Shedding Stuff Can Lead to Shedding Weight

Forgive me for this really long blog, but I did not have time to write less (in the words of Benjamin Franklin in a letter to a close friend).

As strange as this may sound, sometimes getting unwanted clutter out of our lives helps with weight loss. I like to “purge” my belongings about every two or three years, and it was time. I have a lot of storage space in my house, and I found things that I’ve not seen for a while, things that needed to be let go. I’ve spent this last two weeks going through closets and cabinets, packing books, dishes, clothing and other unwanted items into boxes. It was garage sale time! A friend wanted to sell some things, too, so we decided to have the sale in a parking lot closer to town rather than at her home or mine, since we both live in the country, which is really too far to get much traffic. And so I moved about six Jeep-loads of stuff into a storage unit across from the parking lot where we would have the sale. Yesterday was the first day of the sale, and I found new homes for about half of my stuff. If the amount of stuff I’ve moved out of my life is any indication of how much weight I’ll lose, then I will not only get through this plateau, but I should be sliding quickly into home base – my ideal weight goal!

I am still “stuck” at 154.5, but I decided to check my body fat loss to see if I was really stuck or if something else was happening. I bought an Omron Fat Loss Monitor, the kind you hold in your hands, and I have noticed a decrease in body fat, but I’ve not done the calculations as to how much body fat I’ve actually lost. So, here are the numbers: my weight went from 158.5 to 154.5, a loss of four pounds, but my body fat percent went from almost thirty-five percent to thirty-two percent, which equates to a loss of six pounds of body fat! Since my goal is to lose twenty-five pounds of body fat, I am most definitely on the right track, and in reality I’m not on a plateau at all! This revelation underscores the importance of exercise and working our muscles. I gained two pounds of lean muscle, which is fine by me! I guess moving all packing and moving all those boxes, several times in fact, really did help me.

As promised, here is a simple list from the National Weight Control Registry that provides five things successful losers (I prefer to call these people “ideal weight achievers”) do to maintain a healthy weight:

1. They eat breakfast everyday – this is extremely important as this is the time when the body decides on whether to conserve or splurge on energy. If the body decides to conserve, guess what it will do – it will burn fewer calories. If it knows that you will provide it with ample nutrition for the day, it will burn more calories. Our bodies are very, very smart, and they will do whatever it takes to survive. Notice that I used the phrase “ample nutrition.” If you eat food with very little nutritional value, like doughnuts, bagels, or other high-carb, low nutrition foods, the body will also rebel. It needs vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, not just calories, in order to function best. The best food? Fresh fruits and vegetables and lean meats. And don’t drink your calories – this means NO sodas, none, zippo, nada, and limit your juices to about eight ounces per meal.

2. They weigh themselves at least once a week – our weight can be likened to our bank balance, except in reverse. We would never want to be overdrawn at the bank, nor would we want to be overfed at the dinner table, and the best way to keep track of our spending behaviors is to keep an eye on the balances. Eating too many calories is no different than spending too much money: both will get you into trouble.

3. They exercise for approximately an hour every day – an hour seems like an eternity if we think of spending an hour running or an hour on a treadmill, but if we add up the many types of exercise we do in a day, it’s not so daunting. How many times per day do you walk up a flight of stairs? How many steps do you take per day? How much time do you spend vacuuming the house? Even walking up and down isles in the grocery store count. Whatever you do, do it consciously and do it as briskly as possible, and do as much weight bearing exercise as you can too. Building muscle burns body fat.

4. They reduce the amount of television time to less than ten hours per week – I suspect the biggest reason for this to be a sign of success is two-fold: less time sitting on the couch and less time for mindless eating. People who spend a great deal of time in front of the TV also eat in front of the TV.

5. They restrict calories and often follow a low-fat diet – that is, they restrict their calories to their ideal weight calories, but a low-fat diet does NOT mean eliminating fat. Our bodies need fat for several reasons, and the biggest reasons are that it makes food taste good and it helps us feel full. Ah, but everything in moderation, folks. Also, low fat usually means high sugar. Look at the difference in the carbohydrate content of normal salad dressing versus low or fat-free salad dressing. High sugar content is by far worse, especially if the carbohydrates are from high-fructose corn syrup.

Next week, I will briefly explore the reason behind why “fat-free” is not good for us. That is, the topic will be about the good and bad of insulin: the hormone released from the pancreas that removes the sugar from our blood and stores it, ultimately, as adipose tissue – another word for FAT.