10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight

I got an email yesterday from a reader of 60 in 3. They were reading the four day workout series of articles but they felt a bit lost. Here’s a quote from their email:

It sounds like a great workout, but I don’t even know where to begin. I’m 100lbs overweight and I don’t even feel like I can get on a treadmill and forget about the weight training. I don’t even know where to start. Is there a list of things I can do to start out with?

Well, I’m not a big fan of lists, they usually don’t provide enough information to be really useful, but I thought I would try something. I’m going to list out the ten biggest steps I did to turn my life around. I’ll start with the first step I took and end with the last. In today’s post, I’ll just list them and give a brief description, but over the next ten days I’ll go over each one in details. I’ll include details on why you should do it and also on how you should make the change. I hope that way I can give you the list but also make it useful.

So here are the biggest steps I think I made in my life to get fit, become healthy and lose weight. Number 1 is the first step I took and number 10 is the last. As I write the more detailed post, I’m linking them back to this list, so click on the specific items to see more information on each.

1. Walk - One walk every day. Doesn’t matter if it’s raining or blistering hot, I’m out there for at least 30 minutes.
2. Cut out the junk snacks - That means those corn dogs you ate before dinner, the chips you ate while watching TV and those pizza pockets you chomped down during the football game. They all have to go.
3. Cut out sodas - No need to drink your calories. If you really need the caffeine boost then switch to diet sodas. Otherwise, stick to water.
4. Weight training - That doesn’t necessarily mean going to the gym, it just means working out with some weights, and yes, this applies to women too.
5. Cardio - Yep, everyone needs to sweat a bit. Whether it’s on the treadmill or out on the dance floor.
6. Active life - Stop watching TV and start doing something active. That could mean walking instead of driving, taking the stairs instead of the elevator or going hiking instead of watching a movie. Choose to be active, not passive.
7. Healthy breakfast - It’s always a good idea to start out your day with a good breakfast. It will keep your energy levels high and your binging urges low.
8. Sleep - Regular sleep is a must. Get between 7 to 9 hours every day. Go to sleep at a regular hour and wake up at the same time every day if you can.
9. Smaller and more frequent meals - Don’t eat all your calories in one meal, split them up into smaller portions that you eat throughout the day. Like a healthy breakfast, this will keep your energy high and your binging low.
10. Cut down on the meat - No, you don’t need to become a vegetarian or a vegan, but you should eat less meat and especially less processed beef and pork.

There they are, the first ten steps to getting fit and losing weight. Tomorrow we start with the first one, walking.

10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #1, walking.

One of my readers asked for a list of 10 steps to good health. I provided it, but now I want to break each of these items down and give you more useful details. So here’s step 1, walking.

Yep, walking was the first and best thing I did to get back in shape. At the time, I knew very little about fitness or health. So when I first started out, I tried jogging. That proved to be a huge mistake but that’s a topic for a different day. Rather than beat myself up over the jogging, I simply started to walk. I set myself a goal of 30 minutes of walking every single day and I’ve kept that goal for the past 3+ years.

Why Walk?

Walking is the best exercise because it’s so easy. It requires no equipment other than good shoes which you probably already have and it can be done by almost anyone, even those who are overweight. There’s no learning curve with walking as there is with gym workouts. There’s also very little risk of injury which means no unexpected setbacks. Walking can be done at any time or place. Even at work you can take a quick break to walk. Basically, walking is the exercise everyone can and should do.

Benefits

Walking doesn’t burn as many calories as true cardio and it doesn’t build muscles like weight training. So in pure physical terms, walking isn’t as beneficial as cardio or weight training. However, walking does have some benefits. First, it’s a good way to raise your overall energy level. Try this after lunch when you feel like slipping into a food coma. Simply get out and walk for 15 to 20 minutes. You’ll feel less tired and ready to get back to work. Walking also burns some calories and strengthens the leg muscles.

However, the best benefit of walking is simply to get somebody into the mindset of doing something physical. When I started walking I thought of exercise as boring. Being physically active was something I did because I had to do it, not because I wanted to. Walking changed all that. When I walked, I would explore the neighborhood around my house. I would discover new shops and restaurants that I didn’t know existed. I would listen to podcasts on my iPod and learn things I didn’t know before. Best of all, I found out that physical activity can be a fun social activity.

I started inviting friends on my walks. It was usually two or three of us walking for about 30 to 45 minutes. I quickly realized that walking was just as good as hanging out at home. In fact, it was better. Rather than sitting at home watching a movie, drinking sodas and eating chips, we were outside walking. We were talking, learning from and about each other all while being physically active. I think this is the most important lesson I learned from walking and why I would rank it as the number 1 step for getting back in shape, because it taught me that being fit can also be fun.

How To Start?

Walk out the door. Yep, it’s that easy. Just go and walk. Now if you’re the kind who has trouble with mild weather like snowstorms, then find an alternate place to walk. Many malls in snowy areas will open early to accommodate walkers. You can join a gym and walk on a treadmill. You can even pace around your backyard I suppose. Whatever it is, keep three simple guidelines in mind.

1. Always go - Don’t make any excuses for why you can’t go. I don’t care if you’re tired and I don’t care if your feet hurt. You’re tired and your feet hurt because you weigh too much my friend and walking will help that. 30 minutes of walking each day, if you can’t even commit to that then you may as well stop now.
2. Bring a friend - Make it a social activity. You’ll be more committed and less able to make excuses if you’ve invited a friend along.
3. Make it fun - If you can’t bring a friend then bring an iPod. Stop at interesting places like shops you’ve never seen before. Chat with the people you meet along the way. Heck, if you find a good restaurant you never knew existed, stop and grab lunch. Walking isn’t about pure exercise, it’s about getting you off your ass and into the fit mindset.

That’s it, that’s all you need to do. Is your health worth 30 minutes a day? Is being able to watch your kids grow up worth 30 minutes a day? How about being able to play with your grandkids instead of just sitting on a bench and watching them play around you? Is all that worth 30 minutes a day? It better be or else why are you here reading this site?

10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #2, cut out those junk snacks

One of my readers asked for a list of 10 steps to good health. I provided it, but now I want to break each of these items down and give you more useful details. So here’s step 2, cutting out the junk snacks.

My first month after my realization that I needed to get back in shape went something like this:

1. Walk 30 minutes
2. Get on scale
3. Be disappointed that my weight didn’t change
4. Get frustrated
5. Consider quitting the whole thing

Sound familiar? A lot of people go through it when they first start getting back in shape. We do one little thing and expect it to have an immediate and noticeable affect. I shared this feeling with a friend who was a physical trainer. She gently explained to me that walking is great, but I may also want to look at what I was eating as well. I had no clue what she was talking about. I mean, my diet was healthy. I knew it was healthy because there was no way it could be otherwise. I didn’t go to fast food places that often so how could my diet be bad? This is another problem for beginners, a sense of denial about our bad habits.

The sad truth

She very politely suggested that I keep a food journal for a week and see what I learn from it, which I did. The end of the week was an incredible eye opener for me. My meals were in fact ok. I did eat a bit too much at lunch but I made up for it by eating almost nothing at breakfast and dinner. Not exactly the healthiest pattern but if you added up the calories from meals alone, I was eating around 2500 calories a day. Not too bad although a little high for someone who didn’t exercise at all. The problem was snacks. More specifically, the problem was junk snacks. From candy bars and ice cream to microwaved pizza pockets and convenience store burritos, I was snacking on junk all through the day. When we added up the calorie totals from these snacks, they were an additional 2000 calories a day. All together, I was eating 4500 calories a day, and that’s not even include the sodas I was drinking.

Sounds unrealistic? Well, a single small container of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream can have 800 to 900 calories in it. Add a couple of candy bars, a small 7-11 burrito and a bag of chips and you’re easily at 2000 calories. That’s 2000 calories of crap. It has almost zero nutritional value and it wasn’t coming instead of my meals, it was coming in addition to my meals.

Cutting out the junk

So I knew I had to get rid of this bad habit, but I didn’t quite know how. I loved snacking and I loved the snacks, so how was I going to get rid of them? Well, my plan involved several parts, each of which was implemented gradually and slowly. By the way, this is where I adopted the philosophy of slow and gradual is better than fast and sudden. I figured that cutting out the snacks all at once would never work, I just didn’t have the willpower. If you do, then that’s great for you, but those of us who have struggled for years with overeating know how difficult it is to walk by a fridge and ignore its calling. So yes, slow and steady was the plan.

Basically, I started either cutting out the unhealthy snacks completely, or replacing them with a healthy snack in the form of a piece of fruit. By the way, fruit is not the only options here, there are a variety of healthy snacks you can eat that are under 100 calories, but I chose fruit because I enjoyed it the most. I needed something I really liked in order to not feel the craving for the unhealthy snacks. If you can do the same thing with vegetables, a small handful of nuts or some other small and healthy snack then by all means, enjoy.

You’ll note that I kept one unhealthy snack as a part of my diet. That usually means a candy bar of some kind. Yes, I realize they’re bad for me but I like them too much to give them up completely. So I adjust my diet accordingly and make sure I don’t overindulge. That’s another lesson I learned from all this, it’s ok to have some bad habits, as long as you are aware of them and adjust your behavior accordingly. Don’t ignore your bad habits, that won’t make them go away. Instead, you need to recognize them and find a way to work around them or compensate for them if you can’t eliminate them completely. By recognizing the fact that I enjoy an occasional piece of candy, I can use it as a reward to myself. I’ve taken a bad habit and turned it into something acceptable, if still not good.

Plan Details

• Starting Point - 5 unhealthy snacks a day. About 2000 calories a day.
• 1 to 3 months - 4 unhealthy snacks a day and 1 piece of fruit. About 1700 calories a day.
• 4 to 6 months - 3 unhealthy snacks a day and 1 piece of fruit. About 1300 calories a day.
• 7 to 9 months - 2 unhealthy snacks a day and 2 piece of fruit. About 1000 calories a day.
• 10 to 12 months - 1 unhealthy snack a day and 2 pieces of fruit. About 600 calories a day.

Summary

So a year after I started, I had cut out 1400 calories a day from my daily intake. Not too bad. The best part about this was my realization that slow and gradual changes meant I barely even noticed them. I stopped getting on the scale every morning and expecting to see some kind of magical weightloss has taken place overnight. Instead, I simply settled in for the long haul. I realized that this was something I was committing to for the rest of my life and if so, then I could live with smaller results as long as they kept on coming.

10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #3, cutting out the sodas.

One of my readers asked for a list of 10 steps to good health. I provided it, but now I want to break each of these items down and give you more useful details. So here’s step 3, cutting out the sodas.

We’ve already talked about sodas a number of times on 60 in 3, but now I’d like to share with you my personal experience with them.  At the height of my health crisis, I was consuming about 5 to 7 cans of soda a day.  It sounds high when I think of it in cans, but the reality was different.  At a restaurant, I would get a soda and then couple of free refills.  With the average size of a restaurant soda glass, that meant about 3 or 4 cans right there.  At work I would drink 2 to 3 cans, typically of ice tea, along with my lunch and just as drinks through the day.

Let’s do some quick math there.  A can of Lipton Brisk ice tea has 120 calories in it.  A can of coke has 140 calories in it.  So I was easily consuming around 800 calories a day from sodas.  These calories had no nutritional value and they didn’t contribute at all towards satisfying hunger.  That’s not even counting the times in the evening when I would go to 7-11 and buy one of those gigantic cups full of coke.  Those cups might hold upwards of 1000 calories, all of it from processed sugars.

Saying goodbye to coke

While I recognized that I was consuming way too many calories through sodas, doing something about it proved to be harder.  Simply put, sodas, especially caffeinated ones, are addictive.  Your body gets used to the sugar and caffeine rushes and it craves them.  Once you’re addicted, it’s hard to put them down.  Try it yourself if you think all this talk about addiction doesn’t apply to you.  Try not drinking any caffeine at all for three days and see how you feel.

So I decided to split the problem and deal with it gradually, as I did with other bad habits.  I switched my consumption of soda to 50% diet soda and 50% fruit juices.  I figured this way, instead of getting both sugar and caffeine with every drink, I would only get sugar or caffeine.   The amount of calories I was consuming dropped because half my soda consumption went to diet coke, and the amount of caffeine I consumed dropped because half my soda consumption went to fruit juices.  Then, I slowly started reducing each half by replacing it with plain old water.

Hard lesson learned

In the end, I learned that addiction to caffeine is a fact and that I was not immune to it.  I managed to completely remove the fruit juices and drink water instead, but I was still drinking 3 to 4 cans of diet coke a day.  Still, I considered this a victory since at least my calorie consumption from liquids went to zero.  Eventually, I managed to quit the caffeine habit too, but that’s a post for another day.

It took me slightly over a year to go from 6 to 7 cans of regular soda to 3 to 4 cans of diet coke a day.  These days, almost four years later, I drink 1 to 2 diet, caffeine free cokes a day and I’m trying to get rid of that too.  So yes, the soda habit can be a difficult one to break.  Just try to eliminate it gradually and steadily from your day to day routine.  Find healthier substitutes if you must and then slowly eliminate those as well until you’re left with the best drink of all, water.

10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #4, weight training.

One of my readers asked for a list of 10 steps to good health. I provided it, but now I want to break each of these items down and give you more useful details. So here’s step 4, weight training.

Most people don’t think of weight training when they think of general fitness. They prefer to believe that it’s something reserved for athletes and hard core body builders. However, weight training can be one of the most effective things you do as a beginner. In fact, I started with weight training before cardio.

You see, I knew I needed some form of exercise. I was walking every day but I didn’t think that was enough. I had tried various cardio exercises but failed miserably. In fact, it was during one of these failed cardio trips to the gym that I first tried weights. I was wandering around the gym feeling depressed at having been unable to run yet again for more than 10 minutes. I somehow found myself in the free weight area where I observed the people working out. There were a few who had clearly been doing this for years, but I also saw many who were rather new to this. They were lifting a range of weights, some of them light enough that I thought even I could manage. Best of all, they were taking their time and being social while working out.

Yes, you’ll see some people in the weight and machine areas with iPods on, working out and ignoring the world around them, but you’ll see many more talking, working out with friends and joking with one another as they work through sets. Something about that appealed to me and so I decided to give it a try. I went over, lifted some weights and wonder of wonders, I didn’t have any problems at all. If there was something I wasn’t quite good at, which was pretty much everything back then, I simply lowered the weight. If there was something I was unfamiliar with, I asked. In fact, by the second week, I asked one of the frequent gym goers there to help me build a workout tailored to my requirements. He was happy to help and I soon had a routine to follow. I’ve enjoyed weight training ever since.

Benefits of weight training

Fun - I find weight training to be a more social activity than cardio. You can talk without huffing and puffing. You can help each other out rather than simply run side by side. Plus, it’s easier to accommodate different levels of activity. If your workout partner is not quite as strong, you simply lower the weight for their sets. I’ve tried to workout with someone whenever I can. Even now, when I don’t have a regular workout partner, I’ll go out of my way to get people from the office to come workout with me. This is one of the reason I recommend weight training to beginners, because like walking, it teaches you that physical activity can be fun, social and interesting.

No failure - It’s hard to fail at weight training. It’s easy to fail at cardio. When you’re fat and out of shape you can’t just start running. You can’t get on a bike and get a good workout. You’ll find yourself out of breath in 5 minutes and unable to go on. With weight training, you can always set the bar a little lower and try less weight. So what if you’re just lifting the bar itself, at least you’re lifting something! As long as you get your sets done and slowly improve, you’re doing fine.

Weight loss - I didn’t realize this at first, but weight training was actually really good for weight loss. Muscle mass uses a tremendous amount of energy even when it’s not being used. So an extra lb or two of muscle could mean a significant difference in your daily calories burned, which translates directly into weight lost.

Health - And along with weight loss itself, weight training taught me that being healthy isn’t all about losing weight. This is probably the most important lesson I learned from this activity. After my first month of weight training, I weighed myself and found that I had only lost 1lb that month. Feeling a little disappointed, I got dressed for work when I noticed that my pants no longer fit me. They were simply too big and I had to cinch my belt another notch to keep them on. Yep, being healthy does not necessarily mean being thin. Your body actually need muscle mass to do its work and if all you do is diet and cardio, you will quickly lose that muscle mass. By starting out early with weight training, I managed to keep my muscle mass while still losing weight, if a bit more slowly.

How to get started

It’s easy. Either get a gym membership or buy a small set of weights. Then design your workout or use someone else’s prebuilt workout like this four day workout we discussed last week. Now start workout out. It’s that easy. Ladies, weight training is definitely for you too and no, it will not turn you into body builders. You need a lot more than 30 minutes for four days a week to grow bulging muscles. Weight training is a vital part of every healthy lifestyle.

10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #5, cardio.

One of my readers asked for a list of 10 steps to good health. I provided it, but now I want to break each of these items down and give you more useful details. So here’s step 5, cardio.

Almost everyone who’s trying to get healthy and lose a bit of weight will eventually take a look at cardio activity, and if they don’t they’re making a mistake. Cardio is an essential component of every healthy lifestyle. It promotes weight loss, increases cardio vascular health and improves your stamina.

Personally, I started doing true cardio about a year into my health recovery. By then, I had lost enough weight that running no longer hurt and I understood fitness and health enough to know that small failures are just temporary setbacks. So I was ok with being unable to run fast or far. Instead, I simply started running and slowly improved.

Benefits of cardio

Weight loss - Cardio burns a lot of calories. During an average cardio training session, I can burn upwards of 700 to 800 calories. However, cardio also elevates the metabolism causing your calorie burning to continue throughout the day.

Cardio vascular health - Most people don’t think of this, but your heart is just one more muscle. Like any other muscle, it could use a workout to get healthier. A cardio workout is sort of like a weight workout for your heart. You’re putting additional strain on it temporarily to strengthen and condition it. That way, your normal heart rate will be lower. That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but in general, cardio training really benefits your cardiovascular system.

How to start

Here’s something you can learn from my experience, jogging is not the only cardio alternative out there. For some reason, many people are familiar only with jogging and so that’s what they think of when you tell them about cardio. Actually, there are a number of cardio alternatives out there and I’ve discussed several of them in this previous post. So pick the activity you like and don’t be afraid to change things around later.

Now start slow. Don’t push yourself to failure the first day. That’s bad for your body and it’s bad for your soul. That first day failure almost made me quit. It’s much better if you slowly and gradually work your way up. So yes, you’ll start out that first day at a slow pace, but who cares? At least you’re doing something!

10 steps to getting healthy and losing weight. #6, an active life.

One of my readers asked for a list of 10 steps to good health. I provided it, but now I want to break each of these items down and give you more useful details. So here’s step 6, living an active life.

I’ve said over and over that being healthy isn’t about temporary diets and month long workout plans.  Being healthy and fit is about lifestyle.  It’s about choosing to live your life in a healthy way.  A healthy lifestyle means more than just being unhealthy most of the time and then trying to fix things during specific meal times and gym visits.  It means every moment of every day you make the choice to be healthy.  It can be big things or it can be little ones, but you always make the healthy choice.

I realized how important this was about a year after my health meltdown.  Of all the things I learned, this is the only one that I implemented all at once rather than gradually.  Simply put, once I realized what a healthy lifestyle meant, I just couldn’t live it gradually.  In fact, this is the only piece of information that was a bit of sudden revelation instead of a gradual learning process.

Visions in the parking lot

It all happened one afternoon as I was arriving at the gym.  I usually prefer to workout around lunchtime but this particular day I was arriving right before dinner.  The gym parking lot was packed and there were very few spots.  I found a spot at the far end of the parking lot but I decided to move and search for a better spot.  That’s when it hit me.  Here I am going to the gym in order to exercise and I’m going to spend an extra few minutes driving around just so I could avoid a bit of walking.  Does that make sense?  I was actually going to waste time (looking for a closer spot would have taken longer than walking in from the farther one) and money (gas) just to save myself a 60 second walk when I had come here specifically for a workout!

That was the key realization for me.  It make me understand that if I wanted to be really healthy then I couldn’t just add a gym workout and change my eating habits a bit.  Being healthy meant living healthy and it meant making choices like walking the extra 60 seconds rather than driving around looking for a closer parking spot.

What does it mean? 

Living a healthy lifestyle and leading an active life means taking every opportunity to use your body.  If you can walk rather than drive, do so.  If you can take the stairs rather than the elevator, then do so.  If you can get up and go talk to someone rather than calling them on the phone, then do so.  If you’re sitting at your desk and you’re staring at your screen trying to figure out what else to write on your TPS report, why not pick up a water bottle and lift it a few times?  If your dog needs to go outside then how about you go out there with it and play with him or walk him rather than take him to the dog park and watch him run around?

We make hundreds of choices every day and most of us choose to be inactive.  We choose to spend money on gas and electricity rather than take the time and be healthy.  Why not make a different choice?  Every time you rely on a car, on an elevator, on an escalator or on a phone, remember that you are paying money in order to be unhealthy.  Make the right choice and be active.

There are of course some exceptions.  When we moved into our new apt. on the 4th floor, I certainly wasn’t going to try carrying the sofa up four flights of stairs.  In the morning, I ride my bike to the train station but then ride the train most of the way.  These are common sense to me.  Riding my bike to work would take too much time.  Carrying the sofa up the stairs would have been nearly impossible and carried a high risk of injury.  So yes, there are times when you should take the elevator.  But for every sofa that needs to go up to the 4th floor there is also someone driving around in the gym parking lot trying to save himself a sixty second walk on the way to his workout.  That’s the choice that needs to change.

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