Losing Those Last Thirty Pounds: Part-Deux

courtesy of... snegidhi.com
So, how am I going to do this reboot? Well, let me break it down into groups:
Exercise... I have been going full-tilt with exercising for just about four years now (minus taking a break for one week after every 6-8 weeks) and I think I'm going to give myself a rest. During those four years, I have been doing strength training, cardio (walking, Nordic Track, and bike riding), and most recently, yoga and Pilates. As a side note, I have to say that I really like yoga and Pilates. I never thought I could get a good workout from them, but that was until i tried doing it.

Anyway, I'm going to take a few weeks off from exercising and give my body a chance to heal and forget the rigors of daily exercise. My reasoning behind doing this being, that when you do an exercise routine repeatedly, your body will "remember" how many calories it needs to burn in order to get through that routine. Now, if I stop exercising for a few weeks, my body should forget and thus burn more calories and hopefully "reboot".

Starting back up:
My main form of exercise is the Total Gym. Now, if you are not familiar with this piece of equipment, it uses your own body weight as the resistance. You lay on a bench, which you can adjust downwards to produce less resistance or you can adjust it upwards to produce greater resistance. For example, when I started using the Total Gym just over three years ago, I was 296 pounds. That's how much weight I was using to pull myself up. Now, I weigh 220...you can see the difference right there. There's just a little over 70 pounds of difference and I wonder why I'm not seeing any results.

Yep, I'm slow :) SO, I'm going to invest in some weights and attach them to my Total Gym. They have provided a weight bar on the base of the bench, so I can attach the weights there. I think I'll add between 50-70 pounds of weights and see how that goes. This means that I'll have to move the bench down to one of its lowest settings, but that's alright. It'll be just like starting over, which in effect, I'm doing.
Nutrition:
This happens to be my weakest point. Unfortunately, it also happens to be the foundation to any fitness program. I have a bad habit of skipping meals and sometimes just eating popcorn. If you try and starve yourself, your body will go into what's known as "starvation mode" and whenever you do happen to eat, your body will immediately convert those calories to fat, which kinda defeats your entire purpose. So, learn from my mistakes and don't do this. Ideally, you should strive to have 4-5 smaller meals throughout the day.

Control your portion size. Being on a diet doesn't mean that you can't have some of your favorite foods. It just means that you need to control how much of them you eat.

Just now, I mentioned the dreaded Die with a T word. I am really trying to get away from using that word and working toward a lifestyle change. For me to lose this weight and keep it off, I'm going to have to change my lifestyle. Just going on a diet will not cut it. Why? Because after I lose the weight and go off the diet, I'll gain the weight back and the cycle will begin again.

Well, enough of my yammering. Although this is done mainly for my benefit and to have a "chronicle" of this particular roadblock, I hope that it may help someone out there that might be going through the same thing.

Just remember, no matter how you may be feeling now, you are not alone in this. Keep looking forward, because looking back is not an option.

First in series... Losing Those Last Thirty Pounds: part-1