Diets, Schmiets and Other Pfiffle According to everybody,
everybody is fat. And everybody who is somebody is saying that
everybody is getting fatter. So everybody wants everybody on a
diet. Who is kidding who? Everybody has been on a diet. Diets
don?t work; unless, of course, you are selling a diet plan.
Diets are big business. And the bigger the muffins and trailers
on the American people, the bigger the business will be. If you
have not been on a diet, you have missed the joys of
deprivation, not knowing if the thing is going to work for you
and final failure. Even if you loose weight, in nothing flat you
went back to being fat. If you have been on a diet, or two or
three, you probably are sick of them and have no intent of going
back on one again until your doctor tells you that if you don?t
lose weight your are going to get all sorts of diseases, your
body will fall apart and all those other things that doctors
tell you. Before that happens, you don?t have to pay for some
off the wall diet plan, ?medically proven? with tons of
testimonials, to stop gaining weight. Notice I said ?stop
gaining weight.? That is the critical first step. If you can
just stop gaining weight, you can start losing weight without
going on some ridiculous diet that will probably fail anyway.
Let?s look at it. If you consume 200 calories more per day than
you burn up, you will store about 6000 calories more energy than
you need. That means that you will gain about 1 ? pounds per
month. That is like 18 pounds per year. Just 200 calories is
enough to do you in big time. If you are now not gaining weight
or gaining less than 1 ? pound per month, you are golden. If you
are maintaining your weight now, all that you have to do is get
rid of 200 calories per day and you will lose 1 ? pounds per
month. So how to do that? Elliptical exercise machines burn
about 700 calories per hour. So 20 minutes per day on an
elliptical exercise machine will do it. Walking for an hour will
do it. Substituting water for two glasses of 2 glasses of your
soft drink or a single beer should do it. Trade a hamburger for
two oranges and you will be surprised what happens. It is very
simple. You just have to make sure that the amount of calories
you put in equals the amount of calories that you burn. But as
simple as it is, it is very difficult to do because all that
calorie counting is a pain. It is all a shot in the dark, you
don?t have any idea about what you are doing and it is just
plain frustrating. So how did I solve my own problem? First I
did exactly what I said above. I started walking an hour per day
and moved to water from soft drinks. Bingo. My weight started
down. Then I decided to get serious. Having been frustrated with
calorie counting before, I looked for a simple way to keep track
of my calories on my computer. I found this thing called the
Balance Log. It turned out to be great. Not only don?t I have to
look for calories per serving in a book or on the web, I have a
complete record of what is going on with my daily, weekly and
monthly calorie intake and expenditure. It tells me exactly
where I stand for a day and how much exercise I need to make up
for those things that I ate that I should not have eaten. Now I
eat almost 2000 calories per day and lose weight. I eat more now
than when I was gaining weight. How do I do it? I found that my
basic calorie burn rate is about 1620 calories per day. So as
long as I don?t exceed 1620 calories intake per day, I can sit
at the computer and not gain weight. If I want to lose weight, I
can walk and burn about 250 calories per hour. So since I enjoy
the time away from the computer, I do walk. Sometimes I walk for
an hour and sometimes I break it up into 15 or 20 minute walks.
I burn about 250 calories per day walking. But then I looked for
something that would give me exercise while I watched the daily
news. That would be time efficient for me since I would better
use my ?couch potato time?. I chose an elliptical exercise
machine because it is low impact and burns over 700 calories per
hour. Now let?s add it up. I start with 1620 calories, add to it
250 for walking and 700 for an ? hour session for the morning
news and a ? hour session for the evening news. That is a
banging 2570 calories that I can eat. Now, for my personal
situation, if I eat 2000 calories per day, I lose about 12
pounds per month. I adjust my exercise schedule to my weight
loss / weight gain requirements. I have my cherry pie, my beer,
my wine, my ice cream and all those things that diets schmietes
and other pfiffle say I can?t. And my muscles have developed. I
owe it first to the Balance Log that opened my eyes and made
things easy. Once I could monitor what was happening with my
body, I was stimulated and could set a goal. My goal was to eat
and enjoy life and lose weight without the deprivations of a
diet. That lead me to look at various exercise machines. I chose
the elliptical trainer. Balance log has a free 2 week trial
version that you can use on your PDA and or computer. And it can
be used for all the members of your family or company. (Each
gets its own password.) If nothing else, looking at what it
tells you will allow you to set up your own unique approach to
maintaining your own unique body. You can get more information
about it at Balance
Log So forget the diets, schmiets and other pfiffle. Just
step back and look at what is going in and out. It only takes as
little as 200 calories a day change.
About the author:
Gary Granai is a publisher of the Eastern European Review Blog
and several web sites that are related to Eastern Europe. His
site is at
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