Male Weight Loss Now

Lean body mass means automatic fat burn. Use a simple exercise ball and do this everyday and you will get your body burning its own fat. Weight loss is not about thinking about dieting or exercising all of the time. It is about getting your body to do the work for you. Belly fat and love handles are typically two places that we male put our body fat. Try this out.

I pity the guys that still think that fitness needs to be hard work. The old locker room maxim, “no pain, no gain” has caused a lot of us to shy away from the exercise that our bodies need to be healthy. We are physical beings that require motion for us to operate properly.To lose weight, the male body must be utilized, but not punished.

Thanks to our military men and athletes, they have cultivated a strong sense of attention to taking care of our bodies. It is through the discipline we learn in sports, defense, and play that we already know how to condition our bodies. But for a vast majority of us, we do not exercise like we need to. Why?

We have equated exercise of fitness with pain. This is a gross misunderstanding of the “no pain, no gain” mentality. What we learned in gym class in school was to cultivate ourselves to achieve peak functioning to develop the most capable guys in class. Isn’t that the way a school needs to work? The curriculum is developed to challenge everyone to achieve. For the rest of us, though, that education was a bit “over the top.”

Training for sports and military takes this thinking to an even more intense level. Coaches know that in order to “harden” you for a game, match or combat, you need to be trained past the level at which you will see in the heat of the moment. This is where the “no pain, no gain” found firmer footing.

Before I go further, I want to remind you why exercise, and specifically strength training, is important to weight loss, just in case you may have forgotten. Given that your body has a lot of stored fat, you need to somehow expend this unwanted store of fat usually takes the form of belly fat and love handles for us men.

The good news is that you can use your body to burn its own fat. How? Metabolism is the technical term used to refer to the burning of energy in your body – fat, calories etc. One of the biggest determinants of how fast you burn fat is increased by a high percentage of lean body mass.

Lean body mass is basically the “you” minus all the fat. It is the weight of just your bones, muscle, organs, blood and fluids. The higher the percentage of lean body mass of your total body mass, the faster you will burn fat. Every time you exercise (and I mean every time), you build a little more lean body mass. The little additional body mass you build in exercise translates directly into more stored fat calories burned per hour.

I want to tell you right here and now, that to lose weight and get fit, there is no reason to be in pain in order to get fit. Let me tell you the reasons pain is actually an obstacle to losing weight:

1. You Won’t Show Up – think about it, if you know that something is going to be painful, how often will you really show up to do your daily activity? Whether it is running, lifting weights, climbing stairs, or floor exercises, most of us won’t even show up because of the pain. I don’t blame you. Who wants pain. The better path is to work in a routine that does not hurt and then actually do it.
2. Your Form Will Suck – now that you are doing your routine, first of all, congratulations on showing up! If for whatever reason you are doing a routine that requires a lot of pain, it is most likely that the form you utilize will be sub par. You will likely lift more weight than you should and then screw-up your face, writhe, decrease your range of motion, do far too few reps, and execute an overall poor isolation of the muscle group your are intending to work. I see it every day at the gym. Usually it is young guys that are trying to show off to other people what a man they are. The fact is that nobody in the gym really cares what anyone else is doing except themselves (and they are hoping you watch them).
   
3. Can’t Do This Forever - many young guys can take a lot of pain and still keep motoring through their workouts. You may even enjoy the idea that working heavily into your pain zone can create incredible results. For those guys who are getting amazing results, I am not writing this. I am talking to you. In order for a fitness program to help you lose weight, it needs to be sustainable through many years. You cannot beat yourself to death doing painful exercises for years. Stick with a reasonable path and I guarantee you will get results.

OK, so here is what to do.

Whatever fitness routine or exercise program you are doing is just fine. If you want suggestions on a routine, check out my fitness routine and see if you might be able to adapt it for yourself.

Do some kind of cardio exercise. Cardio does not necessarily burn stored fat, but rather uses up “todays calories.” However, most cardio exercises build tone, which is a good basic starting point to build further muscle mass. If you have ever swam, walked, run, climbed stairs for a few days you will notice a good general firmness in the legs (and arms if you swim).

Do some type of strength training. You need to work the major muscle groups…abdomen, chest, bicep, triceps, back and shoulders. If you do not like going to the gymn, you can get a fitness ball and some hand weights to build lean body mass. Start basic and do 15 minutes of training at first and keep the amount of weight you lift low.

Don’t let pain get in your way. Get your exercise. Get muscle. You will lose weight. It is only a matter of time.

I know you probably already know these basics for weight loss, but just in case, let me repeat them.  If you want to lose weight you need to do only two things:

1. Eat less calories daily so that your body stops the continuous storage of more fat

and

2. Exercise daily so that your body continuously uses the existing excess fat .

Note a couple of carefully chosen and  important words in what I wrote above. Daily - when you are eating and exercising in a healthy manner every day, you get results. These daily routing eventually turn into habits. The other important word here is continuous. What I am emphasizing here,  is that when you eat and exercise right, it is not you that is burning the fat…..it is your body that will do it for you….continuously. This is good news, because when you think that you need to do the work of weight loss, that is a huge job.  I am talking about letting your body do the work for you. All you have to do is show up. And that is what I am writing about today.

I am certain that you understand all of  this. But today, I want to focus on the exercise part. Intellectually, I know that you know you need to exercise. Many of the guys I know have a real hard time sticking to an exercise schedule on a daily basis.  If you find it hard to find time to exercise, you are not alone. If you are not used to exercising, it is a big change in your life. But given the above two facts, do you really have a choice?  In case we males do not recognize it already, we already follow routines. Why not create some healthy routines?

To get the daily habit of exercising, you need to do the following five things:

1. Decide that you are important enough to be able to lose weight. Sometimes we men think that other people are more important in our lives than we are. Yes, wives, girlfriends, children, and friends are important. And since they are important, you are already making time for them, right? But unless you realize that you cannot be your best unless your are putting your health first, you will not be able to serve them 100%. So decide right now…..is your health important enough to you, so that you make the decision to lose the gut. Seriously!

2. Pick a time to exercise. Now that you have decided that this is important, you need to choose a time to exercise. Early mornings usually have the least activities to compete with. I used to workout at lunch time at work because it got me more energized to finish the second half of the work day after a good workout. My brother likes to go to the gymn in the evening. Pick a time.

3. How often? You need to get in at least 3 to 4 workouts per week. In the early part of your exercise program, I find that it is better to increase the number of workouts to 5 or more per week, and keep the workouts very light. Do some walking, light weights, pushups, situps. Just get busy and do something. Do not over think what you should do. Just do something. Choosing both some cardio exercise and strength training is wise.

4. Just Do It. This is the hairy part. When the moment rolls around and it is time to start working out, guys get distracted easily. Perhaps it seems like the first step of a journey of a thousand miles that makes it seem impossible. (By the way, you will be pleasantly surprised that you can lose weight everyday. Once you are in the habit you will see the progress).  Or, maybe it’s just laziness. And let’s talk about laziness. That is not character assassination on my part. Laziness is only a pattern that we fall into. It’s a choice not to participate. It is so highly changeable, guys. You already have the desire to participate as a healthy, energetic and handsome man by the fact that you are reading this. If you can think, you can do it.  Just Do it!

5. Put Systems in Place – when it comes time to exercise, get technology or people working for you. In the morning, there are many ways of getting your ass out of bed to exercise:

• Alarm clock
• Cell phone alarms
• Have someone you know who is awake in the morning to send you a text message or call you
• Have your wife or girlfriend nudge you out of the covers
• Have a workout buddy that depends on your to show up

At other times of the day, you have all of the above options and more:

• Electronic calendars of all types – iPhone aps, Google Calendar, Miscrosoft Outlook
• Family calendar on the refrigerator or kitchen wall. When you have negotiated time to exercise, make sure that everyone knows about so that you get the exercise you need.

I care about you and want you to live a long healthy life, be energetic and get what you want. Please do your workout. I promise that you will feel great everyday.

Update: Weekend Warrior Challenge – June 2010

On a separate but related topic, here are my result for the Weekend Warrior Challenge of June 2010. I completed the following things:

1. Walked 5 times last week for 5 miles each time. I only signed for 4 times, so I actually exceeded my goal for the week.

2. I did 3 strength training sessions last week, even though my goal was for 4. So I am under plan here.

3. No dessert for the weekend. I technically did not have dessert, but I did have dinner rolls with honey on them at my Dad’s house on Sunday. So this is a technical victory.

My friends below also participated in the challenge:

Tara at 263 and counting
Brandon at So Long Fat Ass
Rinn at Ring Around Rinn
Frank at Male Weight Loss Now
Joe at Joe the Runner
Vinny at Fat to Fit Diary
Molly at Fluffy Girl
Shelli at Shelli Belly
Jeremy at Stellar Path

I don’t know about you, but I was born lazy. I don’t like to work any more than I need to. That includes exercise. So if you think this article is about working out or exercising hard, you’re in the wrong place ! BUT, if you want to lose weight without working out hard, you need to read this article completely.

I think we need to be more like animals in nature. I like watching those nature programs. The BBC created a documentary called “Planet Earth” that I recently watched in its entirety.  I particularly appreciate those male lions lying out there on the Savannah. That is the way we need to be. This is purely natural for these powerful animals. It’s also natural for us.

In order to lose weight, exercise is necessary only as much, as your body naturally loses its own weight. If you look at ads for weight loss, you see a lot of glissening bodies of muscular male and female models working out.  I can tell you that I look great too, but I only spend 35 minutes in the gym 4 times per week.

Here are the scientific facts of how your body really loses weight on your behalf:

1. Resting Metabolism Rate - this is the number of calories your body burns per day while you are doing absolutely nothing…watching TV, sleeping,  arranging your little animals in Farmville. It is roughly approximated by the Harris-Benedict equation. This formula is the result of scientific studies and estimates your calorie burn rate (calories per day) based on age, gender, weight and height. If you are already eating less than this amount, you are already losing weight and  would most likely not even be reading this article. If not, read on…

2. Basal Metabolism Rate – Depending on your activity level, you can actually find out how many calories you will burn per day. This applies a factor to the calorie amount in Step #1 above based on your activity level. To lose weight, you need to eat less calories than this resulting number. This activity level elevates your metabolism both during activity and for a few hours after your activity. The problem is that for guys that need to lose a lot of weight, getting the cardio ramped up to a level where it really starts to burn significant calories is just not going to happen early on in the program. That is why the big burn comes from strength training.

3.Strength Training – This is the BIG BURN. When you build muscle mass, you are increasing the calorie burn all day long. You heard that right…..When you have increased your lean body mass with strength training,  you’re burning calories all day, not only while you exercise like aerobic activity. This is because when you do strength training, you are tearing down your muscles. When you tear muscles, the body repairs them with calories, nutrients and vitamins that you eat.  When muscles are torn, they repair WAY stronger than before. So your body is using up calories to build your muscles.

Here’s What To Do

From an interesting article on Strength Training and Weight Loss, it’s necessary to do about 30 minutes of strength training 2 to 3 times per week in order for your body to lose its own weight. Strength training for weight loss is the use of external resistance of exercise motion, against your normal muscular contraction to build muscle.

If you look at my strength training program, you’ll see that I utilize two separate workouts so that I don’t do the same workout, 2 days in a row. This is because muscles need some time to repair and I don’t want to work these muscles in two consecutive days.

1. Create a list of strength training exercises that you will do today. You need to work all the major muscle groups – chest, back, shoulder, triceps, biceps, abdomen, calfs, quadriceps, hamstrings. For today, choose only four of these – maybe work on chest, biceps, shoulders and quads.

2. Create a second list of strength training exercises that you will do tomorrow. Remember to include work on the abdomen muscles. Note that you cannot “spot remove” belly fat or love handles (or anywhere else either) by doing any type of strength training. Weight loss can only happen by reducing body fat evenly over the body.

3. Perform #1 and #2 alternatively throughout the week. At least two times per week. It is not necessary to do a total of more than 5 total workouts per week.

So, now you have 2 lists of exercises that you need to do to accomplish your weight loss goals. The best thing is to start right now. Notice, I didn’t say that you have to do these in a gym. For instance for chest, you can just do push-ups on your living room floor. So start now, with 15 push-ups.

Stay tuned. Due to the fact that strength training has such a profound impact on male weight loss, I will be writing in much more detail for your benefit.  Let me know what kinds of questions that you have by writing in the comments area. Thanks for stopping by.

In the last 32 years, I’ve worked hard to lose weight, only to learn early this year that weight loss isn’t really about exercise at all. Seriously, I’ve jogged literally thousand of miles and sweated on gleaming exercise equipment on 5 separate continents. I thought all of this time, that exercise was the disposal system for my calorie extravagances. The answer is, I was wrong. The male belief that we need to “burn off” excess calories to drop the belly fat, is absolutely wrong.

Sure, you’re going to burn some calories and some fat while you exercise. No doubt about it. But weight loss (specifically, fat loss) is going to happen for the most part when you aren’t exercising. Your body’s going to do it on its own without your direct involvement.

Yesterday the New York Times published an article that confirms what I know is the real truth about weight loss. A quote from this article states it all, “In general, exercise by itself is pretty useless for weight loss.” There are a lot of reasons for this. Among them are:

1. You may end up consuming more calories when your exercise. If you feel (either psychologically, physiologically or otherwise)  you need to eat more or drink energy or protein drinks because of your new exercise regime, you are adding weight
2. Your body wants to maintain its current situation. Its hormones and processes will adjust themselves to keep things as they are. Specifically your appetite may be adjusted by hormones in your system, to keep your appetite at its current level.
3. Only moderate exercise is needed by the body.

But strength training is a great way to keep weight off once you do lose weight. Your metabolism rate (number of calories your body burns per day) is effected by your lean body mass. Lean body mass is your body weight minus all the fat. The higher your lean body mass, the more likely you will burn more calories simply by doing nothing. So, you always want to do exercises that build your muscle mass. Muscle mass is like a big flywheel that burns calories on your behalf. But just remember, do not expect an immediate calorie burn from strength training. This simply is not going to happen.

Unless your body has less fuel than it needs, your body will maintain “business as usual.” Plain and simple – You need to put your body in a calorie deficit. You need to consume less calories than your body needs every day. It must be a habit.

All these years, the reason I stayed in pretty good shape was because of the eating habits that I adopted many years ago – balance and moderation. It was not about exercise at all. Luckily I know now that the answer is really about eating less calories than I need per day.

The Problem

One of the biggest questions that guys have about weight loss,  is how to get rid of belly fat.  Belly fat is a nuisance. I know that the only thing you want to do with belly fat is to kill it. You  don’t want to talk about, or complain about it or even exercise it. You just want to point a laser gun at the blob, and zap it into vapor.

Belly fat is what being fat is all about. The love handles are sort of Baja-fat – it is just belly fat that hangs over your hips and bulges out of your shirt. In this article I am going to tell you how to lose belly fat. Let me tell you a few things first.

The health risks associated with belly fat are huge. Because of all of the six pack ab adverts out there on the net and TV, the advertisers  give you the definite belief, that you need to exercise your belly fat away. Well, they are at least a little correct, but mostly wrong. They want you to buy their products. Don’t be fooled into buying their crap.

Don’t Get Fooled

Doing intensive ab work – crunches, tightening muscles, hundreds of push-ups is not going to make your belly fat go away. Most likely, it may actually increase your abdomen size. This is because, without removing belly fat, your ab work WILL build muscle below the established fat layers. This increased muscle will bulge your belly out further.

In order to have six pack abs, you need to remove the layers of subcutaneous fat that lies over whatever muscle is there. While you are doing that, you need to slowly build the underlying muscle. The truth is that you can only get six pack abs by reducing belly fat. In order to reduce belly fat, you will also be reducing your overall body fat. Makes sense, right?

Here’s What To Do

Here are the two things that you need to do:

• Eat Within Limits – you need to eat less calories than your body needs.  Your body is like an inbox for food. Only, in this case,  when the inbox is overflowing, the body stores the food as fat. There is too much food going into your body, than is getting used. In this case you get fatter because your body is over-fed. You need to find out how much food your body needs and eat less than that. It is that simple.

• Exercise Daily – the male human being is an animal. All animals are physical beings that are designed to use their bodies regularly. We are not designed to sit and watch TV, play video games or eat for sport.  Create an exercise program that suits you. Many guys hate working out. I know how they feel. I have been in the situation also and it is the reason I am writing you now. But most guys think that exercising needs to hurt. It doesn’t. It does not need to hurt, but you need to get moving.  You need to get both cardio exercise (exercising using your lungs and heart) and strength training. Cardio burns fat now. Strength training builds lean body mass that increases your metabolism rate, which burns calories all day long on your behalf.  Metabolism is like a flywheel on your car – get that thing turning and it keeps burning and burning calories. Just do it.

Steps 1 and 2 must become a habit.  You have a problem with food and exercise. You need new habits. That means, you must know a day before what you will eat (and not eat) and you need to know at what time you will  exercise the next day.  This does not happen naturally. When you plan a specific time to exercise, only then will you do it.

What Will Likely Go Wrong

Now here is what is going to happen. You will start your “habit” for one day and you will feel good about it. The next day, maybe you will do it again, but the thrill of having achieved your food and exercise goal will be gone. Even worse, you will still see yourself as a fat man. This is the critical point. Stay with me here. This is where your breakthrough will occur.

Whether you can see it or not, even one day of exercising and eating within bounds will have an effect. It will reverse weight gain. In a week’s time, you will be able to measure weight loss. Within your new habits, you are not wasting any effort. It is an investment and it is paying off. Give it time and effort.

Be easy but firm with yourself.   If you have finally decided to lose the gut, you will see that the two steps above are  really a simple recipe.  It is like knowing the recipe for a ham and cheese sandwich. The recipe is bread, ham and cheese. There is not much thinking required….you just need to do it.

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It is the weekend now, where I live. Many people use the weekend to relax and take it easy after a busy week. It is nice to get up at 9 or 10 am and have a slow day. You probably get even less activity on the weekend than during the weekdays. You know what I mean….football games, movies, TV, and elbows on the table (know what I mean?). Weight loss is a 7 day per week event and you need to watch what you do on the weekend also. You may not be surprised to hear the fact that in 2002, 25 percent of adult Americans did not participate in any leisure time physical activities in the past month (see source below).

Normally, I get in about 4 trips to the gymn per week. While I am at the gymn, my routine consists of three unique types of activities:

1. Mild stretching (touch the toes, calf stretch)
2. 1 hour walk on treadmill at 3.7 mph (with cool down period of 5 minutes, a total of 4 miles walking)
3. 35 minutes of weights.

I am pretty happy with this routine. I have been doing this routine since my arthroscopic surgey in September 2009. Prior to that, I used to run 4 miles instead of walking. For now, the running is out of the question, because of the damage it has done to me left knee. But I am OK with walking.

I used to be a pretty intense individual and ran 5 miles per day, 5 times a week from 1978 until about 1995. I used to run with colleagues at work at lunch. After I started doing weights again in 1995 regularly, I dropped back to 4 miles in addition to the weight program. Walking on the treadmill is not as exciting or spirited as running with the guys, but I don’t mind.

For weights, I alternate two separate routines so that I am not working the same muscle groups day upon day. Here are my two routines. I work these exercises in a circuit – meaning, I do one of each of these exercises on the list and then go back and do two more sets (a total of 3 sets):

Weight Routine #1 - Triceps, Back, Forearms & Core (3 Sets)

Exercise	Reps	Weight
Crunches on Exercise Ball	30	NA
Lat Pulldown - machine	15	130 lbs
Tricep Pulldown - machine	15	70 to 80 lbs
Seated Row - machine	15	95
Forearm Curls - barbells	15	90
Torso Rotation - machine	15	110
Side Crunches - back hyperextension thingy	15	NA

Weight Routine #2 - Chest, biceps, shoulders, core and traps (3 sets)

Exercise	Reps	Weight
Chest Press - machine	15	130lbs
Bicep Curl - machine	15	95 to 105 lbs
Shoulder Press - machine	15	65 lbs
Incline Press - dumbells at 45 degrees	15	45 lbs
Shoulder Shrugs - dumbbells	15	95 lbs/arm
Chest Flies - dumbbells	15	50 lbs/arm
Roman Chair	20 raises	NA

Just now, after I began writing this article, I got excited about working out, and so I went to the gymn, did my schtick and just got home.  I like the feeling of having the power and peace in my bones and muscles after I workout. I did routine #1. I realized while I was there, that there are few other details that I always follow with the above routines.

My rules for myself:

1. Before each exercise, I take 10 DEEP breaths. These are not the kind of breaths that your brain tells you about. These are the deep breaths that your lungs and body need. If while taking one of these breaths, I feel a little faint or winded, I am breathing way too fast. Let your lungs tell you how long your breaths need to be. Turn your brain off.  Be nice to yourself – you only get one body per person.
2. After doing each exercize, I immediately walk to the next station on the circuit. There, I take the above breaths before the next thing I do.
3. If I need to stop in the middle of a set of weights for any reason, that means I add one extra repetition to that set of weights, for each hesitation.  No exceptions. You need to have firm, but supporting  rules for yourself.

I am feeling good now. How about you? Are you getting any exercise? As a reminder, I am not talking about making any changes. I have some weight to lose also.  The above routines are what I really do, at least four times per week. Take a look at what you do. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in their publication “Dietary Guidelines for Americans -2005″, recommends that you need at least 30 minutes of exercise daily (that means 7 days),  beyond what is part of your normal daily routines (driving, walking around at work,  housework, brushing your teeth, etc..).

Don’t change anything yet. Why? Because, when you start making daily changes based upon things you hear or read or listen to (including this and my other articles in this series), you make half-hearted changes that don’t last.  New Years resolutions are the perfect example of empty promises.  Listen to the whole story and make small and lasting changes. Next time I will talk to you about making changes.

Source – Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Surveillance for Certain Health Behaviors Among Selected Local Areas—United States, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 2002, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), 53, No SS-05. http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/.

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As time goes by, I am becoming increasingly skeptical of PURE physical fitness programs for male weight loss. You may think that this is pure lunacity. Maybe it  is equally valid for both the male and female, but most easily overlooked for us guys. Honestly, beating yourself to death at the gymn needs to be balanced by your powerful inner conditions.  I recently saw a useful article by Jody Page of  Pacific Weight Loss “Male Fitness – Effective or Not.”

In this piece, Jody mentions the need for fitness, and being fit, is naturally an important part of living a longer life. But you already knew that. But perhaps what you do not know, is that your health, in general, is determined heavily by your inner strength.  By inner strength, I refer to the quality of your emotional state. In other words, are you emotionally feeling good? Can you easily correct bad moods? Are you more likely to be optimistic than pessimistic? Can you keep you mind from wondering into worry, anger or fear? Over a lifetime, negative feelings will drain you of energy that your body needs to live a longer life.

This same type of thinking can improve your fitness incredibly. When you are doing any type of fitness, clear your mind of any negative feelings. ANY amount of negative emotional energy you carry into your fitness program, the less you can focus on looking and feeling better physically. Believe it. Keep your emotional house clean and your progress will explode.

Jody mentions using yoga or meditation to manage your personal state. My experience says that one of the side benefits of exercising is better emotion control. Many years ago, I used to work as a field engineer at a construction site for a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. This was in the post-Three Mile Island-era when the nuclear industry was in a “melt-down.” There was always a lot of pressure in maintaining the construction schedule and maintaining quality. To manage my attitude, I used to exercise before I got to the job site each morning.  I was smooth all day as a result of my fitness regime. So it works, as long as you do it.

So, long story short,  you can see that it is sort of a “Catch 22″ situation: more exercise lowers stress, but you need to lower your stress to have enough energy to make fitness effective.  But the only thing you need to remember from this, is just do a little bit every day in managing your emotion and fitness. Every little bit not only helps, but works.

Get your free E-Book on how to lose belly fat now – Click the book image to your left – provide your name and e-mail address and you will be reading this book in minutes – FREE.