lecture.

I will start by saying that I have been “trying to eat right” and “exercising” since I was 16.  I have always been in or around 5′9″ and 185lbs.  I was, at one point, 215lbs (or more, I refused to look at a scale), and I am currently 165lbs, which is the healthiest, muscliest weight I have ever been, and somehow, also, the smallest size, even though I once weighed 160lbs.  I was a different 160lbs, though.  Picture looking at steaks at the super market.  Some are dense and red with a ring of fat around the outside.  That’s me now. Some are less dense looking, with fat BETWEEN the muscle fibers.  That was me at 160lbs.  At 160lbs, I was a size 12.  At 165lbs, I am averagely a size 8, depending on the brand.

DIET

Here’s the deal.  Diets don’t exist.

Let’s say, I eat 2200 calories a day, because I do.  I, hypothetically, decide I’m unhappy with my size.  I cut my caloric intake down to 1200 a day.  My BODY says, okay, all you get now is 1200 calories a day.  At first, I lose some weight.  I feel great!  But NOW, after some time, my BODY has learned to survive on 1200 calories a day. THEREFORE, I have effectively taught it to burn FEWER calories than it used to.  That means I have SLOWED DOWN my metabolism.  And, as anybody knows, when you are trying to lose FAT (not weight), you want to SPEED UP your metabolism.

If I slow down my metabolism, I will still burn stuff, but it won’t be fat.  My body will hang on to that fat for the dire straits it thinks are ahead, for all it’s worth.  I will lose muscle mass, and yes, I will lose bone.  You know that Lipozene commercial, when it says that “78% of weight lost was PURE BODY FAT”?  What do you think that other 22% is?  Muscle. And bone. And other essential-to-life stuff, like water. Do you really want to lose that? That is what happens when your body goes into starvation mode.

This is why the QUALITY of your calories is the absolute key.  I eat WELL over 2000 calories a day, and I am still losing fat.  I eat tons of veggies and leafy greens.  When you realize the sheer quantity of fruits and vegetables you can put away throughout the course of a day, it changes your life, and the way you think about the FUEL you give your system to survive.

It’s a lot of common sense, too.  Beer belly? Stop drinking beer. Duh, etc.  Read labels.  On everything. When you realize how much sugar is in every single thing you eat – ketchup, yogurt, peanut butter, any beverage you can dream up.. the list is endless – it is STAGGERING. High Fructose Corn Syrup IS THE ENEMY.

What I did? One day, one decision, one change at a time.  One week, I said, that’s it, no more sugar in your coffee. Ever again.  The next week, say, I said, one meal a day will have vegetables, come hell or high water. Slowly, over the course of months, I went as far as to start cooking EVERY meal.  I won’t buy things made with preservatives or crap I can’t read on the label.  I won’t eat red meat unless it’s a last resort at a restaurant, and then I get double veggies on the side instead of the potato.  It’s like a snowball – once it starts rolling, get out of the way, because suddenly going back is like going up a really steep, scary hill.

Now, I track with fitday, because it’s the only way I can stay HONEST.

That said, I am a human.  Last week, I had cookie dough ice cream.  Last weekend, I had a 3 day bender, and probably gained my body weight in alcohol.  Will it undue 6 months of great habits? Hell no. Will it undo whatever work I did last week? Um, yes. So stay in control, mkay, because every f-up counts in some way.

EXERCISE

Okay, I’m that hypothetical person above, sitting on my couch eating chips, and I’m unhappy with the way my jeans fit.  Immediately, I think, “oh crap, I better hit the treadmill/elliptical machine”.  The next day, I lace up my Pumas, and I head to the gym.  I get myself running 3 miles 5 days a week, and the weight starts dropping.  Great! I knew that would do the trick.

Let’s see what running is doing to my system.  My body is now thrust into motion for a good half hour or so, 5 days a week, and it fucking hates it. Of course it hates it, all bodies hate running at first. So my BODY says, “how can I get through this half an hour more efficiently?”  Over time, your body will learn to run for half an hour as efficiently as it can, which is why after a month or so, it doesn’t feel as miserable to run.  Well, since your body has now learned to do the SAME amount of work MORE efficiently, that means it is burning FEWER calories.  It’s not working as hard.  Eventually, this will work against your goals, you’ll plateau, and you might be slimmer, but you won’t have any definition.

Do you like running? Don’t patronize me, nobody likes running, you either LOVE it or HATE it, with every fiber of your being. Do you LOVE running?  Is running the only time in your day when you can zone out and ignore the voices for a little while? Then keep running, because fuck it, exercise should feel awesome.  Hell, playing Frisbee is my favorite thing in the world. It theoretically works against everything else I do – it’s cardio with a small weight and tons of reps – but I’ll never stop doing it.

If you love running, try this.  Get out on the street, start at a light pole.  Jog to the next light pole.  As soon as you get to it, SPRINT.  Haul ass, give it hell.  Then, when you get to the next pole, jog slowly to the next one.  THAT is how you should do cardio, because it keeps your body working INefficiently. It is called High Intensity Interval Training – or HIIT.

If you’re not running outside, do it on the treadmill. Even if you’re an elliptical person, that’s still the way to go. Everytime you do a hard interval, try to crank the resistance up one notch.

So anyway, I’ve been hypothetically running, and I’ve noticed my weight loss has stalled, so I think, I should add some weight training.  I pick up a 5lb weight, do 6,000 bicep curls, feel sore the next day, and think I’ve added weight training.  This is a good first step, and everybody needs to take it.  But, 6 months later, when my jeans fit exactly the same, I won’t be happy.  I can tell you why.

To build muscle, you need to make tears in the muscle fiber, deep down inside it.  The only way to do this is to do fewer reps with a VERY heavy weight. Right, but you’re not a body builder or fitness competitor, what does this do?

It keeps your body working INEFFICIENTLY.  If you’re changing your weight routine all the time, your body can’t ever adjust to it, and it forces it to constantly work harder.  Not only that, but since you have torn your muscle fibers, as we have discussed above, now your body has to work ALL WEEK to repair and rebuild them, therefore burning calories MUCH LONGER once you’ve finished working out.

Get it? Running burns more calories while you’re doing it. Once you’ve finished, you’re done.  Heavy weight training burns calories LITERALLY FOR DAYS once you’ve finished a set.

Okay, that sounds good.  But I bulk up easily.

NO. NO YOU DO NOT.  To quote Stumptuous:

“ FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME, YOU CANNOT GET TOO BIG FROM LIFTING WEIGHTS! A NON-DRUG-USING MALE TRAINEE WOULD HAPPILY CRAWL ON HIS LIPS THROUGH A FIELD OF LEECHES TO ADD FIFTEEN CRUMMY LITTLE POUNDS OF MUSCLE A YEAR! DO YOU THINK THAT YOU ARE SOMEHOW SO SPECIAL THAT YOU WILL DEFY THE LAWS OF PHYSIOLOGY AND SUDDENLY BECOME HUGE ONE DAY? WAKE UP AND SMELL THE GODDAMNED TESTOSTERONE, HONEY! WHAT’S THAT? YOU CAN’T? OH, PERHAPS THAT IS BECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU BULK UP? ”

Listen to me, ladies.  I know you think you bulk up.  You don’t. After a few days, you’ll seem a little bulgy, but that’s because your muscles are holding onto water, it will subside.  Unless you are a freak, there is no physical way for you to add bulk lifting weights unless you sat on a syringe and don’t know it.  It isn’t going to happen.  That myth is AGE OLD, and it’s stupid. Every time I see a girl using a 5 lb weight to do a bent row, I want to vomit.  She is using THE MUSCLES IN HER BACK, which her body uses to keep itself UPRIGHT AGAINST GRAVITY all day long.  What does she think 5lbs is going to do??? Nothing.

Also, I should stress that free weights are the way to go.  The machines were built for men, and generally don’t fit women the way they are intended to.  Even if they are the women’s machines, your body benefits so much more from using free weights because it’s more like what you do in your real, outside the gym life. Machines won’t help you the next time you move and have to lift boxes all day.  Dead lifts will.  When your house is on fire, the machines won’t have prepared you to kick through the stuck door to save your husband, who has passed out from smoke inhalation.  Squats will. Dig?

Not to mention that they use your stabilizers – the muscles that keep you from, say, falling down when you stand on one foot.  Do you know how many stability muscles it takes to do a weighted lunge with one leg elevated behind you?? Holy crap I’ve been doing them for months and I still lose my balance on the third set EVERY TIME.

If you’re scared of the big boy part of the gym (I certainly was) for whatever reason – the big boys, you tried the machines a while back and hated them, you don’t want to bulk up – try it again.  Go at it with gusto, and it will change your life. It changed mine, and I was terrified.  After two weeks, it feels like home.

No, I don’t know everything.  But I read a whole lot of books and a whole lot of websites, and I should add, ones about NUTRITION as opposed to dieting, and MEN’S FITNESS as opposed to just shape magazine garbage.  I’ll throw some links here on the blogroll that I use pretty frequently, and that have taught me a lot. Do I want to be a fitness competitor? No. But I can learn a lot from them.

I also HIGHLY recommend Craig’s List’s Diet Forum.  Those ladies know their shit, and really, gave me so many resources, I wouldn’t be here without them. Recipes, workout techniques, completely helpful, non-judgmental ladies that are JUST as frustrated by BARBIE WEIGHTS and processed garbage food as I am.

Want recipes? Want advice? Want to know what I eat daily? Want me to give you a workout routine? Want to hear about mine? Ask, and ye shall receive.  I love what I do.

Read these books:

They will teach you lots and lots, and not fad garbage.  Real advice, for real people.

185lbs

160, baby.

xoxo!