| The BAR diet |
I have been working on refining a diet that I thought I would share with everyone. By the way this post may get a little long, big shocker there, so I will let you know when might be a good bail out point. Watch for it.
Over the last several days I have been working on a new diet. No it is not all drinking and no eating as you might think the BAR diet might imply. BAR is just my initials. By the way, I never go my monogram, BRA,,,
Basically you start the day with a good breakfast. It is the most important mean of the day. Now I am not a breakfast kind of person, except on weekends, but it makes sense to eat more earlier in the day when you have a whole day to burn off the calories.
Now you follow this up with a decent lunch. Not to huge as you are trying to lose weight but still get the most of your eating out of the way.
Finally dinner, ah dinner. The last several nights I have just skipped dinner. It can get you into trouble anyway and you will be going to bed before long anyway. Who needs a dinner. Besides, if you were ever threatened with you were going to go to bed without dinner ... no problem, you had not planned on eating anyway.
Well lets close out the diet with exercise. Every good diet needs exercise. They say you need at least 30 minutes a day, 3 or 4 times a week. It doesn’t have to be much. Hey how about replacing that dinner with a nice walk.
WARNING. Bail out point. I am going to get serious about diets now. No one wants to hear that. You have been warned.
Actually the “diet” I mentioned about is not a real good idea. I have been dieting more of my life than not dieting so I have learned a thing or two. One of the worst thing you can do is starve yourself. Your body is a wonderful thing. If it thinks you are not eating enough it will shut your metabolism down and it will be hard at best to lose weight. Same thing with water. Don’t drink enough water and it will start retaining what water it can. If you drink more water then the body will allow that water to pass on through.
Actually, and now I have not done this, I think it is much better for you to spread out your meals and maybe eat more, much smaller meals.
Breakfast is the most important meal and it makes sense. You have a whole day in front of you. Why not start it out right. Besides, you are much more likely to burn off anything you eat in the morning then what you eat for say dinner.
Lunch, again don’t over do it and watch what you eat but by the time you are done with lunch you should have a majority of your eating sone fore the day. Now what I said above about skipping dinner. Yes I did not eat dinner for the last several nights but that really is a bad idea. You should eat that dinner, just keep it much lighter than you might normally eat.
Exercise, now that part was true. If you can not exercise 30 minutes straight then do several things that add up to 30 minutes. Now they really would like you to get your heart rate up there and stay elevated for the majority of your exercise but I believe they are now saying that there is still a lot of benefit to just getting that exercise time in. Some people push for 30 minutes (or even 60 minutes a day everyday. That probably is a good idea, especially if you are trying to lose weight. When I lost a ton of weight I was working out 5 days a week between 1 hour to 2.5 hours a day. It payed off.
There are a ton of diets out there and I have tried a lot of them. One of the craziest was a liquid protein diet. Out of all the diets out there I think the best one is Weight Watchers. For those that can handle choices, WW gives you the freedom to choose what you want to eat, as long as you stay within your points. If you are one of those people that need to be told what you should do, I think WW has a different program that will work out much better for you. Personally I loved the freedom. I mean, following WW I was able to actually eat a packzi and stay within my points for the day. Now a packzi is a heavy donut that comes out just before lent begins. It is something like 1600 calories and a ton of fat but by eating lightly and exercising a lot I was able to fit it in. Now that is not a good idea to do.
So what is it I like about WW other than the flexibility? It is a sensible diet. They push drinking your water but actually you probably should drink more water than they expect. They also push you eating you vegetables and fruits and don’t forget that milk. Of course with people that are diabetic or have problems with dairy, there probably are little tweaks you will need to do to the diet to make it a better fit for you.
Another thing I like about WW is that it gets people together to form kind of a support network. I helps you want to lose weight. Also an instructor is there to help guide you through some of those trouble spots you may run into and encourage you to keep going. Also the weighing in every week is a good idea. Now you can weigh in more often but you have to be careful because the body will fluctuate and you may retain weight or even slightly gain from day to day. I think a lot of what is going on is water retention by the body. If you have been following the diet you should be losing weight.
For me WW has its problems however. It is geared toward women big time. When I was attending for about a year, it was not uncommon that I was the only man there or maybe 1 or two others. Everything seemed to be geared toward women including determining what weight you needed to lose down to. Now I am sorry but I did not ever make my goal weight but I was just a few pounds over a toothpick and they wanted me to still lose weight. I think they need to be more flexible for men in that regard. Another thing that bothered me in WW is they always wanted people to share about mow much weight they lost. Now I felt so guilty. Week after week I was losing between 3 to 5 pounds. The people around me were just thrilled to lose a quarter pound. I just really felt out of place in the class.
Beyond just watching what you eat and getting that all important exercise in you need to do a few things. First set your over all goal of what you are trying to accomplish, how much you want to lose. Next, break that up into chunks that are much more manageable and something that you can measure progress. For me I built a chart. I put down my goal weight. Actually I had two goal weights. One was for me to lose a half pound a day. So I would write down say 200 for the first day, then 199.5 for the next day, then 199 for the next and so on. The next goal weight was a little more relaxed. I think that one was more like a quarter pound a day.
Once I had that chart I then marked my actual weight in and watched to make sure I was meeting all my mini goals. Now having a lot of small goals allows you to see progress and to make sure you stay on track. Also it is mush less overwhelming then saying I want to lose 25 pounds. Oh one more thing. I also went through and set other more major goals. Having been dieting forever I knew there were points where I looked noticeably better. So I went through and made those points my major points. First WW pushes 10 percent of your body weight. Sure, why not. It is a fun goal. But then I tossed in those extra points and now I had additional things to keep an eye one. Something off in the horizon to shoot for.
OK, something I should have probably talked about first. Even before you have your goals you probably should get yourself into the right frame of mind. Set your reasons to lose weight. Now when I lost a lot if weight I set all the wrong reasons. It helped me stay focused on the diet but that was it. My first goal was to be down to weight for my brothers wedding which I was in. I made it and I looked pretty good I might add. But the problem with this goal is it is just a moment in time. Then what is next. Why should you keep that weight off. The next thing I used was I had to get the girl. I said if you lose down to what ever you are shooting for you can ask her out. I really was self conscious about my weight. When I did lose the weight I tried to approach her several times and somehow it just never did work out. That depressed me and really did not help my diet at all.
A much better goal would have been just to do this for health. I was on blood pressure medicine and I eventually was able to come off of that. It is so much healthier to be at a proper weight. So I probably should have had the wedding thing in place ... forget the girl and just insert concerns about the health in there. Yes, at least for me, proper motivation.
One final thing and I did not do this so this is more theory than anything. You are suppose to also take you measurements. Not just at the waist but also on the calf, the next, the fore arms, pretty much everywhere. And you should keep up with those measurements. What this does for you is help with the plato's. You know, where you can’t seem to loose anything. Usually what is happening is you are losing weight but retaining water. If you are taking measurements you should be able to see you are still making progress even if you are not losing the weight. Like I said, this is more theory than anything.
I am so sorry. I have never written such a long entry before. If you have read this far I hope you found something of use. I think I might just owe you one for reading this. I hope you have a great week.
Over the last several days I have been working on a new diet. No it is not all drinking and no eating as you might think the BAR diet might imply. BAR is just my initials. By the way, I never go my monogram, BRA,,,
Basically you start the day with a good breakfast. It is the most important mean of the day. Now I am not a breakfast kind of person, except on weekends, but it makes sense to eat more earlier in the day when you have a whole day to burn off the calories.
Now you follow this up with a decent lunch. Not to huge as you are trying to lose weight but still get the most of your eating out of the way.
Finally dinner, ah dinner. The last several nights I have just skipped dinner. It can get you into trouble anyway and you will be going to bed before long anyway. Who needs a dinner. Besides, if you were ever threatened with you were going to go to bed without dinner ... no problem, you had not planned on eating anyway.
Well lets close out the diet with exercise. Every good diet needs exercise. They say you need at least 30 minutes a day, 3 or 4 times a week. It doesn’t have to be much. Hey how about replacing that dinner with a nice walk.
WARNING. Bail out point. I am going to get serious about diets now. No one wants to hear that. You have been warned.
Actually the “diet” I mentioned about is not a real good idea. I have been dieting more of my life than not dieting so I have learned a thing or two. One of the worst thing you can do is starve yourself. Your body is a wonderful thing. If it thinks you are not eating enough it will shut your metabolism down and it will be hard at best to lose weight. Same thing with water. Don’t drink enough water and it will start retaining what water it can. If you drink more water then the body will allow that water to pass on through.
Actually, and now I have not done this, I think it is much better for you to spread out your meals and maybe eat more, much smaller meals.
Breakfast is the most important meal and it makes sense. You have a whole day in front of you. Why not start it out right. Besides, you are much more likely to burn off anything you eat in the morning then what you eat for say dinner.
Lunch, again don’t over do it and watch what you eat but by the time you are done with lunch you should have a majority of your eating sone fore the day. Now what I said above about skipping dinner. Yes I did not eat dinner for the last several nights but that really is a bad idea. You should eat that dinner, just keep it much lighter than you might normally eat.
Exercise, now that part was true. If you can not exercise 30 minutes straight then do several things that add up to 30 minutes. Now they really would like you to get your heart rate up there and stay elevated for the majority of your exercise but I believe they are now saying that there is still a lot of benefit to just getting that exercise time in. Some people push for 30 minutes (or even 60 minutes a day everyday. That probably is a good idea, especially if you are trying to lose weight. When I lost a ton of weight I was working out 5 days a week between 1 hour to 2.5 hours a day. It payed off.
There are a ton of diets out there and I have tried a lot of them. One of the craziest was a liquid protein diet. Out of all the diets out there I think the best one is Weight Watchers. For those that can handle choices, WW gives you the freedom to choose what you want to eat, as long as you stay within your points. If you are one of those people that need to be told what you should do, I think WW has a different program that will work out much better for you. Personally I loved the freedom. I mean, following WW I was able to actually eat a packzi and stay within my points for the day. Now a packzi is a heavy donut that comes out just before lent begins. It is something like 1600 calories and a ton of fat but by eating lightly and exercising a lot I was able to fit it in. Now that is not a good idea to do.
So what is it I like about WW other than the flexibility? It is a sensible diet. They push drinking your water but actually you probably should drink more water than they expect. They also push you eating you vegetables and fruits and don’t forget that milk. Of course with people that are diabetic or have problems with dairy, there probably are little tweaks you will need to do to the diet to make it a better fit for you.
Another thing I like about WW is that it gets people together to form kind of a support network. I helps you want to lose weight. Also an instructor is there to help guide you through some of those trouble spots you may run into and encourage you to keep going. Also the weighing in every week is a good idea. Now you can weigh in more often but you have to be careful because the body will fluctuate and you may retain weight or even slightly gain from day to day. I think a lot of what is going on is water retention by the body. If you have been following the diet you should be losing weight.
For me WW has its problems however. It is geared toward women big time. When I was attending for about a year, it was not uncommon that I was the only man there or maybe 1 or two others. Everything seemed to be geared toward women including determining what weight you needed to lose down to. Now I am sorry but I did not ever make my goal weight but I was just a few pounds over a toothpick and they wanted me to still lose weight. I think they need to be more flexible for men in that regard. Another thing that bothered me in WW is they always wanted people to share about mow much weight they lost. Now I felt so guilty. Week after week I was losing between 3 to 5 pounds. The people around me were just thrilled to lose a quarter pound. I just really felt out of place in the class.
Beyond just watching what you eat and getting that all important exercise in you need to do a few things. First set your over all goal of what you are trying to accomplish, how much you want to lose. Next, break that up into chunks that are much more manageable and something that you can measure progress. For me I built a chart. I put down my goal weight. Actually I had two goal weights. One was for me to lose a half pound a day. So I would write down say 200 for the first day, then 199.5 for the next day, then 199 for the next and so on. The next goal weight was a little more relaxed. I think that one was more like a quarter pound a day.
Once I had that chart I then marked my actual weight in and watched to make sure I was meeting all my mini goals. Now having a lot of small goals allows you to see progress and to make sure you stay on track. Also it is mush less overwhelming then saying I want to lose 25 pounds. Oh one more thing. I also went through and set other more major goals. Having been dieting forever I knew there were points where I looked noticeably better. So I went through and made those points my major points. First WW pushes 10 percent of your body weight. Sure, why not. It is a fun goal. But then I tossed in those extra points and now I had additional things to keep an eye one. Something off in the horizon to shoot for.
OK, something I should have probably talked about first. Even before you have your goals you probably should get yourself into the right frame of mind. Set your reasons to lose weight. Now when I lost a lot if weight I set all the wrong reasons. It helped me stay focused on the diet but that was it. My first goal was to be down to weight for my brothers wedding which I was in. I made it and I looked pretty good I might add. But the problem with this goal is it is just a moment in time. Then what is next. Why should you keep that weight off. The next thing I used was I had to get the girl. I said if you lose down to what ever you are shooting for you can ask her out. I really was self conscious about my weight. When I did lose the weight I tried to approach her several times and somehow it just never did work out. That depressed me and really did not help my diet at all.
A much better goal would have been just to do this for health. I was on blood pressure medicine and I eventually was able to come off of that. It is so much healthier to be at a proper weight. So I probably should have had the wedding thing in place ... forget the girl and just insert concerns about the health in there. Yes, at least for me, proper motivation.
One final thing and I did not do this so this is more theory than anything. You are suppose to also take you measurements. Not just at the waist but also on the calf, the next, the fore arms, pretty much everywhere. And you should keep up with those measurements. What this does for you is help with the plato's. You know, where you can’t seem to loose anything. Usually what is happening is you are losing weight but retaining water. If you are taking measurements you should be able to see you are still making progress even if you are not losing the weight. Like I said, this is more theory than anything.
I am so sorry. I have never written such a long entry before. If you have read this far I hope you found something of use. I think I might just owe you one for reading this. I hope you have a great week.
Posted by barman at 4:57 AM::
Very good Barman.
Eat breakfast like a king.
Lunch like a prince.
Dinner like a pulpar. (spelling)
I mostly eat cereal for dinner. Honey Bunches of Oats with Peaches or Cherios. Mmm Mmm good.
Oh my, very well put Manny and I had not thought about cereal. I think I need to give that a try. I used to do it but just got out of the habit.
Well useful information..but lets get back to 2 things.1) I cant seem to drink water I have tried to force myself only to make my self sick. and 2) how do you excersise when you have a back injury and can hardly walk? Im on blood pressure meds too and the doc keeps telling me to lose weight but gosh no one tells me how. I have the WW thing to to go by(a girlfriend gave it to me)and I do try,but somehow I never get more that 3-7 lbs off and then I sit there forever. I would like to take off at least 100lbs!
That sound reasonable Denny. I know the post was out of control.
Gab, the one thing that I did was start carying around a water bottle with me and just take a series of sips throught the day. Of course for me I drink to much anyhow. There is a soloution for the exercise thing but it probably will cost you money and, if you are like most people that are over weight, it means being seen in public with a bathing suit on. Water aerobics are wonderful. They take the stress off the body and you can control how active you are. I think that would work out for you if you could ever do that.
Bryan, thanks for the advice and tips there were a few things in there I had never considered, like taking all over body measurements.
BTW, does sex count as exercise? ;)
Hey Suze, you bet sex counts. I do not remember how much but YES, YES, YES!!!
How dare you uttter that foul, foul word in the presence of me!!
I HATE diets, and exercise and anything remotely healthy.
Well, except for rice cakes, I adore rice cakes...
Hey, Byran! Thanks for the post. I was glad to read something of value other than a text book! lol. Summer grad classes are killing me.
You would think I did not have the time to eat, but somehow I do! lol. I have also been sitting on my ass a lot more. That is not good. I have come torealize the power of water. It makes me get out of my seat to go to the bathroom. lol. No, in all seriousness, water is the best thing you can drink. Water and red wine. Although I have been holdng off the wine. I don;t really diet, but I am now. I have a goal to loose 50 pounds. Everyone says that is way too much, but I am going to try. I gained weight when I got married, you know other than the other 195 pounds with 2 legs. lol. I got away from eating light and made crap he liked. ARGH! I had to learn to cook. Gee that was my downfall. Anyway. I don;t eat a helluva lot, I just do not get a lot of exercise. But I am doing better. I hate it. Oh well, in the grand scheme of things I think Popeye sadi it best, "I yam what I yam!" You are a beautiful person!
Now, I coulda blogged by the size of this comment! lol.
Trish, I thought you were away for a little so I never thought to worry about using a 4 letter word like the D word. Sorry. Rice cakes. OK, next year for your birthday how about a big care package of rice cakes?
DiveGoddess, thanks for that about the 6 meals. I thought I had read stuff like that. I did water aerobics before and it really was good. You could get as much or little of a work out as you wanted. I just hated to do it in the winter.
OHC, thank you. I thought you were more active because of putting your yard back together. I guess I have not been reeding all your posts, sorry. You amaze me how you can manage to do so many things and still have some time for art or friends. Hopefully you are still keeping up with that. By the way, good one about the water. When I start drinking a lot more water I might as well just move into the bathroom. You can do the 50 pounds if you really need to lose that much. Just take it like in "Santa Clause is Coming to Town." You put one foot in front of the other and soon you are walking cross the floor. You put one foot in front of the other and soon you are walking out the door. You can do it. Popeye is so appropriate. Good luck on losing that ugly fat. :)
wow... so glad I'm not alone in this weight loss thing. Trying to get back to my wedding size. It will take me many months. About 6 months for anything noticeable.
Radio SHOW FRIDAY~~~~~
Hi Barman,
I liked your blog, glad to see the weight watchers thing works for you. I tried it and couldn't keep it up unfortunately.
Being over 50 I've found that after years of yo yo dieting I needed something to rev up my metabolism, hence I tried the Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle and it worked great for me, I've lost 33lbs so far.
The important thing is to find something that suits you and stick with it.
Cheers from the UK
Jan
http://janie678.wordpress.com/
Morning Bryan,
I read the whole post and it was full of good info and common sense. I wish I could find a way to drink more water, but I hate water with a passion. I drink way too many diet sodas. I wish you nothing but success in your weightloss.
Rice cakes AND mini-chocolate chips, k?
Oh even better Trish. You got it!
When I was really little, I started off chubby, but then slimmed down when I was about 5 years old. I think the secret is your metabolism. My mother always let us eat whenever we wanted as along as we ate our meals. But it was healthy snacks. I eat very frequently. Maybe I eat 6 times a day. Sometimes I splurge and overdo it and even gain a couple pounds when I go crazy and eat a whole pizza or something, but it always evens out when I go back to my small 6 meals a day. I also drink alot of water and tea. Eating frequently boosts your metabolism and burns calories all day! Your body just expects to be fed so keeps burning the calories. Eat things like fruit and veggies which make good snacks between meals. I love apples slices with peanut butter! The pounds will melt off and you'll feel healthier because you'll be getting lots of good vitamins from the veggies etc. Of course exercise will tone those muscles too. That I don't do - I'm too lazy! So I'm slim, but not in particularily good shape ;)
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