Lean and Hard

If you've followed my weight loss, my efforts to get and stay lean and hard (I won't call it a "journey;" nothing should be called a "journey" that isn't a literal "journey," OK?) and haven't just arrived at today's entry, you'll know that I started out at 303 and am trying to maintain 173, for a loss of 130 pounds. It took about a year, and now I'm learning how to keep my weight where I've decided it should be. So, what have I learned so far about maintaining?

First, I've learned that I am in control of my weight. I can weigh whatever I decide is right for me. Ever since I found out about switching to complex carbs, I've been able to control my eating and find the energy to exercise. I've been able to be in the driver's seat again. This is important for me to keep as a first principle in life. I've proven to myself that I'm not at the mercy of circumstances or other people. My weight is up to me.

Second, I've learned that I can't stay at an exact weight on a daily basis. It would be virtually impossible to wake up each morning and weigh exactly 173 pounds. Instead of attempting the impossible, I have to allow myself to fluctuate above and below that weight by a margin of a few pounds. It's sort of like the vibrato a vocalist uses to maintain pitch, or a violinist uses to convey emotion from his instrument. There are times when I'll eat a bit more than I need to maintain my weight, and times when, in order to get back where I need to be, eat a bit less. The key is that I'll average the right number of calories over time, keeping an eye on my weight regularly in order to stay on top of it.

Third, I've learned that food and exercise aren't my life's ultimate focus in and of themselves. They are only the means to a much more important and fulfilling end, that being to be my best in order to love and serve others in caring relationships and productive work.

Do these lessons resonate? If so feel free to add your thoughts by commenting!

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If you know your Greek mythology, you're familiar with the story of Sisyphus, who was a king consigned as punishment to the futile business of pushing a boulder to the top of a hill, only to watch it roll back down to the bottom again, over and over again forever. This was his fate. He could do nothing to change it. Or could he?

Many of us see it as our immutable fate to be overweight, unhealthy, uncomfortable in our own skin, tired and unattractive, huffing and puffing our way through life. Like Sisyphus, we've tried rolling the boulder up the hill many times, only to watch dejectedly as it always rolled back down again. We've dieted, lost a few pounds, and gained it all back and more. So we've given up.

That was exactly my situation. As it turns out, it wasn't my fate to be fat and unhealthy. There's no question there's some comfort in giving up. It's easier to accept the way things are than it is to fight against our circumstances. But if you don't like the way things are, you can do something about it. I'm a bit rebellious by nature, don't like feeling hemmed in by circumstances. I can be realistic about things I can't change, but there's a lot we can change if we're prepared to defy what seems to be our fate.



Another story that relates to this point is the description I once heard about how animal trainers control elephants. They use a strong chain that's firmly anchored at one end into the ground and attached to a manacle on the animal's leg at the other. The elephant learns that he can only go so far before the chain pulls him up short. After this lesson sinks in, the trainer can use a much weaker chain that's only barely stuck into the ground, a constraint that the powerful animal could easily break free of. But the elephant has learned that he cannot break free and has long since given up trying.

So instead of giving up, or trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, perhaps it's time to find a better way. A way that works, that breaks us free from our addiction to simple carbs and the hunger they cause. A way that understands that fad diets are a waste of time and money, that gets back to sound fitness principles. A way that lets us transform our bodies and defy fate. It's time to set the boulder aside and make a change!

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I'm going to go out on a limb and say, unequivocally, that you cannot - repeat, cannot - lose weight and get lean and hard, or stay lean and hard, without taking control of what goes in your mouth. Exercise alone won't do it. Fad diets won't do it. The necessary ingredient in the fitness recipe is policing what you allow into your mouth and down your gullet.

The reason for this is simple: It's far easier to say no to calories you ingest than it is to burn calories through exercise. How long do you have to spend on a treadmill to burn off the calories you took in in the seconds it took to inhale that brownie? Food for thought, eh?

Many of us act as if other people control what we eat. We behave as if we have no choices! How so? Anyone who works for a company or is a member of a club, for example, will often face the challenge of unhealthy foods being on offer at meetings or special events. With the holidays coming up the trickle will become a flood... cookies, pies, pizzas. cakes, they will be offered to you over and over. But here's the question: Do you have to partake?

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What about family gatherings? Keeping in mind that there are things that will be available that are no problem from a health and nutrition perspective, do you have to eat the bad stuff? Do you have a choice?

Look at it this way. If you had an allergy to nuts that would cause you to swell up and be unable to breathe, would you be able to say, no, thanks to the peanut butter cookies? You betcha. So would it be so terrible to say no thanks to the sugary treats and fat-laden indulgences? I don't think so.

Some of us have this self-imposed rule that we live by: If it's free, you have to eat it! I prefer to live by this rule: I'll eat what I choose to eat, not what others choose for me.

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Halloween is history, but Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming up, so let's consider how we've done so far. Don't want to think about it? Alright, here are some neat Halloween facts to entertain you...


Read more from Livestrong>>



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Why do fad diets fail? Why do things fall when you drop them? These two phenomena are almost as common, and happen to be based on straightforward laws of physics that control the workings of the universe we live in. There's a hypothesis in science that says there are infinitely many universes, and anything you can imagine, and quite a lot that you can't, is happening in an infinite number of them. So we can surmise, if this is true, that somewhere out there there are places where things don't fall when you drop them and fad diets work beautifully. But we don't live in any of those places, so let's focus on this place.

Fad diets are popular, usually, because humans want to get quick results for very little effort. And because we are gullible. But here's the thing: Fad diets are, by definition, weird. They have in common this attribute: They promote eating in ways that are highly unusual and impossible to maintain over any reasonable length of time. Think about some of them: The Soup Diet. The Grapefruit Juice Diet. The Paleo Diet. The No Carb Diet. The Cookie Diet. The Desert for Breakfast Diet. Just to name a few.



So why don't they work? (And by "work" I mean result in weight loss that can be maintained permanently.) They don't work because they can't be maintained. Who can stick with cookies forever? Maybe the Cookie Monster, but no one else. Soup? You'd get so sick of it you'd be ready to do bodily harm to the next person who dares come between you and a solid food meal.

So what does work? What can be maintained for the rest of your life without feelings of deprivation? A nutrient dense, calorie sparse diet, with enough calories to maintain a healthy weight, can be maintained because it avoids addiction to high carb foods that cause the sugar high, sugar crash cycle. It works because it creates a healthier, more energetic body that is its own reward. And it works because it acknowledges the laws of physics that govern the universe we find ourselves in.

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As anyone who has pursued a challenging goal can tell you, getting through to the end is sometimes the most difficult part. Maybe more than sometimes. Maybe always. They say every journey begins with a single step. I guess every journey must also end with a single step. It seems like that one would be so easy, but it's not.

I've struggled to make that last step, I confess. First, there's been the difficulty of deciding whether it's necessary or not. After all, I'm interested in what's best for my health and appearance, not attaining an arbitrary number. The charts can tell you only what your ideal weight is as a range, and even that's based on averages. So, is it 175? Or is it 170? Or is it even lower?

What about my appearance? I started out with the goal of being able to wear pants with 32-inch waists. As I've come close to that, though, I realize I really want my pants to be a bit loose, not snug, in the waist. I want to feel that I have just a bit of room for the occasional indulgence, that gaining a couple of pounds over a weekend of eating anything I want won't mean I can't fit into my clothes on Monday morning. Then there's another appearance issue: I don't want to look anorexic or starved. That's why I've been working out so hard. How thin is too thin? I'm not sure.

Finally, there's the fact that I'm getting tired of being hungry all the time. It's been just over a year, and 130 pounds. Can you blame me? I've been having more frequent lapses and dreams of pizza.

I am determined to get to my goal, but it seems I first need to need to get a better handle about what that is.



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Almost nothing will knock your exercise routine out of commission like an injury. If you hate going to the gym, that can seem like a blessing: Finally, a good excuse not to go! But if you like your exercise or count it as important to your quality of life, hurting yourself in the gym is not a happy event. Here are 5 major causes of gym injury. Avoid them and be well!

1. No Warm-up

Warm, limber muscles and joints are conducive to great workouts. Cold, locked-up muscles and joints lead to injuries. Pulled muscles and tendons, strained joints and the like can easily result from no or inadequate warm-up, so take some time to stretch and get the blood flowing before hitting the big weights.

2. Over-Repetition

It's important to switch things up every so often, not only to avoid boredom and fitness plateaus, but also to avoid injuries. Repetitive movements can, over time, cause muscle imbalances and damage, so just like a balanced diet, make sure your workouts are balanced and hit all major muscle groups; and think about changing routines once in a while.

3. Distractions

The gym can be a distracting place, and it can be dangerous to lose focus in the middle of a heavy lift. The stronger you get, the heavier weights you'll be lifting, and heavy weights can quickly get out of your control. Avoid this by keeping your mind on what you're doing. Once the weight is down and the set it over, then you can drift for a bit before the next set.

4. Bad Form

Remember what you're trying to accomplish at the gym. The goal of lifting weights is not to lift the weight by any means possible. It's to increase muscle mass and strength. To that end, proper form is everything. Swinging the weight and putting your entire body into getting it up can not only minimize the benefit of the movement, it can also break something vital. So concentrate on the muscle you're trying to work, use it to lift the weight by sticking to good form, and avoid the mistake of trying to lift...

5. Too Much Weight

Strength and mass are increased by putting tension on the muscle, so you have to lift enough weight to shock the muscle into getting bigger and stronger. But pushing the pounds up too quickly can lead to bad form and serious injury. If you can't lift it using good form, back down the weight a bit.



Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment!

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This is what my own experience tells me, not what you'll often read on the web. What are the typical reasons given for why losing the last 10 or 15 pounds seems so hard to do?

I've read the following:

1. Your metabolism slows down as you lose weight so your body resists your weight loss efforts more and more as you approach your goal weight.

Reality: While it's true that you need fewer calories to maintain a lower weight than a higher one, the difference just isn't big enough to significantly put the brakes on your weight loss progress. You've heard that your body goes into a so-called starvation mode, and clings tightly to every calorie. You'd think, hearing this, that your cells are somehow able to hunker down and survive on almost no energy at all. The truth is, you need calories to live, and your cells will continue to burn them as needed to get through the day. So that's not the real reason for your halting forward motion as you try to shed those last few pounds.



2. Your body starts stocking away fat like nobody's business when it senses that its days of plenty are coming to an end.

Again, the reality is that this effect may exist, but it's just not big enough to account for the fact that the last few pounds are holding on to your frame like the movie aliens that wrap their spidery fingers around the heads of their ill-fated victims. You can't seem to pry them loose no matter what you try, but this isn't the fault of some amazing, souped up fat-creating stocking mechanism, No, the culprit tends to be a phenomenon that's far more prosaic.

Here's what happens when you get close to your goal: You start to let up. The psychology of it is easy to understand. It's the same temptation faced by anyone who's oh-so-close to attaining a hard-earned goal. You feel you can afford to give yourself a break. After all, you've attained so much! You deserve to reward yourself. So, you're not quite there yet, so what? A little indulgence can't hurt. And so on. Sound familiar? It does to me, anyway.

Whether or not you really do need a little break before that final push to the finish line is up to you, but the little breaks easily turn into on long, extended vacation. Hence, your goal lies out there unattained like a sparkling pool of water in a desert, forever moving away as you try to get closer.

Does this sound like you?

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No one likes to be wrong. That's why it's so difficult even to consider the possibility of it. There's the old joke about the guy who says, "I made a mistake once. I thought I made a mistake, but I was wrong." For some of us it's not only difficult to admit error, it's downright torture. There are a few people I know who, as far as anyone can remember, have never, ever admitted to a mistake.

Where's this leading? We are continually assailed with advice about fitness. One of my earliest memories is of my mom telling me that the men at the service station used Coke (the soft drink, not the controlled substance) to de-grease nuts and bolts, so think about what it would do to my teeth. Yikes. She was wrong about the nuts and bolts, right about the sugar being bad for my teeth. What other fitness "truths" have we picked up along the way that are really and truly flat out wrong?



There isn't any harm in being wrong about a lot of things, but health and fitness mistakes can be costly and frustrating. For example, the idea that you can get toned through exercise alone is one that leads to failure and disillusionment every day. Good strength training and cardiovascular exercise  can build muscle and burn calories, but this is not enough. Diet is a far more powerful way to trim excess fat and, in conjunction with the right exercise, give you a lean and hard body.

Another old but oh-so-wrong bit of classic fitness dreck is the one that says you get lean and toned by doing light weights and lots of reps, and a bulky, ape-like look using heavy weights and few reps. Doesn't work that way. Building strength and muscle mass is difficult to accomplish and requires working muscles to the point of almost-failure and eating a good, healthy diet.

So, rather than cling to those old, tried-and-proven-false fitness myths, do some research and get the facts. It's the age of information, so let's take advantage of that and update our database of knowledge.

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How much filthy lucre have you spent so far this year on weight-loss products? It's difficult even to estimate, isn't it? Everything from the gym membership that you rarely use, to the Lean Cuisine frozen dinners, to the pills and supplements, to the miracle exercise gizmo you saw on an infomercial and now lives in a closet, the garage, or under your bed; that all counts.

The next question is obvious: Has any of it worked? We're not going to count the phantom loss of 3 pounds that turned out to come back like a boomerang in a week. We can only count significant weight loss that stayed off.

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Maybe you know better than to spend your money of ineffective products, but millions of Americans don't. Take a look at the graphic below...


It shows how many people (approximately, of course) are overweight worldwide, and how much money Americans have spent on weight loss. Both numbers are climbing at an alarming rate.

So, why do people continue to spend money on ineffective products? Several reasons. We're desperate. We hope the next one will work. We blame ourselves for failures instead of blaming the products. I say it's time to wise up and find a solution that's based on truth and evidence. That's what Lean and Hard (dot com) is focused on. What works. And it costs you nothing! So click on "subscribe" below to get your free email updates!

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