Portion Control

If I had to guess, one of the top three problems in the weight loss fight is with portion control. I know I've read this somewhere that for the most part, people underestimate the amount of calories they eat by at least 20% (and I actually think that's pretty conservative).

This is a good article with some tips on how to control the portions of food that you eat. I found this interesting in the beginning part on the study that was conducted on cookbook recipes and how the amount of calories in the servings of food have steadily increased over the last number of decades:

The study covered cookbook recipes over the last several decades (with emphasis on recipes in The Joy of Cooking), and it was discovered that calorie counts have gone up dramatically as authors have increased portion sizes to conform to new cultural norms. Where the 1936 edition of the kitchen classic averaged 268 calories per serving, the most recent 2006 edition averaged 384 calories. Lower costs of food and larger plate sizes are theorized as part of the reason for the increase, but nutritionist Marion Nestle says that mainly it's just a reflection of people becoming accustomed to eating more and more overall.

Which is interesting because I was looking at my plates today and thinking about when I was growing up and it occurred to me that the plates I have now are quite a bit bigger than the ones that I remember having growing up.

Here's a summary from the article of how you can control the portion sizes of your meals:

1. Downsize the size of your plate.
2. After you get done cooking, immediately stash half of it away for leftovers for the following days.
3. Eat in one room, but leave the remainder of the uneaten food in another room so you don't get tempted to pick at it.
4. When out to eat, order off the kid's menu (but don't accept the crayons when the waitress/waiter offers them to you...).
5. When out to eat with others, order things that you can all share, and make sure it includes salad, a non-creamed soup, and a vegetable dish.
6. Learn how to estimate what the measured serving size is from the nutritional information part on the food container (in other words, if the ice cream container says a serving is only 200 calories for a half a cup...don't think a half a cup is half the carton of ice cream...).
7. And the 7th thing was a promotional part to sell you something that you can probably do for free so I won't waste my time mentioning it here.

Give these a shot and see how they go.

Thanks to Ingrid Kreger for forwarding me this article.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

Follow Up to the "I Hate Mike" Interval Workout

To follow up a little bit on this interval workout that I posted the other day, I got some, well, interesting responses...

They ranged from "yup, you're right, I hate you" to "I hope your house burns down!!" and finally my favorite "DIE MIKE!!!!!! DIE!!!!!!!"

Although they were all in fun (at least..I think they were), I'm glad people gave it a shot and will continue to make it part of their routine.

But don't think it gets any easier. I've been doing it now 2 times a week for the past 5 weeks and I still haven't gotten use to it.

Have a good weekend everyone.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

10 Things You Can Do to Enhance Fat Loss

Mike Roussell wrote up a short little report on ways that you can tweak your eating in order to get better fat loss results.

Take a read here and then follow the link in the article to download the free report.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

What is Eaten in One Week

This is an interesting photo slide show of what people around the world eat in a week and how much it costs.

It's really rather embarrassing what it shows for the United States (although the German one isn't all the great either)...

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7 Dont's of Exercise

This is a pretty good article on the don't of exercise and I agree with most of them. Although there is one I'm not in total agreement with.

This advice is the one I don't completely agree with. I agree with the part about finding a particular weight to lift and then progressively increasing from workout to workout. I don't agree that it's not good to go to failure. I don't think going to failure is good all the time but, I do think that lifting to the point that you just can't lift another repetition is good from time to time.

BUT, if you are doing an exercise like a squat, bench press, shoulder press, basically anything where the weight is above your body, make sure before you go to failure that you have a spotter.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

The "I Hate Mike" Interval Workout

Back a couple of weeks ago in this post, I talked about how hard you should be going in your intervals. Basically, at your own subjective pace, you should be going hard enough to hate doing them.

Well over the last two weeks I've been trying out a new twist with a workout and I absolutely HATE them. I get nervous before doing them. The shoulders tense up. But, when I'm done with them, it's almost an immediate feel that I had one of the best workouts of my life.

This interval workout should take about 25 minutes to do and you'll need either a bike or a treadmill (treadmill is preferred).

What you're going to do is sprint (or pedal) at 90% of your max for 30 seconds, and then get off the bike or treadmill and do countdown pushups.

Let me explain what I call countdown pushups. You start by doing 10 pushups. Then you do 9 pushups, then you do 8 pushups, and so on until you do one pushup and then you're done.

You can do the pushups either the "normal" way with resting your body on your hands and the tips of your feet or, you can do them kneeling where you rest your body on your hands and knees. Regular pushups to easy for you? Then place your feet on some steps or a chair and do decline pushups.

After you're done with the pushups, you'll get back on the treadmill (or bike) and go at a slow pace for 90 seconds (well sort of, I'll explain).

So this is how the workout is going to go when on a treadmill:

0:00 - 2:15 - slow walk
2:15 - 2:35 - faster walk
2:35 - 2:50 - jog
2:50 - push the speed to your sprint level
3:00 - all out sprint
3:30 - press stop button and get off and do 10 pushups

After the 10 pushups, get back on the treadmill:

3:30 - 4:15 - slow walk
4:15 - 4:35 - faster walk
4:35 - 4:50 - jog
4:50 - push the speed level to your sprint level
5:00 - all out sprint
5:30 - press stop button and get off and do 9 pushups

Continue doing this countdown until you've done 1 pushup and then you're done.

Try this out a couple days a week to start.

Now, if you want to change it up and include something other than pushups, go ahead and try it with an inverted row (if you have a squat rack or something you can horizontally pull yourself towards).

Here's how you should look before and after the lift. This would be the beginner variation:



Notice that my hands are in an underhand grip (palms facing towards me).

Here's what you should look like during the lift:



Notice how the center of my body stays in a straight line. In other words, no slouching.....

If that's too easy, try it while resting on the heels of your feet:

Before and After:



During:



And finally, if you want to get more difficult, prop your feet up on a chair or another bench.

Before and After:



During:



Wanna really be a stud? Use pull-ups...

If you've got any questions or if you try it out and want to let me know how it went, drop me an e-mail at mike@leanbodyfitness.com


www.leanbodyfitness.com

Obesity in the Military

This article shouldn't surprise anyone but, it should alarm us all.

Some stats from the article:

In 1998, the number of military personnel diagnosed overweight or obese stood at 25,652, or 1.6 percent of the entire armed forces. In 2003, it increased to 34,333 (2.1 percent), and from then to 2008 the number doubled to 68,786 (4.4 percent of the total).

I guess the question that pops in my head is whether the soldiers while in the military are getting more "out of proportion", or has the military been taking people in that are overweight from the start that they wouldn't normally take in because they are overweight? If they are taking people in now that they normally wouldn't normally recruit in the past due to being overweight, why the new lax in policy?

But this really is the trend around the country in almost anything really. I would bet the number of overweight accountants and lawyers is probably up over the last number of years as well.

CHECK BACK MONDAY

Monday I'm going to have a write up on a workout that I've been experimenting with. So make sure to check back then and take a look.

Have a good weekend.

www.leanbodyfitness.com