47 THINGS LEARNED IN A DECADE OF TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT

The foam roller is a vicious sadist, not a friend.

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47 Things I’ve Learned During A Decade Of Trying To Lose Weight And Get Lean By Ryan in Lean Living on May 12, 2011
1. There are no shortcuts.
2. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.
3. No ab machine you see advertised on TV will give you abs. A clean diet and calorie deficit will.
4. It will take time to reach your goals. You can’t rush this. Enjoy the process.
5. You will have to make sacrifices to other areas of your life.
6. You will fail at some point – everyone does. Get straight back up and continue.
7. Learn to be a master of your thoughts. Understand how your thought process and patterns affect the way you behave. If you think you can’t do it, you won’t. No diet or training plan will work for you. Get your head straight first.
8. You will get given conflicting advice. Stick with what is getting you results.
9. All diets that work are based on the principle of eating less calories than you burn. There is no other way possible for the human body to lose weight.
10. Most diet books are written for money, not because the author wants you to have a six-pack.
11. Understand the difference between losing weight and losing fat.
12 Don’t obsess over the scales. Your weight will fluctuate daily. As long as your measurements every two weeks are an improvement you are doing fine.
13 Don’t sweat the small stuff. Steady state cardio works. High intensity interval training works. 1 day resistance training works. 7 days weight training works. Fasted cardio works. Morning cardio works. Evening cardio works. Intermittant fasting works. Eating every 2 hours works. If you are a competitive bodybuilder or elite althlete then worry about this stuff, otherwise pick something you will and can actually see yourself commiting to and get on with it.
14. Be wary of anyone who strongly advocates one particular way of doing things – they may not be able to see the wood for the trees. Keep an open mind.
15. Read as much as you can, but be critical. Discard 99% of it. Keep the 1% that works. Knowing what 1% to keep comes from experience so keep at it.
16. Girls – you know that sexy, firm, round bum you want? You’ll get that doing squats and lunges in the weights room, not spending an hour on the cross trainer followed by 100 reps on the leg abductor machine.
17. Girls – no you won’t get massive bulky muscles by lifting weights. You have a tenth of the muscle building hormone testosterone in your body than men. Even men have to work hard to gain even a pound of muscle.
18. Stop doing 100 crunches (and any other ab excersices) to flatten your stomach. It doesn’t work and never will. Only do ab work to strengthen your core and/or build your stomach muscles to improve definition when they are already visible (e.g. you are below 10% body fat).
19. You haven’t got a slow metabolism or a thyroid problem.
20. Fish oil and a good multivitamin will serve you well.
21. You don’t need any other expensive supplements to succeed (you don’t even need those two to be fair, but they’ll help). To succeed you will have to become comfortable handling peer pressure. People will stare at you. They will question you. They will say you are doing it wrong. Most of them will think you’re crazy.
22. Don’t trust what you read in health & fitness magazines.
23. Personal trainers don’t always know what they are doing.
24. Stop moaning about what you can’t do – start DOING what you CAN do.
25. There is no such thing as ‘toning’. A muscle either grows or shrinks. The fat cells covering it either grow or shrink. When muscle grows and fat shrinks you look better. Focus on building your muscles and lose your fat for that killer beach body look. 26. Forget the whole high 12-15 reps for ‘toning’, 8-12 reps for body building, 2-5 reps for strength training mantra. Things have moved on. You can lose fat doing 10 sets of 3 reps.
27. Stretch. That back and knee pain you have is probably from tight muscles.
28. Showing up at the gym won’t get you a beach body. You have to train with focus and intensity as well.
29. Don’t do it for anyone else but yourself.
30. Avoid using gloves and belts when lifting. Your grip and stabiliser muscles will get stronger.
31. Keep things in perspective. Don’t be so restrictive and relentless in pursuing your nutrition and fitness goals that you forget to enjoy the love, peace and happiness you already have in your life.
32. The foam roller is your friend.
33. Leave your ego at the door. Lift less weight with good form rather than showing off. You’ll eclipse everyone eventually.
34. Don’t be frightened of lowering calories. I was and never lost any fat.
35. Fruit is healthy but can kill your attempts to transform your body. If you want to get lean then stick to fruits with a low glycemic load. Berries are ideal.
36. If you’re fat you don’t need post workout carbs.
37. Sometimes you will feel a bit hungry when dieting. Live with it.
38. You don’t need a sports recovery drink. Stick to water unless you’ve just run a marathon.
39. Whenever you eat sugar you are telling your body, “I don’t want you to burn fat for the next 3-4 hours”.
40. Vegetables are king. Eat them everyday. They provide your body with essential vitamins and nutrients.
41. ‘White’ carbs are not necessary. You can live without bread, pasta, rice and potatoes – and you’ll have an awesome body to show for it.
42. Photos don’t lie. They tell it how it is. Take them every month during your body transformation to assess your progress.
43. There is no ‘best’ weight training program. As long as it’s from a reputable source/trainer and you are working out with intensity you’ll get results.
44. Sometimes it’s better to encourage someone who has a slightly different way of doing things to you, rather than trying to convert them to your way of thinking.
45. Relax. Get a massage. Meditate. Get 8 hours sleep a night. Your body produces 75% of daily human growth hormone in the first 2 hours of sleep, which you need to build and repair your body.
46. 15 minutes if intense Interval training 3 times per week will strip away body fat and not make you lose too much muscle, providing your calorie deficit is in order.
47. Make everyday count. You will get there in the end.