March is ending, but you should be hitting your stride now. No more excuses about it being too cold out to go walking. It doesn’t take anything besides putting one foot in front of the other. Left, right, left. Left, right, left. Out the door and down the street. If you want, you don’t need an mp3 player to give yourself a beat. Hum a marching tune. “76 Trombones” comes to mind. Or try the famous song from Saturday Night Fever “Staying Alive”. It’s got the perfect pace for a nice workout. Of course you’ll need to put on your white suit like John Travolta.
TODAY: HIT THE BRICKS AND WALK.
I saw a report today from a university study in Ontario that a half hour of bicycling had the same effect as an hour and a half of moderate pedaling by simply doing 30 second “power bursts” followed by 4 minutes of slow pace cycling. It seems the same might work for other aerobic exercise like walking. Sounds like a great way to get more for less.
TODAY: TRY A POWER BURST WHEN YOU EXERCISE.
“Losing weight without speed. Eating sunflower seed.” Lyrics from one of my favorite Jimmy Buffet songs, Cheeseburger in Paradise. Based on his brief (“Made it nearly seventy days”) trial of being a vegetarian. It’s seems true. I haven’t noticed many overweight vegetarians. So this may sound odd but you can add food to your diet, not take it away, if it’s vegetables and fruit. The recommended 5-9 servings of each day may be worth a try. With that you are also getting lots of fiber and feeling more satisfied. Fruits and vegetables displace fat in the diet and re pretty good for you. More than 200 studies have documented the disease-preventing qualities of phytochemicals found in produce.
Of course the time will come when you’re ready to go back to the paradise of having a nice fat cheeseburger. Just skip the bun.
TODAY: DO STOMACH CRUNCHES (JUST SUCK IN YOUR GUT AND HOLD IT) AT REGULAR INTERVALS WHEN YOU’RE SITTING.
You’ve read it hundreds of times. Rinse, wash, repeat. Though the secret is that the directions originated from the marketing department at one of the shampoo companies. They realized that they could sell twice as much shampoo if they just told us to wash twice at a time! Well, if you approach your exercise program the same way you’ll quickly double your calorie consumption.
TODAY: EXERCISE, RELAX, REPEAT.
I’ve mentioned having two $1 double cheeseburgers and a $1 side salad from McDonald’s as a quick low cost, low carb meal. It’s quite a value, they add lettuce instead of buns and put them in a container. Years ago when the Atkins diet was first on the scene I ordered the burgers without a bun and they actually did them with all the condiments and wrapped them in paper like a regular burger.
The other day I tried Burger King to see what the same money would buy. They have Whopper Juniors for $1 but no inexpensive salad. But since the Whopper comes with lettuce and tomato I decided to order three without the buns. Well instead of the 4 patties at McDonald’s I only had three. Though they put all the salad stuff in a container it was a bit smaller in total size.
Though the char grilled flavor of the meat was a nice change, but the $3 meal at Burger King was far less filling. Because we sometimes need a quick meal on the go, the challenge will continue to other fast food establishments.
TODAY: TRY A DIFFERENT LOW COST, LOW CARB, LO CALORIE MEAL PLACE.
You always hear the advice to eat more fiber. I’ve touted Fiber One cereal as a great snack. Fiber is added to things like bread, cereal and other whole grain foods, which actually have fiber naturally. (Hence the WHOLE grain name.) You can also get more fiber by leaving the skin on fruit, eating the potato peel and by taking diet supplements. But what does it do? Well, to be frank, it cleans you out. When you digest food, some of it gets stuck or lingers in your colon. As a result you have some nasty things going on in there. Fiber acts like a magnet or a broom and takes away the… crap… that doesn’t want to move out. The fiber also absorbs water that can moisten things up and break up hard stuff. (okay… crap) So eat more fiber. It will both fill you up and empty you out.
TODAY: ADD SOME FIBER TO YOUR DAILY DIET.
Studies have found that we eat more on weekends. I hope they didn’t spend a lot of money to figure that one out. All they had to do was visit a grocery store or look at a restaurant parking lot. Anyway, it turns out that we eat about up to 115 calories more per weekend day. It may not sound like much, but that would add up to an extra pound after ten weekends. So try and avoid those extra treats.
My trick for curbing snack cravings is to use diet sodas. The extra sweetness of Diet Dr. Pepper or Root Beer seem to be very satisfying. If you need a real thirst quencher after your extra long walk (hint, hint) try diet Tonic with a squeeze of lime.
Just don’t let the weekend be a weak end to what you are achieving.
TODAY: DOUBLE UP ON YOUR WALKING.
Daily Nag, Exercise | Diet Nag | 
March 31, 2011 6:17 am | 
Comments (0) 
Subscribe