So after reading half the Book, I immediately took out my little food diary and began taking notes in the back of it. My plan?
Food
Well, I consider myself a healthy eater to begin with, since I cook for myself and roommate. I have the occasional take-out on busy nights, but I cook with a lot of veggies, white meats and use whole grains whenever bread is involved. My other carbs, I'll admit, do come from white spaghetti and white rice and the like, but I figure there's only so much one could do without completely cutting out the yummy stuff. So the only change I'm making to my diet is to completely cut out sweets (which I only had a small piece of homemade cake or ice cream every night for dessert) on weekdays. I will still record everything in my little notebook. Calorie-wise, I'm already eating only about 1600 a day, so I don't want to lower that any more. The book emphasizes proteins and fibrous veggies and eating about 4-6 small meals a day. I'll try to follow as best as I can, but I don't want to commit to anything here. Like I said, I like how I eat.
Exercise
Now this is where the big change comes in. My plan is to be at the gym by 5:30 am--before classes--every morning. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I'll strength-train my entire body for a total of 30 minutes (he said no more than 45 minutes), then do the elliptical for 30 minutes at my target Heart Rate. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, I'm only going to do the elliptical for 30 minutes and no strength-training. Saturday I do nothing. Now, how do I know my target heart rate? The book gives a real easy formula to find out:
1. Take your pulse at your neck or wrist (while you're relaxed). Count how many beats occur in 60 seconds. This is your Resting Heart Rate. Mine was 74 beats per minute
2. Use 220 - (your age) to find your max heart rate. For me, since I'm 19 it'd be 220-19 = 201
3. Now you find the gap between these two numbers--you know, the range your heart can go. Mine is 201-74= 127
4. Decide how much exertion you want to put on this. Me being a beginner, sedentary and obese, the book recommended 60-65% of my potential. So 127 x 0.60 = 76.2
5. Add this new number to your resting heart rate and voila! That's your target heart rate. Mine is 150.2, or just 150.
So I input this number in the nifty little options on the elliptical machine, and it does it all for me. I just have to crank my legs for the next 30 minutes.
Additionally, the book advises to exercise before breakfast in the morning, since you have used up all your glycogen in your sleep and are already in the fat burning stage when you begin exercising. I guess I'll try! (even though I'm not a morning person)
Saturday-the special day
Saturday is the special day reserved for cheating. I have to do this otherwise I may go crazy from sweets deprivation. The book actually recommends a day for cheat-meals; apparently eating pure crap cranks up your metabolism into panic mode so that you have a nice head start for the beginning of the week. Of course, calorie input vs. calorie output is the law anywhere, so you can't do this every single day. Before going hogwild on the junk food, though, I reserve Saturday morning for another crucial step in my nutrition program: Keeping track.
Managing the numbers
Saturday morning at 7 am before I eat anything and after I have pooped (tmi, I know), I am going to weigh myself, check my sizes with measuring tape, and most importantly, check my body fat.
How to check body fat? The book goes on to list impossible silly ways like water submerging or some sort of electricity thing that are all crazy expensive and can't be done inside the home, and then finally gets down to the skin-pinching calipers. Apparently there's one caliper out there that you can do absolutely by yourself. It's called the AccuMeasure, and for a simple, non-digital one, you can get it for about 6 to 7 bucks. The digital ones cost about $20.
Heart Rate Moniters USA (a seller on amazon) sells them for $6.75 with free shipping. This is the exact one I ordered, which is still on its way:
http://www.amazon.com/Accu-Measure-Fitness-3000-Personal-Tester/dp/B000G7YW74/ref=sr_1_85?ie=UTF8&m=A3H9V1EMGQSHX7&s=hpc&qid=1253473382&sr=1-85
(I mean, free shipping? When does that ever happen for such a cheap product?)
Anyways, it's an absolute must for keeping track of body fat, which is what you really want to lose in the first place.
AAAND...this concludes my plan for losing fat. From now on I'll be posting data and random comments. ^^ I'll update at least every saturday with current raw data, and I'll try to write down my meals and exercise I did every day, too. Hope to see results soon!
