Male Weight Loss Now

To lose weight you simply need to eat less calories daily. This video shows you exactly how many calories your body needs and how to calculate the number of calories for weight loss. This video is for male and female alike and gives a precise number of food calories that you need to starting burning belly fat and love handles today.

I just wish that someone had told me how I could lose weight by eating snacks. It is a fact that  if you don’t know what you’re going to eat, you will overeat. It isn’t really a mystery why you’re overweight, is it? Another fact – food creates people. Unless you are made of gravel or ball bearings, you cannot live without food, you will not grow and will die. On the other hand, if you eat, your healthy well prosper. And taking this just a little bit further, the more food, the bigger the male you will become. Weight loss happens when you systematically eat on plan a known amount of food. Period.

What I have found is that when I plan my snacks, there are two important things that are solved that are essential to lose weight. Without these two things you will go astray and end up a little rounder than you like.  In order for a snack to help you lose weight, it must have or be:

1. Known calorie count - when you know what are going to eat, you know exactly how many calories you will ingest. When you command your daily calorie total, your body will begin to take over the controls and will lose weight on your behalf. Be read to count,weigh or measure to pack only a predetermined number of calories with you .

2. Planned snack time – as strange as it might seem, you do need to eat to lose weight. If you don’t eat regularly, your metabolism takes a siesta.  Although your metabolism never really stops (unless you’re dead), it does get lazy when you do not give it fuel. Also when you go hungry all day, you are going to binge and think that it is OK. It isn’t OK. You should eat every 3 to 4 hours to keep your motor running.

Here are ten snacks that I have used that I would suggest you consider:

1. Sliced Vegetables - carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, or anything else. In the early days of losing weight, I would carry a resealable bags of baby carrots with me. Maybe not your first choice for a snack, but you cannot beat vegetables for nutritional value. It surprised me how quickly I got accustomed to eating carrots. The one aspect about is that I can eat more vegetables without worrying about calories, so that I get satisfied by “filling up.”

2. Fruit - apples, oranges, pears, grapes or whatever you like. The advantage of fruit is that there is nothing you need to do to prepare it. You just grab it and take it with you…ok, well you will need to put grapes in a bag of some kind otherwise they will roll around on the car floor.

3. Yogurt - either guys love or hate yogurt. I love it, because I like sweets and yogurt is a good proxy for something sweet that I shouldn’t be eating. There’s a lot of good stuff going on in yogurt. The best thing about yogurt, is there isn’t any preparation required. All you need is a spoon. Or better yet, just shake it and drink it!

4. Raisins – being nothing but dried grapes, I could have included them in the list under fruit above. But, there is one aspect of raisins that I believe deserves special mention. Raisins are really easy to carry around and can go places (like in your pocket) that most other food cannot. They’re nearly indestructible but make sure you count them in advance so that you know how many calories you’re getting. It would be very easy to eat fists of these things with the heel of your hand.

5. Snack Bars – these can range from granola bars (on the lower end of the calorie scale) to energy bars on the high end. Snack bars rank the easiest of snack foods because they are manufactured specifically for the on-the-go eater. This is the first choice of many of my clients for snacks.

6. Hard Boiled Egg - the great thing about a hard boiled egg, is that it is about the nearest thing to being as satisfying as meat. A hard boiled egg is easy to transport, you do not need to worry about breaking it, because you will break it. Carry a little package of salt, if you so desire.

7. Rice Crackers – usually you can find these in the “healthy eating” section of the grocery store. These crackers are sold in a bag and come in plain, cheese, caramel corn flavors and probably more. The brand I buy has about 70 calories for 9 cheese flavored crackers. The good and bad news is that these crackers really taste good. You MUST (I repeat must) separate yourself from the bag, otherwise you will eat the whole thing. Ask me how I know!

8. Nuts – almonds, peanuts, cashews are good choices, but make sure that you know how many calories are in these guys before you take them with you. Remember to count how many you pack. Don’t go hog wild with a big bag.

9. Trail Mix – although intended as a high energy snack for high country people, trail mix is a healthy alternative to binge eating. Although trail mix tends to be very high in calories, all you need to do is read the label, measure it out and put it in a baggie.

10. Pretzels – without the beer.

So, there you have it, 10 snacks. These should give you plenty of reason to make sure that you do not skip meals. Take these snacks with you. You need to realize that these snacks will work for you to lose weight, if you make a habit of eating on cue. Whichever snack you choose, make sure that you have it available for where you are going for the day. Put them in your briefcase, lunch box, or in a bag in the car seat next to you. Better yet, buy snacks that you can keep in the car and do not even have to remember to take with you. Please do not skip meals. You’ll get fat.

Eating out and weight loss are not mutually exclusive. You can eat what you want and still burn belly fat. The biggest perennial failure in losing weight is when you follow hard and fast rules. Because when the male follows hard and fast rules, and then falls off the wagon, he goes into a tail spin. He thinks he will never lose weight because he fucked up. Not true!

You will need to learn to be smart though. I am not trying to tell you that you can go out and eat whatever the hell you want, though. That will not work for you, because if it did, you would not be here reading this piece. Right? In this snippet of wisdom, I am going to give you some ideas about how to be smart about eating, so that you can be, look and feel great.

OK, so what is the big issue here? Let me characterize it for you. The question is: how can I lose weight when I eat out when the restaurant I eat at does not publish nutritional information (specifically calories)? That is the problem. You may abhor watching your calorie intake, but if you want to burn belly fat, love handles and the dreaded “chin meat,” you are going to have to pay attention to what you put in the tank.  Here are some suggestions for you when deciding to eat out:

1. Ask For Calorie Totals – I do this when I go to restaurants. I ask the waitress, manager or owner for the calorie totals for the food that I am eating. If I am regular at that restaurant, you can be sure that they are going to do their best to accommodate. Let these people know what you want. Most of the time, I find that people really want to do their best for you. When you ask them to do something that is of great importance to you, they will often try to find out how to do help you. If you ask, you may well get it. If not, well, you gave it your best shot.

2. Be Selective – decide to eat only at places where you can find the calorie totals for what you will eat. I ate at Panera yesterday with my son, and like clockwork, they had nutritional information and could tell me that my bowl of cream chicken soup with rice was 320 calories and the piece of baguette was 150 calories.

3. The Restaurant “Worst Case” Scenario - this is the case where you are either in a restaurant, bar or someone’s house and they are serving something and you will never be given nutritional information. This is the case when you will need to get even more smart. Here is what I do:

• Use menu to find out the major ingredients – write them down or use your iPhone or other device to record these ingredients
• Look at the food – and estimate what ingredient uses up the most “real estate” of the dish. For instance, if it is a pasta dish, estimate about how much pasta is in there. Write it down Then look at the next most important ingredient, estimate it and write it down. Rinse and repeat…
• If you are with someone – ask them to help you try to figure this out with you, if you feel comfortable. If you are on a date, this might not work, but then again, who knows.
• When you get home – assess calorie amounts to the lists that you made. Health Canada has a great reference resource to find out a vast amount of nutritional information  for some common foods - click here to get your very own copy – Thanks Canada!

Also make sure that you include drinks in your calorie totals. Losing weight does not need be painful, but it does need to get done. As I always say, “you don’t need to like it, but you need to do it.” Lose weight now to save your life, to improve your health and to look God-awful handsome.

Well-intentioned or not, skipping breakfast actually packs on the pounds. Maybe you are just  too busy to eat in the morning or think that you will lose weight if you don’t eat breakfast. It doesn’t matter. Statistics show that if you do not eat breakfast, you are highly likely to get fat (or fatter). If you think you are cutting calories, or dieting by not eating breakfast, think again.

The better news, is that if you eat anything for breakfast, your body will automatically favor fat burn – all day long.

Here are some facts about this:

1. Upon Awakening – when you wake up, you will have already gone without eating for 6 to 8 hours. If you do not eat for another 6 to 8 hours, you will have gone without food for 12 to 16 hours. Your metabolism will have slowed considerably. Slower metabolism, slows your fat burn rate.  Therefore, you are not burning the fat reserves in your body. Most likely, you are not only NOT  losing fat, but gaining belly fat, love handles and chin meat (you know…..the jowls), because of the eating your are doing during the pig-out sessions throughout the uncontrolled eating portion of your day.

2. Statistics Show – research done by the National Weight Control Registry has shown that members that have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off (although the average weight lost per member is 66 pounds), 78% of them eat breakfast everyday. WebMD states that eating early in the day jumps starts the metabolism and keeps you from going into “starvation eating,” which is very uncontrollable.

Here’s What To Do:

Just eat something for breakfast. Something healthy, is preferable but  start by just eating anything – breakfast bar, half of a bagel or tortilla smeared with peanut butter.  What you want from a good breakfast is carbohydrates, fiber and protein.

You might be surprised to hear that carbohydrates are important. Carbohydrates are sort of the kick-start of the metabolic system in the morning. Carbohydrates gets the fat burning machinery running hot. But you want to eat the carbohydrates that include fiber. Why? Because: 1) fiber fills you up and makes you satisfied and 2) excellent for the exhaust system. Protein is necessary because it essentially, “sticks to your ribs,” and acts like “time release” calories in your system.  These calories do not get burned as fast a carbohydrate calories.

Here is the breakfast I eat on most weekdays.

• 1-1/2 Cups Bran Flakes
• 1 Cup 2% Milk
• 2 Tablespoon Flax seed
• 2 Tablespoon Wheat Germ

Why do I eat the flax seed and wheat germ? I have experienced higher cholosterol levels and flax seed has been shown to lower total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol (the bad kind). Wheat germ is the reproductive part (oooh, sexy) of the wheat plant. When you get refined wheat products (bread, cereal, etc), these naughty bits are taken out (who knows why?).  Wheat germ has a lot of vitamin E, zinc, and loaded with fiber. Oh, and I drink 2 – 12 ounce glasses of water before I eat anything.

Here are a few simple breakfast meal ideas that you can eat quickly.

Other Good Breakfast Choices:

Oatmeal – skip the sugar and put fruit on it instead

Hard boiled egg

Yogurt

Stay away from fruit juices and stick to whole fruit because fruit juice sometimes does not contain the fiber you need.

So, Here’s a crazy thought…..eat and lose weight.

4 Aces – Plus! I wish I had blue face paint. Because if I did, I would have put it on and a kilt to boot. I screamed results this last week. As you remember, I had a  pre-challenge goal of first breaking the 200 pound glass floor. I broke through On Friday, achieving 199 pounds. I had a private male smirk going on, as I strutted in slow motion from the gym scale.

On to the rest of my weight loss goals:

1. Win #1 – Kept the average calorie intake below the 2,000 calorie level. Specifically 1,787 calories was the average from Sunday April 25 through Saturday May 1, 2010.

2. Win #2 – The goal was to walk 25 miles last week. I actually walked 35 miles and loved it.

3. Win #3 – The goal was to do strength training 5 times. Right on the money.

Something I also did last week that I would never have considered…….I fasted for the first time in my life. I actually did not eat for a whole day on Thursday, because I pigged out on Wednesday. I really screwed the pooch with a 3,838 calorie day on Wednesday via 2 business networking meetings, cocktails, hors d’oeuvre’s, filet o’ fish sandwich meal on the way home and intercourse with 3 chocolate  Zingers after ripping off the plastic wrap, immediately upon entering my home.

So you see, I have got this thing dialed now. I am taking the weekend warrior challenge creating longer range commitments through the week. So the weekend goals will now be incorporated into the week view, early in the week.

I visited my 92 year old dad today and I just enjoyed being with him, holding his hand and rubbing his back. He is not feeling well, but I think I did him well today, because I was feeling great and I could really make my dad laugh and remember the old days.

Thanks to all of us around the world doing the Weekend Warrior Challenge this past weekend.

Here’s a list of everyone who’s signed up for the challenge. These are great people that I have bumped into on the net. Please visit their sites as well:

• Lauren from Less Lauren
• SeattleRunnerGirl
• Carla from The Right Fit
• Tara from 263 and Counting
• Scott from Minus 5 Times 10
• jord from A Journey of 26.2 Miles Begins with a Blog
• Gluten Free Pumpkins
• Sean from Learn Fitness
• Amy from Living and Loving Life
• Craig from My Life, Take Eight
• Jamie from I Can Heal My Self!
• Mac from Get Fit Slowly
• Josie from 35 and Shrinking
• Erin from Erin Takes Control
• Shelli from Shelli Belly
• 146 Pounds
• Jess from Half of Jess

I listened to a podcast today that was recorded many months ago. I listen to the Everything is Energy podcast when I go out for my 4 mile walk 5 times a week. I walk through a beautiful forest along the Fox river here in northern Illinois. I have been walking or jogging this trail for nearly 20 years and I never get tired of it.

On this particular podcast was a guy name Stu Zimmerman from Inner Espresso.  He talked about how money is like water. When it’s moving it is powerful. When it’s stagnant, it sort of gets sick and stagnant and “self-pollutes.” Suddenly I thought, “that that’s just like energy in your body.” When you eat something and the body does not process it into action, or heat or thought, it sort of gets stored as belly fat. Belly fat is like self-made body pollution from stored energy.

Belly fat and his side kick (the love handles)  is the stuff that we avoid for obvious reasons:

• Causes heart attack
• Causes type II diabetes
• Drains your energy
• Looks horrible on us.

You know the feeling of belly fat. You cannot bend over without feeling you are going to pass out or you just plain cannot tie your shoes. You can’t play with your kids in the yard or even get down on the floor with them, because of your gut. You would never consider taking off your shirt at the pool or beach. You always wear a hoodie or jacket with sweat pants, because it’s the only thing that can house your bulk.

Here’s why looking at fat like stored energy is really powerful. Although the body can store fat, the body was really mostly designed to process energy. Energy stored as fat is just a side business of the body. One of my bosses from years ago in my corporate days,  had a poster hung on his wall that stated “A ship is safe in a harbor, but that is not what ships are made for.” Same thing for body fat.

Here are simple steps to use in maximizing the energy that you put into your body as the next bite you will take:

1. First – visualize the fat already stored in your body as stored energy.
2. Second – Realize that when you take the next bite, you are already putting more fuel into your “fuel tank” that is way full. It’s more than full. As a matter of fact, you have created several auxiliary tanks to store all of your fuel.
3. Decide to forego that next bite or snack and draw down on your fat reserves starting right now to reverse the direction of the weight gain.

It’s that simple. Every time that you put your body into a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. What’s a calorie deficit? It’s when you are using more fuel than you take in everyday. It’s simply a numbers game.

Try this right now. Total up the calories you ate today. Make a list right now of everything you ate today and how many calories are in them.  If the total calories you have eaten, or will eat, exceeds the calories burned for a guy your age, you will gain more fat. If it’s less, you will starting burning up fat, right now.

So now go do it.

I remember when I was in grade school, my 6th grade teacher asked the open-ended question “what did we like most about school?”  The answer blurted out by the ever loud-mouthed guy sitting in the back of the class was “lunch!” That was probably more of a truthful answer than I think the teacher-dude had considered.

But, now I wonder whether the answer has really changed that much that I am older and supposedly smarter.  Up to a few months ago, I had adopted some daily habits that had high calorie meals, snacks and drinks built-in. It is often difficult to find out how these habits snuck into a formerly healthy eating habit.

Weight loss means fat loss. Runaway male eating habits are most likely where I had fallen off the wagon. When I was eating on auto-pilot is where I was packing on the fat on my belly, love handles and under my chin. Yuch! The dumbest part of this whole thing is that I was not really enjoying what I was eating either. An extra slice of cheese, another beer, a handful of cookies were just fleeting pleasures that were not that enjoyable.

When I recognized that this fat is heavily linked to heart attack, diabetes and hypertension makes this situation even more scary. Eating myself into dis-health is just plain stupid. I realized that this had to stop, because I saw this weight gain as sort of permanent. Even after 30 years of healthy living, I had lost control of my weight. I had to make a change.

The medical facts are that obesity is not linked to either eating too much fat or carbohydrates (see “Food preferences and body weight control” France Bellisle – 1995). It is not linked to food choices. Obesity has been shown to be more prevalent among lower socio-economic strata, yet look around at your well-educated friends and you will see many fat guys and gals.

Here is What To Do

Here are a few simple things to do to make sure that you are getting satisfaction out of what you eat. Think about your level of satisfaction of your food. I’ll bet it is more about habit than satisfaction. Addiction is sort of an emotional attachment to a habit. See if these things are true for you:

1. Do you see your typical day as consisting of a few “high satisfaction” moments or peaks of eating? If you do, it is addiction or at least heavy habits. There is nothing wrong with enjoying a good meal, snack or drink. But there is a lot of life going on between those peaks to be enjoyed. Food is just part of it.

2. Have you given up on losing weight? The question is have you given up on paying attention to what you eat, because you think you are a lost cause or not worthy of taking care of yourself. Or are you so attached to eating that your body is ballooning out of control? In this case, my guess is that you are not enjoying food enough. Sounds crazy, but fat guys are not the people that enjoy the food too much, but rather are hooked on the taste rather than savoring it.

3. Do you secretly fear going into a gym because you are terrified of someone seeing a pathetic fat guy? This is a real fear. Most likely the other people are way too involved with themselves and aren’t really paying attention to you. When you get home from this emotional ordeal, either food is a reward or a refuge. Don’t let exercise become an ordeal that you need to recover from. Food as a reward is also not a winning deal.

Here is a healthy definition of food that should help you decide whether you are running off the rails:

Food -  fuel that has been made tasty by nature.

Don’t stockpile fuel!

Let me guess. Your gut reaction to the word DIET makes you sick, just thinking about it. It sounds like something women do, right? Maybe it is an aspect unique to being a man, maybe not. We don’t like diets. So let’s just agree openly, that there’s no uglier aspect of losing weight than THE DIET.

Is Food Your Payoff?

After you work all day, exercise, pay bills, take care of friends and family, you are probably looking for some type of payoff.  Food is probably the payoff and is your bad habit. Where I live in the Chicago area, we have great food – Chicago-style pizza, Chicago-style hot dogs, beef and sausage sandwiches and fries. These are some of the great cultural advantages of living here. Unfortunately, they’re all calorie monsters too.

Need To Get Your Belly Fat Handled

The gut, belly fat or love handles are the tell-tale signs of a guy that is eating “his share” and more. To lose weight, any one of the above  foods are very high in calories, and should be avoided. But to avoid heart attack, diabetes or high blood pressure, it is absolutely necessary to eliminate the fat on your waist. It is worth the effort to just simply gain back your energy and youthful vitality that comes from losing the gut.

Just Say No To Diet

What I am telling you in this article, is rather than drastic dieting,  start making only small changes. Your friends do not need to know what you are doing. And that is why this strategy works. Small habits stick. These are small changes that you can make once per week that will start taking you in the proper direction to reducing your bulk. Here are some examples of what I have done. I am living proof that these small improvements can change your life. But are you ready to be what you desire for yourself?

What To Do

• Drink 2 glasses of water before each meal – you need the water (about 80 oz per day) and the water before the meal will cut down on appetite during any meal. While at work or out of the house, bring a large bottle of water with you and drink it before you eat lunch.

• Some type of vegetable or fruit at each meal – and potatoes don’t count. I have learned how to eat raw carrots as a lunchtime snack. I also eat some type of fruit that I like – oranges, grapes, or an apple. Would this have been food I would have preferred? Well no, but it is really amazing how you can become accustomed to eating something that you know is improving your life with every bite.

• Protein at every meal – protein is digested more slowly and requires more body energy to digest (up to 30% of the calories ingested are used to digest proteins). So eat some type of eggs, lean meat, chicken or fish. Boiled eggs are a good way of getting proteins when away from home.

Make Changes Slowly

Begin only one of these habits every two weeks. Do not start them all at the once. Start drinking the water one week and allow that habit to settle in before you even think of working on one of the other two changes. Be easy on yourself. It has taken a long time to acquire your current habits and it takes some time to establish new habits. Eventually, your habits would look something like the following:

How To Do It

If you just do these three things and make them a habit everyday, you will lose belly fat. Guaranteed. So how do you put this into practice? Here is a plan to follow:

Morning

After you wake up, drink one glass of water before you do anything (before shower, shave, exercise). It may seem like a lot of work the first time you do this, but once you get into the habit of it, drinking one glass of water is really easy. Just before you eat breakfast, drink another glass of water. Have your fruit – bananas, blueberries, strawberries, orange, apple. Put them on your cereal if you like.

Lunch

Drink one glass of water or 1/2 liter from a bottle before you break for lunch (before you leave your desk, office, factory, shop). When you actually sit down to eat, drink one more glass of water. Eat a  vegetable – salad, raw carrots or celery along with your main choice of protein. For protein, have a boiled egg or some other type of lean (un-fried) meat, chicken or fish. Eat an orange or some grapes as a dessert.

Dinner

Drink one glass of water or 1/2 liter from your water bottle when you get home, or right when you get in the car. Just before you eat, drink another glass of water. Eat a vegetable that you like – beans, spinach, salad. Use spices if you like to make them taste better. Spices do not have calories. Meat, fish or chicken is a very satisfying dinner main course and it is good for you, for the reasons I mentioned above.

The most important thing is that this food tastes good. Get over the fact that you can only be satisfied with fries, pizza, beer and chips. Eating this unhealthy stuff tastes good but is only a habit, and it is just a habit that you can change. And most of all, do not call the above changes a DIET.

The results are in from the Weekend Warrior Challenge. This challenge is about achieving specific fitness and health goals during the time of the week that are usually the weakest for me – the Weekend. This is usually when the baddest habits show themselves as a sort of reward for the best habits of the week. Odd isn’t it?

Here were my goals and the results:

• Walk 20 miles during the week – completed the 20th mile by 10:30 am on a sunny Saturday morning. I walk 4 miles either outside (my preferred method) or on the treadmill depending on the weather. Last week I walked 12 miles outside and 8 miles inside. The legs are strong!

• 5 Strength Workouts during the week - completed all 5. This consists of 2 alternating routines that I have been doing for many years.

• Eat less than 2,000 Calories Per Day – done.  This was the biggie for me. I usually stay pretty close to the refrigerator on the weekend -  looking for a little calorie-lovin’  on the weekends. But I stuck to the plan. Being hungry a lot sucks and I am getting tired of the look of the  baby carrot bag.

Here are all the other people from around the world that have also done the Challenge for the weekend. I am thinking that we need to do this every weekend. Thanks to all of these people for making this as much as fun as I could have by not enjoying myself.

• Brandon from So Long Fat Ass
• Carla from The Right Fit
• Lynne from Losing Lynne
• Steve from 265 and Falling
• Kat from Kat’s Adventures in Dietland
• Sean from Learn Fitness
• Mac from Get Fit Slowly
• Andrew from Andrew is Getting Fit
• Karyn from Fitness Road Trip
• Josie from 35 and Shrinking
• Marissa from Fatty Slims Down
• Jeremy from Stellar Path
• Mike from SUB6
• Andrew from 100 Pounds in a Year
• Erin from Erin Takes Control
• Alissa from Gluten Free Pumpkins
• Craig from My Life, Take Eight
• Ryan from No More Bacon
• Chad from Reconstructing 30
• beej from Journey to Satisfaction

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