Day 204:259.6 — Same Old Same Old

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM.

  

Pounds Lost: 58.4

The same old story is seldom interesting, much less exciting. Unless, that is, it is the constant and repetitive loss of 1-3 pounds a week on a long-term weight loss program.

Even Lisa, who does not necessarily have patience in spades, can’t help but smile as the “very sameness” of things has her in the 250 pounds bracket for the first time in nearly five years.

And finally, others, too, have begun to notice. Her face has lost weight, and she now looks quite stunning, a nice reward for a work-in-progress, even if one day tends to slip into the pattern of the last, and tomorrow does not look much different.

But there is a difference, and that’s clearly evident on the scale. And that’s where the same old weigh-loss is music to Lisa’s (and anyone else’s) ear.

Day 197:261.0 — Pick Your Special Events

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM.

  

Pounds Lost: 57.0

The Holiday Season is upon us and with it a little diet leeway and a little earned indulgence during special events.

For, of course, no one is going to demand that you stick with your drinks and carefully caloried dinners on Christmas Day, or during some other family event. These are special times and since you’ve been doing so well until now, you deserve a small break.

The danger however is that these “special events” tend to multiply like fungi this time of year. Every treat brought into work by a colleague is a “special event,” every office lunch is a “special event,” and if you don’t watch it every relative that calls to wish you a happy holiday season becomes a “special event” too, in your mind.

Pick Them Well

Remember that it is always easier to maintain a course (no matter how hard) than to get back on it, so the trick during the holidays is to select your special events carefully. There are probably three or four of them, and these you have deserved. There are an additional score or so that masquerade as “special,” and these you simply must ignore.

This way, sticking to your plan as normal during these counterfeit events, you will most likely stay on course, and still drop a pound of two for the week.

Another way of saying this is: Enjoy your Holiday Season, but don’t lose sight of your target and trend.

Day 190:263.2 — Holidays vs. Trend

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM.

  

Pounds Lost: 54.8

The very important, never-to-be-forgotten bottom line is this: Do you stay on trend?

Long Range Goal

By trend, we mean that long sloping line you draw from where you are starting out to the goal you are aiming for. All you do, all the calories you count, all that sweating on the treadmill, all those brisk walks and gallons of water you  consume have only one aim in mind: Stay on Trend so that you indeed will hit your long range goal.

Holidays

All major holidays have one common denominator: Food. Calorie-rich food. In massive quantities. The American tradition is to go unconscious from over-eating in front of a Thanksgiving Day football game. Not to do this might be considered suspect in some quarters.

Staying on diet on these occasions may be seen as outright treason.

Okay, we exaggerate. But the point is: You are not wearing the equivalent of a dietary chastity belt. The Diet-Police is not going to arrest you for eating a scoop of ice cream, and the Diet-Jury is not going to find you guilty of Christmas ham violations. Living is allowed.

Ease Up—Don’t Let Go

When you want to enjoy some of the culinary holiday cheer, remember this: You may ease up on your calorie counting and strict dietary regimen, but don’t let go of your overall goal and the trend that gets you there.

By all means, enjoy some excellent mashed potatoes, but stick to moderation, and return to your stricter regimen the moment the special event is over.

That way, even if you gain a pound or two one week, you will quickly lose it again, and more, and so continue down your plotted trend.

Day 183:262.4 — A Changing Palate

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM.

  

Pounds Lost: 55.6

Changing her dinners from a steady—and increasingly disagreeable—stream of Lean Cuisine, Lisa (not a born chef) is embarking on the culinary adventure of cooking from scratch.

And not only that, she is also steering her palate in directions it would never, not in a million years, have headed on its pre-weight-loss own.

Listening to her palate, Lisa can still hear—though fainter and fainter (and that is good news): Big Mac, ground beef, French fries. Lisa, however, having grown stronger than her palate, has researched many sites for good, simple, nutritious, low-calorie from-scratch recipes, and they rarely call for neither Big Macs, ground beef, nor French fries.

“Just buying ground turkey rather than ground beef was a big step,” Lisa says. It simply went against the grain of what I ‘like’ to eat. But then I discovered something: recipes I found prepared the ground turkey (or the squash, or the pasta, or the whatever-it-may-be-that’s-a-little-healthier) in such a way that it actually tasted good.

“Well, if not good—according to my palate’s two cents—at least not bad. And the second time I tried it my palate actually had to concede: ‘it wasn’t all that bad.’ Third time—and yes, stick with it, the palate (surprise!)—can actually change—darn if it didn’t taste good.

Bottom line: cooking healthier meals does not necessarily alienate your palate. It will work with you, regardless of initial protests.

Ask Lisa if you don’t believe me.

Weight Loss Basics #13

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM. 

  

Boredom
(Thirteenth in a Series)

 

The Middle Third

In crossing a wide expanse, say a desert or an ocean—or a hundred and fifty pounds to lose—the middle third always seems the hardest. You’ve definitely lost sight of the coast you left, and your port of call is way beyond the forward horizon. It’s just you out there, walking, rowing, or sailing, and it’s the same walking, rowing, or sailing day in and day out, and then some more of the same.

Boring.

This can get to the point where any change is welcome, even if that change gains you a pound or two, just to break the monotony.

Change

They say change is the spice of life, which may well be true, but with 60 pounds lost and 90 to go, you have to realize that numbers don’t lie, and that change might be the last thing you should indulge in at this point.

It’s axiomatic that what works works, and if you have managed to drop sixty pounds over six months, you have been doing something (or many things) right. To continue this success, you must continue to do what worked, not something new or something else no matter how much variety cries out to be heard and taken into account.

Isolate What Works

If staying the precise course is simply too painfully boring, and you must alter something, then ensure that you don’t alter anything that my adversely affect the success; in other words, stay away from the things that work.

To do that, you need accurately to assess what these things are.

One recent long-distance dieter reports that she, day in and day out, keeps her calorie intake between 1,300-1,500 calories a day by eating a low calorie protein bar for breakfast, and then drinking two low-calorie nutrition drinks a day, one to supplement the breakfast bar, and one as lunch.

To reach her calorie range she then eats a pre-packaged low-calorie meal for dinner.

As for burning calories, she exercises 30 minutes a day.

Also, she weighs herself every day to keep a close check on progress.

Day in. And day out.

But this day in and day out application of the First Law of Thermodynamics (1LTD) has lost her 53 pounds. This fact can (but must not) get lost in the scramble for variety.

Don’t Change What Works

Isolating what has worked, she sees: her daily calorie intake ranges between 1,300-1,500, and as for burning darn things, she exercises 30 mintues each day. That’s the working principle that must not, under any circumstances, be altered.

The two daily drinks help a lot, she realizes that, and they’re actually quite tasty, so no need to mess with those.

She likes plotting her weight daily, so no need to change that either.

But the pre-packaged dinners are really getting to her: they taste more and more like plastic with each spin of the planet. True, they are convenient, and come with a full calorie declaration, facilitating the counting and keeping the range, but these benefits are less and less worth the cost of boredom.

So change it.

Tuning What Works

One workable approach, with several benefits—and which can be seen as tuning what works, rather than changing it—is to replace pre-packaged dinners with low calorie meals prepared and cooked from scratch. And as long as this meal keeps you within your calorie range, a freshly cooked meal will in all likelihood be more nutritious than something prepackaged will.

Additionally, and many have observed this rather curious phenomenon, the act of preparing something from scratch—the cutting, the slicing and dicing, the measuring, the stirring and baking—in and of itself provides a nourishing contentment. It’s as if the moment you begin to prepare the meal, the hunger pangs ease and go away, seeing that food’s on the way.

And here is where you can introduce as much change as you please. As long as you stay within the calorie range, experiment to your heart’s content. Document successes (to revisit) as well as failures (to avoid), and become your own best culinary friend.

Those who have tried this swear that it makes the middle third easier to travel.

The multiTRIM Diet

All diet plans—except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound—have only one goal: for you to burn more calories than you consume.

Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health while easing hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink.

 

Day 176:265.0 — Beware of Bad Advice

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Pounds Lost: 53.0

Lisa visited a nutritionist the other day, hoping to add one more member to the supporting team, and so sustain, and perhaps even accelerate the great long-term weight loss currently underway.

However, some nutritionists are more equal than others. This one, a little too full of her own philosophies, and a little too deaf to what has made Lisa lose over 60 pounds in the last six months, immediately began preaching: stop weighing yourself daily; stop counting calories; listen to your body, eat when it says it’s hungry and eat until it says it’s fed.

Well, listening to your body may be all very good if the body always told the truth. “It’s by listening to my body in the past that I gained the weight,” Lisa said.

It was a bit of a sobering experience, finding that someone with a nice diploma on the wall, evidencing some sort of education in the field, could be so ignorant about what advice to give the person in front of her—as opposed to spouting pet theories and philosophies.

Lisa left a little disgruntled with the tribe in question, though she does feel that this specimen is probably the right nutritionist for someone, just not for her.

The point is that Lisa, by following the multiTRIM plan over the last six months has lost over sixty pounds (she started losing a couple of weeks before beginning multiTRIM through lowered calorie intake). You can’t argue with numbers. And you can’t argue with success.

And success is sustained by doing what worked, not something new or different.

The problem we’re running into with Lisa is that this particular success is also very boring, and in some way a bit depriving. This, however, she will solve by beginning to cook all her own dinners from scratch, rather than using pre-packaged foods like Lean Cuisine; while staying within the daily 1,300 – 1,500 calorie range.

She is also picking up the exercise pace, simply because she feels the rightness of it—the body is getting more agile, and is beginning to perhaps not enjoying (too strong a word, says Lisa) it, but at least finding it a lot easier to bear.

The moral of this story is that you should do what worked, not what is not yet proven, regardless of diplomaed advice.

Success builds success.

Day 169:266.0 — Small and Slow

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Pounds Lost: 52.0

Now and then, the long-range dieter will invariably turn to thoughts of deprivation, missing to a greater or lesser degree those little (or not so little) delights that livened up the days of a long ago pre-diet past.

Are they forever lost to you, these treats? Is there any way to stay true to your weight goal and still enjoy the occasional one?

1LTD

1LTD (1^st Law of Thermodynamics) along with common sense provide the answer.

As we’ve (literally) been harping for a while: If you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. Physical fact. So, however you approach treats and favorite foods, as long as your total calorie intake is less than the calories you burn, you’re okay.

So, for one, do not forget to exercise (burning calories).

And don’t forget that some (perhaps most) of your favorite foods are not necessarily conducive to health, so a salad or a low calorie rice dish will probably do more for you nutritionally. Still, applying 1LTD, you will still lose weight, whatever you eat.

Small and Slow

How you approach favorite treats is a personal issue, and it’s up to each person to find the right—and sensible—balance.

Lisa has discovered that a weekly child’s (as opposed to super-sized) portion of French fries, eaten slowly and chewed well—in other words, savored—gives her the same, if not more, satisfaction today as that super-sized portion, gulped down, did a year ago.

The trick, she tells us, is to take a new and much more responsible approach to these treats. You must count the calories, and you must keep your intake below what you burn; and you must look at your treats as occasional, small, delights, rather than the everyday gulping down of as much as your money can buy.

That way you can, occasionally, have your cake and eat it too.

But never overlook 1LTD.

Day 162:267.2 — Garage Clothes

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Pounds Lost: 50.8

Garage clothes are that portion of your wardrobe that you out-grew on the way up. This is true of your baby-clothes that for some reason you’re still hanging on to umpteen years later, and of your perfectly fine slacks, shirts, dresses, and skirts that grew a size or two or three or many too small as weight gained the upper hand.

Garage clothes usually meet their fate through garage sales, moves (three moves are as good as a fire, say old wise women), or actual fires.

Or, stand aside and be amazed: by again fitting the long-term weight-shedder just fine, thank you.

Lisa has just made this discovery, old clothes that fit again. Having shaved well over 40 inches over the last six months, this stands to reason, of course, but there is nothing like living proof. Not in Lisa’s book anyway.

It’s a very rewarding discovery, indeed.

 

Day 155:269.0 — Calorie Counting

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM. 

Pounds Lost: 49.0

The thing about calorie counting is that you get better and better at it. Experience tells you that this apple or that potato means 120 or 200 calories. Experience also tells you that if you expect to eat out that night, to hold back on the calories during the day to end up in the same, by now long-established range.

Lisa drinks her two multiTRIM drinks each day, she exercises half an hour each day, and she plans the total daily calories of her snacks and meals to fall within the 1,300 to 1,500 range. And she’s getting good at it.

It is, as we’ve pointed out more than once—as in over and over—the First Law of Thermodynamics (1LTD) at work. By her daily activities and thirty minutes of exercise, and by keeping her calorie intake below the amount of calories burned that day, her weight keeps coming off, it simply has no choice but to. That’s 1LTD for you, and unless the Creator starts changing some basic laws in this Universe around, 1LTD is going to hold good for another little while.

Again, Lisa also brought up that this far into her long-term weight loss, deprivation and boredom become her two most annoying antagonists, and much of her creativity is now spent not so much on “sticking with it” (she’s got the hang of that) but on finding new ways to vary her foods to keep sameness and boredom at bay.

This, she admits, is going affect different people differently, but considering that only about 5% of all long-term dieters actually stick with it and succeed, however the problem is solved, perceived deprivation and the boredom of sameness will have to be faced and overcome/worked around. Giving in to them is just not an option.

Weight Loss Basics #12

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM. 

Long-Term Weight Loss
(Twelfth in a Series)

 

A Marathon — Not a Sprint

If you have 26 odd miles to run, common sense decrees that you don’t set out at a flat-out dash. You pace yourself, that’s what marathon runners do; and the pace of a marathon-weight-loss runner is 1-2 pounds a week.

Even if your best friend sheds 5-10 pounds the first week and shares the news with an astonished world in no uncertain terms, realize that she will never sustain that pace, and that she will more than likely relapse and regain the weight she lost.

For the not so comfortable truth is that long-term, permanent weight loss is difficult to achieve, and that about 95% of repeat dieters fail, regaining lost weight.

What about the 5% who succeed?

The Magic Bullet

The sad thing, according to the Director of Nutrition for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, is that “people keep believing that the magic bullet is just around the corner . . . if they only eliminate food ‘x’ or combine foods ‘a’ and ‘b,’ or twirl around three times before each meal . . .”

Well, there is no magic bullet. There is only our—by now familiar—First Law of Thermodynamics (1LTD), however boring that news may be.

The reality is that most successful dieters lose weight without the magic bullets on which Americans spend $30 billion each year. In fact, the largest survey ever undertaken on long-term maintenance of weight loss (done by Consumer Reports) found that the vast majority of the 5% who succeed lost weight without expensive gimmicks or magic diet pills. Go, 1LTD!

Fruits and Vegetables

Not only are fruits and vegetables considered more healthy, but studies have now also found that the greatest dietary difference between those who lose weight long term and those who do not, but rather continue to gain weight, are one of fruits and vegetables vs. meat.

Worth taking to heart.

The Very Long Ditch

Long-term weight loss is not unlike digging a mile-long ditch. The first few yards are interesting and immediately gratifying as you see progress right away. But the novelty does wear off, and as the yards begin to add up to hundreds of them, well, let’s say that very little, if any, of the novelty sticks around.

The same is true with long-term weight loss. It is not for the faint of heart. Not for the “I’m really good at starting things, but not so good at keeping things going” crowd, for once you have gotten a third of the way—and still may have a year to go: you can’t make out where you started from, nor can you see the other end. You find yourself out there in the middle of ditch-digging nowhere.

But don’t lose heart.

Weight Not Regained

The long-term dieter should recognize that (even if the progress is slow and tedious) as long as that weight graph is dropping by a pound or two a week, you are also achieving something easily overlooked: You’ve kept the lost weight off!

That bears repeating: you have not regained any of the weight you have lost so far. This is an achievement, and a major one—and perhaps you’ve never managed to do before.

You’re winning—please recognize that. It will help un-dull the tedium.

Some Other Tips

Enlist Support

Whether with friends or family, a support group of some kind, or even a dietician, it is always helpful to share highs and lows with experts or others who can relate. These ears may also be a good source of ideas you might have overlooked. And, most importantly, they prove that you’re not alone.

Favorite Foods

Deprivation is the bane stalking the long-term dieter. One way to shut him up is to eat your favorite foods now and then—in moderation. Only 100-200 calories worth at a time, but even this will him at bay.

Eat Slowly

Be advised that it takes 20 minutes for your stomach-brain partnership to realize (and signal) that your stomach is full. This, of course means that if you gulp food down you will manage to overeat significantly before the brain goes: stop! So, eat slowly, chew well, and enjoy your food.

Water—And Lots of It

Fluids make the stomach feel fuller, decreasing a tendency to overeat.

But, more importantly, when the body gets insufficient liquids, your kidneys will compensate by in essence conserving water, holding on to what it has. This means water retention, means weight you don’t want.

Health, Not Appearance

Above all, keep in mind why you are out here in the middle of weight-loss nowhere, digging away: it is not for appearance. Well, perhaps a little, but the overriding reason is your health. Never lose sight of that.

Interim Rewards 

To combat the sheer sameness of long-term weight loss, you may want to map out interim milestones, each of which brings a reward. Say, allow yourself a treat for every five pounds you lose. Nothing extravagant or calorie-inflated, mind you, but reward nonetheless, for a job well done.

Bottom Line

At the end of the day, the First Law of Thermodynamics is the only weight-loss formula that always, repeat always, works. It is your friend. Embrace it.

The multiTRIM Diet

All diet plans—except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound—have only one goal: for you to burn more calories than you consume.

Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health while easing hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink.

Day 148:270.0 — Digging a Long Ditch

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM.

 

 

Pounds Lost: 48.0

Long-term weight loss is not unlike digging a mile-long ditch. The first few yards are interesting and immediately gratifying as you see progress right away. But the novelty does wear off, and as the yards begin to add up to hundreds of them, well, let’s say that none of remains.

The same is true with long-term weight loss. It is not for the faint of heart. Not for the “I’m really good at starting things, but not so good at keeping things going” crowd, for once you have gotten a third of the way—and you still have perhaps a year to go—you can’t make out where you started from, nor can you see the other end: you find yourself out there in the middle of ditch-digging nowhere.

Interim Rewards

There are many ways to deal with this. To combat the sheer sameness of long-term weight loss, Lisa has mapped out interim milestones, each of which brings a reward. Every five pounds lost, she allows herself a treat—nothing extravagant or calorie-inflated, mind you, but reward nonetheless, for a job well done.

These rewards can also be in the form of perhaps a trip to the movies, or a new CD; a theme park visit, maybe. It’s of course up to each one who embarks upon this journey how he or she deals with the terrible “middle third” (some may be able to simply grit it out—but, trust me, you’re in the minority), but interim-achievement rewards may go a long way to relieve the grind.

Weight Not Regained

Another thing the long-term dieter should recognize is that even if the progress is slow, as long as that graph is dropping by a pound or two or three a week, something else—that you possibly have never managed before—is also achieved: You’ve kept the lost weight off!

That bears repeating: you have not regained any of the weight you have lost so far. It’s one of those obvious things that are easily lost and often overlooked as an achievement. For it really is a major one, and one that can help un-dull the tedium of the marathon weight-loss runner.

You’re winning—please recognize that.

Day 141:272.4 — The Same, More Of

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Pounds Lost: 45.6

As mentioned in last week’s blog, Lisa is now into the middle third of her 3,000 mile cross-country bicycle trip, and this week can best be summed up by “more of the same.”

It seems that doing the same thing over and over (same drink, same calorie count, same exercise) does wear on you, and indeed becomes a chore. Two things keep Lisa on the path.

First, she keeps losing her 2-3 pounds a week, which—although the weeks seem long, and seem like they now have begun to crawl—will end up at the goal of 175 pounds reached.

Second, she does vary her dinners as much as possible within the calorie constraints she lives with. Still, she admits, it takes a definite effort to tolerate the sameness of the marathon run.

Long Term

It is important to realize the long-term weight-loss is much like a dedicated marathon (teeth sometimes gritted) than the enthusiastic adrenaline-sprint of losing ten or so pounds. This is a grind, and there is no reliable way to sugarcoat it. It takes perseverance. In spades.

Though, oh so well worth it.

Day 134:274.6 — True Measure

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM. 

 

Pounds Lost: 43.4

Diet wise, it’s more of the same. A lot more of the same. The same drink for breakfast, the same drink for lunch. The same sensible dinner. The same calorie counting. The same calorie burning. The same, and more of it.

Bicycling

Setting out on a New York to Los Angeles bicycle trip is a very exciting project for the first hundred miles; for the first two, or three hundred miles. But after a thousand miles, with two thousand to go, your life has become the bicycle, the pedals, the repetitive leg movements, and an awful lot of more of the same, the nice scenery notwithstanding.

At this point Lisa is just about one third across the country. With thirty percent of the 143 pound weight-loss goal achieved, she is very much mid-project, and this is where perseverance will make or break it. Perseverance and true measurement.

Compliments

Having lost over forty pounds so far, Lisa had hoped for at least a few comments about how much slimmer she looks, but to-date there have been none. That, of course, has nothing to do with how much she has lost, but all to do with where she set out from. So far, beginning at 318 pounds, Lisa has dropped 13.6% of her total pre-diet weight. That, although significant, is not readily noticeable.

Had she set out from 200 pounds, however, her 43.4 pounds loss would nearly have been a 25% weight loss, and the difference would be striking—many comments of astonishment voiced, a nice (though far from vital) measurement of success.

Reality Check

These are the realities of long-term weight loss starting out at more than 300 pounds: you initial weight loss, even up to 20% may not be as noticeable to others as to you (for you do measure inches as well as pounds along the way). And therein lies the danger. If you crave spontaneous admiration and use widespread astonishments as a measure of progress, you might have given up by now.

True Measurement

There is only one true measurement of your progress: your own certainty. There is no other real measurement. You know that the pounds are coming off along with the inches. You know that you are getting lighter and can walk or exercise longer without being winded. You know that your heart is once again counting you among its friends. You know that you are making progress. This is the torch you need to hold high, the light you should steer by.

You cannot navigate by compliments and admiration, only by the facts as you know them.

Certainty

Continuing, undaunted by the lack of notice, with the more of the same, and then some more more of the same, you will in due course arrive at 25%, then 50% or even more of your initial weight lost, and anyone who then does not notice will be found to be legally blind.

One third across the country is an amazing achievement. You have proven that you can do it, and now you know that by doing exactly what you’ve been doing so far for another third, and then that final third, you will arrive. And that is the biggest (and nicest) certainty of all.

Weight Loss Basics #11

For multiTRIM information, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Basal Metabolic Rate — BMR
(Eleventh in a Series)

 

Metabolism — Converting Food Into Energy

As covered in the Tenth Article in this series, the body needs fuel and oxygen to operate, and the process by which the body changes the food you eat into energy and internal building material is called metabolism (from the Greek metabole “change”).

This conversion is achieved by a complex biochemical process, where calories from carbohydrates, fats or proteins are chemically combined with oxygen to form cellular building blocks while also releasing the energy your body needs to function.

Let’s take a closer look.

Catabolism and Anabolism

Our food consists of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, usually in the form of large, complex molecules. The body cannot build muscle, nor can it maintain organs, with the proteins it consumes, but must first break them down into amino acids, which are then combined to form proteins the body can use as building blocks.

Exergonic Reactions

An exergonic chemical reaction is one where large molecules (such as food) are broken down into smaller molecules with the release of energy. The word comes from the Greek, ex- out, ergon work, meaning energy (work) is released; energy, of course, is most commonly measured by the work it can perform.

This process is also known as Catabolism (Greek, cata- down, ballein to throw).

Endergonic Reactions

An endergonic reaction is one where new proteins are built from amino acids, and is a process that requires energy. The word, again, is from the Greek, en- in, ergon work, meaning it takes in—uses—energy.

This process is also known as Anabolism (Greek root, ana- up, ballein to throw).

So, depending on which way the “throw” is made, down for breaking down and releasing energy, or up for building up and using energy, it’s either Catabolism or Anabolism.

Combined, Catabolism and Anabolism make up Metabolism (Greek root, meta- along with, among, ballein to throw).

And the messenger service which carries released energy from the point of catabolic extraction to areas of need is called ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate, an intermediate molecule capable of storing large amounts of energy in its chemical bonds for relay to anabolic processes or other areas of energy needs such a muscle contraction.

Basal Metabolic Rate

Also called Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), BMR indicates the amount of energy used by the body while at rest in a neutrally temperate environment (too hot or too cold places additional energy requirements on the body), in a post-absorptive state—meaning the digestive system is also at rest, which usually requires about twelve hours of fasting.

The energy consumed in this state of rest is to fuel the basic (basal) needs of the organism, such as the heart, the lungs, the brain, and the rest of the nervous system, the liver, kidneys, the sex organs, muscles, and skin.

During any given day, the basal life processes (BMR) use about 70% of the body’s total energy requirement, the digestive processes use 10%, and the remaining 20% goes to power our physical activities.

Of the 70% used by BMR, the liver uses 27%, the brain 19%, the heart 7%, the kidneys 10%, skeletal muscles 18%, and other organs 19%.

Knowing how much work the liver has to perform constantly, that’s hardly surprising. It is surprising though that the heart, which never ever rests, uses only 7%—a very efficient muscle, that.

BMR Measurement

An accurate measurement of BMR is a complex process that involves a gas analysis through either direct or indirect calorimetry (the measurement of quantities of heat)—don’t try this at home.

A rough estimation of BMR can be made through an equation using age, sex, height, and weight. Many online tools are available using these factors to calculate your BMR. Use them.

BMR can also be estimated by the determining the amount of lean tissue that makes up your body. Lean tissue at rest, whether male or female, burns roughly 16 calories per pound per day, so once lean mass is determined and multiplied by 16, you’d have the basal caloric need for that person.

Why Do You Care?

That takes us back to our old friend 1LTD, the First Law of Thermodynamics. To lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume; and in order to establish exactly how many calories you burn during any given day, you need to account for BMR, which is 70% of that amount.

The proud owner of a body containing 125 pounds of lean mass would have a BMR of roughly 2,000 calories. Another 300 or so calories are spent by the digestive system. The rest is physical activity; say 600 calories depending on what you do.

This person would burn 2,900 calories a day, so in order to lose weight he or she would have to consume less than 2,900 calories. 1LTD.

Exercise and BMR

Anaerobic exercise—such as weight lifting—builds muscle and alters the lean mass equation in favor of lean. This will raise BMR. While aerobic exercise is beneficial for the cardiovascular system, and while it in itself burns calories, there is no direct link to suggest that it affects BMR in any significant way.

Bottom Line

1LTD rules. But in order to burn more calories than you consume, you need to know the numbers.

BMR makes up 70% of what you burn. It therefore needs to be estimated or measured as accurately as possible.

The multiTRIM Diet

All diet plans—except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound—have only one goal: for you to burn more calories than you consume.

Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health while easing hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink.

Day 127:277.8 — Stick-to-itiveness

For a Free multiTRIM trial, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Pounds Lost: 40.2

People like change. The same thing over and over amounts to boredom. And the same thing over and over again a few more times can be outright painful.

The goldfish solved this problem by developing a four-second attention span, making each swim round the bowl a brand new (and exciting) experience.

The Buddhist solved this problem by reaching a true now, which is new and its own every time, making each moment unique and unlike any other before it. A brilliant solution, actually, and much recommended.

Then there’s stick-to-itivness, the sheer will power of the thing. Come what may I will endure. Also workable, of course, but can be hard on the teeth (as you grit them).

Another thing that helps is keeping an eye on evident progress. Pounds coming off at a regular (and repetitive) rate, over a long period of time, could be seen as boring; but then again, could also be seen as the greatest thing in the world.

At this stage of the game, including some time-outs (one by choice and one by necessity) Lisa has still averaged a weight loss of 2.2 pounds a week, week in and week out. That is what long-term weight loss is all about.

And it’s not in the least boring.

Weight Loss Basics #10

For a Free multiTRIM trial, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Metabolism
(Tenth in a Series)

 

The Body

The human body is a carbon based combustion engine, operating at roughly 37.0 degrees Celsius, or 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

It needs fuel and oxygen to operate, and the way the body changes the food you eat into energy and building blocks for internal consumption is called metabolism (from the Greek metabole “change”).

Metabolism — Converting Food Into Energy

This conversion is achieved by a complex biochemical process, where calories—whether from carbohydrates, fats or proteins—are chemically combined with oxygen to form cellular building blocks while also releasing the energy your body needs to function.

The total number of calories you consume in a day is called your total energy intake. The total number of calories your body burns each day is called—you guessed it—your total energy expenditure.

The following three factors constitute your total energy expenditure:

Basic needs

Amazingly, the majority of calories consumed in any one day are used by the body for basic maintenance, for even when at rest your body requires energy as fuel for organs, breathing, blood circulation, adjusting hormone levels, as well as for cell production and repair.

The number of calories used to meet these basic needs are referred to as your basal metabolic rate (BMR)—basal refers to base, fundamental, what forms or belongs to the foundation (of your body).

A person’s BMR typically constitutes as much as two-thirds or three-quarters of all calories consumed. It is also noteworthy that basal energy needs stay fairly constant and do not easily change.

Food processing

The process by which the body digests, absorbs, transports and stores the food you consume also requires energy. This activity uses about ten percent of the calories you consume. As with basal energy needs, the energy needed to process food remains fairly constant and is not easily changed.

Physical activity

Physical activity, however, is a factor you can control: by playing tennis, by walking to the store, by hiking, cooking, channel surfing; in other words, by moving.

Physical activity accounts for the remainder of calories consumed, roughly 15 to 25%.

Frequency, duration, and intensity of your movements (activity) determine how many calories you burn.

Metabolism and your weight

While it may seem logical that low metabolism should result in obesity, this is rarely the case. It is, in fact, quite uncommon for low metabolism to cause excess weight.

First Law of Thermodynamics (1LTD)

Instead, it’s our old friend 1LTD (which you may want to tattoo somewhere easily viewed as a constant reminder) that again rears its conspicuous head, for weight gain is most often cause by an imbalance between total energy intake, and total energy expenditure; in other words: by consuming more calories than your body burns.

To lose weight—and yes, the broken record analogy springs to mind—you simply need to create an energy deficit by consuming fewer calories than you burn—by eating less while increasing your physical activity.

Your Calorie Needs

If everyone had identical bodies, we could easily determine basal energy needs. But—luckily—this is not the case. Therefore, to establish your calorie needs you need to take into account your body size and composition, your age, and sex.

Body Size and Composition

In a nutshell, larger body mass requires more energy (that’s to say more calories) than smaller body mass. Also, as you probably know, muscle burns more calories than does fat; so the higher your muscle to fat ratio, the higher your basal metabolic rate.

Age

Age brings with it a decrease of muscle in favor of fat, which lowers the basal metabolism; and metabolism itself tends to grow more inefficient with age. This means that your calorie needs naturally decrease as you grow older. Keep that in mind.

Sex

As a rule, men have more muscle and less body fat than women of the same age and weight do. This is why men generally have a higher basal metabolic rate and burn more calories—just sitting still (or changing the channel)—than women do.

Burning Calories

When it comes to burning calories, there isn’t very much you can do about your metabolism or digestive system, speeding them up or slowing them down; your only option—realistically speaking—is to increase daily exercise and activity to both burn calories through movement and build muscle tissue which in turn burns more calories.

And the key to exercise is regularity. As in daily. Take a 30-minute walk every day. It’s an excellent aerobic way to burn calories.

As you age, you may also want to add weight training to help counteract muscle loss.

That said, any movement burns calories. This means walking to the store rather than driving, taking the stairs rather than the elevator, playing with the dog rather than watching television, hiking, swimming, dancing. You name it.

Bottom Line

While it is true that the majority of your energy needs are determined by your metabolism, you ultimately determine your weight by what you eat and how much of that intake you burn through physical activity.

1LTD.

The multiTRIM Diet

All diet plans—except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound—have only one goal: for you to burn more calories than you consume.

Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health while easing hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink.

Weight Loss Basics #9

For a Free multiTRIM trial, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Eat to Live
(Ninth in a Series)

 

In his book, Mindfulness with Breathing, Buddhadasa Bhikku, a rather famous Buddhist monk—at least in Theravada circles—had these very wise words to say about food: “We should eat food that is food. Do not eat food that is ‘bait.’ We eat food for the proper nourishment of life. We eat bait for the sake of deliciousness. Bait makes us unwise and causes us to eat foolishly, just like the bait on the hook that snags foolish fish. We must eat the kinds of food that are genuinely beneficial for the body, and we must eat in moderation.”

That is probably the best statement on the subject of “Eat to Live vs. Live to Eat” that I have come across.

In the same book, he goes on to say: “Eating bait means eating for the sake of deliciousness and fun. It is also usually expensive. We must stop swallowing bait and learn to eat only food that is proper and wholesome.

“If you are eating bait, you will be constantly hungry all day and night. You will always be sneaking off to eat yet more bait. Eating bait impairs our mental abilities. The mind surrenders to the bait.”

Live to Eat

It is a sad testament to our western culture—especially here in America—that living to eat is a predominant philosophy, if not a religion.

Most of us, deep down, know this. We know that fruit is better than grease-dripping French fries. We know that greens and rice is healthier for the body than a thick, juicy (as in bloody) steak with baked potatoes (and scoops of sour cream).

Quite apart from the fact that we could feed seven persons with the soy beans we feed the pig that slaughtered will feed only one person—which is just bad economy—the human body does not run well on salty, greasy, high-cholesterol, high-calorie food. Yet this is the daily menu for a majority of our citizens today.

A Pact

In fact, this is so much the case that it makes one wonder: Could there be a secret pact between the Fast Food and Medical Industries? A pact that goes something like this:

Medical Industry: “As long as you keep sending them to us for expensive and very profitable treatment, we will not expose how terribly bad your foods actually are for them.”

A nodding-head Fast Food Industry: “Deal.”

This is not to say that such a conspiracy is afoot; it is to say that by the statistics alone, one is justified in wondering.

Pleasure and Taste

For many the battle comes down to taste, and the pleasure it gives.

We can go a whole day—if not a whole week, and with great anticipation—looking forward to a particular dinner course, one which in the past has given us great pleasure (enter your favorite food here). The quiet voice that tries to point out that this sumptuous meal, strictly speaking, is not at all good for us—and that afterwards we will wake up in the night with heartburn and a bad conscience—eventually goes all silent, and as comes the day, we sit down to dig in.

Short Term vs. Long Term

It may be that true pleasures are few and far between. It certainly is true that pleasure is far preferable to pain. But it is also true that long-term pleasure, say a rejuvenated body that will allow you to make that twenty mile hike to the top of Mount so-and-so—and with it that most fantastic view and feeling you’ve ever experienced—is far stronger, and far preferable to the short-term pleasure of an indulging meal.

But short term is much easier to confront than long term, and that’s the crux. Working toward long-term pleasure, and survival, takes effort, will power, and time. Even though we know the rewards outweigh the short-term pleasure by a huge factor, we would rather go with the burger in hand than the long-term survival in the woods.

Eat to Live

It takes less effort to start the car than to walk. It takes less effort to turn on the television than to read a book. It takes less effort to drive to the fast food restaurant than to cook a healthy meal.

It takes less effort to be unhealthy than healthy. It takes less effort not to live than live.

Living life to the fullest takes effort. It takes dedication and will power. It takes knowing what fuel makes your body function the best and to choose that fuel, no matter how much work is involved. It takes sticking to that resolve every day of every week, month, year.

Eating to live is not a short-term project; it’s a philosophy and a lifestyle that in the end brings far, far more happiness to those who make it, than any amount of bait ever can.

The multiTRIM Diet

All diet plans—except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound—have only one goal: for you to burn more calories than you consume.

Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health while easing hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink.

Day 120:280.2 — Diet Turning Natural

For a Free multiTRIM trial, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Pounds Lost: 37.8

After her first full week back on the diet, and with weight loss nicely resumed, Lisa realizes that the diet has now become more than just a “diet,” it has grown into a new, quite natural way, of approaching food.

Perhaps not the daily drinks—they are definitely part of the “diet”— but the discipline that lies behind the program of ensuring that whatever happens she consumes fewer calories than she burns, this has now grown into what she can only describe as the natural thing to do.

“It’s a subtle, though quite profound change in viewpoint,” she says. “I used to diet toward the goal, even though it was distant. Now I find myself eating for the sake of health, and for the gradual weight loss I know I will achieve by burning more calories than I consume through careful counting and daily exercise.”

“I see now that this is the way I need to eat in order to live, and that I seem finally to have managed to leave the ‘live in order to eat’ philosophy behind.”

And that, for all it’s subtlety is huge.

Day 113: 283.2 — Back on the Horse

For a Free multiTRIM trial, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Pounds Lost: 34.8

After a family emergency, which took Lisa out of town and off the program for over three weeks, she has arrived back and has climbed back on.

Returning to town she had gained over five pounds, but in the last few days on the program she has dropped 4.8 pounds, and is back in the groove. “Although, I resent having to lose the same pounds twice,” she quipped.

Lisa does report, however, that resuming the plan after these three weeks off, which brought back old eating habits and menus, was one of the hardest things she’s done.

“Much harder than starting the program initially,” she said. “For then there was all the enthusiasm in beginning something new; now there’s only the partial remorse at having to abandon the plan for a while, and it took a lot more willpower than I had expected climb back on.”

However, she has made it back on—and that is the important thing; and pounds have again begun to shed.

Weight Loss Basics #8

For a Free multiTRIM trial, go to: multiTRIM.

 

Health vs. Appearance
(Eighth in a Series)

 

Narrow View

Ask a child about death and he or she will look at you as if you just landed from some distant planet. Death? They may have heard the word at some point or other—perhaps when a pet passed away—but it means nothing, and has absolutely nothing, to do with them.

Ask any teenager, or anyone under the age of thirty for that matter, and if you really listen, you will hear that deep down they firmly believe they will never die. Well, let’s restate that, death is still so far in the future as to be inconceivable.

Health As A Given

These are also the strata of one’s life when health is a given. You really have to work at it to grow unhealthy as a teenager; and as a child it is almost impossible to get sick.

For the body is still growing, is still on the up swing; everything works perfectly, or corrects itself quickly if it doesn’t. That is, if you let it.

And in these age brackets, you can eat just about anything without putting on weight; your metabolism will break down iron nails. Life the way it should be.

With health as a daily given, other issues take the front seat; and as you sail into teenagership, of those, appearance will brook few competitors.

Admiration

Someone said that admiration is what we value the most on this Earth. Empirically speaking, that cannot be far from the truth. We all crave it, in varying degrees; especially from puberty onward, and somehow, we never seem to let go of that thirst.

Diets

As a result, a huge percentage—not matter what reason is ostensibly given—most diets are undertaken, suffered, and re-undertaken, and re-suffered for the sake of appearance. For the sake of admiration.

This may work while you’re still in your thirties, but by the time you slide off that particular bracket, fast food and too many years spent in front of the television will have begun to come home to roost, and health is buckling. Not seriously yet, but those extra fifty or so pounds is putting quite a strain on the system, and here and there leaks are sprung, and valves are blowing.

Still, appearance is far more important.

Friends and Health

Someone else said the most valuable commodities in the world are true friends and good health.

And, amazingly, true friends rarely, if ever, care about appearance.

Deterioration

As you age, the body will start to deteriorate—yes, the word is used quite precisely. Your DNA includes various milestones, the main one, perhaps, being the peak of growth, which some peg at about the late twenties. It’s apparently downhill from there.

Things are never stationary. As long as we have gravity, they either rise or fall—the peak of rest at apex is very short.

Until the body reaches peak growth, it’s all systems go. Once it arrives, and growth ceases, deterioration will set it, fast for some, slowly for others, very slowly for the lucky, and very very slowly for the few who value health above appearance.

Happiness

It’s funny—or perhaps not so funny—but the happiness we experience in the wash of admiration is rather shallow, and always needs someone to reinforce it with more oohs and aahs. We rarely wake up into it.

The happiness we experience from a task well done, on the other than, or from a friend helped, from a promise kept, or a lie not said, runs much deeper, lasts much longer, and does not need external confirmation. And it greets us with the dawn.

Health vs. Appearance

I believe that good health is your most valuable asset. With it, you can do or accomplish just about anything; without it, you’re shackled to a degree. With it, you dare to dream; without it, dreams fracture.

Appearance will stay with you only so long, and then it’s gone. Fact of life.

One of the most beautiful women of all time, Greta Garbo, suffered intensely from the wrinkles that appeared on her upper lip as she aged, and her mouth was the first thing she would cover from the cameras; appearance being everything.

If you, sooner rather than later, treat health as the priority it should be all through life—and if you at the same time devalue appearance as the fad it really is—you will be a much happier person.

The long way of saying that you should diet for the right reason: Health.

The multiTRIM Diet

All diet plans—except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound—have only one goal: for you to burn more calories than you consume.

Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health while easing hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink.