When making the change to a healthy lifestyle it can all seem overwhelming. Many of us have been inactive for years and the thought of heavy sweating, muscle soreness and the time commitments associated with working out can be enough to turn anyone away from doing it.

On the diet side of the equation it doesn’t look any easier. You’ll need to stop eating the high fat, high sugar foods that have become a daily part of your life. Then replace them with fruit and veggies and lean cuts of meat. Blah.

The combination of the two will undoubtedly change your body and drastically improve your overall health. But that is not easy to do all at once. I think that it’s easier to concentrate on just one part in the beginning.

So which one is more effective?

Almost all the advice I’ve read or received on this say diet is the most important. Changing your diet can be amazingly effective but I’d have to say that focusing on exercise is the way to go.

Exercise is easier to start and stick with hands down. When you finish a workout you get a real sense of accomplishment and pride. Can you say that about finishing a salad?

The most amazing thing about setting up an exercise program first is that it will almost force you to want to eat healthier food. Your body will begin to crave water instead of sugary drinks and fruit instead of chips and chocolate. It sounds crazy but I’ve seen it happen to even the most hardened junk food addict.

On top of this you will notice changes in your energy levels good and bad which is a great motivator. If you’re not eating properly you’ll notice that your workouts will suffer and you’ll feel tired, all day. That will ultimately lead to you looking for ways to fuel yourself instead of just filling yourself.

I’ve found that healthy eating doesn’t necessarily encourage or motivate you to exercise.

Final Thought

To sum it up when you feel like a complete lifestyle change is too much to handle all at once, choose exercise first and add the diet after.

Let me know what you think. Which do you think is more effective?

One of the best ways that I’ve found to keep me focused on weight loss recently is getting organized.

Most importantly getting organized can take away some of the excuses for not working out or eating properly.

For many years my house and work space have been a complete mess. I first started with my workspace after reading a post titled “The Benefits of a Clean and Tidy Workspace”. I had papers all over the place, dust on my pictures and drawers overflowing with junk. In general everything was cluttered and only added to an already stressful day.

At the Office

Once I cleaned and organized my desk and drawers I made space for my healthy snacks, my food journal as well as a place to keep my “motivational” items. Which include a list of my goals and a picture of me at my heaviest.

In the Kitchen

This is the area that you will see the most benefit from getting organized. I have all my Tupperware, saran wrap and baggies organized in the cupboards. This makes it easy to prepare my lunches and snacks for the week.

In the fridge, everything has a place.

Fruits in the right drawer, veggies in the left.

Drink containers, Yogurt, sauces and spreads on the top shelve.

Larger veggies and fruit, like cantaloupe, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, cut up pineapples and watermelon, and romaine lettuce all go on the middle shelve.

Meats and milk stay on the bottom shelve.

Condiments and salad dressings go in the door.

The same kind of organization goes for the freezer and the pantry. Knowing where everything is reduces the time it takes to prepare your meals and some of the stress involved.

In your home gym or workout area

If you are like me they you have a space in your house where you like to workout and store all of your exercise related items. I have my treadmill, exercise mat, dumbbells exercise ball, and workout shoes stored in one corner of my basement.

I’ve recently started keeping my workout clothes down there as well. I keep at least 2 sets hanging clean and ready to go when I need them. When I’m done with my workout all the equipment gets cleaned and put back in its original place.

In your bathroom

The room with the mirror. This is where I weigh in, take my measurements and get a good look at where the pounds and inches are coming off. An organized bathroom is so important. It’s usually the first place you go to in the morning and can set the tone for the rest of the day.

My scale, measuring tape and record book are all neatly placed beside the vanity for easy access. I also have a spot on my mirror where I keep another picture of myself when I was overweight. It serves as a reminder of how far I’ve come.

Final thought on getting organized

A huge part of losing weight is changing your lifestyle. I believe that mess and clutter go hand in hand with your weight problems. I also think that for most people if their house and work space are constantly disorganized chances are that their thoughts are too. And that is where the real battle of the bulge is fought.

One last tip

I used to always forget to take my multi-vitamin in the morning. The bottle was stored in a cupboard with all the other odds and ends (medicine, gravy boat etc..). Since getting organized I have moved them to a shelve in the hall where I keep my keys. Now I can’t leave the house without seeing the bottle and I haven’t had a day without one since.

What if I told you that there is a way to eat where you could lose weight and have a ton of energy without starving yourself? Would you try it?

The best part is that you don’t need to pop any pills, register for any programs or buy any books. This is a simple eating plan that I follow religiously and have seen incredible results from.

Basically I eat 5 meals per day that range from a minimum of 300 to a maximum of 400 calories each. Each meal is as evenly spaced as I can manage. My hunger is in check and I have so much more energy now eating fewer calories than I did when I ate a lot more food.

Why It Works

For most of us, our bodies can only store 300-400 calories of useable energy in the form of glucose at any one time. Anything more that is not used gets converted and stored as fat.

So when you eat a large meal like a Big Mac combo. Which is roughly 1100 calories, 700 or so of those calories get stored as fat. This of course assumes that you are fairly inactive after the meal.

By eating 300-400 calories evenly spaced out this provides you with a steady flow of energy without adding to your existing fat stores.

For example: If I eat 400 calories at breakfast, which is 7am. That should provide me with enough energy to last until my next meal at 10am. Since I am just going about my normal day and not really doing intense exercise. My body shouldn’t need any more than that to keep me going.

By eating like this I have reduced my daily calorie intake to anywhere from 1500 to 2000 calories a day. This puts me in a perfect position to lose weight even without daily exercise.

Now I can eat pretty much anything I want to as long as it stays within that 300-400 calorie range. Junk food is not off limits and I don’t feel restricted as to the kinds of foods I can eat. That helps relieve some of the stress associated with a new diet plan.

My Eating Schedule

Meal 1 - Breakfast – 7am

Meal 5 – Dinner - 7pm

You can obviously tailor this to your own specific schedule. But try to keep 3 hours in between your meals. That should provide you with the maximum benefit. Anything longer than that isn’t good either.

Here is where the change in your lifestyle happens. After you eat this way for a week or so you start to really understand the importance of eating lower calories foods. You can eat a ton of fruit and veggies for a relatively small amount of calories. Leaner meats also have the same beneficial ingredients (protein, vitamins and minerals) but for much less fat and calories. Naturally you begin to look for healthy options so that you can eat more without sacrificing your waistline.

One Final Note

If you do plan on exercising while following an eating plan like this make sure you eat something with in 1 hour from the end of your workout. I have found this to be extremely helpful in recovering your energy for the rest of the day. You should also see better results from those workouts.

When it comes to weight loss goals sometimes numbers just aren’t enough. We all have an ideal weight or waist size that we would like to be. Weather its 165 lbs or a 28 inch waist.

The problem that I see is that target goal doesn’t provide enough motivation on it’s own to help you achieve it. Numbers are numbers and nothing more. We attach so much extra meaning to a number. Often a specific weight, (165lbs for example) we might think that “If I can get down to that weight then I’ll be happy” or “People will treat me better if I could just get down to my goal weight”. Obviously these statements rarely ring true and don’t provide the kind of motivation that will produce the results.

So when I set a weight loss goal I attach a challenge to it. Either a fitness challenge that I need to hit or an outfit that I need to fit into and look good in. I put more importance on these than I do the numbers on the scale.

Another important part of reaching your goal is to have an appealing reward for achieving it. You can reward yourself with a new outfit, a trip, cash or anything else that that you really want.

Remember to be hard on yourself. If you don’t hit that goal you don’t get the reward (unless you are really, really close). There needs to be consequences for not putting in the effort needed to reach that goal. That’s also why setting a realistic goal is very important. If you know there is no way that you can reach a target goal, then you’ll never be able to reward yourself.

For example:

I wanted to lose 12 pounds to get down to a nice even weight. I attached the challenge of running a 5 k race in under 26 minutes to this goal. There was a race approx 6 weeks away and I signed up for it as soon as I set that goal. I found it very effective to commit to the race right away, so that I didn’t have time to talk myself out of it later on. My reward would be a nice new shirt, new pants and an evening out with my wife. A worthy reward in my eyes 

Having my weight goal, challenge and reward in place I could now focus on what I needed to do to achieve them. Cutting calories, increasing the intensity and frequency of my workouts, and always keeping that image of race day in my mind.

The results:

I ran that race in 25:53 minutes and lost 14 pounds. Along with enjoying the reward I also enjoyed the satisfaction of finishing something that set out for myself. Something that I’ve always had a difficult time doing.

My point is that the numbers by themselves are not good motivators. I didn’t start seeing results on the scale until I stopped focusing on the scale.

2008 is finally here and with the start of a new year comes tons of weight loss tips. This is the time of year when every weight loss related site posts their advice, tips and programs that promise to help you finally lose the weight for good this time.

My inbox has been flooded with this stuff over the past week or so. I think it’s funny and frustrating to see all of the contradictory advice from various sites out there. For example one email said “if you really want to lose weight this year cut out the carbs” and just 2 days later I had another newsletter telling me to “increase my carbs to shed the fat”.

To the average person trying to really make a conscious effort to lose the weight that has been holding them back for so long, all this advice can be confusing. If the so called experts can’t agree then what advice should you follow?

The real secret of successful weight loss

I honestly believe that almost any diet or weight loss plan will work for anyone as long as you can stick to it. The real key for any of them to work can be summed up in one small word: FOCUS

You need to be focused in changing your habits, focused in changing your diet and focused in your workouts. See, the biggest reason that people will give up on their new lifestyle changes over the next few weeks is because they will lose their focus.

I know this from experience. I have always been a “new year dieter”. First day of the New Year it’s all “no more junk food for me” and armed with the new gym membership, I’m motivated and focused. Hell bent on losing weight and getting in shape for good.

Come February 1st I’m back on the couch eating crap food and haven’t been to the gym in a week. I’ve lost my focus. Suddenly all of the reasons that were motivating me to lose weight in the first place aren’t as compelling 4 weeks later.

How to stay focused on weight loss

So now you’re wondering how exactly do you stay focused? What keeps you motivated? Well what I do is something simple that takes no more than 10-15 minutes a day, everyday. It keeps me motivated and encouraged to keep moving forward with my plans and achieve the goals I’ve set for myself.

I take 10 minutes in the morning and plan out my day. I go over everything from what I’m going to be eating, to what obstacles I’ll be facing that day. (I.e. potluck lunch, packed scheduled etc…). If I know that my day is packed and I won’t have time to get in a full workout. I’ll take 15 minutes off my lunch and go for a fast walk or something.

Too often we get caught up in the rush of everyday life and end up making poor quick decisions that can ruin our whole day or week. Plan the day out as best you can in advance, that way you are ready to handle anything that comes your way.

Before I go to bed at night I take 5 minutes to review my day. I focus on the good things that I accomplished that day. I’m not perfect most days but there are little things that I have done perfectly. I also review my goals. The reasons why I want to lose weight in the first place and what I am doing to achieve them.

I’m not a very religious man but the final thing I do before bed to help me stay focused, is pray. It helps me rid the stress; I can go to bed happy and not focus on the negative while I sleep. Let me tell you, I sleep like a baby now