A New Look at Fitness - Second Week

Second Week of my journal. It has been a month since I started my new diet that includes herbal dietary supplements. I have lost 18 pounds so far. The dietary supplements insure that I get the recommended daily nutritional requirements while reducing my caloric intake. Now in the interest of full disclosure I must admit that I am a Herbalife distributor. I became one because the weight loss program developed by Herbalife has worked for me. Dietary supplements are not necessary for a healthy diet nor for weight loss, but Herbalife makes it easier to get results. Herbalife is a well known company that has been around for 27 years and markets in 64 countries to over 45 million people. Check out my website if you want to know more about Herbalife. There, that completes the commercial portion of my journal. Now here’s what is happening with me and my weight loss program.

Knowing My Body. I said last week that part of my diet was getting to know my body and my eating habits. Indeed if you go to a doctor, physical trainer or nutritionist, one of the first things they will ask of you it to do is keep a record of when and how much food you eat for several days to a week. You will also be asked what is your goal. The reason is simple, before you can plan a healthier life style you need to know what habits you will need change. Remember I called this a journey, and in any journey you need to know your starting point (current eating habits) and destination (goals) before you can plan the trip (weight loss program). So I took note of what I was eating, when I was eating and how much I ate. The results surprised me. Since my career requires me to sit behind a desk all day I found I was eating a lot of unhealthy snacks (ie. pastries, chips, nuts cookies). Also my meals normally included too much bread and too little vegetables. And I was not eating breakfast nor drinking enough water. No wonder I was always tired.

My solution! I set up a diet of 5 meals a day plus herbal supplements. Two of those meals were Herbalife nutritional shakes two were snacks consisting of a high protein snack and/or fruit. The third was a well balanced meal of meat, vegetables, grains and dairy. Finally, I drank at least 50ml of water daily. This was easier than I thought, since I work at a desk all day I just placed a 1.5 liter bottle of water on my desk and sipped from it all day. The other part of my weight loss plan was an exercise routine that included a two-mile course, weight training and calisthenics. I did my exercise routine four times a week for an hour. I walked the two-miles until I was fit enough to run. That is how I lost 18 pounds and I am still losing weight and feeling great while doing it. Well that’s it for this week. Next time I’ll share the problems I faced and the ones I am still facing. Until then, tell me about your experiences.

A New Look at Fitness

When it comes to our weight it seems that many of us would rather believe that we have a medical problem before we admit to unhealthy eating habits. Among our favorite excuses are big bones, hormones or genetics. We think a healthy meal is simply eating meals of vegetables, fruit, bread and dairy with no consideration for volume or how the food is prepared. Americas have become hooked on volume. Eating everything on our plate no matter how much is acceptable, because after all it fits on one plate so it must be one serving, meant to be eaten by one person. Thus we take comfort in the assumtion we are eating healthy and our ballooning weight is the result of a medical condition and not related to our eating habits. But consider this:

• 65 percent of our adult population is defined as being overweight.

If you are like I was you are part of this not so exclusive overweight club. If we can draw anything from these statistics it is that we baby boomers are not concerned enough about our health. The question is what are YOU…correction…are WE going to doing about it.

Well the solution for me was exercise but exercise was only part of the battle, diet is the other part and my diet was terrible. I know this because my wife was constantly nagging me about it (thank God). So I figured if I was going to fix this I need to be educated about my body and nutrition. I have tried low carb diets, high protein diets, calorie counting and even (arrgh) diuretics. Then it hit me. A diet is a permanent way of eating, not a temporary change to lose weight. Therefore, I need a cuisine that is easy for me to prepare and helps me to control my body weight and to optimize my nutrient intake. What I really needed was to learn about nutrition, exercise and my own body.

Through my journal I am going to share with you what I have learned. I will share my successes, failures, setbacks. So read along and find out what I have discovered, what is still being revealed to me, and the surprises I found on the way. See ya next week.