Over the last couple of months, my weight loss has stalled in the 225 pound range, down from 255 pounds ish. This morning the scale hit 229, and I decided it was time to step it up again. And what better way than to get a bunch of others involved, get some motivation and accountability going, and share tips/tricks/successes/failures?

So last night I started a new Twitter tag: #10morepounds for folk to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks.

I wanted to kick this off with some simple tips, tricks and thoughts for those who haven’t been in weight loss mode for the last year, or who just need a bit of an extra kick.

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The Participants

Before I do, though, here are the participants (comment/tweet at me if you’re not on the list, or if you want your name to link to somewhere else like your webpage!):

How It Works

Alright, this is pretty darn simple:

  • 10 weeks
  • Lose 10 pounds
  • Every Monday take your weight, and state on twitter how much you lost (note for girls: not your actual weight, unless you went to)
  • Every Monday, I’ll post my tips and such. If you have any of your own, comment on one of the series posts!

Week 1 Tips

I’ve written a bunch about my weight loss tips, but since that’s old and there’s a lot of it and its overwhelming, here are some thoughts for simple things you can do now to kickstart your metabolism, drop some bad habits and start the hard stuff (like EXERCISING).

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First, though, some basics:

  • The more water you drink, the more weight you lose
  • The more you split your meals up, and eat smaller portions throughout the day, the more weight you lose
  • The less grease and fast food you eat, the more weight you lose
  • The less pop you drink, the more weight you lose
  • The more grapefruit specifically, but fruit/veg generically, you eat, the more you lose
  • The more you keep your heart rate up for more than 10 minutes a day, the more weight you lose

If you do these things, you’ll lose weight. But more importantly, doing these things will probably break most of your bad habits, get your body processing food more efficiently and set you up for success over the next 10 weeks!

If you aren’t doing moost of the above, don’t even worry about the rest of the stuff below. It’ll just make it harder to remember everything. If you’re already most of the above, here are some more specific things I used to do, and now need to get back into the habit of doing!

  • Use programs such as 100pushups and 200situps to lay a foundation of daily exercise (I swap out between each program each day, as it works a different part of your body). Since we have 10 weeks, it’s perfect to get both programs done (since you’ll undoubtedly miss some weeks, do some weeks over, etc). Start today! Do them in the morning.
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    Do 20-30 minutes of cardio. Goal here is to sweat for 10 minutes. Walk if you’re out of shape, jog if you can, run with the dog, play frisbee, play football with your kids, play basketball… Just get out and do something. You can even just run up and down 2 steps in your house if you want. Just get the heart rate up for 5 minutes, then do something slightly more leisurely for a minute or two, then back at it again. Do this a couple of times a week.

  • Weigh yourself at the same point every day. Early morning, pre eating, post… erm, release is best.
  • Eat half a grapefruit every morning. Grapefruit covers a multitude of sins!
  • Do other kinds of workouts. Don’t have a gym? Use one of the hotel workout regimens out there.

Now Get To It!

You signed up to lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. It is TOTALLY doable. In fact, you’ll probably lose 2-4 pounds this week alone if you hit this. But you’ve got to keep it up for the whole 10 weeks.

And here’s the dirty little secret… If you do, you’ll be in the habit of all of this, and you’ll keep losing weight afterwards!

Talk Back

Have thoughts, tips, etc? Comment so other #10morepounds folk can learn along with you!

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Interested in Joining In?

Use the #10morepounds tag on twitter, comment or email me (jeremy@b5media.com)!

Some extra articles that MIGHT help (haven’t read them all, so I dunno!)