Archive for January, 2008

StrongLifts 5×5 Fat Loss, Muscle Gain Free eBook Workout Review

I have been Robert Scoble like in my rabid reading of blogs. While doing so one day, I ran across stronglifts.com. I subscribed a while back, but I never really read much of the content. It was too body-builder-ish for me. But a recent post caught my attention: How Will [...]

I have been Robert Scoble like in my rabid reading of blogs. While doing so one day, I ran across stronglifts.com. I subscribed a while back, but I never really read much of the content. It was too body-builder-ish for me. But a recent post caught my attention: How Will Smith Became Successful and How You Could Too. Take a look. There is a great video where Will Smith says the two keys to life are Running & Reading.

Motivated and Inspired. I needed to do some reading. I thought to myself. What can I get my hands on to read? I have said in the past, “You are What You Eat, Read, and Do.” So, if you read junky, rumor-monger tabloids. then, you become a rumor-monger yourself. If you read economics books, you will become an economist.

I want to improve my physical fitness. So, I need to read Fitness books. Since, I subscribed to stronglifts.com rss feed, I noticed a link for a free StrongLifts 5×5 eBook, and I decided to check it out.

Wow, There are some gems in that book, and I can’t believe it’s free.

Bad workouts are better than no workouts. They train you mentally & reinforce the exercise habit. Don’t rationalize.

You are what you repeatedly do. Make a plan & stick to it. No matter what.

See, what I mean about gems.

I don’t agree with everything the eBook suggests, but I can not knock it because I have not tried the 5×5 program.

At a glance, The program suggests working out 3 times a week 30 minutes each time. During your workout you will perform:

• Squats
• Overhead Press
• Bench Press
• Deadlift
• Barbell Row
• Pull-ups & Chin-ups (optional)
• Dips (optional)

Here’s why I will not do it. The author strongly recommends squats. To do squats effectively one needs the appropriate gym equipment and fairly flexible hips and ankles. Guess what, that strikes me out on two accounts. I do not have the appropriate gym equipment and my hips and ankles are stiffer than a rusty break-dancing Wizard of Oz Tin Man trying to do a Mr. Robot move.

Of course, it does not help that StrongLifts does not mention Simpleweight as the service for tracking your eating, exercising, and biometrics. (strike 3 and your out) I’ll give him a pass since Simpleweight is still a rather new service.

The other thing I love about the ebook are the inspirational quotes from Napoleon Hill. Napoleon Hill is excellent. I love his books. So, Of course, I have to follow with the closing strong lifts Napoleon Hill quote.

“You can do it if you believe you can.”

If I believe I can follow the weight lifting program prescribed, then I can do it. There I go again: Thinking and Losing Weight.

So, Do I recommend the book?

Yes, I recommend the book. One can not beat the Price (free), and it’s a good quick read.

Do I recommend the workout?

I recommend the workout plan for those with the appropriate equipment and reasonable hip & ankle flexibility. The exercises are great and the program looks straight forward.

However for those without access to the appropriate equipment, I think the are other methods to achieve the same benefits using more of a dumb-bell workout. I’ll talk about those in the future.

Simpleweight Upgrades Completed

Last Night, we pushed out some new simpleweight upgrades. Again, most of the features are behind the scenes.
We did have a couple of recent feature request. Specifically, one of our users asked to sort favorites. Consider it done.
All you have to do is drag and drop your favorite foods in the order [...]

Last Night, we pushed out some new simpleweight upgrades. Again, most of the features are behind the scenes.

We did have a couple of recent feature request. Specifically, one of our users asked to sort favorites. Consider it done.

All you have to do is drag and drop your favorite foods in the order you want. They will save automatically.

What does the work behind the scenes mean for our users? It means, we will be able to continue implementing features on a quicker basis with easier testing.

We have noticed simpleweight is a little slower since the recent upgrades. It’s due to our popularity increasing. We’ve had a lot of viewers and page hits recently. We’re working on improving performance. We appreciate your patience.

Thank you again. If you like what you see, please click on advertisement or two to help sponsor us or of course. we ask you to recommend your friends, and we’ll pay you for your referral just Refer your friends to Simpleweight.

As always, What is the one thing we need to do to simpleweight to help you join our weight loss club?

How to add MUFA to Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner for weight loss?

After writing my Flat Belly Diet Eat MUFA for Weight Loss post, I continued to do more research. Some people asked me,
How do I add MUFA (mono unsaturated fat) at every meal?
Basically, try to add: Avocado, Canola oil, Olive Oil, Nuts like almonds, cashews, pecans, and peanuts, Olives, Peanut butter and peanut oil, [...]

After writing my Flat Belly Diet Eat MUFA for Weight Loss post, I continued to do more research. Some people asked me,

How do I add MUFA (mono unsaturated fat) at every meal?

Basically, try to add: Avocado, Canola oil, Olive Oil, Nuts like almonds, cashews, pecans, and peanuts, Olives, Peanut butter and peanut oil, or Sesame seeds to your diet.

One of the best ways is to try to mix and optimize those ideas. For example: Traditional pesto is made from pine nuts, olive oil, basil, parmesan cheese. What a tasty way to get MUFA.

Here are some more specific ideas for each meal:

MUFA Breakfast Ideas for weight loss

• Add Avocado in omelet
• Spread Peanut butter on toast, bagels, english muffins, or apples
• Sprinkle Almonds (nuts) on top of pancakes, waffles, and even french toast
• Mix nut-based granola in your yogurt
• Blend Flax Seed Oil with your favorite fruit smoothie
• Add Sunflower seeds, Walnuts, or Pecans to your cereal or oatmeal

MUFA Lunch & MUFA Dinner Ideas for weight loss

• Toss sliced avocado, chopped olives, or sliced nuts in your green leaf salad
• Pour Oil Based Dressings on top of your salad specifically Olive Oil, Sun Flower, or Peanut Oil
• Add avocado to a Mexican chicken or black bean soup
• Instead of croûtons, add nuts and seeds to your or soup or salad
• Add nuts to stir fry dishes
• Ask for Olives in your Enchiladas or other Mexican Food.
• Dribble Pesto sauce over a small bed of noodles
• Add a dollop of pesto to dishes such as tomato soup or baked potato
• Stir olives into your red pasta sauce
• Sprinkle nuts on cream-based soups like tomato-basil, butternut squash soup, etc.
• Add Avocado to your deli sandwich (Jimmy John’s is great for this)
• Top your Chicken Sandwich, Turkey Burger, or Small Hamburger with Guacamole

MUFA Snack Ideas for weight loss

• Eat Raw Nut based Trail Mix.
• Spread Olive tapenade on a cracker or crostini
• Spread Avocado and cheese on a cracker
• Dip apples or celery in Peanut or almond butter
• Have an Olive Loaf Bread slice with olive oil

Remember, the key here is you need to keep your quantity of calories down for maximum benefit.

As I detailed in my MUFA weight loss article, Nuts, Avocados, and Oils are all high calories foods. Yet, they are very filling so you need less food at your meal. Try to strive for 400 calorie meals with a vegetable and protein rich diet.

Now that you know my MUFA ideas, What’s your favorite MUFA meal idea?

Photo Credit: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner via Flickr, by: Jeff Kubina

Food Search Available Again

Food Search is back and ready for your use. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience.
Thank you for your patience.

Food Search is back and ready for your use. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience.

Thank you for your patience.

Food Search down for upgrades.

Food Search is currently down for upgrades. We apologize for inconvenience. We hope to have this service up and running by morning 1/14/2008. Thank you for your patience.

Food Search is currently down for upgrades. We apologize for inconvenience. We hope to have this service up and running by morning 1/14/2008. Thank you for your patience.

Flat Belly Diet for weight loss, eat MUFA

One of my goals with this blog is I hope to browse the internet to read diet and fitness articles and give you the low down so you don’t have to search all over the place.
The article I saw tonight was by MSN and Prevention magazine titled:
Lose Inches of Belly Fat Now
Here’s what you need [...]

One of my goals with this blog is I hope to browse the internet to read diet and fitness articles and give you the low down so you don’t have to search all over the place.

The article I saw tonight was by MSN and Prevention magazine titled:
Lose Inches of Belly Fat Now
Here’s what you need to know:

1. Include Monounsaturated fats (MUFA) at each meal
2. Have a clear calorie goal
3. Eat Often
4. Improve your attitude towards food. ( In other words, Think to lose weight.)
   Examples:
   • Manage Stress
   • Ask for help
   • Control Emotional eating

It seems that Omega 3 fats (Fish Oil and Flax seed) are the ones that have been getting all the buzz in 2007, but other oils such as MUFA’s are healthy too.

What are examples of MUFA’s (monounsaturated fats)?

• Olive Oil, 9.8g MUFA in 1 Tablespoon, 119 calories
• Peanut Oil, 6.2g MUFA in 1 Tbsp, 119 calories
• Canola Oil, 8.2g MUFA in 1 Tbsp, 124 calories
• Almonds, 12g MUFA in 1/4 cup, 212 calories
• Peanuts, 9g MUFA in 1/4 cup, 207 calories
• Most Nuts.
• Avocado, 19.7g MUFA in 1 avocado, 322 calories
  (mmm, another reason to eat guacamole)

Now I notice one problem with this. Notice the quantity of calories for these foods. They’re high in calories Some people read, I have to eat more Fat to lose weight. Well, it works great, BUT, you must watch your calorie intake.

Notice Step Number 2.

Have a clear Calorie goal.

For the average woman, 1600 calories a day is a decent goal. For the average man, 1800 calories a day is a decent goal. Now, if I eat a MUFA at each meal, that does not leave much for other items such as Protein and Carbohydrates. Before I know it, I am at my calorie goal for the day, but I don’t feel full. What can I eat? Eat Vegetables! Many of these have very little calories. The key here is Journal your Food.

Eat Often

In Jorge Cruise’s book, the Three Hour Diet, he recommends eating every 3 hours. It’s the same in the Abs Diet, and Cardio Free Diet, and almost all other diets. The idea is to eat often to prevent you from getting starved. You also feel full, because you are eating all the time. Some people like to do 4 400 calorie meals. Some people say 5 300 calorie meals. Other people like to do 3 bigger meals and 2 smaller 100 calorie snacks. Regardless, by eating often, your body can easily burn the food into energy rather than eating a one or two huge meals. The body can not burn it all once. So, it stores some as fat.

Improve your attitude towards Food

Most of us are emotional eaters. When we meet friends, we meet for coffee, drinks, dinner, lunch, or parties. All Social events where eating is concerned. We’re having fun when we eat a beautiful big meal where we’re stuffed. Come On, think about it. The Super Bowl, Thanksgiving Day, and July 4th Barbecues are all events with huge eating. We equate happiness with eating. So, what can we do? Change the equation!

Friends + Eating = Happy.

Couldn’t we change it to:

• Friends + Morning Walk = Happy.
• Friends + Hiking Trip = Happy.
• Friends + pick-up soccer game or basketball game = Happy.
• Friends + Ski Trip = Happy.

Notice the change? We’re social creatures. Making exercise a social event instead of making eating a social event. There is a strong correlation between living in an active community and physical fitness vs. a lethargic community and obesity. The obesity rates are higher in areas where exercise is not as social. So, Improve your attitude towards food. One way to do so is by making your exercise social.

Another way to do so, is by journaling. If you write what you eat, and then also write how you felt when you ate it. you can look back and help determine what caused your bout of emotional eating. Life is an experiment. We all need to find what works for us. The key though is to learn from others. Researchers are finding out what works for the majority, and that’s where you should start.

So, the Flat Belly Diet to me sounds like every other successful diet.

• Eat less food than you Burn. (Food in < Food Out)
• Eat the Right Foods.
• Learn to control your Emotional Eating.
• Measure your Goal Progress.
• Make it social.

Photo Credit: Avocado via Flickr, by: ingserban

Photo Credit: Day 161 - Losing It, by: gotplaid?

Update:  If you like this post, you might like: How to Add MUFA to breakfast, lunch, and dinner for weight loss?

Think and Lose Weight

Think and Lose weight? What a load of dirty socks, you say. Is this some weight loss take on the psychic book The Secret?
Well, a recent NPR Article, Hotel Maids Challenge the Placebo Effect, describes the weight loss effects of Hotel Maids. If you are not familiar with the placebo effect, the placebo effect [...]

Think and Lose weight? What a load of dirty socks, you say. Is this some weight loss take on the psychic book The Secret?

Well, a recent NPR Article, Hotel Maids Challenge the Placebo Effect, describes the weight loss effects of Hotel Maids. If you are not familiar with the placebo effect, the placebo effect is when you think something is going to happen and it happens even though whatever you did really did not cause it.

When you think of a Hotel maid, they’re doing working all day. Would you call that work exercise?

What about a roofer or construction worker? Is that work considered exercise?

Most of us would say yes, but to the Maid, they just think its their job. So, the Maid is not aware of the physical exertion he or she is doing on a daily basis. What the article demonstrates is that if you think you are not doing exercise, your body acts like you are not doing exercise.

Wow- What a negative placebo effect. You mean if I am carrying my 6 lb baby around the house all day, and I don’t think that is exercise, then I don’t benefit from the exertion.

That’s what the Harvard psychologist states in the NPR article.

I’d personally like to think I would probably benefit from the exercise, but maybe not as much if I think carrying a baby around is exercise.

Can we do the opposite? If I think my work, which consists primarily of desk work, is exercise, will my body react by losing weight?

Sure why not? As long as you can convince yourself that your day-to-day activities actually burn calories, then yes, I think you would have some positive effect from the placebo.The key is Can you convince yourself with honesty? You have to make the vision so realistic and so vivid that you convince yourself as well others.

So. Can you think and lose weight?

Yes! That’s an emphatic Yes! In fact, I say if you don’t think you will NOT lose weight.

So, let’s think, think, think (as Winne the Pooh says)

So many diet plans say,

• Lose weight without trying.
• Lose weight the easy way.
• Lose weight by eating the same foods.
• Lose weight without making any changes.
• Lose weight without thinking.
• Lose weight by surgery.
• Lose weight with diet pills.
• Lose weight without going to the gym.
• Lose weight with only 7 minutes a day.
• Lose weight…. etc.

How can any diet, exercise, fitness plan make these claims? If I read that, I have to NOT think to believe those claims. Everyone knows to lose weight one must eat less food than they expend.

My take from the NPR article is: The only way to lose weight is to think.

By thinking, we live consciously. Some examples:

• Think: that food going into my mouth is good for me and helps me lose weight.
• Think: the bouncing of my leg while working at my desk helps burn extra calories and stimulates weight loss.
• Think: the standing up straight and smiling is more difficult to do than slouching and frowning so it uses more muscles and I burn more calories providing better weight loss.
• Think: Before I take this bite of food, Am I full? Can I live without it?
• Think: At the restaurant, that plate of food sure is big, before I even take a bite, Can I get a to-go box?
• Think: I am losing weight therefore I am.
• Think: My clothes are starting to feel big on me.
• Think: While doing exercise, think how many calories you are burning and how great it feels to burn those calories. Stay focused. Remember, if you are doing the exercises mindlessly, you might as well be a hotel maid doing work.

By Thinking, you will actually begin to create habits. By creating habits, that’s when you can lose weight without even knowing it.

Many people shoot down books like The Secret, Think and Grow Rich, and Creative Visualization, because they tell the reader you can think to achieve some goal. But, really, You have to think.

Another example, I have to think to remember to record my weight every day. I have to think don’t eat all that fatty restaurant food, because they’re just giving you a ton to make you feel like you had a good value.

So, yes, for every action, there is an equal reaction.

You can Think and Lose Weight!

You don’t believe me, do you?

Here is a challenge:
Before you go to bed tonight, Write down your weight loss goal in present tense and describe in vivid detail you in your perfect form. When you wake up tomorrow morning, read your goal out loud. Do it again the next day, and I do literally mean physically write out again your weight loss goal and perfect body in graphic present tense detail. Then wake up in the morning and recite the goal. Repeat these steps every day for 30 days.

For example,

By entering my weight into simpleweight, tracking my activities, and by logging the calories I ate daily, I am losing 2lbs this week while eating less and thinking my activities are burning calories. I have a size xxx pants, and the feeling of my flat stomach in the form fitted shirt makes me confident, etc… I am burning calories by standing up straight, walking to work by parking my car in a far away parking spot, and walking up two flights a stairs each day, etc…

The key here is try to be as specific as possible and do some variation from day to day reflecting what you visualize for the next morning.

By taking this action daily of writing down your goal at night and reciting your goal in the morning, you will Think and Lose weight.

Photo Credit: ‘why yes I love him, but keep it secret!’ via Flickr, by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

Update 80% complete

Hey Everyone,
We’ve finished our update of Simpleweight.
We’ve got a few more things to finish with the new search index, but the site is back up and usable. We will have another scheduled downtime to complete the next step. Thanks again for your patience.
Keep in mind, if there is anything we can do to [...]

Hey Everyone,

We’ve finished our update of Simpleweight.

We’ve got a few more things to finish with the new search index, but the site is back up and usable. We will have another scheduled downtime to complete the next step. Thanks again for your patience.

Keep in mind, if there is anything we can do to help you achieve your weight management goals, let us know.

Introducing Freemium simpleweight

What’s new with simpleweight?
As I started earlier, we’re planning an update to simpleweight tonight. For many of our users, you will not notice a ton of difference. As I stated in the Weight Loss Incubator, this update is more a behind the scenes technology update.
What are the big changes?

We’re updating from Ruby on [...]

What’s new with simpleweight?

As I started earlier, we’re planning an update to simpleweight tonight. For many of our users, you will not notice a ton of difference. As I stated in the Weight Loss Incubator, this update is more a behind the scenes technology update.

What are the big changes?

1. We’re updating from Ruby on Rails 1.x to the latest Ruby on Rails 2.x release.
2. We’re fixing quite a few bugs related to indexing and searching food. We’ve tried to keep this bug from effecting anyone, but occasionally when someone searches, our index would freeze while using ferret. We’ve fixed that by using more of a distributed process.
3. We’ve updated our paging of foods which will make it easier to jump through a large list of foods.
4. We’ve made it easier for us to add new features which we hope to do so more often.
5. Some other minor changes to some custom food and recipe functionality.
6. We’ve moved to implementing Google’s chart api for faster response times and easier printing. We’ll leave flash charts in some areas that require more interactivity.
7. Finally, the big change……

After debating dead accounts and researching successful websites, such as 37signals.com products, we’ve decided to move to a more ad-supported freemium product. what do we mean?

Well, we are going to have two types of products.

1. Free ad-supported accounts with some restrictions like limits on the custom foods or recipes one can enter.
2. Paid Premium accounts which include increases in our prices for 2008. However, if you sign-up now, we’ll guarantee the $18 price will remain the same for this next year.

Please tell us what you think, and as always. you can’t change what you don’t measure. So, add your weight today to learn what you want to change.

Update soon.

Look out tomorrow evening. Ryan has been doing some great work with Simpleweight. We’ll be doing a minor upgrade Sunday, Jan 6, 2008. There may be some down time between 9pm and 12am  updated: 6pm - 9pm CST.
There are no big feature changes for paying customers. (Those will come soon.) [...]

Look out tomorrow evening. Ryan has been doing some great work with Simpleweight. We’ll be doing a minor upgrade Sunday, Jan 6, 2008. There may be some down time between 9pm and 12am  updated: 6pm - 9pm CST.

There are no big feature changes for paying customers. (Those will come soon.) But, we do have some changes. I’ll detail later.

Thanks for your patience.