Eat Less. Move your ass more!

Last night was just what I needed to remind me that losing weight does not need to be complicated.  Mom and I went to see Jillian Michaels on her motivational speaking tour “Maximize your life!”

She spoke for 3 hours (no kidding)  and covered everything from food to exercise to defining your why.  She started right off with the biggest secret to losing weight.  This is valuable information and I should charge each of you to reveal it, but I am a share the wealth kind of girl.  The secret is…

EAT LESS!  MOVE YOUR ASS MORE!

EAT LESS

She starts with the basics of what to eat (and not to eat).  She explains how to identifying serving sizes (Like the fact that so many single bottles of beverage are RARELY a single serving.) Just for shits and giggles, look at the serving size on the back of a yellow spray butter product spray bottle.  Let me know when you figure out how to measure .25 of a spray and let me know if your bullshit meter goes off on the 0 calorie per serving claim.  She offers to spray bug killer in a woman’s mouth!  (Who actually was going to let her at the urging of her daughter (Happy Mother’s Day!  Here’s some poison Mom!))  This was done to drive home the fact that so many of the foods we eat are covered with Obesogens, which are chemicals in our foods that interrupt our Metabolism (aka: our biochemistry) like bug killers, chemical fertilizers, etc.  She shows us a list of things to NEVER eat, which veggies you should avoid unless they are certifiably organic and which veggies and fruits (thick skinned) aren’t worth going organic, to save you money.

Jillian’s Lists

I love that she encourages you to eat grass fed, hormone free, antibiotic free beef and wild fish and used a very startling graphic of the visual difference between a “factory” cow and a grass fed cow.  She explains how the fat in the two is very different.  In the “factory” cows, the fat is Omega 6, which is not healthy for us (never mind all the chemicals that are also in the “factory” beef, like hormones to help them grow to slaughtering maturity in 6 months as opposed to 4 years, and all the antibiotics to keep them from getting disease due to the inhumane factory farm conditions.)  In a grass fed healthy cow that is raised over a 4 year period, there are Omega 3 fats, which we all know are the good healthy fats that your body needs.  I came across some of these facts in an article in “O” magazine a few years back. So when buying any kind of animal product, spend the extra cash and get the wild, free range, grass fed, 100% organic, hormone free and antibiotic free products.  It’s worth your money and your children won’t have boobs by the time they are 6 years old.  I’ve been drinking organic almond milk for over a year (unsweetened) and can’t tell a difference after a life of drinking cow milk.  If I get cow milk, I get Horizons organic milk/cream/cottage cheese/sour cream.

She breaks the myth of “eating small meals all day”…  by doing this, your body will release insulin all day and your body will be in a constant absorptive mode.  She recommends 4 meals a day about 4 hours apart: Breakfast, Lunch, Snack and Dinner.

Thru all the food talk, the point that she drove home that hit me like a lightening bolt is that if you are eating healthy, you can eat ANYTHING and lose weight.  It is very simply about calories in vs. calories out.  I knew that, but she really breaks it down for you.  You HAVE to track what you eat until you are at a point that you know how many calories are in the regular foods you eat and can track it in your head.  Follow the charts above, eat healthy meats and listen to your bullshit meter.  If a zero calorie food looks too good to be true, it probably is!

So she explains to each of us how to figure out approximately figure out how many calories we need in an average day BEFORE adding in exercise.

First, figure out your BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate)

BMR Calculator

Now that you have your BMR, Mine is 1845, you need to identify your normal activity level on an average day.

1.1 Sedentary = Seated most of the day at work.

1.2 Mildly Active = Retail or on your feet most of the day

1.3 Active = A personal Trainer

1.4 Extremely Active = You are working on a chain gang

Take the number before your activity level (Mine is 1.1) and multiply it by your BMR.  This is your Active Metabolic Rate.

(1.1 x 1845 = 2029.5)

  If I ate 2029.5 calories a day and never exercised, I would stay at the same weight.  So it’s simple…  eat less than 2029.5 calories and I will lose weight.  It takes 3500 calories to lose one pound of fat.  So if I eat a deficit of 3500 calories for the week, I should lose 1 pound.  You can’t starve your body either.  1200 calories is the BARE minimum she would want anyone to be eating.  She recommends instead that you find exercise routines that you enjoy and do them…  with a high intensity level to burn more calories.  I use Fitness Pal, a free online service and smart phone app, to track my calories daily and currently it has me consuming 1340 calories a day.  So it’s setting me up to lose around  1.379 pounds a week before exercise.

MOVE YOUR ASS MORE

When it comes to exercise, it’s important to get cardio AND strength training.  Jillian discusses 3 types of workouts that will be very effective.

1. Body weight training – Intensity level should be “MOVE YOUR ASS”
   • Zumba
   • Cross Fit
   • TRX
2. High intensity interval training
   • Think measured busts of high intensity energy followed by normal workout energy.  Like sprints.
3. Circuit Training (Jillian thinks this is the best)
   • This is moving thru multiple workouts in rapid succession to workout your whole body AND get cardio as well.

It’s important to know your maximum heart rate.  This can be figured by:

220 – your age = Maximum Heart Rate

and when working out, 85% of your MHR is the optimum level for losing weight.

My MHR 220 – 42 = 178 x .85 = 151.3

So 151.3 is a good heart rate for me to strive to stay at to burn more fat.

SELF

The last part of Jillian’s presentation was about YOU.

She explains that no one can motivate you.  Only YOU can motivate YOURSELF.  If you want to be successful, you need to figure out your “WHY” to get you thru the “HOW” and “HELL”.  Examples she used were:

• How do you want your relationship to look?
• What qualities do you want in a potential partner?
• Do you want to live to meet your grandchildren?
• Do you want to be able to fit into your skinny jeans at 75 a la Jane Fonda?
• Do you want to be able to wear a bikini at 50?
• Do you want to have more money?  Because all the health risks that are caused by being overweight and unhealthy will cost you way more.  The number one reason for bankruptcies in the USA is medical bills.  Chew on that.

Whatever your reason for wanting to lose weight, it needs to be personal and powerful to YOU.  It needs to be the thing you can plaster on a life board and look at to remind yourself “WHY?” when life throws you a curve ball.  Because life’s NOT fair and you will give yourself excuses to eat things you shouldn’t or to skip workouts…  it’s human nature.  Your “WHY” needs to be stronger than that.  Be aware of your emotions and be present.  Live in the NOW!

She suggests an exercise where for 2 weeks you set your phone alarm to go off once an hour or every two hours.  When it goes off, stop and ask yourself “What am I doing right now?” and “How do I feel?”

Finding happiness in life is simple:

Find things you love to do and do more of them.  If you hate doing certain things, limit how much you do them.  If you despise your job, only you have the control to change that.  If you are passionate about caring for kids, find something that will help you do more of that!  Be “all in”…  Identify what you are passionate about and GO FOR IT!!!

Also remember that rejection is the universe’s (or in my case God’s) way of protecting you.  So if you go for something and it doesn’t happen (ie: asking out the cute guy in the next cube at work) it wasn’t meant to be.  Don’t dwell over it…  move on!

Remember:

So as a finale Jillian shared 4 points for being successful at whatever you are trying to do.

1. Deep dive information
   • get the proper information before you take action
   • learn everything you can
   • take what works for you and leave what doesn’t
2. Willpower
   • It’s like a muscle…  Use it!
   • If you overuse it, you can fatigue it, so remove temptations.
   • Think all decisions thru.  Visualize the outcome.  If it’s not the outcome you want, change the decision and repeat the process.
   • a moment of impulsivity can destroy all your hard work.  Find healthy coping mechanisms
3. Communication
   • Learn to listen Empathically
   • Communicate your needs
   • Express your Fellings
   • Don’t use “YOU” statements.
4. Boundries
   • The friends in your life that aren’t supportive – CUT THEM OUT!
   • “Hurt people will hurt people”
   • Share the things you are passionate about with supportive groups/people who share this passion with you.

I can’t begin to hope that everything I captured here covers everything that Jillian tries to share with you, but I gather all the information I could and I feel ready more than ever to dive forward into my life.  To live every day in the now and to find the why for me and use it to drive results that I will be happy with.  Thank you so much Jillian!