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Who doesn’t want to lose some weight (even those that don’t need to will still complain about how “fat” they are)? Some need to more than others, and I was definitely in the “some” category at the beginning of this year. As motivation, I decided to join a weight loss challenge with 18 other people where the winner would be determined by the % of total body weight lost. Long story short, I ended up dropping close to 18% of my body weight in 10 weeks and took home some extra dough for first place. Since then, I’ve had some people ask for my secret, which is what prompted this post. 

Now listen up, because this is revolutionary weight loss information here….the secret to losing weight is burning more calories than you consume every day. I know, I know…you world will never be the same now that you have unlocked this mystery of the universe. It’s been my experience that there is no easy way to lose weight. I did it through a strict diet and a fervent work out routine. It took a lot of discipline and hard work. I’m not as connected as Oprah so I don’t have any miracle weight loss formulas, but I can layout the routine that worked for me. 
 
Diet
Diets are a dime a dozen and it seems like every week someone comes out with a new book on how they lost X pounds by sitting on their coach and eating whatever they want. Well I think that’s a bunch of bologna. In my opinion, the only reason a diet works is because it reduces your caloric intake, which in turn leads to weight loss.

Based on that personal bias, I set up a system to track my calories. I used the the Daily Plate (which is now merged into Livestrong.com), to track my caloric intake and caloric burn every day. The sight is free to use and fairly user friendly. After filling out your personal information (height, weight, age, baseline activity level, and weekly weight loss goal) the Plate will tell you how many calories you can consume daily and still hit your weight loss goal. They have a large database of food items to “add to your plate,” which makes tracking calories fairly painless. You can also enter your exercise for the day which count as negative calories. For example, if my daily goal is 2,000 calories and I burn 500 calories in the gym, then I could eat up to 2,500 calories on the day and still hit my goal.

Since I was doing both strength training and cardio exercise (more on this in a minute), I needed to find foods that would either 1) fill me up (as much as possible), 2) deliver protein for muscle rebuilding, or 3) deliver complex carbohydrates for energy. As far as foods go, on a per calorie basis, I found these to be the best in meeting those objectives:

• Oatmeal
• Sugar free jello
• Chicken breast
• Cottage cheese
• Fat free yogurt
• Protein supplement (I used both shakes and bars…watch the sugar level!)
• Egg whites
• Beef jerky
• High fiber wheat bread
• All vegetables
• Berries - strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry

I was surprised by how many calories were in some of the foods I was eating on a regular basis and found ways to curtail them or substitute something else:

Most people will shy away from weight lifting when they are trying to lose weight, but I disagree with this bias. If you are on a reduced calorie diet, you will not “bulk up” with strength training. Muscle mass is difficult to build and requires significant physical exertion with a calorie enriched diet. Strength training doesn’t burn as many calories as cardio on a minute by minute basis, but it does have additional benefits that cardio does not deliver. During weight lifting, muscle fibers are broken down. In order to rebuild those fibers, the body has to use energy it either has stored (e.g. fat) or consumes. So you end up not only burning calories during the exercise but also several hours after the fact and even while you sleep as your body goes into recovery.

On the pure cardio days I would do about an hour to an hour and half of moderately high intensity cardio. On the four days of short cardio I would do high intensity cardio intervals (5 minutes each) for 20 - 25 minutes. If you put your cardio intensity on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being sitting on the coach and 10 being a full out sprint), my pure cardio days hovered around a 7 while the interval training would start at a 5 and ramp up to a 9 or 10. 

Interval training puts a different toll on the body compared to the typical long, moderate intensity workout. Variety is not only the spice of life, but it is also the key to a successful exercise program. I think of the human body as an extremely efficient energy utilization machine. If you are in a workout rut, the body adapts to the point where it will exude the minimum amount of energy needed (also read “minimum amount of calories burned”) to accomplish the task at hand. That is why it is important to shock your system and change up the routine. Plenty of people in the competition were doing way more cardio hours than I was but all of them eventually plateaued as their bodies adjusted to the new level of activity. Which brings me to the best part…

Even the most disciplined of us all need a cheat meal every now and then. I made this a regular part of my weekly plan. The cheat meal was great for two reasons…1) it gave me something to look forward to every week as I reached for another helping of vegetables & 2) it provided a shock to my metabolism that kept it from going into “starvation mode.”

I think everyone understands the logic behind the first point, so let me address the second. As mentioned earlier, the body is an extremely efficient energy storage/usage machine. If you suddenly go from 3,000 calories a day to 1,500, you will drop weight like crazy, but eventually plateau as your metabolism slows down to cope with the reduced caloric intake. In order to counter-act this you can shock your system every now and then with a high calorie cheat meal. Make it a meal you really enjoy so that you can look forward to it all week (I went the trouble of researching the best hamburger in my area to get the most bang for my meal). At first I took my cheat meal on my day off and blew through my calorie goal for the day, but later I switched to taking it on one of my long cardio days to offset the extra calories. I’m not sure if one is better than the other so just go with whatever suits your fancy. On a side note, exercising and spacing your regular meals throughout the day (5-6 small meals instead of 3 large ones) also helps keep the metabolism motor running at full speed.
 
So that’s the long and short of how Fatty Franco shed some fattiness and gained some dough.       

Ciao,