Day 3: Maximizing effort

In my first post, I outlined how eating small amounts at short, regular intervals boosts your average metabolism when compared with eating the same number of calories, but in larger portions and at longer invervals. Some people refer to this as "grazing" and it's an apt term.

In this post I want to stress that your workouts don't have to be hard, or long, to be effective. This is all about burning calories (in the short term). I'm not yet in good enough shape where I can run 30-40 non-stop minutes everyday without burning out mentally and physically. It's too hard. As a stop gap, I've split my aerobic workouts up. I run about 15-20 minutes in the morning (is it even possible to run less than this once you get out of bed and on the road?) and another 15-20 minutes in the evening (usually after a short lift when I'm pumped up and feeling good). The total calories burned are the same, but it's much easier for me to manage physically and mentally. Not only that, but if my routine continues this way, missing a workout won't be as damaging to my progress.

I think one of my biggest weaknesses (and I know many of you share it) is eating just before sleeping. Your body is finely tuned to make efficient use of extra calories while you sleep. Again, don't consume a lot of calories before bedtime.

Sometimes it's hard to go to bed on an empty stomach. I know. It's about 9pm now. I'll go to sleep in a couple hours, but I'm eating pickles. Some people hate pickles. Fine, eat carrots. Eat any vegetable that is largely cellulose (fiber) and water. This is very filling, but almost calorically neutral considering your body works fairly hard to break down veggies. Another trick is to drink water (a tall glass) when you feel hungry. It won't cure cravings, but if you're really hungry and not just suffering from a change of habit, definitely eat a small meal (200 cal if you're my size). The hunger will be gone. Guaranteed.

Finally (and this keeps me going), it won't always be this hard. Changing habits is the hardest part of dieting. Eating late at night is a habit. Eating large meals is a habit. Following salty, fatty stuff with piles of sugar (usually in beverage form) is a particularly vicious habit. Changing these habits might trigger very real, very compelling chemical responses in your brain and they may even feel like true hunger, but most of the time, they're not. You can get used to this, and life's better when you do. You'll like the way you look and you'll like the way you feel. You may (likely) be able to sleep better and get by on fewer hours. How do I know? I've done it before and it works.

Today's shot and stats (my bench went up 10lbs!):

Weight: Calories consumed: Aerobic time logged: Bench Press: Max Pull-ups: Mile time:

178lbs. 1905 ~0:35:00 3 x 165lb x 10 and 225lbs x 1 3 x body x 10 reps ~6:30 min

Calories look a little better too eh?