Well, it’s now the start of Week  2 of #10morepounds! How’d you do?

If you answered this question with “I sucked, I binged, I didn’t work out enough, etc” then let me reboot your perspective. Did you do better last week than you would have done otherwise? Did you make healthier choices? Did you drinnk less pop? Did you get into the mindset of “healthy is better than giving into my urges”?

If so, then you’ve made huge progress this week, and you deserve a big pat on the back. I’d mail you one, but that’d be creepy

Week 1 Recap

To recap, the goals for week 1 were pretty simple:

• Get started
• Drink more water, eat smaller more frequent meals
• Start some form of regular exercise, but nothing that’ll burn you out
• Eat better, especially grapefruit, drink better (especially no pop)

Did you do these? How many? How often? Every step counts. Celebrate your victories!

How We’re Doing

Well, personally,  I’ve gone from 232 to 226, so 6 pounds in a week. I know most of that was water and that the real work starts NOW though!

Only a handful of people have reported in so far today (come on, report in y’all!), but weight loss so far is: 32 pounds!

New Participants

Here is a list of new participants (if I’m missing you or you want to join, let me know!):

• @merlene
• @erin_bury
• @robynmcmaster
• @zaneology
• @suzemuse
• @ciaraj13

Week 2 Goals

For week 2, we really just want to build on week 1. You probably weren’t perfect (not that perfect is the goal), so stepping up your food, spacing of meals, water, pop intake is all critical. Your eating habits are the ones you need to change most because they’ll have the biggest impact on your heart, health, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.

But, since our goal is weight loss, adding in some exercise will only accelerate that.

If you don’t have a regular exercise program, my recommendation is to build a “tiered” approach. The problem with doing something big like “go to the gym 3 times per week” is that it’s easy to feel like you’ve failed. By building a 3-tiered program, you’re able to feel like you’ve done 2/3 things or 1/3 things, instead of “pass/fail”.

The way I do this is the following:

• Foundation: easy, regular, quick workouts 3x/week like 100pushup challenge, 200situps challenge, etc (Google if you don’t know what these are). I’ve recently added stretches to my mix. This takes 5-10 minutes per workout, so is easy to fit into your day.
• Cardio: Cardio = life. It’s great for your heart. It’s HARD to start (ask @acowboyswife!), but so worth it. 20-30 minutes twice a week is huge, will increase your energy and make you feel great.
• Sculpting: Some kind of toning, whether it’s yoga, weights, resistance training, etc. Getting this in 1-2 times per week is ideal.

Image via Wikipedia

If you’re doing nothing now, start with the foundational stuff. Next week, add cardio. The week after, add some kind of sculpting.

By varying stuff, and doing multiple things, you’ll keep your body guessing, work different muscle groups and generally feel like you failed less.

Talk Back

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

Interested in Joining In?

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

Some Useful Articles

• The Most Effective Alternative Medicine Weight Loss Recommendations (healthlifestyleforever.com)
• Exercise Programs (healthlifestyleforever.com)
• How Goal Setting Leads to Losing Weight (mariaslastdiet.typepad.com)
• Tweak of the Week: Boost Your Metabolism (via Diet & Fitness Blog) (healthnews.ediets.com)
• Ask the Trainer: How to Lose Love Handles (via Diet & Fitness Blog) (via eDiets Weight-Loss – FriendFeed) (via eDiets Weight-Loss – FriendFeed) (healthnews.ediets.com)
• Reliable Weight Loss Keys (healthlifestyleforever.com)
• Calorie Shifting or Calorie Counting? (fitnesstipsforlife.com)
• What Is Pilates Exercise? And How It Works (healthlifestyleforever.com)
• Physical Activity, Weight Loss, and Fun! (womenandweight.com)

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.

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!):

• @jeremywright
• @vcmike
• @pensieverobin
• @erikalehmann
• @L3N
• @zaneology
• @jleray
• @mybiziz
• @garyhilson
• @csmillie
• @thekarin
• @michellechilds
• @sydneyowen
• @sarahprevette
• @terryjsmith
• @acowboyswife
• @ellenpeters

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).

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.

• 

  Image by Getty Images via Daylife

  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!

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!)

• A Quick Weight Loss Diet Recommendation (healthlifestyleforever.com)
• Jazz It Off – Week #1 (petroville.com)
• Pre-Wedding Weight Loss (weight-loss-methods.suite101.com)
• Easy Weight Loss Plan (healthlifestyleforever.com)
• Weight loss: cut more calories or do more exercises (weightlossnutrition.org)
• Reliable Weight Loss Keys (healthlifestyleforever.com)
• End of Week 1 Followup (ensight.org)

If you’re reading this, you hopefully completed the entire first week of the program! If you have, I’d love your feedback in the comments!

Before we get into Week 2’s goals, thoughts, tips, etc, I wanted to share some thoughts and tips from readers

Linda wrote a handful of great tips to help you along your way:

I once read a comment by Joan Collins. Her diet tip was always leave the table feeling that you could eat more. Apparently that’s what the Victorians used to do.

I recommend you always take a packed lunch to work. It only takes a couple of minutes the night before. It saves money and stops you grabbing calorie laden sandwhiches from shops.

I’m a great soup maker and in the winter I make big batches of soup which I use over a few days for lunch times. It’s easy to take some with your in a thermos. Coupled with a wholemeal roll a nice healthy alternative

Colin Smillie wrote some tips on tracking (personally I use FitDay, but tracking by any means is the key!):

I’ve been using MyFoodDiary.com to track my food & exercise. I find its a great tool for understanding the impact of different foods on your goals. There a few of these types of sites but I found the food database to be the best and its dead easy to use. The only down side is the $10/month fee but I think its worth it compared with all the search I’d need to find equivalent information. There is also a good goal tracking component.

Jim reminded us that you should rest for 2 minutes between each of your sets of crunches for maximum effect

Stephanie added to my tips on breakfasts by suggesting pre-packaged egg whites (a huge tip if you can stomach it!):

I am all about the egg whites for bfast. I mostly use the ones that come in the container – like egg beaters. It’s great if you can mix in a few veggies or low fat turkey and swiss for a very special egg white omelette.

If you have any of your own tips, leave a comment so everyone can benefit from what you’ve learned works for you. This program is really my tips that worked for me. They may not work for you, and in the same way by sharing what works for you, you could easily help someone else lose weight and get healthier!

How Was Week 1?

Now that you’re preparing for Week 2, ask yourself how Week 1 was. Did you get closer to a healthier lifestyle? Did you lose weight? Did you accomplish something you didn’t feel you’d be able to accomplish? Did you want more things you could do?

Week 1 was admittedly fairly light in terms of working out or food changes, but that’s because doing a crash course where you change your life isn’t our goal. Because those types of diets and exercise programs, for most people, are incredibly hard to implement. That’s why we’re focusing on 1 core new goal for each day. Last week was more water, better sleep and better breakfasts.

This week we’re going to focus on starting to build a workout regime (more on that later), better lunches and how to eat out in a slightly healthier manner.

My Secret for Success

But before we get into specifics, I want to talk about the core thing I believe is helping me succeed. As I said at the start, I’m still not “there” yet, but in the last month I’ve often hit the point where I would have given up. And I personally believe that’s because I adopted the philosophy I’m about to talk about – and the philosophy I want you to focus on for Week 2.

Week 1’s philosophy was to build great habits.

Week 2’s philosophy is, simply put, to diversify.

In the past when I tried to lose weight I looked at it as a 2-part system: good food and more exercise. “Eat right, exercise properly!” is what we hear over and over again. The problem is that these are binary solutions. You either eat right or you don’t and you either exercise properly or you don’t. And if you have a bad day you feel like a failure. Have a bad weekend and you want to give up. Have a bad week and you’re done for.

This is why for me, “eating” isn’t one goal. It’s 5 (we’ve covered 2 of those already: drink more water and eat better breakfasts). And working out is actually 5 as well. But the core is the same: diversify.

I am not an advocate of something like “go to the gym 3-4 times per week” as your only solution. Because it’s a huge, huge barrier if you don’t go regularly.

I’m a huge fan of building severall smaller exercise plans you can follow, and building more into your lifestyle as time goes on.

As an example, here are the exercise programs I currently try and follow. As you’ll see, if I don’t hit all of them, it’s okay because I’m working at so many:

• 2-3 cardio workouts in the gym per week (I didn’t start with this, my original goal was to get to the gym 10 times in a month)
• Joining the Hundred Pushup Challenge (3 times per week)
  
• Doing 2-3 ab workouts per week
• Doing 1-2 outdoor jogging workouts per week
• Doing 1-2 full weight workouts per week  (I do intervals of 2 mins on the bike followed by 3 groups of weights and back again)

For example this week I went to the gym twice, did my hundred pushup challenge all 3 times, did 2 ab workouts and did 1 full weight workout. So basically 8 workouts (some short, some long). Now obviously I didn’t start with that. What I started with is what you started with last week: regular walks, regular crunches.

This week we’re going to add a new part to that component: The Hundred Pushup Challenge.

The Hundred Pushup Challenge is notable for 3 key reasons: it’s easy to start, it’s easy for even the most unfit person to follow and it’s hard. In fact if you look at Week 3 at the start of the program, even the lowest level will probably seem close to impossible. But take it from someone who’s just finished Week 3 (only the highest tier), even if you can only 5-10 pushups consecutively, you can do this.

So let’s get to the specific goals for this week:

Eating & Diet

Last week you hopefully nailed down a handful of good habits, specifically drinking more, eating a better breakfast, eating less junk food and drinking less non-diet pop. This week we’re going to focus on 3 key areas:

• Eating less junk food
• Eating better lunches
• Drinking more water

Noticing a pattern here? Yeah, that’s right, we’re keeping it simple. The pushup challenge is going to be a significant milestone for you, so the core of what we’re trying to do is to build one more good habit, ie: better lunches. Because if you’re eating better breakfasts and eating better lunches, by definition you’ll be eating less junk food! Adding in your existing water habit and you’re well on your way to a solid diet (and next week we’ll take this to the next level!).

In addition this week you should start thinking about healthy snacks. Snacks in an unhealthy person’s life are evil. Snacks when you’re trying to lose weight are a tool to stop you from binging. But they must be used properly. We’ll cover this in Day 3.

Exercise

The entire focus for this week really is the hundred pushup challenge, but we also want to continue building on what we did last week, so here’s our full set of exercise goals:

• If you didn’t do 3 sets of good form half-crunches last week, that’s your goal for this week. The easiest way to think of this is that you should do the crunches on the day following when you read this post. So if you read the post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, do the crunches on Tuesday, Thursday and sometime during the weekend.
• Your walks. Walking is key if for no other reason than it gets you outside or on the treadmill or to the gym. You’ll only be burning 5-7 calories per minute, but the point isn’t the calorie burn. It’s building the habit and getting your heart pumping. If you’re anything like me you had medium to high blood pressure, caused by (among other things) an unfit heart with fat around it. By getting your heart rate up (ie: working til you sweat) 1-2 times per week, you are starting to get your heart healthier!
• Your Hundred Pushup Challenge. Do this the same day you read these posts, so probably Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Now this might seem like a lot, which is why it’s okay if you don’t do everything. As I said above, the purpose of all  of this is to start building habits and to diversify so that if you don’t accomplish everything you are still getting healthier. So if you’re like me you might only do your hundred pushup challenge, 2 crunches and 1 walk. But that’s fantastic because 2 weeks ago you weren’t doing any of that!

Plus, if you count up the time you’re spending, even if you only accomplished half of the above, you still got in 2-3 solid workouts for where you’re at and probably worked out for more than  an hour!

Metrics and Milestones

As with last week, keep taking your measurements, but now you should start to set goals for your walks and crunches. My recommendation is to set 3 goals for each of the areas you’re trying to improve on. Try something like this:

1. Get to the point where you do all 3 groups of crunches each week / complete all 3 sets of 10 crunches for your workouts / get to 15 crunches per set
2. Eat breakfast every day / eat a healthy breakfast every day / add fruit to your breakfasts
3. Cut your fast food intake to once per week for lunch / when you do eat out, choose a healthier option / pack your lunch and bring it to work

These are examples of 3 goals for 3 different areas. The last one is a significant improvement over where you are now, where the first 2 build to the point where the last one is achievable. By having lists like this for each area you’re trying to improve on, you are able to start checking off a lot of milestones this week!

Conclusion

Week 2 and Week 3 are always the hardest in any workout or exercise routing. Mostly because anytime you make the decision to live healthier you generally have 1-2 weeks of energy and enthusiasm. After that it’s all discipline and persistence.

This week is significantly harder than last week in some ways (the hundred pushup challenge specifically) but significantly easier in others (less things to focus on).

Anytime you feel down or depressed or unmotivated, talk to someone. Feel free to email/comment/twitter me and I’ll do my best to help. But talk to someone.

And my biggest tip of all for this week: if you feel like you didn’t get everything out of this week that you could have, start the week again. There is absolutely no shame in redoing a week to nail a bunch of the goals, feel better, improve your quality of life, etc.

As an example, next week I’m going to start Week 4 of the Hundred Pushup Challenge. A lot of my friends have said this is the hardest week and they barely get through it. As a result they repeat it, so that Week 5 and 6 are more doable. I’m expecting to do the same thing, but I view that as continuing on my path to success vs failing.

So do what you need to to succeed. You only fail if you give up, give in or stop trying. Even if you stop all the habits and start again, you still didn’t fail. You started again. So keep it up!

By now you should have completed Week 1! If so, give yourself a huge pat on the back! Week 1 was really about starting to build good habits that lay the foundation for a healthier lifestyle. As I siad at hte start of all this, when I started losing weight I was lazy,  fat, completely unfit and had built a lot of bad habits.

Over the last year I dropped a lot of those, but I was still far from living a healthy life. When I got onto my newest health kick 4 months ago (give or take), I realized that the core thing I had to do was to build healthy habits. If I didn’t build habits, and didn’t diversify my “portfolio” of good eating, healthy living and exercise, I’d only have 2 options: I’d either be “on” the bandwagon or “off” it – and for me that’s a recipe for disaster.

Week 1 was, at its core, about building 3 core habits: drink more water, eat better breakfasts and sleep better. If you were able to do those 3 things consistently, you succeeded!

In addition, I made some minor suggestions to help you improve your quality of life. I’ll put these in a list format so you can check off how much better you’re doing on each of those. Your goal here is to have hit at least 7 of them. If you do, you’ve rocked the house. If you hit 5 you’re doing great and if you hit 3 you’re doing better than you were a week ago and still deserve to celebrate!

So here are some milestones you may have accomplished:

1. Did 2-3 ab workouts via good form half-crunches
2. Completed 1-2 light walks (where you broke a sweat but didn’t kill yourself)
3. Cut your junk food / fast food intake
4. Stopped eating when you were no longer hungry instead of going back until you were full (not everytime, but you started to build the habit)
5. If you drink pop, you switched to diet
6. Began thinking about what you were eating in terms of calories or “cost” (of working it off) instead of how much you liked the food
7. Told somebody you were trying to lose weight. The shame of starting can be intense. The support of others knowing is significant. Personally, I use Twitter and this blog to communicate how well I”m doing. Others setup dedicated blogs to share successes, failures, tips, dreams, realizations, etc. No matter how you do it, sharing the experience creates a support network, which is critical for success.
8. Set goals for yourself, set milestones and realized that it’s possible for you to hit them. The sense of hopelessness that accompanies trying to lose weight can be incredibly significant. Hope is your biggest weapon against depression. And the easiest ways to build hope are through your support network but also through setting goals that you can achieve. Everytime you feel like giving up, set a goal you can hit in the next week (or less!) and hit it! Show yourself how wrong you are that it’s hopeless!
9. Took your measurements at least once, building the habit of taking it every week to show yourself your progress.
10. Started taking this program (yes it’s a freebie, but it’s a milestone and deserves to be celebrated)!

For tomorrow (Sunday) I’ll have the notes up for Week 2’s program. Week 2 will start to build in some significant milestones and tools, so hopefully you’re ready to start working!

Over the first part of this week you should have begun developing core habits for living a healthier life. You might have experienced some weight loss, but more realistically you’ve simply experienced a bit more energy, a bit better sleep and a bit less depression about your weight.

This first week really was about setting yourself up for success, instead of most diet and exercise programs which are designed to set you up for failure by requiring too much of you at the start (which is why most folk only last about 2 weeks).

During the first couple of days we focused on drinking more water. During the next couple we focused on eating better breakfasts. Over the next couple we’re going to focus on something that’s just as core but just as simple: getting a better sleep.

There’s a very simple truth to weightloss: if you aren’t sleeping properly you aren’t setting your day up for success. Read through this article on weightloss and sleep. While sleeping won’t cause you to burn a tonne of calories (400-800 depending on your weight and sleep habits), a solid 7-8 hours will setup your metabolism, keep your hormones in balance and ultimately keep you happier (which will result in less binging, more balance and more weightloss overall).

So your goal for the next 2 days is very simple: make sleep a priority. Given that this should be your Friday, basically try and catchup on lost sleep this weekend. If you haven’t been sleeping 7-8 hours, you may need a couple of 10 hour days to reset your system. Don’t be afraid of that, or of any lost work time, because in a couple of weeks your body will be rocking and you’ll be quite happy at 6-7 hours once you’re working out more, eating better, etc.

In addition, if you haven’t already done 2-3 sets of crunches (here’s a video on how) and haven’t yet taken 1-2 light walks (break a sweat but don’t come home panting), you’ll want to try and catchup on those things this weekend.

And if you haven’t yet taken your measurements, suck it up and get them done now. The biggest reason for doing this is so that you know exactly how well you’re doing. The longer you wait, the less dramatic your results will be, so get it done

If you have taken your measurements, feel free to update them this weekend. You probably won’t notice a significant difference, but as with everything in this program: building the habit is key!

So have a great weekend, don’t eat junk food at the theatre, stay away from fast food altogether, try and eat soup instead of steak (you’ll be surprised how filling it can be), sleep well, drink lots of water, eat your breakfasts and have fun. The weekend is the time to recharge. If you’re going to eat poorly, keep it to one “free day” (I use Sundays). Don’t spread it over the weekend.

And if you’ve completed your first week, celebrate! It wasn’t the hardest, but this is the first step in a very successful journey to weight loss, a healthier life and better eating!

As I noted in my Week 1 notes, our first few days together will be fairly low key. Focus on basics and building good habits. Don’t overload yourself. Start nice and slow.

Your goals for today/tomorrow are:

1. Buy your water bottle, and get through at least 1L of water per day while at work.
2. DON’T EAT JUNK FOOD
3. Buy some nuts (unsalted) for the office, cause if you’re hungry, a handful will keep you going until your next meal and will ensure you don’t binge.
4. Take your measurements
5. If you’re going shopping, don’t buy chocolate/ice cream/desserts/cookies/etc. Buy protein bars instead, they’re yummy, and give you gobs of energy.
6. Do one group of 3 sets of 10 half-crunches (ie: 30 crunches, with 2 minute rests in between).

And those are your goals for the next 2 days.

A bit of changes to your eating. A couple of exercisy things. A few minor lifestyle changes. Doable? If not, this could be a hard road to losing 25 pounds

But your focus?

Drink more water and less pop. If that’s all you do, it’s the core habit you want to build.

Before I get to the daily workouts, diets, tips, etc, I wanted to supply some guiding principles for Week 1 and what we’re really looking to accomplish. In a nutshell Week 1 is about:

1. Dropping REALLY bad eating habits
2. Improving SOME dietary things
3. BEGINNING to build a regular exercise routine, but nothing too stressful
4. Setting a baseline for how you’re doing, because without metrics it’s hard to track progress

Remember, Week 1 starts on Monday, so read Week 1, Day 1’s Program beforehand so you know what to be ready for. Cause it’s soooooo hard

Bad Eating Habits

If you’re anything like me there are probably 2 parts to your diet that really suck: 1) you eat out/eat fast food too much (anything more than once a week is too much) and 2) you don’t prepare your own food ahead of time.

The core to losing weight due to food is very, very simple: eat 6 smaller meals per day (it takes getting used to, but it means your body is constantly metabolizing, which prevents those huge highs and lows before/after eating … like the post-lunch energy crash), prepare as much of it ahead of time as possible and don’t eat junk food.

For this week, our goals are very simple:

1. Get a decent water bottle (stainless steel is best, less toxins and bacteria) and drink more
2. Cut out the worst of your eating habits
3. Start exercising a little bit
4. Figure out where you’re starting and where you’re going so you can track your progress

Bad Diet Habits

Diet is at least 2 times as important as exercise. Most people in my condition (and maybe yours) consume 3000-4000 calories per day. Your body burns about 3000 calories per day. A pound of fat is 3500 calories. It also takes the average person 60-90 minutes of reasonably intense exercise to burn 1000 calories. So you can either cut 500 calories per day from your diet to lose 1 pound per week or you can work out for 4-5 hours per week. Which is easier?

1. Limit your “junk” fast food intake to once a week, no matter what (I walk by a McDonald’s and a burger king every day, so this was very hard for me)
2. If you are going to eat fast food, find the healthy option
3. STOP EATING WHEN YOU’RE FULL
4. Drink 1L of water per day (typically 2 of your water bottles)
5. Switch from regular to diet pop

Exercising

Exercise for weight loss is a cumulative thing. The better your body gets, the easier it is to burn fat. So your initial workouts won’t help a lot and they won’t hurt alot. This is compounded by the fact that the more you exercise the EASIER it is to exercise. So starting now, starting light, will make it easier farther down the road.

Your goal with exercising is very, very easy:

1. Take 1-2 light 20 minute walks
2. Do 3 sets of 10 half crunches (here’s a video if you don’t know how) 3 times during the week (ie: once a day Monday, Wednesday, Friday). I used to do these at work. They’re really easy to do, very quick, you don’t break a sweat. If you’re having problems, put your feet on the floor, put your hands on your legs and “crunch” up until your wrist goes to your knees.

And that’s it. Your walk can be while you’re checking your blackberry, listening to music, whatever. Preferably outside, but a stairmaster/elliptical/treadmill at home will work just fine too. Your goal is basically to develop a light sweat. So don’t job, but don’t dawdle either.

Metrics & Milestones

Alright, the goals for this week are to basically figure out where you are, and to develop milestones you can celebrate. So:

1. Open Notepad or Excel or Word or something, and take note of stuff
2. Get a measuring tape and measure your waist, stomach, chest, arms, neck, thighs, etc
3. If you belong to a gym or have a fancy electronic scale, get your bodyfat % and water % (ie: inverse of your Lean Body Mass), otherwise have your doctor do it or buy a cheap bodymass gadget for 20$.
4. Using your bodyfat and/or LBM, calculate how much you’d weigh if you were 10% lower than your current bodyfat. And also calculate how much you’d weigh at 15% bodyfat and 10%. 15% is a realistic goal (Vin Diesel is 15% give or take), 10% is a totally ripped goal.
5. Set milestones for weight (like “I was X pounds 2 years ago, when I left college, when I started gaining weight, etc) and write those down. Set milestones for your waist (ie: “I”d LOVE to be a size 36″) and write those down. Set milestones for your weight (for me it was 240 pounds, 230 pounds and 225 pounds). Set milestones for your workouts (what weight you’ll get to, how long you’ll be able to do cardio for, how LONG of a workout you’ll be able to do, how many calories you’ll be able to burn, etc).

Basically, data, data, data. Every datapoint you capture is one that will be able to encourage you when you’re feeling down and fat. Cause when you feel down and fat is when you’ll give up if the only thing you’re tracking is your weight and it’s going up and down.

As a bonus, if you’re able, take a weekly picture in your skimpiest clothes so you can SEE how your body changes. I haven’t been doing this, I really want to try, and I KNOW that SEEING the changes will help me stay motivated.

Notes

So these are our goals for Week 1. I’ll create 3 daily programs to help out with food ideas, exercise ideas, and to break you into these things slowly. The longest task is going to be the milestones one. The hardest will be food. Celebrate every single one of your wins, ignore your losses and find somebody to do whatever program you’re doing with. Doing it alone means guaranteed failure.

Hope this helps! If you have tips, thoughts, suggestions or complaints, either leave a comment or email me at jeremy@b5media.com so I can include them in future “episodes”

Every couple of days I post to my Twitter account (www.twitter.com/jeremywright) about how I’m doing workout/eating/fitness/weightloss-wise. Every time I get a couple of people (sometimes more) asking how I’m doing what I’m doing, what I’m eating, etc.

In the last 3 months, I’ve lost 25 pounds. I need to lose another 9 pounds to be at what I thought was my goal weight back when I weighed 255 pounds (I’m 234 as of this morning, but will settle back down to 230 quickly). For me it’s been a combination of baby steps, structured eating, public accountability and a program I can follow.

I’ll be really clear. 3 months ago, I was an out of shape, overweight, lazy geek. I could barely manage 5 pushups, I could squeeze out 30 half-crunches per day, I could barely do 1 minute of intense jogging on the treadmill and I could eke out 10 minutes of solid work on the bike. Now I’m hardly a pro athlete, but yesterday/today I did 60 pushups (including 25 or so consecutive), 500 crunches, I can do 5 minutes of jogging (I have asthma so this is the hardest) and I can do a solid 30 minutes on the bike.

So I thought it might be nice to share not just general stuff I’m doing, but the program I built for myself. This is designed for someone like me: slightly motivated, WANTS to lose the weight, doesn’t know where to start and who tends to be an “all or nothing” type of person; which ultimately means you burn out after a couple of weeks.

For me, the secret to most of this was to build habits. I’m FAR from perfect, but I get enough questions that I thought it might be useful to, instead of writing the occasional update post, actually start to publish some of my thoughts as a schedule.

If I manage to actually publish a full 6 weeks of food/workouts/stuff, I’ll probably create a full program based on starting abilities, etc. For now, I’ll just assume people are as out of shape, lazy, etc, as I was and sometimes still am.

Before We Get Started

Before we get started there are a few things I do recommend:

1. Set a realistic goal. My recommendation is 25 pounds. If you have more than 30% body fat, this is achievable within 2-3 months (faster if you don’t slip, but we might as well be realistic, right?).
2. Don’t buy stuff before you need it. Don’t sign up for the gym yet (if you already have a membership we’ll use it though). Don’t get expensive workout gear, diet pills, etc. You can load up on “stuff” once you’ve built your habits if you really want. Until you have, it’s just something to distract you. And what you really want out of this is the sense that you can do it. Not some random product.
3. Take baby steps. The temptation will be to start everything at once. The more you load up on new stuff, the more you drop the ball on stuff you’re already doing. Doing 1 new thing right per week will add up very quickly.
4. Buy a decent water bottle. Preferably stainless steel, as germs and toxins leak into the water less. It tastes weird at first, but you get used to it (note: wash it thoroughly, kthnxbai).
5. If you travel, you need to develop a travel PLAN before you travel.

Let’s Get Started

As with my workouts, I’ll take baby steps. Ideally I’d like to get to 3 (so you have Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 plans), but it might start out slower at first. So feel free to start with the early stuff, but feel free to wait a few weeks for me to find a rhythm too

If you have any tips or tricks or thoughts, PLEASE send them to me at jeremy@b5media.com and I’ll include them, along with credit for you, in my posts. The smaller and simpler, the better. But collective intelligence is a Good Thing.

A couple of monts ago I posted my 20 Things I Do to Stay a Bit Healthier list. Doing the list allowed me to lose roughly 7 pounds of completely excess weight, but wasn’t letting me get below my previous “average” of 240-245.

Rewind 6 months ago, and I’d mentioned my attempt at weightloss on Twitter., when a PR rep for NutriSystem (Keith McArthur from Veritas Communication) tweeted me back and offered a free few months of NutriSystem. At the time I was in the middle of a majo travel swing, and knew I’d never get around to it.

However a month or so ago I decided to give this weightloss thing one more shot, so pinged Keith to see if the offer was still open, and wonder of wonders it was!

So for the last 2 weeks I’ve been using NutriSystem fairly religiously (probably a total of 5 meals that haven’t been, which ain’t bad).

Before I get into how it’s working, I want to note what my goals are for this period of my life. Plain and simple: lose weight, get healthier, find more energy so I can play with my boys more.

The last time I tried to lose weight (roughly this time last year), I engaged a trainer for 3-4 workouts a week, redid my diet (many of those changes in eating are reflected in my 20 things post). However I was gaining muscle as fast as I was losing fat. So my weight was basically the same after 2 months of working out.

In my past,  I’ve never managed to get to the gym regularly. It’s always, always, always been an issue.

So, as part of doing NutriSystem, I’ve started going back to the gym and working out at home on our elliptical.

In the last 2 weeks, I’ve:

1. Lost an additional 10 pounds over and above the 7 I’d lost as part of getting back onto my healthier life kick.
2. Begun using NutriSysem
3. Gone to the gym 6 times
4. Done 4 workous at home on the elliptical (adding nearly 100km to the tally)
5. Massively cut down on my pop consumption (specifically sweetened iced tea, which is the devil’s nectar)

I’m now down to 233 pounds (from a high of 253 a few months ago, but from my average of 243 as well). I’ve retired all of my size 42 and 40 pants (the pants I’m wearing these days haven’t been worn in 3 years… and some of them have NEVER been worn).

But really I wanted to talk about NutriSystem. Not because I have to in order to get it for free, but because I think it provides value. Now, if you look online there’s all kinds of stuff about how unhealthy it is, how it doesn’t help, etc. I don’t know about the health side. What I do know is this:

1. The cost is well worth the amount of “free food” you get
2. Outside of the pre-packaged stuff, you have to eat a metric tonne of truly, truly healthy food
3. The structure NutriSystem provides, for me, has created a magical formula that keeps me on track

And maybe this magic is the real magic. I’ve tried to pay for trainers so that I’d be motivated to go. I’ve tried to look deep into my boys’ eyes to find motivation. But apparently for my personality type, the real trick is structure, habit, routine. And NutriSystem forms the “bookends” of my routine. It’s too early to say it’s definitely going to stick, but the biggest thing for me has always been milestones. And here are the real milestones I’ve hit, in just the last 2 weeks:

1. At bedtime, weighed less than 245 (this was the first big one, and was incredibly motivational)
2. Gotten under 240 (HUGE, as I’d never managed this in previous stuff)
3. Fit into size 38 pants (again, HUGE)
4. Under 240 at bedtime (omg, couldn’t believe this one!)
5. UNDER 235 pounds
6. Got in 5 actual gym workouts (first time ever where I’ve stuck to my schedule)
7. Gone to the theatre without ordering junk food (did you know they have water bottles at the theatre?! CRAZY!!!)
8. Done 3 non-gym workouts (again, a first in a consecutive fashion)

Each of these are major milestones for me. But I want to continue setting small (and big) milestones that keep me motivated. The number going down most mornings (except for a spell last weekend where I totally gave up eating properly) is just exceptionally motivational.

I’m going to attempt to blog weekly on my experiences with NutriSystem (positive and negative), but wanted to kick this off with the very simple thought that while I don’t know if it’s the healthiest prepackaged food in the world, for me this totally works – at this point mostly due to the structure it provides.

So a huge thanks to Keith and the team at Veritas. Dropping 20 pounds feels absolutely incredible. If I ever get to 225 pounds, dinner’s on me

About a year ago I started to hop on a journey to get healthier. While the primary purpose of this was to lose weight (I haven’t), I knew there’d be lots of side benefits.

Earlier today I realized that while I’m still not eating perfectly and not exercising as much as I’d like and not really losing that much weight or gaining that much muscle… I’m doing gobs better. And, given that I’m a big believer in taking your wins when you get them (instead of differing victory for later), I thought I’d reflect on some of the things I am doing well.

To put this in perspective, a year ago my diet consisted of 50% fast food, whatever breakfast I felt like eating (which was only half the time) and 50% of my dinners were at restaurants. I travelled too much, didn’t eat enough, worked way too much and often binged (eating, sleeping, movies, everything) – primarily as a means of coping.

So, a year later, how are things going and what 10 things am I doing better than I was?

1. I’ve dropped my McDonald’s frequency from 4-6 times per week to 1-2 times per month (often when travelling).
2. When I do eat fast food, it’s often much more healthy (lamb schwarma, wraps, etc).
3. I eat at Lettuce (the area’s “uber healthy” eatery) 2-3 times per week.
4. When I go to sub places, I often eat 6″ subs (though half that time I double the meat). I don’t get the combo.
5. When I go to theatres, I eat full combos less often, and drink water more. This is an area for improvement.
6. I drink 1.5-2L of water per day at the office.
7. I walk 4-5x as much as I used to.
8. I’m learning more and more that I can substitute reasonably healthy alternatives for the stuff I want to binge on (books for movies, popcorn for ice cream, etc). This is an area for improvement.
9. When I travel, I watch my eating/sleeping cycles more, eat less food when I do eat, and try and stick to “cycles”.
10. I’m on a proper vitamin regime.
11. I work with a nutritionist to switch up my “ideal diet” every 3 months. I’m rarely perfect, and this is a huge area for improvement, but my overall diet is about 80% of where it should be.
12. About once a month I manage to start on some kind of exercise routine. I still haven’t found a balance that works, and when I’m back from a trip it still takes me 2-3 weeks to get back into a groove, but I’m doing better.
13. I work 60 hours most weeks now, instead of 80-90 (and get just as much done).
14. I bring protein bars with me when I travel.
15. I hurry less (this might seem small, but the net impact is I eat better, walk more and have less overall stress… again, getting just as much done as I used to).
16. I drink (alcohol) less. I didn’t drink much before, but I drink less now. And I get drunk less. This only happened once a month before, but it’s only happened a few times in the last year. All in all, probably 50% less. Again, an area to keep improving on. In my head,  twice a year is reasonable (given team activities, conferences and family outings).
17. I weigh myself most mornings. This is a small thing, but it helps me realize when I’m getting too lazy. I do it as soon as I’m, erm, “empty”, before I eat, before I shower each morning, so the weight is reasonably consistent to itself.
18. I order less room service from hotels when I travel. It’s still not perfect, but it saves me (and b5) money, and I tend to “snack” more… when ordering room service it’s VERY easy to binge.
19. I twitter about my weight and diet more. My victories and my losses. I often get a lot of response to both, which is tremendously helpful.
20. Brush my teeth more often (I didn’t do this enough). And I rinse (3 different types actually) properly. Need to start flossing.

Not that I’m perfect (far from it), but these, to me, are fairly significant lifestyle changes. Some are minor. Most aren’t “all the way there”, but they’re good.

So I’m a believer in celebrating your victories. I’m also a believer that whenever you draw a line in the sand you need to set new, clear, attainable goals (I’m sure there’s some kind of CEO acronym for that… SMART goals? simple … measurable … achievable … realistic … timely … yeah, that one).

As a result, here are 10 things I want to do better in the next year:

1. Bring more meals to work. This happens like once a month now. Bringing food to work is cheaper. On the health front, given that my eating out is now 80% healthy it’s probably not tonnes better… but it will mean I binge less. It’s hard to “upsize” your lunch when you made it at home. It’s like not going shopping when you’re hungry. Prepping your meals when you aren’t hungry is always a good idea.
2. Do something active once a week. This could be as simple as joining a basketball team or something, but at least do it. Because if I don’t have a commitment with someone else, I won’t do it.
3. Find something social I can do on a regular basis. Getting out of my own little world to meet people with common interests will do me a world of good in terms of life balance.
4. Start some kind of “bigger than me” project. Run a marathon, climb a mountain, write another book (fiction?), write an AIR application, start writing poetry again (and get it published, again), bike to Montreal… I don’t care. And I don’t mean to finish it. But just figure out what it should be and make some headway. If any of these tickles your interest, I wouldn’t mind working on a project with someone (accountability keeps me on target), but at this point it’s just a desire to invest myself creatively in something that isn’t work or family… because I’m a big believer that increasing your overall creativity levels makes you more creative everywhere.
5. Get my weight to 235. Not ideal, but it’s 8 pounds down from where I am now. And while I’ve dropped 7 pounds from my high 2 weeks ago of 250 pounds, those ones are the easiest to lose. That said, my gut is that eating a bit better and being a bit more active will make this possible.
6. Get my wisdom teeth pulled and all other major medical things I’ve been putting off (erm… that makes me sound Steve Jobs’y, but honest, they’re all elective and none are cosmetic, how’s that for vague?).
7. Blog more, or find some way of bridging my blog/twitter chasm that doesnt’ involve reposting all of them (though I enjoyed the searchability of that).
8. Play drums a bit more.
9. Learn to drive a non-automatic motorcycle. I like the bike I’m getting, but not being able to ride “normal” bikes means I can’t rent them when I travel. And since they’re cheaper (and gobs more fun), that’s a real shame.
10. Go on more dates with my wife.

How about you, what are some little things you do to live a little bit healthier? What are little things you can or think you can learn to do?