Why this web Page! by Leo Rodriguez

Being overweight, it’s a serious issue. Carrying that extra weight can make us susceptible to heart problems, diabetes, stroke, and various types of cancer. We can live a healthier life by taking off some of that weight that is making you unhealthy. But what if you’re like me and love food and hate the idea of dieting? Here is the good news; there is no need to stop eating the foods you love to lose weight! There is no secret magic pill that will help us achieve the appropriate weight. It took me over 30 years to get over the 400lbs and now I am living a healthier more fuller life… and so can you!!!

Some companies and websites might entice you in weight loss program that allow you to eat more and exercise less. Or lose weight with only 15 minutes X 3 times a week. This all sounds great, but this “one size fits all” plans has not worked for you in the past and you know it. The issue is that the majority of these programs are designed by fit individuals and they do not the struggles and issues that we obese people have. That is why this web-site is dedicated to share with you way on how you can achieve a healthier a stronger and you?

Why are we overweight? One of the truths (not the only one) about being overweight is that we use bad math. We tend to consume more calories than the ones we burned. As we take in more calories than our body needs, we gain weight.

How can we correct this? There are three options:
A. We either reduce the calories we consume
B. We can increase our metabolism (pills and activity)
C. We can use the EBIT approach (Eat Healthy and Often Build Muscle and do Interval Training)

Option A is the most common approach to loosing fat, yet it has a lot of pitfalls and is the lowest of the three. The approximate rate of loosing fat using this method is around one-to-two pounds a week (not counting water loss and muscle loss). Some of the known diet follow this method (low carbs, low fat - no fat, liquid diets Scarsdale, Mayo, Etc.). If we do the math, for me to go down to my ideal weight from 400lbs, it will take me at least 3 years. In addition, diets are too strict. They either reduce the amount of calories or restrict an entire food group (like carbs, fats, meats, etc.). This puts the body in prime craving mode. Even just 3 days of strict dieting decreases levels of the appetite reducing hormone leptin by 22%. No willpower is stronger that our physiological constitution and we are an easy pray for binge eating. Although, this option is better than no option, so if you are sold on this approach… go on!!! Keep it up! Just keep reading in case we can offer you something better.

Option B is another common approach. The most prevalent aspect here is the use of diet pills and/or increase in activity, especially cardio. With regards to diet pills, I have bought my share of pills to help me in my feeble attempts to loose weight. Nevertheless, I have seen and read that these “diet pills” have more adverse effects than advantages. They have never been able to quench my love for food. Increasing ones activities is good for the body and it helps better than pills or strict dieting. We could increase our calories burned, yet the most common mistake is to add simple cardio routines to our lifestyle.

Lets say that we are dedicated and are able to add one sessions daily of activities increasing our calories burned by a whopping 300 calories a day. However, if we consume/eat 4000 calories per day, we burned 2050 daily for maintenance and added our new “daily” 300 calories burned; we are still in the negative by 1650 calories. Here we are not loosing weight, but just storing less weight. Then someone might say… what we need to do is lower the intake calories by dieting? We will need to reduce our calories by at least 2000 calories. This just placed us on “Option A” scenario and we saw that this didn’t work for us! Yet, combining both of these options is better than any single option approach. I will like to take this time and congratulated those who have been able to use the above two approaches, especially if you were able to accomplish your goals. Kudos to you and keep the good work!!!

Option C is a more complete approach. This EBIT method uses our bodies, natural laws and good math. Because of the completeness of this method, there are several things that we have to know and understand prior to applying the EBIT method. Please remember to consult your doctor before you attempt this or any other method for weight loss and fitness.

Eat Healthy and Often

  • Don’t skip breakfast. Whatever you do follow this advice, because otherwise you are much more likely in fact prone to binge later in the day.
  • Don’t eat anything for at least an hour before going to bed.
  • Eat at least 4 to 6 smalls meals throught the day (2.5 to 3 hours apart)
  • Don’t snack while watching TV. It’s acceptable to eat a meal while watching television, but never is snacking at this time acceptable.
  • Substitute fruits like; bananas, watermelon, plums, peaches, and oranges for sugary treats like; cookies and candy.
  • Substitute honey for sugar, and carob powder for chocolate in all recipes. These taste just as good if not better when used properly.
  • Eat more vegetables. This can even be enjoyable if you have a good cookbook like Good housekeeping's latest edition.
  • Avoid unnecessary high calorie foods. Instead of a high calorie salad dressing for instance try cottage cheese or yogurt to improve the salads taste and peel of the pounds.

Fact: Eat breakfast to loose more. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day to prevent starvation. When you go into starvation mode, here are some of the consequences:

  1. Your body releases fewer fat-releasing and fat-burning enzymes such as hormone sensitive lipase and lipoprotein lipase.
  2. Your fat cells release less of the hormone leptin, which is the signal that tells your brain you are well fed and not starving (it's the "anti-starvation" hormone)
  3. Fat burning hormones crash, including your levels of T3 (no, not the latest Arnold terminator movie, T3 is the active form of thyroid hormone, the important "metabolism-regulating hormone" that you've probably heard about before).
  4. You lose muscle. Muscle is metabolically-active tissue, which means it takes a lot of energy just to keep it. When you're "starving," you're in an "energy crisis", so excess muscle is the LAST thing you need. Muscle becomes expendable, and your body cannibalizes your own lean tissue.
  5. Appetite hormones rage out of control. When you're starving, a part of your brain called the hypothalamus switches into high gear and flips the appetite switch, sometimes to the point where you become ravenous and cannot fight these physiological cravings with willpowe
Bottom line: It's hormonally, metabolically and physiologically impossible to achieve permanent fat loss by starving yourself.

Build Muscle

Fact: Increase in muscle building increases metabolism Myths: Many people – particularly some women – are very leery about undertaking any exercise regimen that can lead to muscle building. The old perception was that muscle building leads to muscle bulking, and before long, gorging forearm veins and other unwanted results. Also why focus on building muscle in order to boost metabolism? Isn’t cardio the only thing that matters?

Reasoning through: Muscle building is an exceptionally powerful way to boost metabolism. Increasing muscle size increases metabolism because muscles use more energy. Fat is just energy that the body has stored for the “just-in-case” we starve scenario. In addition, women need to cease from worrying because they would not bulk up unless they start producing testosterone (or use supplements that do so). Female bodies have a higher percentage of fat to assist with childbearing and have less muscle to build and bulk up. Weight training for women is aimed at producing stronger muscles that can take more stress and bounce back better than ever. For some men who might be fearful of bulking up; bulking up is a long and difficult process that does not happen overnight. Once you reach the muscle size you want, stop training for size (low repetition with high weights) and start training for endurance (high repetition with lower weights). Build Muscle and Lose Fat If your main goal is losing of fat while putting on muscle. If you want to know more about this, go to my link on Strength training for tips on how to safely do this.

Interval Training

Fact: Interval Training is more productive for burning fat than long cardio routines.

Myths on regular cardio: the recommendations constitute something along the lines of “perform 30-60 minutes of steady pace cardio 3-5 times per week maintaining your heart rate at a moderate level”. There is also the belief that we need to do 45 minutes to an hour of cardio, thus, we better pace ourselves.

Reasoning through: First, let me define Interval training; interval training is simply adding high energy burning burst to any exercise plan on an infrequent, or interval, basis. This will always keep in mind that interval training only works when it’s at intervals. our bodies are designed to perform physical activity in bursts of exertion followed by recovery, or stop-and-go movement instead of steady state movement. Recent research is suggesting that physical variability is one of the most important aspects to consider in your training. Scientists have known that excessive steady state endurance exercise (different for everyone, but sometimes defined as greater than 60 minutes per session most days of the week) increases free radical production in the body, can degenerate joints, reduces immune function, causes muscle wasting, and can cause a pro-inflammatory response in the body that can potentially lead to chronic diseases. potential benefits of Interval training compared to steady state endurance training are as follows:

  • improved cardiovascular health
  • increased anti-oxidant protection
  • improved immune function
  • reduced risk for joint wear and tear
  • reduced muscle wasting
  • increased residual metabolic rate following exercise
  • and an increased capacity for the heart to handle life’s every day stressors.

Just plodding away on a treadmill, apart from being incredibly boring, is not actually the most efficient way to burn body-fat. Cardio "bunnies" read on. The smart way to burn body-fat is to combine Interval Training with Strenght Training. Strenght Training builds muscle which at the end will burn more fat while you are sleeping than regular aerobics does in an hour. Now THAT is a plan I can get used to! If muscle burns fat while you sleep then the real way to burn fat is to combine a monitored aerobic workout with a Strenght Training workout. This way you can work less hard on the aerobic piece and still get great results.

The cardiovascular key to fat burning is using interval training workouts - workouts that alternate high-intensity levels with lower-intensity effort. Interval training mimics sports - start-and-stop motions with periods of sprinting or close-to-sprinting speeds followed by light jogging or rest. You can use interval training workouts any way you want - running, cycling, swimming, on elliptical trainers, even walking if you alternate a speed walk and slow walk. However, I will agree witrh Dr. Nicholas DiNubile that the elliptical machine is a better choice for the obese/overweight population. You can also vary the intensity levels in different combinations. To start, here are three options for setting your workout. (If you use exercise machines, don't choose the interval workout; choose the manual one, and create your own intensities by adjusting it yourself. It'll give you greater control over the speeds and will help you burn fat faster.) You'll derive benefits in as little as a 20-30 minute interval workout. As you build up endurance and strength, you can add time to your workout.

Interval Variation I Standard: The following is a typical interval workout. You alternate the same period of low intensity with the same period of higher intensity.

  1. 3 - 5 minutes warmup (light jog, low intensity, gradually increasing at the end of the warmup period)
  2. 30 - 60 seconds moderate or high intensity followed by 1 minute low intensity (repeat 6 - 10 times)
  3. 3 - 5 minutes cooldown (light jog, low intensity, gradually decreasing by the end of the cooldown period)

Interval Variation II Pyramid: This pyramid structure allows you to start with short bursts of speed, and then you'll peak at the longest surge of energy in the middle of your workout before coming back down.

  1. 3 - 5 minutes warmup
  2. 30 seconds high intensity, 1 minute low intensity
  3. 45 seconds high intensity, 1 minute low intensity
  4. 60 seconds high intensity, 1 minute low intensity
  5. 90 seconds high intensity, 1 minute low intensity
  6. 60 seconds high intensity, 1 minute low intensity
  7. 45 seconds high intensity, 1 minute low intensity
  8. 30 seconds high intensity
  9. 3 - 5 minutes cooldown

Interval Variation III Sports Conditioning: Sports are unpredictable. This interval simulates some of that unpredictability by having you doing different times and different intensities. You can mix and match the orders and repetitions as much as you want. Rest longer after the periods in which you use the most energy.

  1. 3 - 5 minutes warmup
  2. 2 minutes moderate or high intensity followed by 2 minutes low intensity (repeat once)
  3. 30 seconds high intensity followed by 30 seconds low intensity (repeat four times)
  4. 60-yard sprints (or 10 seconds if not running) followed by 90 seconds rest (repeat 6 - 10 times)
  5. 3 - 5 minutes cooldown