weight loss exercise
9 February 2010Sources: healthy weight
As the New Year's Resolution crowd looks to lose weight once again, many people are combining it with another recession-inspired resolution: managing money better.
WalletPOP's Geoff Williams has been chronicling his efforts to lose weight while saving money, and I recently looked at how exercise videos can offer an affordable alternative to the gym for fitness newcomers. Today, The Wall Street Journal reports on (subscription required) a few other possibilities: walking around the mall in groups, participating in free or ultra low-cost yoga classes, and bike paths.
Time Magazine covered the rise of mall-walking way back in 1985, and About.com recommends checking with the information desk at your local mall to find out about mall walking programs. Alternatively, you could just go to the mall and walk around on your own without the structure and motivation of companions there to talk you out of ducking into the Godiva store for refreshments.
You could also go vintage and buy this Suzanne Somers Thighmaster on eBay — complete with the instructional VHS! Or you could go really vintage — as in practically antique — and work out with Jack Lalanne, who has uploaded some of his vintage exercise programs onto his website so you can watch them on your laptop while you work out. He's 95 years old, and he's in better shape than most 20-year-olds. So clearly he knows of what he speaks.
The bottom line is that lack of money is never an excuse for not getting in shape. There are tons of alternatives to gym memberships that cost little or nothing.
The Mayo Clinic Diet: Eat Well, Enjoy Life, Lose Weight. 254 Pages. Good Books. $25.99.
The Daily Beast’s William Boot reviews bestsellers to see which, if any, are readable. This week: The Mayo Clinic Diet.
Book: The Mayo Clinic Diet
Authors: The weight-loss experts at the Mayo Clinic
Pages: 254
Readable pages: 254
Sample line: “Carbohydrates, fats, protein…oh my!”
Listen up, fatso: The Mayo Clinic Diet is the best-selling diet book in America. It’s not because of the weight-loss prescriptions, which are rather obvious (“eat a healthy breakfast”). It’s because of the book’s writing, the happiness-enriched prose that can make even the girthiest among us feel like a swimsuit model. It’s the feel-good book of the year.
“This diet is not a fad,” writes the Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Donald Hensrud, a handsome, Charlie Crist-looking figure. What Hensrud and his team want is to make your diet as unobtrusive as possible. There will be no humiliations as in NBC’s The Biggest Loser. The Mayoites urge you to “find your eating place”—the part of house you’d like to diet in. “The cool thing about burning calories,” they write, “is that the possibilities are almost endless.”
In an introductory lesson, the Mayoites suggest that you, the dieter, try to estimate half a cup of dry cereal—the point being that you’re probably eating more food than you think. Now, I know of no one, outside of a Kellogg’s executive, who would feel threatened by the outcome of this exercise. But the authors feel moved to add, “If you overestimated, don’t feel discouraged.”
Every diet promises comfort—no calculators, no food scales, etc. But The Mayo Clinic Diet is beatific in the extreme. The authors may work for one of the most cutting-edge medical facilities in the world, but they address the reader as if he or she had never before been in a supermarket. “Common opinions hold that vegetables and fruit don’t have much flavor or that they all taste the same,” they write. Held where, in kindergarten? Elsewhere: “Lettuce or fresh spinach is generally the foundation of a healthy salad.” Still elsewhere: “Keep in mind that you don’t need to like all varieties of vegetables and fruits, just some of them.”
The first section—called “Lose It!”—told me I could lose six to 10 pounds in two weeks. The advice is hearteningly intuitive. I should eat whole grains, fruits, vegetables (not all of them, just some of them). I should exercise 30 minutes a day. I should cut out sugar and snacks, and I shouldn’t eat while I watch TV. Flipping the pages, I kept waiting for the provocative angle, the hook that made The South Beach Diet or Atkins’ New Diet Revolution so memorable. But it never came, nor did any command I couldn’t perform while sitting in the business class section of Virgin Atlantic. The authors later say that this part of the book is “kind of like a boot camp.”
As the book moves from “Lose It!” to “Live It!”—aka, Week 3—a few hard numbers begin to appear. I should lose one to two pounds per week; I should eat 500 to 1,000 fewer calories a day; I should eat one-quarter of the Snickers Bar I find lying around Beast headquarters instead of the whole thing. There is plenty of smart advice: My daily serving of protein, for instance, should be no bigger than the size of a deck of cards.
The author of a diet book must be a gentle psychologist. Anyone who has picked up the thing has done so because they feel bad about themselves, because their vow to run a mile every morning has become a brisk walk to the pastry shop. The Mayo Clinic Diet tries the gentle approach. It’ll cite a “negative attitude” (“Exercise is painful and boring”) and contrast it with a “new attitude” (“I’ll call a friend to go walking and enjoy the beautiful day”). I’m guessing that most of us fall somewhere between clinical depression and unbearable happiness—and even that makes us feel better.
The Mayoites have performed a kind of provocative stunt here: they’ve done nothing provocative. They’ve put some brightly colored jogging shorts on some age-old wisdom. And one more thing: The Mayo Clinic Diet makes a bid to be the official diet of the Obama administration. The book is chock full of helpful hints called “Yes, I Can!” This is a diet for an optimistic age, for those who still believe in the audacity of hope.
Read it? Yes.
Previously reviewed William Boot:
U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton
I, Alex Cross by James Patterson
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Noah’s Compass by Anne Tyler
Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert
Plus: Check out Book Beast, for more news on hot titles and authors and excerpts from the latest books.
William Boot covered the war in Ishmaelia and wrote the Lush Places column for The Daily Beast. He now reviews commercial fiction.
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Millions of people are focusing on fast weight loss every day. It is the number one New Year's resolution for many people who go on different diets regularly, only to realize after a while that they gained all the weight back. With most people, the problem is that they do not focus on the long-term weight loss plan, but instead look for a quick magical solution to lose weight fast. In addition, people have to be realistic when setting their goals about weight loss.
Goal setting is critical to accomplishing any task, especially weight loss. Of course, you can sometimes reach your goal without having a strategy. However, scientist have found that chances of reaching the weight loss objective would be improved significantly, if the effective goal setting is utilized.
The weight loss goals must incorporate 3 points – they have to be precise, inspiring, and rewarding. For a goal to be precise, decide how much weight you want to lose and the timeframe. An inspiring goal is the goal, which motivates you to lose weight (to feel better, lower your cholesterol level, increase your energy level, decrease heart disease risk, etc.). Also, imagine the rewards after you reach your goals (better physical appearance, more active life, etc.). Connect you rewards with the accomplishments and if you hold off on rewards until you met your goal the reward will seem a lot more valuable. Commitment, dedication and time are a must for achieving your goals. Moreover, no rewarding yourself with food!
The goals can be divided into short-term (one to six months) and long-term goals (6 months to five years). When setting the goals for fast weight loss, it is important to remember the type of goals you are trying to achieve versus the timeframe as you might not be able to reach your long-term goals within a few months and might get discouraged.
The short-term goals will relate to quick weight loss, exercise, food, and other personal improvements. You have to set small achievable goals at this stage to see the progress and to reward yourself. For example, excercising a certain number of days a week, eating certain number of calories per day, eliminate certain unhealthy fatty foods from your diet, etc. Small but consistent accomplishments are more beneficial than losing 10 lbs fast and then gaining it back in a month.
If you are trying to lose over 10 lbs, it is beneficial to have a bigger picture in mind. If you generally struggle with weight loss, you know that you should have long-term goals. Decide what they should be. Drop a few sizes? Being able to run a mile or two? Being able to walk for an hour? Change your lifestyle more dramatically? Determine your final goals and what you want to achieve – in 6 months, one, two and five years. You will have to focus on the items related to the weight loss issues you generally find challenging. Do you always gain a lot of weight over the New Year's and then have to spend a month or so on a diet? Do you always gain weight on vacations or after you go out with friends? Be aware of your patterns. Know your patterns and figure out how you can maintain more stable weight over a long period of time. Plan bigger rewards for your weight loss accomplishments – a new wardrobe in a smaller size, new haircut, a vacation, etc.
Weight loss, especially fast weight loss, has to be taken seriously, as it involves a variety of issues including physical, psychological, and physiological as well as sometimes tough food choices. Therefore, setting weight loss goals is not something you can just jump into without putting much thought into it or doing prior research. Setting effective weight loss goals is a challenging task, but which will provide rewarding benefits, improving your health and increasing your life expectancy in the long run and making you feel and look better in the shorter run if you do it right.
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