If you ever pop into the local book store and head over to the health section you will likely see hundreds of different books and videos all promising you quick weight loss and a healthier body. If you want to save yourself some time, below are my recommendations for a great book and a great set of videos.
Best Book I Have Read
The Abs Diet by David Zinczenko
This book is amazing. David does a great job of keeping things very simple and easy to read. The reason it is called the Abs diet is that he wants you to focus on ab exercises (A), big muscle groups (B) and speed intervals (S). The book itself it pretty long but that is because most of it is actually filled with different workout routines. About half the book is filled with different circuits you can try to keep things different. The best part of his circuits is that he gives you tons of options so you never have an excuse to not work out. You are on the road and stuck in a hotel room? No problem. He gives you an intense workout where you only use your own body weight for resistance. Only have dumb-bells? Again, no problem. He gives you a workout that fits there too. He gives you complete plans for bands, exercise balls, medicine balls or if you have a full gym.
David tries to keep things as simple as possible as well by providing you with a list of 12 “power foods” that are very healthy and contain either either tons of nutrients or natural fat burners or protein or something else that your body needs. His recommendation is to include some of these power foods in every meal that you have. Again, he just tries to keep things as simple as possible so you do not feel like you are drinking from a fire-hose.
He asks you to work your abs 2-3 times but he really makes sure you work them hard. You don’t just need to do 1-2 exercises each time. He shows you how to work your lower abs, upper abs, back and internal muscles to really strengthen your core.
He stresses the importance of hitting the large muscle groups like your legs, chest, shoulders and back when you exercise. It is tough to find the time to do long workouts so hitting the large areas in the body can help keep your sessions shorter. Also, when you exercise your larger muscles you typically work the smaller ones at the same time anyway. For example, doing a bench press also works your biceps, triceps, forearms and shoulders.
Finally, the workouts you do are intense. You are constantly moving from one muscle group to another with very little rest between them so your heart rate is elevated and your muscles will be on fire.
If I could only have one book, this would be the one. The Abs Diet also has some other books that you can buy that provide you with some healthy and fast recipes that you can cook that are tied back to the power foods mentioned above.
Best Workout Video
Pretty Much Anything from Billy Blanks
Billy has a ton of different videos on the market today and I own one set of his Elite Boot Camp videos from a few years ago. The set I have has 7 videos in it – 2 are focused on cardio, one is a lower-body workout, one is an upper-body workout, 2 are a mixture of cardio and resistance training and the last is an 8-minute cardio blast. I also purchased his resistance bands which has a couple pound weight in them to add a little extra to the videos.
In my opinion, the best thing about the videos is that everything is done for you. You just pop in the DVD you want to do and away you go. There is no need to move between machines or find different sized dumb-bells or other free weights. Also, because he has different videos that focus on different things, it is easy to plan your workouts for a whole week. For example, you can do his lower body workout one day, his upper body workout on another, and 2 of his cardio ones on two other days. And you can do them anywhere – all you need is a DVD player. So there really is no excuse to miss a workout which is great.
His videos do an excellent job of making you sweat and keeping your heart rate elevated. In a 30 minute video, you are probably using about 300-400 calories in total. If you do decide to buy his videos, I would just make sure you get at least 5 of them so you have a variety to keep things interesting.
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Here is a list of simple tips you can do that will help you lose weight. Individually, they don’t do too much, but if you do a bunch of them they can add up quickly.
1. Drink ice cold water
Drink ice cold water. You should try and drink 2 cups of water (2 cups is 16 ounces) with every meal and snack, and as much as you think your body needs during a workout. The key is to have the water ice cold. Once you drink it, your body needs to use energy to heat it back up to your body temperature. If you have 16 ounces of ice-water during every meal or snack, you body would spend about 15 calories each time to warm it up, or almost 100 calories each day.
2. Eat 6 small meals a day
By eating this often you will increase your metabolism since your body will spend a lot of energy digesting food all day long. Your body will also begin to realize that each time you eat, it will try and digest that food as quickly as possible since it knows more food is coming soon, increasing your metabolism even more.
3. Eat a salad
A salad with something like spinach leaves is packed with tons of nutrients and can help fight cancer and heart disease. And better yet, you can fill up an entire bowl with it and it has like 50 calories total. Throw in a tablespoon or two of salad dressing, some mixed fruit and some sliced almonds, and you have a very healthy and filling meal that is probably less than 250 calories.
4. Eat apples
Apples are packed with fiber and are very filling. A medium-sized apple is about 100 calories. A good snack would be to slice up an apple and dip it into 1 tbsp of peanut butter (be careful though, peanut butter is high in fat so don’t go crazy and use too much).
5. Say hello to stairs
Walk up and down stairs for now on, and skip the elevator or escalator. If you walk up stairs a couple times a day instead of using the elevator, you can burn an additional 5-10 calories per day. Walking down will burn a couple more.
6. Stop eating 2-3 hours before going to bed
When you sleep, your body’s metabolism drops dramatically as it only needs to make sure you are doing the basics like making sure your heart is beating and you are breathing. If you eat close to bedtime than all those calories that you consume are not going to be burned off through daily activities.
7. Drink green tea
I am not a fan of it and don’t drink any, but if you do drink it throughout the day, you can burn as much as 4% extra calories each day. That can be 50-100 calories extra per day.
8. Count your calories
Not for the rest of your life, just for a month. You might be surprised at how many calories are in some of the things you are eating. It might also make you think twice about eating something that is bad for you if you know exactly how bad it is for you. For example, I love eating McDonald’s and one Quarter Pounder is 510 calories with 26 grams of fat. Heaven help you if you get fries with that. If you do, that is another 380 calories with 19 grams of fat. That is a killer amount of fat when you are trying to lose weight.
9. Do not try a fad diet
The best way to lose weight is to eat healthy and exercise. If you are honestly doing this and not losing weight, then it is possible that you should count calories to see exactly how many calories you are eating. You don’t need to do it for long, just about a month and you will have a much better understanding of what you are putting into your body. Forget getting the latest gut-blasting exercise machine or the latest book seen on tv. Just start eating better and exercise more often. Simple.
10. Use smaller plates
This sounds silly, but I see people heaping food on their plates all the time just out of habit. You see an empty spot on your plate so you fill it up. Finding plates that are slightly smaller may help knock of 50 calories each meal.
11. Be realistic
Don’t expect to lose 10 pounds per week or 5 pounds in a single day as some ads/videos/books will tell you. Aim to lose 1-2 pounds per week. Losing weight is difficult enough without putting crazy expectations on yourself. By eating right and exercising, and understanding how many calories your body should be getting, your body will slowly change over time and you don’t have to kill yourself to get there.
Good luck!
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If you have not joined a gym yet, and are looking to in the near future, then here are some tips to make sure you pick the right one for you.
1. Location, location, location
This one is obvious. If the gym you join is more than 30 minutes from you, you might have a hard time commuting that far every time you need to work out.
2. Hours of operation
Most gyms are probably going to be open when you need them, but check to make sure. You may be the type of person that likes working out at night, and could need the gym to be open until 10-11 pm. Pay attention to the weekends as well.
3. Equipment
Take a look at the equipment. Does it look like it has been maintained well? Are there a bunch of cardio machines with “out of order” signs attached to them? Is there rust on a lot of the dumbbells?
4. Selection of Equipment
Sometimes a gym that has too many machines and too much equipment is worse than one that has too little since you could get confused as to how to use any of them. Again, if you are trying to keep things simple, then a huge gym with tons of options that you never use might not be right for you.
5. Staffing
Look at all the staff in the place. Sometimes you can tell what the culture of a gym if by watching the people that work there. Many gyms today train their people to sell as many memberships and supplements as possible, and whether or not you get fitter is a distant second priority. Do they have personal trainers that are qualified to help you? Check their credentials before buying any type of personal training hours – they are expensive but worth it if you get the right person.
6. How busy is it
Before signing up, go to the gym at the same time that you usually work out. If it is completely packed each time, then you probably need to pick a different gym.
7. Childcare
Does the gym offer a spot for your child when you exercise. For many parents, this could be a deal killer.
8. Parking
Make sure you check this one out. If your gym has crappy parking, you will get less motivated to go there consistently. I don’t know anyone who enjoys looking for a parking spot.
9. Aerobic classes
What type of classes do they offer, and when? Zumba, Pilates and Yoga are all popular classes and are great ways to stay motivated and keep your workouts fun. Also check to see how much they cost. Usually they are about $10 per class but you can buy them in bulk to reduce the costs.
10. Contract
No one likes to read the fine print, but you need to understand what you are signing. You need to understand how long the contract is that you are signing. Many of them are for one year at a minimum, so if you want to quit after a couple months, you are still on the hook for the remainder of the year. Also, once the year is done, you might even get auto-renewed for another year even if you didn’t want to. The best option is to pay month by month, but your fees may be a little higher, but at least this gives you the best flexibility.
11. Locker Rooms
Check out the cleanliness and upkeep of the locker rooms and showers. After a tough workout, the last thing you want to do is try and take a shower in a moldy, smelly room.
12. Trial period
Most gyms will offer you a trial contract for free for a week to see how it feels to exercise there. Get the trial package and then go during the same times you expect to workout to make sure it fits in with your lifestyle.
That’s it – good luck!
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With the limited time people have to exercise these days, it is very important to make the best use of the time when you are in the gym. You should aim to do resistance training 2-3 times a week and since you don’t have a lot of time, the workout should only be 20-30 minutes long.
To make sure the workout is done properly, focus on the following:
1. Compound exercises
These are exercises that work more than 1 muscle group. For example, doing squats with a barbell works all the muscles in your legs, your back and your abs.
2. Circuit training
This means you work your entire body in each workout. For example, a full workout would be 12-15 reps situp, 10-12 reps squat, 10-12 reps bench press, 8-12 reps military press, 8-12 reps deadlifts, 8-12 reps pullups, 8-12 reps pullups, 8-12 reps bicep curls, 8-12 reps back extensions, 8-12 reps tricep pushdowns. Take a 30 second break between each exercise, and then do it 2-3 times. When you get to the last 2-3 reps, the weight should become difficult to lift without breaking your form – you don’t want to be using a weight where it is still easy to lift at the end of your 8-12 reps.
3. Don’t rush!
Do not try to speed through this workout. Your movements should be very controlled and deliberate. Lift the weight slowly, and when you lower it, take twice as long as when you lifted it. Don’t bounce the weight on the bottom and use that momentum to raise it back up.
4. Keep a log
When you workout, it is very important to write down your progress. You are doing lots of exercises with lots of different weights, and it is hard to remember what you may have done on the last workout and writing it down ensures you don’t forget any specific exercise or use too heavy/light of a weight.
5. Push yourself
When you get to a point when you can lift a weight 12 times fairly easily, add 10-20% to the weight the next time. For example, lets say you can bench press 100 pounds 12 times pretty easily. The next time you work out lift 110 pounds. You should be able to lift that 8 times. After 4-6 weeks of doing the above circuit, your body will get used to it and it won’t be as beneficial any longer (called hitting a plateau). So you need to change the workout. You can do things like doing full circuit workouts with kettle balls only, or use nothing but dumbbells, or do 20 reps of lighter weights instead of 8-12. The key is to keep your body guessing.
Ideally, you should try and do some cardio exercises on the days you are not doing resistance training, but focus on the resistance training first. The reason is that as you add more muscle, your metabolism will increase, you will burn more calories throughout the day and it will tone your body far better than cardio.
During this workout, you should be hating it. It should not be easy. Your heart should be pounding in your chest. Your muscles should be hurting. If you don’t experience some of these feelings, your workout is probably not hard enough. Finally, don’t ruin this workout by going and eating a hamburger right after. You need to eat lots of carbs and protein to replenish your energy and repair your muscles. If you are not getting results even if you are working out right, then you may need to count calories because you could be eating either too much food and not realizing it, or might not be eating enough of the right things like carbs and protein.
If you are like me, then your daily schedule is packed with things like dropping off or picking up the kids to the million places they need to be, grocery shopping, paying bills, cleaning up the house, other chores, etc. And you probably work full time too.
So how can you find the time and energy to make sure you are eating healthy throughout the day? One thing I would encourage you to do to make it a little easier is to drink smoothies 2-3 times a day. If you plan on eating 5-6 meals in a day, then this could get half of them out of the way without too much effort. A smoothie is really simple to make, and is packed with good protein, carbs and fat. Throw in some ice, milk, frozen or fresh fruit and whey powder into a blender (I use the Magic Bullet which is awesome since it is a perfect serving size for smoothies) and you have an excellent snack which probably only has 200-300 calories. You can even put ice cream in it and not feel guilty, as long as you only put in about a half a cup at most.
Here are a few of my favorite smoothies:
Pina Colada – 1 cup 1% milk, 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder, 1 banana, bunch of ice, 1 tbsp powdered coconut milk (304 calories, 33 g carbs, 25 g protein, 8 g fat)
Berry Blast – 1 cup 1% milk, 1 cup mixed berries, 1/2 scoop chocolate protein powder, bunch of ice (251 calories, 32 g carbs, 24 g protein, 3 g fat)
Peanut Butter & Jelly – 3/4 cup vanilla yogurt, 3/4 cup 1% milk, 2 teaspoons peanut butter, 1 small banana, 1/2 cup strawberries, 1/ scoop chocolate protein powder, bunch of ice (245 calories, 39 g carbs, 11 g protein, 5 g fat)
The point here is that you can pretty much throw anything you like into a blender, add some ice and protein powder, and you have a healthy snack that should fill you up and is fairly low in calories. Play around with whatever stuff you like and see what happens.
Outside of the smoothies, that leaves you with breakfast, lunch and dinner and maybe another snack if you aren’t in the mood for a smoothie.
Breakfast
If you have time in the mornings, you can do something fancier than what I will show here. The following recipes are very fast and simple, and you can mix and match different ingredients to suit your taste buds.
Egg Omelette – 1 slice whole wheat toast, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup diced deli turkey, 1 tbsp cheddar cheese, 1/2 cup diced spinach (306 calories, 17 g carbs, 28 g protein, 14 g fat). You can also throw pretty much anything else you like into the omelette and it will be a good start to your day – mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, you get the idea.
Yogurt – 1 cup vanilla yogurt,1 small banana sliced into thin pieces, 1 tbsp chopped walnuts (363 calories, 62 g carbs, 15 g protein, 8 g fat). As above, you can change the type of yogurt and fruit to suit your own tastes.
Oatmeal – 1 cup 1% milk, 1 cup quick oats, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1 tbsp chopped walnuts, 1 tsp honey (440 calories, 65 g carbs, 18 g protein, 12 g fat). DO NOT buy the prepackaged flavored oatmeal – just buy the instant oatmeal flakes from the bulk section of your grocery store. The prepackaged stuff has tons of preservatives and won’t taste anywhere as fresh as this.
Lunch
Lunch is always tricky. If you work in a team with other people, it is almost certain that one of them will be going out to eat and that spells trouble quickly. Fast food at lunch is so quick and inexpensive it is very easy to be tempted to just do it. The best thing I think you can do is make your lunch in the morning so you won’t be as tempted to go somewhere during lunch and eat something bad. If you don’t have time in the mornings to make lunch, then plan ahead – when you make dinner, make enough to have leftovers and eat those for lunch the next day. Place it in the microwave for a minute or so and you are good to go.
Salad – 1-2 cups baby spinach, 1/4 cup mushrooms, 1/2 cup canned tuna drained), 1tbsp whatever dressing you like but something with lemon goes well with it (167 calories, 20 g carbs, 15 g protein, 3 g fat). The beat thing about a salad is that the spinach leaves are super healthy and have virtually no calories at all so you can eat as much as you want.
Sandwich – 2 slices whole wheat toasted bread, 1 slices sliced chicken breast, 1 slice romaine lettuce, 1 slice low fat mozzarella cheese, 1/2 avocado (416 calories, 43 g carbs, 22 g protein, 14 g fat).
Dinner
Dinner might very well be the toughest meal of the day. You could have kids screaming that they are hungry, you are tired from working all day and your motivation level is down. The key thing to focus on is getting to the kitchen and having everything ready to slam something out quickly that is tasty and healthy. Some good things to focus on are whole wheat pasta, rice and frozen veggies (fresh would be ideal but sometimes you just don’t have the time) since they just need to be put into a pot of boiling water. Also trying to make 1-pot meals is great since it can sometimes cut down on the time you spend preparing the food. So with that in mind here are a few options.
Bruschetta Chicken Bake – 3 slices baguette bread (on the side), 2 pounds chicken breast cut into 1-inch cubes, 1 can (19 oz) diced tomatoes, 1 package stuffing mix, 1 tsp basil, 1 cup shredded low fat mozzarella cheese. Place tomatoes in a bowl and stir with the stuffing mix. Place chicken in a 13×9 baking dish, and sprinkle with the cheese and basil. Put tomato/stuffing mix on top and back for 30 minutes at 400F. Serves 6. (270 calories, 28 g carbs, 17 g protein, 10 g fat).
Shrimp Stir-Fry – 1 cup brown rice, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 cup green beans cut into 1-inch pieces, 1 cup matchstick carrots, 1/2 cup cashews, 3 teaspoon soy sauce, juice from 1 orange, zest from 1 orange, 1 package frozen shrimp. First cook the rice according to the directions – it could take 30 minutes to cook it or if you are pressed for time you can use instant rice. Heat the oil in a large wok or frying pan. Add everything except the shrimp and rice and cook for about 10 minutes, until everything is heated through. Add the shrimp and cook for another 5 minutes until they are heated through. Take the stir fry and serve it over the rice. Serves 4-6 (313 calories, 15 g carbs, 34 g protein, 13 g fat). Stir-fries are great since you can add whatever meat you like (beef, chicken, etc) and any veggie (broccoli, peppers, etc) and it is a great, healthy meal.
Bacon and Mushroom Pasta – Cook whatever whole wheat pasta you have but spaghetti works best. 8 slices lean bacon thinly sliced, 5 oz sliced mushrooms, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp mustard, 2 tbsp white wine, 30 g grated cheddar cheese, 1 tbsp cornstarch, 1 cup 1% milk, 1 tbsp parsley, pepper to taste. Boil the pasta as per box directions. Heat a frying pan and add the bacon over high heat for about 5 minutes, until they are browned nicely. Use a paper towel to wipe out any excess grease. Add the mushrooms and oil and cook for 2 minutes. Add the mustard and wine and cook for 3 more minutes. Reduce the heat and add the cheddar cheese until melted. Add in the cornstarch and 2 tbsp of water and stir until it becomes thick. Remove from the heat and slowly add the milk and keep stirring (don’t heat it because it might curdle) and then stir in the parsley. Add the sauce to the pasta and serve (353 calories, 48 g carbs, 21 g protein, 10 g fat).
Should you eat before a workout or should you try and do it on an empty stomach? There are 2 schools of thought here:
- If you workout on an empty stomach, then your body is forced to use other energy sources (like stored fat in your hips/stomach) to fuel the workout. If you are trying to lose weight, then working out like this will burn the fat off your body quickly.
- You should eat before a workout to give you the energy required to push your body as much as possible so your workout is better.
I have tried it both ways, and even though I think (2) is the best way, it really is up to you. If you can wake up first thing in the morning and have a good workout, I do believe there is some truth to (1). However, for me it is tough to wake up and get a tough workout without eating first.
So, if you want to try working out on an empty stomach first thing in the morning, I say go for it. Just make sure you have the right meal right after the workout (see my article on post-workout meal). The most important thing is to find something that fits your schedule and you think is working. The toughest thing about losing weight is to keep your motivation up and consistently eating right and exercising.
After a tough workout, you should try and eat something within 30-60 minutes to help your body repair itself. Ideally, you should try and eat something which is quickly digested by your body to obviously do the most help as fast as possible. Also, since you want something that digests quickly, try to stay away from fat if at all possible since fat takes a while to digest. What that leaves is to try and find something that has lots of carbs to replenish your energy reserves and lots of protein to repair your muscles.
I think the best thing you could therefore have after a workout is a protein shake/smoothie that has a bunch of fruit like bananas and berries and whey protein. This will get digested very quickly by your body which is exactly what you want it to do. The shake should be about 300-400 calories.
If you do not like protein shakes then you should try and find a meal that has lots of carbs and protein. Things like a sandwich will be ok as long as it does not have a lot of mayo, butter, etc on it which has tons of fat and make sure it is on a better bread than just white and you get a good serving of fruit or vegetables on it. A fruit juice is also good (not as good as the real fruit though) on the side.
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If you are trying to lose weight and burn as many calories as possible, then cardio is king. If you do a pretty intense run you should burn at least 10-12 calories per minute but an intense weight workout will probably burn 8-10. So should you just do cardio? I would say no.
Cardio is great for burning the calories, but the problem is that you really won’t be toning any of your muscles. Even if you lose a lot of pounds and get thinner, you might still look chubby in your underwear. Using weights to work out will tone your muscles and give you a much tighter and more toned look.
If possible, try and do both – do regular cardio as well as resistance training. You get the benefits of the faster weight loss with cardio and the toning with the weights. Ideally, you should try to do the resistance training 2-3 times per week and cardio 2-3 times too. I know it is tough to find the time to do all this, so that is why you should try and keep the workouts short but make sure they are very intense. For example, for cardio, do interval training. What you try and do with this is do intense cardio for 60 seconds (say running at 80% speed) and then cool down and walk for about 60 seconds. Do this about 10 times in 25 minutes (couple minutes for warmup and cooldown) and at the end, you should be hurting pretty good. For resistance training, a good workout is a full body circuit, with a 30 second break between exercises. For example, 12-15 squats, 12-15 bench presses, 12-15 military presses, 12-15 bicep curls, 12-15 deadlifts, 12-15 pullups, 12-15 triceps pulldowns and 12-15 bent over rows. You would be working all your major muscle groups in this circuit and if you only take a short rest between each one, your heart rate should be pretty high. I would do this circuit at least twice but three times is even better. There is no core work here, usually I do that right before my cardio. There is no reason for that, just personal preference.
The key point is that your workouts need to be intense. Taking a nice brisk walk outside probably isn’t intense enough – try and push yourself as much as possible. The old saying “no pain no gain” is what you are looking for. The day after your circuit workout you should be a little sore too – that is a good thing. It means your muscles were workout hard and now have to spend a couple days repairing themselves to get stronger. Keep making sure you are eating enough protein to repair them too.
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Sometimes I talk with people who are trying to lose weight and are trying to count calories and the weight still won’t come off. I can see their frustration and the problem is that usually they are simply not counting calories correctly. Their portion sizes are too big and when they go and count their calories, they can sometimes be off by quite a bit.
For example, they might have what seems like a perfect snack – a fruit smoothie. Inside of it is a banana, some frozen berries, milk, almonds, whey protein and ice cubes. Nothing unhealthy there. However, they think they have only 1 cup of milk but it is really 1.5 cups. That banana that they though only had 70 calories was pretty big and have over 100. Instead of only having 10 grams of almonds (a small handful) they have 20 grams. So instead of a smoothie having just under 300 calories, it is over 450. And they have 2 of these in a day. Then for dinner they have a piece of pork tenderloin with a side of rice and vegetables. Again, nothing wrong there. However, their pork that they thought was a good serving size, was twice as big as it should be and there is an extra 100 calories. When they are trying to eat 500 calories less in a day, and in these 3 meals they already ate 400 calories more than they expected, it is easy to see why they aren’t losing any weight.
What I encourage them to do to is buy a kitchen scale and use those measuring cups. Boy, do they get surprised when they see the results. They might eat a bowl of pasta and think they are having a serving size but they might be eating twice as much as what a serving size actually is. They would have what they think is a cup of milk but in reality it is 1.5 cups. Almost every meal they have they are probably eating 20-30% more calories than they actually thought.
So if you are serious about losing weight and counting calories, buy yourself a kitchen scale and weigh the food that you are eating. You might get surprised too when you see how many calories might be in the food that you are eating.
It is a pain in the butt to weigh your food but my hope is that you only have to do it for a short period of time – maybe 4-6 weeks. Once you get a better idea of just how many calories are in some of the foods you eat and you start to lose the weight, you should be able to stop the counting and weighing completely.
When you start counting calories, it is important to find a good balance of carbs, protein and fat. You should try and get about 50-60% of your calories from carbs, 20-25% from protein, and the rest from fat. Read below for more details…
Carbs
You should aim to get 50-60% of your total daily calories from carbs. If you purchased the spreadsheet, you just need to enter the percentage that you want to do (say 55%) and it will automatically calculate the exact number of grams you need each day and how many calories that equals. There are two types of carbs: sugars and starches. Sugars get digested very quickly by your body and are in foods like candy, white breads and sugary drinks. Starches take longer to digest and are in foods like pasta, grains, fruits and vegetables.
When you are eating carbs, you should try very hard to limit the number of sugary things you eat. If you eat sandwiches with white bread, switch to something like 12-grain or whole wheat. Instead of juice or soft drinks, drink water. By eating more starchy foods, your body will take longer to digest the food, making you feel less hungry, ultimately making it a little easier to hit your goal of eating 500 calories less per day.
To find out what foods take the longest to digest, you could check out their Glycemic Index (GI). The GI is a number between 0-100 that explains how quickly a food can be turned into energy by your body. The lower the number, the longer it will take for your body to fully digest the food. The higher the number, the quicker it is digested. For example, an apple, which takes a long time to digest, has a GI value of 38. Coca-Cola has a GI value of 63.
Protein
There are many different ideas for the amount of protein you should eat. Protein is used by your body to build muscle, and if you are doing resistance training 2-3 times per week your body will need a lot of protein to repair itself quickly.
I would recommend you get at least 20-25% of your calories from protein. I have seen higher numbers recommended in other places, and if you think you need more, then experiment a little bit and put the number higher.
If you are having a tough time eating this many calories from protein, I suggest you try to drink protein shakes with whey protein blended in. It is very easy to get at least 25 grams of protein in one shake, and you could easily get twice as much if you want. Some people don’t like the texture or taste of the whey protein, but if you blend it in a smoothie with fruit and milk, you have a very healthy snack that has lots of protein, carbs, is low in fat, and should keep you feeling full for a couple hours.
Fat
You should aim to get about 20-25% of your calories from fat. Be careful with this number though, every gram of fat has 9 calories as opposed to carbs and protein, which only have 4 calories per gram. It is very, very, VERY easy to blow your calorie goal by not monitoring fat.
If you grab a breakfast sandwich/bagel or muffin or something on the way to work, it could easily have 10-20 grams of fat in it. Your co-workers are going out for lunch and you want to join them? Even if you grab a salad, you need to be careful since many restaurant salads have a lot of fat in them from the dressing.
There are temptations all around the place, so you need to be disciplined. Think creatively and make sure you bring all the food you need to your place of work. If you know that you will be going to lunch or dinner with people later in the day, try and eat smaller snacks so that you will be able to eat more calories at the lunch/dinner and not feel bad about it.
Below are two pictures of the actual spreadsheet.
There is just a little work to get setup in this first part…
The second part is where you actually enter in carbs, protein and fat. On the bottom you can see how you are doing compared to your targets for the day.
