Doesn’t matter who you talk to or what you read when you begin a weight loss program of any sort you are going to find differing opinions of what and when you should be eating.

The Atkins diet has you swallowing protein and bypassing the carbohydrates. Not bad…I’ve done it about 40 years ago. Yep…Lost weight…Yep gained it back when I opted out for a taco or two (or five).

Other diets limit one thing and tout another. Raw foods diet speaks for itself. So does the cottage cheese diet or the cucumber diet. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and all the rest will have you follow a regime that will cause you to lose weight…IF YOU EXERCISE TO GO WITH IT!

If you are into kettlebell training and read theDragon Door forum you will see many references to the Warrior Diet. Probably the best one I could follow now…watch what you eat…make sure your blood glucose remains high enough to keep you going throughout the day and then comes dinner. Eat what you want and as much as you want. Seems like common sense to me? Back to the basics…eat what you want and when you want. Just burn more calories than you ingest and weight will slough off your frail frame. Conversely…eat more than you burn and get ready to buy a bigger pair of Levi’s to cover that lard ass.

So for all of you who actually want to have a meal sometimes (like daily?) here is a download of a chicken recipe book. Over 300 various recipes and they do not all contain BONELESS SKINLESS CHICKEN BREASTS. Never have actually had a steady diet of dried out cardboard but I know that is at least a first cousin to chicken breasts that have been robbed of skin/fat and FLAVOR.

Down load this book…make a meal or two and have fun working it off. You are on your own to determine the amount of fat/calories/carbohydrates and minerals in these recipes. However you are not on your own for taste….there is some FLAVOR in these pages. Enjoy!..300 Chicken Recipes

Day after day you drag your frail frame out of bed and head off to where ever you go for that nasty workout. Warm-up, stretch, weight cycle and then off to the treadmill or stair stepper for a few thousand paces. All of this works out to large muscle gain and fat loss, right? Not always. There is something missing from this formula…REST. If you do not schedule proper rest periods in your days then you risk over-training.

Too many long and arduous workouts with insufficient rests and you are defining over-training. You will not fully recover from those heavy workouts after workouts and if you continue you lose!

So: have you….
(1 Lost interest in your workouts? When you start standing on the sidelines watching other lifters or steppers take a hint. When you begin having trouble starting your workout then take a break…..nothing simpler than that?
2) Do you occasionally take your blood pressure during workout sessions? If not you should (especially when you are just starting out and not quite sure about your total health). If you notice your resting heart rate and blood pressure remaining elevated you might want to consider either a long recuperation period…or a physical! After all why would you want to die from stupidity with a heart problem when you are trying to prevent this type of death. Bottom line…take care of yourself and THEN the workouts will be beneficial to you.

My wife tells me I attempt to overachieve in these type physical efforts. Not really a good idea (either for her to tell me that or for me to work myself to death!). If you are starting this physical fitness program to overcome many years of couch potato, then (yea yea we have heard this before!) start slow. Build the intensity of your exercise period gradually.

Prevention of over training just might be one of the most valuable portions of your workout. Wear yourself out early in the game and then you will not want to continue for a period that will be of a long term benefit to you.
If you are starting in a gym talk to a trainer for guidance…if you are on your own at home then study up a bit on fatigue, nutrition, blood sugar and all those other areas that you MUST be well versed on!

Everybody knows that hard work is necessary to get stronger as well as lose weight. However we don’t often want to think about a common result of over-stepping this hard work boundary. Overtraining can wear us out and cause loss of motivation…especially if we are not seeing constant results.

Hows this for a long winded explanation…”Overtraining is a physiological and psychological condition created when rest periods are insufficient to allow recovery from workouts. This condition is commonly called ‘burnout’ and can last for weeks or months when you become afflicted.”

Wow!? All this really means is that us humans are impatient and want results NOW? Think this is not true? Then check out tempers in lines at fast food joints! We want to get better. We learn proper techniques to get better. We start a program to get better. Then when we start to improve we believe that if we just double or triple our efforts then we will get results in proportion! Nope!

Wear yourself out and that is all that you will be…worn out. We can go onto symptoms of over-training later but all we need to know now is to remember the tortoise and the hare. Yea! Yea! I know all those other sayings such as “To the victor goes the spoils” and “no pain–no gain”, but slow and steady is the way to success in the weight loss and muscle gain game.

Take a look at this guy and know that what you seek is within you and you can/will get there! You Have It in You…Bring It On OUT!!!!!

Constantly harping on the fact that most of us are overweight to some extent does very little. When (if) you decide to get rid of that excess weight and regain a bit of your childhood health plans must be made.

A great way to start is to make sure that you are motivated! That “dunlop” (done lop over your belt) middle you have developed did not get there overnight and darned sure will not disappear in that same time period. Prayer, meditation, deep thought…whatever you need to do to finally get ready to lighten those pounds up is a necessity. If you jump into this health program without prior preparation you won’t last long enough to make the weight scale needle quiver.

Motivated? Now set those goals. Warning here again is that overnight success is not to be expected. You are better off checking your progress by the week then by the year. If you want to lose 50 lbs overnight then it is time to go to a liposuction specialist. Just like the tortoise and the hare…slow and steady will always win the race.

To repeat: weight loss, fat depletion, muscle mass gain, strength increase or weight gain…none of these are an overnight sensation. Remember: what you are doing is a lifestyle change. Hopefully your PRIMARY goal is to rebuild yourself for a healthier and longer life. The proper exercises and diet continued over time and you will see the fat melt away as the muscle mass and your strength increase. Day by day and week by week will give you the results that you are seeking for year by year.

Motivation is a twin brother to dedication. It probably will be necessary to alter your program to fit your lifestyle. You will find some exercises and some foods (healthy) will not fire your personal rocket. So change them….but keep going on as you alter the methods you are using. Soon you will find these routines become a positive factor in your life as you feel better about health as well looking better too.

Nothing will satisfy the hunger of your fat cells more than the many excuses you can come up with to NOT exercise or diet in order to slim down. And boy ole boy can us Americans come up with the excuses.

Trouble is most of these excuses are simple reruns of another persons method to duck a good workout. Everybody thinks they have their own reasons that exercise and weight loss continues to meet their bodies but most are the same…..take a look…….

“I wouldn’t know where to start”…..…..biggest bunch of baloney you can come up with. Exercise is simply movement of some sort so take off walking. Walk to the mailbox…walk up the stairs at work…walk the dog or even walk to the television to change channels rather than using the remote. Buy a pedometer and set a stride or step goal for the day and have at it. Be Careful though…..meet your goals and you will start “walking” further and faster!

“I’ll look silly”…..I guess a lot of people stay fat and keep out of a gym because they are afraid of what other people think about them. These same people may not even want to start any type of home workout because they don’t want their relatives laughing at them. If you are afraid of what you will look like as you lift weights or walk a treadmill then take another approach….have somebody follow you through the grocery store with a camcorder as you stock up on those frozen pizzas. Then watch the video of your fat butt bending over to get that cheap box of processed transfat and take a gander at how silly you look with that lump of lard you pour into your pants every day. TIME TO JOIN A GYM NOW?

The time you start of the type of program you start is always up to you. You can keep on looking at the “fit” people with envy as you keep on living “fat”. You probably know (realize) what kind of lifestyle will regain your health but are you aware of what got you into the “fatclub”……take a look at this: This is Why You Are Fat
“OUCH!!!