, and inner peace. If
you have medical/psychological issues that you constantly deal with you realize that there are things that you cannot
change. You accept that. You live with it. Weight is something you can *usually* change! It is one of those things
that can be modified, that you do not have to suffer with forever. But you have to want to.
2.)No One Can Change You, But YOU.
If you don't want to do something, you never will. You have to have self discipline to learn a skill. To read the text
books or take part in a class. You have to go. Open your mind, absorb, do the busy work and grow mentally. If you
don't want to, you will filter it all out, going through the motions and forgetting it all as soon as the class is over or
book is finished. It's the same thing with weight loss. If you want results, you have to do the work to see them. You
can't expect it to happen on it's own. Anyone or anything that tells you that you can loose weight without lifting a
finger should not be trusted. It just isn't true, I'm sorry.
3.)Do Not Care What Other People Think About You.
It does hurt to be called "fat", and all the other words associated with it. But it also doesn't change anything. They
only say it to make themselves feel better about themselves, because they have low self esteem and somewhere
along the way they learned that putting other people down lifts them up. It never worked for me, so I don't know
why other people do it. *shrugs* Don't change yourself because someone else wants you to. Because your family,
friends, or co-workers or whoever make you feel guilty or bad about yourself.
4.)Be Good To Yourself.
Eat good, healthy foods in moderate portions. Take care of your hair, skin, nails and health. See your doctor and
dentist regularly. See a therapist or counselor or guidance counselor if you struggle with mental health issues. Take
time for yourself. Do Yoga or other relaxing meditations to relieve stress. Get out and stop to smell the flowers. Go
shopping and try on a size that you think won't fit, you might be surprised. Read books and watch shows on TV
that promote positive body image and healthy eating. Do not be hard on yourself. You are the only you you've got.
You cannot change this.
5.)Look At Yourself In The Mirror.
Close your eyes, stand in front of the mirror and open them. If the first thought that pops into your mind is, "Oh!
That pimple/my hips/belly/etc"..Close them again. Open them up and keep trying to find something beautiful.
Don't let yourself fall into old habits of self hate. Keep doing this until the negative tendency to pick on your "flaws"
passes. Try this on yourself all the time.
6.)Don't Be Friends With Negative People.
If your family is the source of your self esteem issues, it's harder to distance yourself from them. But there are ways
to disconnect with those you dearly love, if they are hurting you without walking away completely. I'll leave that to
the "pros" (mental health care faculty) to tell you how to do that. But the bottom line here is, if someone makes you
feel bad about yourself, you do not need them around. Sometimes you have to cut down a branch to save the whole
tree.
So You Want To Loose Weight? It's not impossible. It's a simple math equation. Check this out:
1.)Determine Your Weight Loss Goal
Check your BMI online. Go HERE. You will need your height and weight to know your BMI (body mass index).
Let's say for example, you are 5' 4" tall, a female and weigh 169 pounds. When you input that info into the BMI
calc on the site, you get a response of 29.0. This is the BMI. A BMI of 29.0 is considered "overweight". To be
considered "normal or healthy" you would need a BMI of 18.5-24.9. So now you want to play with the BMI calc and
find out what weight you would need to be at your height to have a BMI within the "normal" range. A weight of
140 equals a BMI of 24.0. Find the difference between 169 and 140 and that is your weight loss goal. In this case,
the difference is 29 lbs. The weight loss goal is to loose 29 lbs. Now you know
a.) what is a healthy weight for you
b.)what your goal weight is
Other things need to be considered in this equation, and to delve deeper into a body assessment you would need to
consult with your doctor and any specialists on weight management. But this is a simple way to start.
2.)Determine How You're Going To Get To Your Goal
In my opinion, there are 2 ways to loose weight, but only one way to keep it off forever.
1.)reduce caloric intake
2.)exercise and reduce caloric intake
Number two is the only permanent solution to weight loss. That's right, I said it, the dirty word exercise. I'm not
going to sugar coat it for you. There are no easy ways out. I say this after years and years and years of yo-yoing. I say
this after watching and reading countless stories of women and men who have come back from severe obesity. Even
people who have gone under the knife and undergone gastric bypass surgery are not magically thin the next day.
They have a constant battle for the rest of their lives including a modified diet and exercise regimen to keep it from
coming back. So let me side step while I am here, and talk about how not to loose weight safely.
Do NOT try to loose weight by:
~Starving yourself. Here's why.
~Binging and Purging food after you eat it. Here's why.
~Taking stimulants. Here's why.
~Over Exercising. Here's Why.
~Falling for a fad diet. They are all bogus.
So now that you see all the ways you can harm yourself by trying these ways to quickly loose weight, why would you
ever do this to yourself? Right.
Here are ways you can safely loose weight:
~Join Jenny Craig/Weight Watchers and exercise.
Why This Works:
If you cannot stand the idea of counting calories, and worrying about what you are eating, and have too much to
do, these diets work. However, in my humble opinion, they work only because of the fact that if you stick to eating
the foods they provide to you it's a no-brainer. It just happens because your calories are being carefully thought out
by the people who put together the food items that are mailed to you. Many people cannot handle counting
calories and I know just how hard nutritional labels can be to understand, and how sneaky/tricky they are too. It's
unfair. Yes. So if you just want to concentrate on eating, and Exercising and need a little moral support (via a "life
coach/weight loss coach") then these programs are for you. The down side? You have to realize that loosing weight
is a life long challenge. It's a temporary struggle, for some..a life long for others. Do you want to eat pre-packaged
foods high in preservatives and sodium for the rest of your life? Think about that. When you stop eating the
program foods and are on your own if you have not taken the time to learn how to eat "regular" food properly you
will gain it all back! So, to me I would rather teach myself how to eat more healthily and commit to doing so for
the rest of my life consuming foods I LIKE, that I know are fresh cause I just cooked it! LOL. But it's up to you!
~Reduce overall fat and calories and exercise.
Why this works:
Have you ever taken the time to count up all the calories you have consumed in one day? One week? It's hard to do,
I know. It's time consuming, I know. But if you honestly think to yourself, "what's wrong with the way I eat? Why
can't I loose weight-ever!?" this might just be why. You are consuming more calories than your body can burn, it's as
simple as that. So consume less, burn more. *Poof* permanent weight loss. Sounds too good to be true, but it's not.
The truth is, it all depends on how hard you work at it, how committed you are to loosing and what your body is
dealing with. Some people only need to loose a fraction of their overall weight to become healthy and the battle is
over quickly. But for some, like me..it's harder because of medical reasons and genetic reasons and such. If you have
a organ fighting your weight loss efforts such as in Thyroid disease..well it's allot harder. But it still can happen.
Once you've decided how you are going to get there, now it's time for more math *joy*.
All About Exercise.
Walking only 30 mins once or twice a week to loose weight is futile. In this article, it says, 30 mins of moderate
exercise per day is only good for keeping your heart and organs functioning properly. Not for weight loss. To loose
weight, 60-90 mins of moderate exercise per day is required. I can barely stand 25 minutes on the treadmill! I can't
handle monotony. So if you are like me and get bored easily, you're going to need to be prepared to find exercise
that you like and enjoy, so that you want to do it each day, you look forward to it. In my opinion it's the only way. If
you aren't into it, you won't keep doing it. You have to find something you can afford too. Not everyone can just
pop into the gym every day let alone afford a membership to one. The answer to this is home Exercising with
rental dvd's/tapes and a few purchased equipment pieces. We'll get to that in a minute.
People who are out of shape need to work up to that amount of exercise, not jump into it right away or you'll get
hurt. I like to walk, I'll keep doing it, even though it's just for my heart I sort of depend on it. I just don't expect
weight loss from it. I like the fresh air and spending time with my "guys" and setting a good example for my son! I
loathe repetitive aerobic routines. Within a week, the instructor will drive me to insanity and the repetition of it all
just makes me nuts. Aerobic exercise dvd's and tapes are widely available for rental and purchase these days, and
media is pretty inexpensive these days so you can probably afford to borrow or buy several different ones to try. If I
cannot tolerate the instructor I won't watch a tape. Period. So you'll need to find someone you connect with.
Richard Simmons is not for everyone. LOL!
I hate jogging and refuse to run (because I look like an idiot!) but I LoOoOve to DANCE! (at home, in private of
course!) Today you can find all sorts of dance recordings, there's ballet, hula, belly dance, jazz, hip hop, Latin or
salsa, etc.
Check it out HERE. They have allot!
If you have trouble with flexibility or relaxation, try Yoga and Tai Chi.
So now that you've figured out what you like to do, that makes you sweat you need to figure out how many calories
you're actually burning by walking, dancing, etc when you do it. You need to find your target heart rate. This will
take some testing with a heart rate check. Learn how to do this HERE. You should also invest in a pedometer, they
are really inexpensive. If you work in an office all day you can see just how inactive or active you are by wearing one.
The bottom line about exercise: When you're trying to loose weight or maintain a certain weight it will be easier for
you if you do some exercise and in some people, it will be the only way to loose or keep it off it all depends on your
own body.
All About Calories:
More math!
Here is a formula for figuring out a person's energy requirements for 24 hours:
Convert your pounds weight into kilos by dividing your current weight
by 2.2. Then multiply your kilos by 0.9 if you are female (by 1 if you are
male) Then multiply that number by 24. I am going to use the same example weight as above.
169/ 2.2 = 76.8181_ kilos
76.8181_ kilos x 0.9 =69.136_
69.136_ x 24 = 1659.27_ calories per 24 hours to maintain current weight.
So, if you want to stay at 169, eat 1659.27 per day.
If you want to loose:
One pound of fat =3,500 calories. If you eat 3,500 calories you will gain 1 lb. If you burn off (via exercise) or reduce
3,500 calories from your diet you will loose 1 lb. (theoretically). A reduction of your body weight at a safe pace of
about 1.5 lbs. per week = reducing 5,250 calories from your diet per week or 750 calories daily. (5,250 / 7 = 750).
Subtract your daily caloric intake by 750 to loose weight!
1659.27 - 750 = 909.27 calories per day to loose 1.5 lbs per week. But wait, there's more. That's not considered a
"safe" reduction! I have read that women should consume no less than 1200 calories per day, and men should
consume no less than 1800 calories per day. So what you would want to do is find a happy medium here. You could
shoot for a number between 1659 and 1200. Or you could shoot for 1200. I've set mine at 1350-1429. I don't know
about you, but I'm sick of math now. X0(
How To Count Calories (Without Going Mad)
When you decide that you are going to start monitoring your caloric intake you need to purchase a few things.
~A blank Journal to write down everything you eat into. One for home, one for the office etc. I purchased a pack
of little tiny lined paper filled spiral notebooks from the grocery store for about $2.00. Set of 5. Brand was Staples,
so Staples has them too.
~A calorie counting tool. You can buy a book, a calculator, or a specialty food scale with on board computer to help
you do this. But you need at least the calorie counting book. Start there. There are also web sites you can use now.
Make sure it has a wide range of food types, not just the freely available type. Things that will trip you up on your
calorie counting journey are foods like 1 lb of raw chicken..well, how much calories is in there? You need to know
how much it weighs first, then look up raw chicken in the book/calc/computer to determine the caloric value. *oh
boy more math!* Then once you have that caloric total, plus anything you add to the meat by way of marinade
etc..then figure out a serving size and divide the total amount by the servings presented to you. Here, like this:
One pound of chicken is x calories.
You look at the chicken and see there are 3 large raw boneless skinless breasts of chicken there.
Three people eat one breast each, making 1 breast a "serving". Divide x by 3 to obtain the calories you consume.
It's easiest with foods that come with nutritional information on the outside of the packaging. But there are pitfalls
there too. Read nutritional labels carefully. I have thought I was consuming 1 serving, when I re-read the
nutritional label only to discover that one container of soup is actually TWO servings. Sometimes I think the food
companies only care about making their product look good to the busy shopper. You're in the store, your kids are
nagging you, you're trying to pick out a few pre-packaged meals for yourself for the week and quickly read the label
and see, "100 calories per serving" and think to yourself, well that works for my diet. Into the cart. You're sitting
there in the kitchen eating the soup and you re-read the label to discover it's actually 200 calories per container and
that the little tiny cup of soup is supposedly TWO servings. Like, who eats half a take and heat soup cup? W.T.F!?
Seriously though. Go "label reading/calorie shopping" on a separate day or if you can do it online. I have a local
grocery store which is called Safeway. They have their own web site. I can browse products in the store online and
read labels at my leisure and know what I want when I get there. If you don't have that option, let someone watch
the kids, eat a full meal (so that you are not tempted in the store and are thinking clearly) and go browsing..Pick up
things that look good to you taste wise and read that label. Check the servings per calories.
It does get easier, trust me. Once you get used to what a 300 calorie meal looks like and what combinations you can
put together equal what caloric total you can pretty much go it alone with occasional calorie checks to make sure
you're consuming what you think you are.
Did you know: most if not all of the fast food chain restaurants have nutritional data freely available?
McDonald's
Jack in the Box
Taco Bell
In-N-Out Burger
KFC
Burger King
There are many more out there, go surf for the places you frequent and find them. What I do is use the caloric info
on the site and come up with a menu based on my caloric objective. I print it out and put it in my glove box and
when I am out and have to eat fast food (rarely), I can still stick to my calories for the day! You'll be surprised to see
just how many calories you've been consuming when you look at the nutritional info at the fast food places. Wow.
~Learn to portion control. Buy yourself a big pack of single serve food storage containers. When you put dinner's
left overs away, put a single serving into each food storage container not one large one. Freeze them and pull them
out as you need them and you'll d sure not to feel compelled to eat the whole container of left overs so that it won't
go to waste. Here's a cool web site:
What do 300 calorie meals look like?
Portion Control Slide Show
Pictures of 200 Calorie Foods
The Snack Gallery 120 calorie foods
~A scale. An old fashioned dr's office scale is probably the best. But they can take up allot of space and can be quite
expensive. A digital scale with body mass/water/memory settings for multiple people is a really good deal but can be
quite expensive. A dial scale works just fine too. The scale I purchased instruction booklet tells me that you should
weigh yourself once a week max, and during similar conditions. So before bed at the same time each week. It tells
me that if you've been swimming, bathing or had a large meal, having your monthly cycle can all affect your weight.
So try not to freak out or be harsh on yourself if it fluctuates. That's normal. Get an overall baseline from month
to month and if you are watching what you eat and how much of it, plus exercising too month by month you will
see it slowly go down. There are plateaus. Sometimes you have to rev up your workouts or change up your diet to
break through a plateau.
~Oh, and One More Thing..
If you're a parent, don't finish your kid's food. This is hard to stop doing if you have picked up the habit. You give
them food, they eat half of it, you feel guilty throwing the other half away. So you eat it. DON'T.
Try This Instead: Give them less than they normally eat, and if they ask for more give a little more until they say
they are full. That way nothing gets wasted. What makes you feel worse: eating more than you should or throwing
away a little bit of food? RIGHT.
So, How Long Will This Take?
If you have genetic traits that predispose you to obesity and other medical or psychological conditions against you,
you can pretty much figure you will need to watch what you eat, how much of what you eat and exercise for the rest
of your life. I feel you. I really do. If you have less problems and less weight to loose, you can pretty much count on a
year or so of weight loss followed by several years of maintenance.
If you actually manage to loose 1.5 lbs per week, after a month you would have lost 6 lbs. Six pounds per month,
times 12 months is 72 lbs. in one year. With reduced calories and exercise, depending on your weight loss goal,
you're looking at "hard time" of at minimum 1 year, possibly more, possibly less. It all depends. I began using these
tools and this way of thinking in January of 2008 and it is now March 2008 and I have lost 7 lbs. So what's that, 3.5
lbs per month? See..but it is WORKING! 80O
Books on Self Esteem/Body Image
The Self-Esteem Companion
Recovery of your Self-Esteem a Guide for Women
Creating a Positive Self-Image: Simple Techniques to Transform Your Life
It's not about food: change your mind, change your life
What Not to Wear ( I <3 Trinny & Susannah!)
The Rules
The Body Shape Bible
What You Wear Can Change Your Life
What NOT to Wear
Crystal Renn Emme Sophie Dahl
Queen Latifah Kate Winslet Mia Tyler
Salma Hayek America Ferrera Drew Barrymore
Salma Hayek America Ferrera Drew Barrymore
Catherine Zeta-Jones Beyonce Knowles Natalie Maines
Raven Symone Stevie Nicks Trisha Yearwood
Raven Symone Stevie Nicks Trisha Yearwood
Ann Wilson Carrie Fisher Gillian Anderson
Cybill Shepherd Sophia Loren Maureen O'Hara
Cybill Shepherd Sophia Loren Maureen O'Hara
Kathy Bates Kathleen Turner M'onique
Barbara Brickner Kate Dillon Sara Ramirez
Barbara Brickner Kate Dillon Sara Ramirez
