Week #2 Simple Truths

The Word of Wisdom really does work!!!

This is for anyone who's tried every diet out there. If you have bad eating habits, you need to make a forever change, not just a temporary change. Let's review the basics, you'll be surprised at how much this sounds like the Word of Wisdom.

The average person should consume 60% of their diet as carbohydrates, 20% as protein and 20% as fats. (Next week I'll talk about fats and why you need them in your diet) Of course this can be modified to fit the needs of a body builder or an endurance athlete, but I'm pretty sure it will work for most of you. The Word of Wisdom encourages us to eat meat sparingly, and states that grain is the staff of life. Sounds a lot like the 60/20/20 rule to me. Here's to break it down even more.

In order to meet the body's nutrient needs, we should consume:
6-11 servings of grains each day
4-5 servings of vegetables each day (preferably 5)
2-4 servings of fruits each day
2-3 servings of dairy each day
2-3 servings of meat, beans, nuts each day

A serving is usually an extremely small portion. For instance, one serving of meat is a 2-3 oz steak, fish, or poultry(about the size of a deck of cards). Last I checked, the smallest portion you can order in a restaurant is 8 oz. Consider that more than enough for the day in the meat category.

1 serving of grain= 1 slice of bread, 1/2 cup of cooked pasta, rice, or cereal
1 serving of vegetables= 1/2 cup of cooked or chopped raw, 1 cup of leafy greens
1 serving of dairy= 1 cup of milk or yogurt, 1.5 oz of cheese (about the size of 1 dice)

You get the idea.

So the challenge this week is to keep track for at least one day, what you normally consume, and then to modify it the next day. I'm almost positive that no one gets all 5 of their vegetables everyday, so maybe we can all start with that one.

The Simple Truths to Healthy Living

As the official health and fitness specialist of this blog, my hope is to provide you with the simple facts of healthy living. I'll try my hardest to be creative and motivating, but if I can't do either, then just trust that my tips are truly just simple facts.

I want to start off with a profound statement that I thought of myself. Here it goes...
"Life isn't easy, and neither is loosing weight." The results that you see are a true reflection of the amount of work that you put into it. I'm not kidding!

I think that this week I will put in a couple of tips. Here's one:

There are 4 components to being healthy(in no particular order): 1) aerobic or cardiovascular exercise 2) strength training 3) nutrition 4) flexibility. Notice that I didn't say weight loss, I just said to be healthy. Even if you don't need to loose weight, you still need to have these components to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I hope that for the next 3 months, my tips will help you to stay focused on making these 4 components a part of your everyday life.

Here's two:

Calories IN vs. Calories OUT
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy is neither created nor destroyed.
Calories are energy, therefore, when you eat calories you must either burn them or store them. Lets face it, when you eat a chocolate muffin, it doesn't just disappear into one of your hallow legs. To put things into perspective a little bit, one pound of body weight is equal to 3500 calories. If you want to loose one pound, you have to burn that many calories. So in order to loose weight, you need to be burning more than you eat. Sounds simple enough, so why is it so hard? Well, on average, a 200 lb person only burns about 2.5 calories per minute if they are sitting around, 5.4 calories per minute if they're walking 3 mph, 17.1 calories per minute if they are running 7 mph. So it's going to take quite a bit of effort to shed that one pound.

I hope I didn't discourage anyone, but my point is that if you want to win this thing, you're going to have to work for it. If you want to get an idea of how much you burn at rest then make a request for it. It would take me a while to find the equation, so if I get enough requests for it, then next week I'll post the equation. Counting calories is a very good way to know how many calories you need to burn, but if you don't know how many you burn at rest, or during certain activities, then your just shooting in the dark.

Good Luck everyone, if you have questions just post it to the blog and I'll do my best to answer them. And if you have any suggestions for the weekly challenges, post those too. Be sure to log in every week and reply to the posts!!

Ready, Set, Lose!

It's time to get started with the contest. I am so excited and hope that this will give all of us some much neeed motivation (at least in my case) to get to the gym, eat healthier, and shed some pounds.

Rules:
1. Each member must log on each week to post weekly weight loss percentage, the number of days you worked out and what you did, and check trainer tips. The log in day is on Thursday. You can log in more than that if you'd like, but you must make your weekly weight loss post on Thursdays.

2. Each member must give Jenny their $10 by February 15 in order to be eligible to win the pot.

3. You must exercise at least 3 times per week for at least 30 minutes. Please post your actual number of days you work out on the blog.

4. No diet pills. Protein shakes or meal plans are o.k.

5. Contest ends on April 15th, at which point the member with the highest percentage weight loss will win the pot. Maybe we'll all go celebrate with some celery sticks or something.