Measure Progress Without the Scale-- An Arsenal of Tools for Your Motivation

Frustrated. Disappointed. Hopeless. Skeptical. Whichever you choose, these emotions are enemies of people trying to lose weight—especially when you feel like you have done everything right. For many trying to shed pounds, the elation from that initial weight loss is brought to a screeching halt when the scale stops moving. But instead of viewing this as a setback, look for other ways to measure your progress besides the scale. After all, good health isn’t always measured in pounds. Losing weight usually involves a relatively simple calorie equation: burn off more calories with daily activity than you consume through food. So what happens when these numbers indicate progress, but the scale doesn’t? Before the aggravation sets in, consider why this might be the case. If you’ve been hitting the gym on a regular basis, participating in both cardiovascular and strengthening exercises, then chances are good that you have shed some fat. But the scale might not indicate this because you have also been building lean muscle. Since muscle is dense (a small volume of muscle weighs more than the same volume of fat), the scale might not reflect your hard work.

4 Non-Scale Signs of Progress
1. See results by taking a trip to your very own closet. Take out a pair of pants that fit snugly before you began your new, healthy habits. Are you able to ease into them, when before you had to sit (or lie) down and yank them up your legs? This is a sure sign of progress toward a leaner you! What about an old shirt? Is it now a little loose around your waist or arms? Also look for improved muscle definition when you check out your body in the mirror. There are many everyday indicators that you are firming up your body, from how your clothes fit to sitting more comfortably in a booth or small chair.

2. Aside from weight, use other numerical signs of progress. When you first start your program, take measurements of your waist, arms, neck and hips. Even if you are not losing pounds, you very well may be losing inches all over your body as your figure slims down and tones up with muscles. Measuring your body is more reliable than the scale alone. Other numerical indicators include a reduction of blood pressure or cholesterol, heart rate, and body fat percentage.

3. Monitor how a healthy diet and regular exercise affects your energy levels. Not only will you be able to work out for longer intervals of time, but everyday chores will also become easier. Whether cutting the grass or simply walking up the stairs, these behaviors will come effortlessly. Think of all the daily activities you could use more energy for—grocery shopping, house cleaning, playing with your kids, and more. Pretty soon you’ll be training for your first 5K, half marathon or marathon!

4. Lastly, be conscious of how you feel emotionally. You’ve been working hard to reach your goals. Hopefully, the hard work will come with a boost in self-esteem, confidence, and happiness. Are you beginning to feel more comfortable in your own body? Work to build a positive vocabulary to stay motivated. Just because the scale has stopped moving doesn’t mean that you’ve hit a plateau in reaching your goals. Don’t give up out of frustration—all healthy behaviors are well worth the effort. Whether it’s better sleep at night or more energy throughout the day, start listening to the signs your body gives you that all of your hard work is paying off!

The Number on the Scale

That Pesky Number on the Scale...

Let's talk body composition. We hear a lot about it... but what exactly is it? Well, to be considered "fit," you have to meet minimum standards in 5 different areas, known as the Components of Fitness. Body Composition is one of them (in addition to flexibility, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and aerobic fitness). Body composition itself deals with four areas: weight, fat mass, lean mass, and fat distribution.

Weight measures total body mass. We're all too familiar with this one, in most cases. But weight alone doesn't tell you the whole truth about your progress or fitness level. For example, it doesn't tell you how much fat you carry. People want to lose "weight." You could start lifting weights and actually gain weight...but that doesn't necessarily mean you are tipping the scales towards obesity.

Forget your preconceptions about the number on the scale. Knowing your weight is good, but not crucial--you want to lose fat, not necessarily weight. If you must weigh yourself, don't make it a daily habit. Weight tends to fluctuate throughout the day, and from day-to-day, by as much as 5 pounds or so. Most of these regular changes are due to food and water. If weight is an important record to you, then do it under the same circumstances (no clothes or shoes, first thing in the morning before eating, etc) and no more than every 1-2 weeks.

Tomorrow's post will talk more about how to measure your progress without the scale.

Diet Friendly Snacks

Many people are under the impression that snacking of any kind is strictly prohibited while on a diet. After all, snacks are loaded with extra fat and calories, right? Wrong! Truth be told, snacks can be an extremely beneficial part of a diet. There are actually several diet plans that recommend the consumption of daily snacks, sometimes referred to as “mini-meals”. Eating small meals, about five per day, can help keep hunger cravings at bay, lower your potential risk of over eating, and actually help you to lose weight. That’s right, eating more can help you lose weight. This is due to the fact that the process of digestion increases your metabolism through the burning or using of extra energy. Of course this does not mean that you can have all the chips and cookies you want. It is absolutely necessary that you only eat the proper types of snacks. Here are a few healthy and diet friendly snack choices.

1. Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Feel free to load up on these. You should be consuming about three to five servings a day, so these foods make excellent snack choices. Not only do fruits and vegetables contain plenty of nutrients, vitamins and minerals, they also have a good deal of fiber. Fiber helps to keep you feeling full longer so you do not have the urge to keep eating. On top of these benefits, produce is fat free and contains few calories.

2. Low Fat or Fat Free Dairy

Low fat or fat free dairy is another great choice for diet friendly snacks. Low fat or fat free cheese, yogurt, and other lean dairy products contain a good amount of protein, calcium, vitamins, and minerals. Calcium has been clinically proven to help with weight loss. It is very important that you only choose low fat or fat free versions, and make sure to read labels to ensure you do not choose products that contain extra fillers or added sugars.

3. Whole Grains

Whole grain snacks provide high amounts of complex carbohydrates and fiber. This combination not only helps to keep you feeling full, it also gives you an extra boost of energy. A perfect snack is low fat whole grain bread or crackers, paired with a bit of low fat cheese. This snack will hold you over throughout the day and it will not wreck your diet progress.

While the above-mentioned foods are recommended for snacking, it is important to note that you should not go overboard with any of these options. You still need to keep portions under control when preparing your mini-meals.

Here is some helpful snacking information: one stalk of celery contains about ten calories; two cubes of cheese about the size of dominos contain about one hundred calories; one cup of raw fresh vegetables is between twenty-five to thirty calories; one cup of low fat cottage cheese topped with a half cup of fresh fruit contains about two hundred calories; and a half cup of low fat frozen yogurt topped with a half cup of fresh fruit is about one hundred and fifty calories. Nuts can be a great snack option, but remember just a small palm full packs over one hundred and fifty calories. If you over do it with nuts, you can easily add eight hundred calories to you diet for the day without even noticing.

Rules for Success

You need to start tracking your foods, exercises, weight loss, and goals. No matter how great any workout is, you absolutely, positively must be eating right or you won't lose fat. Eating whole, natural foods, high in lean protein, fiber, and healthy fats is the best diet plan for fat loss.
Check out these fat loss rules for success:
1. Eat breakfast EVERYDAY!
2. Think fiber, not carbs.
3. Eat some protein with every meal, aiming for approximately 1g protein/pound of body weight.
4. Drink about 1/2 gallon of water for every 1000 calories you eat.
5. Keep fat under 30% of total calories consumed. This amount will typically come from foods you naturally eat, rather than adding fat to foods. That is unecessary and added fats are typically not healthy.
6. Drink unsweetened green tea throughout the day--aim for atleast 3 cups each day.
7. Have at least 1 fruit and/or vegetable at every single meal, with the goal of 5-13 servings total each day.
8. Get a few grams of fish oil each day, either through fish and/or supplements.
9. Do not skip a meal with the intention of saving calories.
10. Record what you eat and drink--self-monitoring is crucial to success.
11. Do not have an all or nothing attitude towards food--if you can get 90% of your intake to meet the guidlines listed above, you'll succeed.
12. Eat smaller meals throughout the day; never skip a meal to save calories, as this will likely lead to overeating.
13. Use caffeine in moderation.
14. Stay away from sugar-laden, caffeine-overdosed beverages like Red Bull (100 cal & 80 mg caffeine) and the drinks you can get at Starbucks (up to 400 calories & sometimes over 500 mg caffeine).

Fact!

Here is an important fact about weight loss:

Fact:

The thing which has the biggest effect on your weight loss is your nutrition.

And what you need to understand is that most of the "Diets" on the market today actually aren't nutritionally good for your body and may even hurt your long term weight loss goals.

If you follow any of what I call the Low-something diets, which is basically any diet which tells you to drastically cut down on 1 or more nutrients like carbs, fat, or protein, you will experience 2 things:

1. A reduction in lean muscle tissue.

2. A lower metabolism rate.

Put these two effects together and you're on the fast track to making yourself fatter.

Without going scientific on you, what you're basically doing is taking your body off its natural balance, disturbing the basic hormonal processes which are going on inside of you, and kissing your long term weight loss efforts goodbye.

The right diet for long term and continuous weight loss is to follow a balanced diet which contains a healthy amount of all the major food groups (carbs, fat, and protein or 40/30/30--40%carbs, 30%protein, 30%fat). The trick is to get these nutrients from healthy natural sources. This will ensure that each nutrient is of high quality and provides your body with the perfect conditions to lose weight and build lean muscle tissue quickly and effectively.

So to sum things up,

Don't go for any Low-Something or any other deprivation diet. That's just setting you up for a fall.

Mirror Your Metabolism

Take a look at the typical American diet and here’s what you get:

Breakfast is the smallest meal of the day, if consumed at all.

Lunch is a decent, moderate sized meal.

Dinner is by far the largest meal of the day, often times consumed late at night.

The problem with this set up? It has you eating your largest meal of the day in the evening hours when metabolism is at its lowest point.

Essentially, the timing and size of meals in the average diet are the exact opposite of what they should be.

To fix this, use what I call the “Mirror Your Metabolism” approach.

Metabolism is highest in the morning, so make breakfast (not dinner), your largest meal.

Beyond that, carbohydrate tolerance is also at its peak upon awakening, which simply means that your body is more apt to handle a high carbohydrate intake in the morning hours (carbohydrate tolerance is at its lowest point in the evening).

This means that you can GET AWAY with a high carb, high calorie meal in the morning, with this meal actually stoking your metabolism to burn more calories throughout the day.

Do you want to eat a big breakfast? Go right ahead; it will benefit both your body and metabolism greatly.

On the other hand, dinner should be the smallest (not largest) meal of the day, and should also limit carbohydrate.

Summary – Here’s how to mirror both your metabolism and carbohydrate tolerance for optimal results:

Breakfast – Large sized meal, higher carb intake

Lunch – Moderate size meal and carb intake

Dinner – Light sized meal, lower carb intake

Post Workout Meal

After a good workout, your muscles are starving for nutrients, especially fast acting carbohydrates and quick absorbing protein. Imagine your muscles as little starving birds screaming out for their mama...well what are you waiting for...feed them already!!! :)

The goals for the post-workout meal is (1) get into anabolic state, (2) eliminate metabolic waste, (3) replenish glycogen, (4) start building muscle, and (5) bolster immune system. However, the window of opportunity opens and shuts very quickly so you need to act fast. After 1 hour, the window begins to close; after 4 hours, the window is shut!

Just like your pre-workout meal, the best ratio appears to be 3 carbs to 1 protein; therefore, about 30 grams of carbohydrates mixed with 10 grams of protein will work great! A quick and easy choice is orange juice and whey protein (a protein powder). Or a peanut butter and banana sandwich will work just fine. The trick is, feed them again 2 hours later...and then again 2 hours after that. So in summary, a small post-workout meal immediately following your workout plus 2 more small meals within 4 hours. Afterward, go back to your normal diet consisting of unsaturated fat, low glycemic carbohydrates, and complete proteins.

What you should and should NOT eat after a workout.

Simply put, aside from water (which you should already know you need) your post workout meal needs to contain two things, and it needs to not contain one. You should be eating protein and carbs. You should NOT be eating fat.

Here's a quick explanation of why you shouldn't eat fat after a workout.

Remember fat is NOT a bad thing (when it's the "good" fat) and it is an important part of everyone's diet. However, there just happens to be a certain time when fat (good or bad) wouldn't be good to eat. This of course is in the post workout meal. Fat slows down digestion. In this case, it would be slowing down the digestion of protein and carbs. This is the exact opposite of what you want to happen.

3 questions about your post workout meal:

1 - How soon should I eat it?

2 - How much protein and how many carbs should I eat?

3 - What foods should the protein and carbs be coming from?

How long after my workout should I eat my post workout meal?

Soon... really soon. As soon as you can. There is this "window of time" that exists after your workout during which it would be the most beneficial for your body to receive it's post workout nutrition. Typically you'd want to try to get this meal into your body within 1 hour. If possible, within 30 minutes would be even better.

Post Workout Protein

Now that you know that time is of the essence when it comes to your post workout meal, this part is going to make a whole lot of sense. See, eating this meal soon after a workout is important, but just because you are putting the food into your body quickly doesn't actually mean the food is being digested and used by your body equally as quick. While eggs/egg whites, chicken, and tuna fish are fine sources of protein that I personally eat daily, they aren't the ideal type of protein for the meal after your workout.

These foods are whole foods, and the protein in whole foods digest pretty slowly. You may have eaten a high protein food in your post workout meal, but by the time the protein is digested and finally ready to be used by your body, a whole lot of time would have passed. This is why the ideal source of protein to eat after your workout is a whey protein powder mixed with some type of liquid thus creating a whey protein shake.

A whey protein shake will be digested by your body much quicker than a whole food because it will be a liquid. And, not to mention, whey protein is the fastest digesting protein there is. This is what makes whey protein pretty much the official choice of most people as their post workout meal protein source. As for how much, try to consume between 0.15-0.25 grams of protein per pound of your body weight (so a 150 lb person would shoot for between 22-38grams at this time).

Post Workout Carbs

Carbs after your workout are actually an extremely important part of your post workout nutrition. Carbs will be used by your body to restore muscle glycogen. If your post workout meal doesn't contain carbs, your body may actually instead break down muscle tissue for this same purpose. That would be a bad thing. Carbs also create an insulin spike which helps to move nutrients into your muscle tissue quicker.

So, now that you know you need them after a workout, what kind do you need? Well, you know all about good carbs and bad carbs by now, right? Funny enough, this is actually the only time when "good carbs" and "bad carbs" switch roles. This doesn't mean start eating cookies, this just means that typical good carbs (whole wheat bread, brown rice, etc) contain fiber, and fiber slows down their digestion. This is actually what makes them "good" any other time of the day. But the post workout meal is all about speed. And when it comes to speed, simple carbs beat complex carbs.

This would be a good time to have your fruits, made up of those simple sugars. I prefer mixing in some frozen berries with the whey protein and water to make a smoothie. Check out the recipe on the right side column.