How Often Should I Eat?

When I was a bit younger I thought the best way to lose weight was to eat 1 meal a day in the late afternoon and eat a few snacks throughout the day to stop the hunger pangs. Little did I know how bad that actually was for my body.

By far breakfast should be the biggest meal of the day. When you sleep for 6-8 hours your body still requires energy to function properly. Those 6-8 hours you are fasting and eventually your body goes into a catabolic state. Catabolic state means that your body starts to break down muscle as an energy source instead of fat (starvation mode).

That is why a lot of people when they first wake are not hungry at all and skip breakfast. Their body is in a catabolic state and feel like they don’t need to eat anything. By eating a good hearty breakfast you are kick-starting your metabolism for the entire day and avoiding your body from eating the lean muscle you do have.

I was never a big breakfast guy and had to force myself to eat breakfast every morning. My body has gotten use to it and I wake up hungry every morning now. It’s also important to eat breakfast within the first 30-45 minutes of waking up for the best results.

Most people eat 3 rather large portion sized meals a day. I on the other hand eat 5-6 small meals throughout the day. I make sure I eat every 2-3 hours for the sole purpose of keeping my metabolism going strong and supplying my body with proper nutrition and a constant energy source.

This took practice for me as I was afraid of gaining weight again but if you eat the right food it’s only going to benefit you in the long run. I tend to cook/prepare an entire days worth of food the night before so if I’m in a rush I don’t have to worry about finding something “healthy” to eat at a restaurant or gas station.

My next post will go in-depth on what I eat on a daily basis and why.

Get ACCOUNTABLE

I never really thought about accountability until I started to suffer from not having enough of it. When I first started working out it was with a buddy of mine and we both decided to do the program P90X. We actually never worked out together but the mere fact that we both had committed to something I couldn’t give up even though at some points I wanted to.

After we finished P90X we did another workout program called Insanity. Insanity meets it’s name and is a workout program that I would only recommend to someone who is in decent shape as it is. I have never had a workout program that during the workout I have wanted to die.

After Insanity I weighed 160lbs and was at 11% body fat. Everyone kept telling me how skinny I was so I decided it was time for me to put on some muscle mass. My workout buddy CJ still wanted to cut more weight so we basically had to go do our own thing.

At first I kept strong and was committed to lifting 6 days a week. But after 4-6 weeks it turned into 5 workouts a week, then 4 workouts a week, then I would skip a week altogether, then would try to get back into it only to fall short of my original set goal.

It never really occurred to me why I had been so committed and then kept failing. I read a book called Body By Design (link opens to Amazon) and that is where I learned about accountability. That was the answer I had been missing.

If you think about it it makes complete sense. How many times have you or someone you know made some type of New Years resolution anytime of the year and you go strong for a month or two then stop altogether? Most people that have the desire too change the way they look have the motivation but don’t have the accountability.

Instead of finding friends to workout with I created a profile at bodyspace.com. BodySpace is basically a social network for people in fitness. You connect with new people that have the same goals as you, join groups, post fitness statuses, enter workouts completed and track your progress. BodySpace is free and totally worth it. If you decide to join make sure you friend me! Blake’s BodySpace

If your not comfortable creating a BodySpace account then tell your loved ones and close friends. Have them urge you to keep doing what your doing. But also make sure the people that you tell are actually excited that you have made this choice. You will be surprised just out of the people you have close to you that will support you.

Most important you need to keep yourself accountable. If you are that serious about changing the way you look and are 110% committed then nothing will hold you back.

As the saying is with P90X…DECIDE.COMMIT.SUCCEED

Post Sticky Notes

This is really simple to do.  You can either literally use Sticky Notes or you can use a sheet of paper and either place or tape the messages.

What I did was I wrote out some of the things that I didn’t like and changed them into a positive.  An example would be “I will lose body fat and gain muscle mass.”   The act of these simple messages help reiterate to your subconscience and keep your mood positive.  Don’t dwell on what you don’t like about yourself, think only about the end result!  If you do the work, you WILL get the results.

I wrote out about a dozen little messages and placed them in places that I tend to frequent in my apartment like my nightstand next to my bed, bathroom, kitchen, home office, etc.

I also wrote two that are on my refrigerator which are:

-Go Workout!

-You only have one body, take care of it!

These two simple messages remind me that when I am looking to cook something to eat that I need to stick to what I can and can not eat.  I only purchase healthy organic food but my room mate on the other hand is a completely different story.

Set Goals & Take Pictures

Goal setting is pretty easy to do if you ACTUALLY do it!  Browse through some of your favorite magazines and cut out a picture of your favorite celebrity or sports figure.  The picture you are cutting out is what you eventually want your body to look like.

This is the ultimate goal of all of your hard efforts.  Now there are going to be different goals or milestones you will hit along your journey to getting the body you have always wanted.

Think about how much you want to weigh, what you want your body fat percentage to be, every little detail possible.  Now take all of that information and put it onto paper reaffirming to yourself that this is your goal.

Time for pictures!

Have a friend, family member, or significant other take pictures of you in your swimsuit attire.  There are going to be a total of 3 poses needed to be done.  Have the person taking the picture stand about 5 steps away from you and have them take the following pictures of you:

-Standing straight up, arms down at your side, relaxed

-Standing straight up, arms up and flexed

-Standing straight up but a profile picture from the side, arms relaxed and at your side

Take the same pictures with the same poses every 30 days.  The reason for doing this is because you are you and you see you everyday.  You will not notice the TRUE results if your just going off of how the clothes fit.  Trust me from my own personal experience.  When I compared my Day 1 picture to my Day 30 picture I could hardly believe myself.  I thought that my results were minimal if any but after looking at the difference it kept me motivated to continue.   Take a look for yourself on what happened to me in 30 days.

Welcome to my blog!

This is my official first blog post on Simple Ways To Lose Weight.  My goal is to educate anyone that wants to know real simple ways to lose weight.  And by lose weight I mean fat only.

So I guess I better start with who I am.  My name is Blake Denman and I am almost 26 years old.  Growing up I was always a rather large kid (you can look at my picture of me when I was 17 below) and had had very low self esteem.  Up until about 2 years ago I never really watched what I ate and ballooned up to 220lbs all while having a body fat percentage of nearly 30%.

I remember looking at my self in the mirror one day and I had what I will call a moment of clarity and decided it was time to change my life.  During my transformation from the Pillsbury doughboy to what I look like today I have embarked on a journey that is quite amazing.

As of today February 8, 2011 I weigh 170lbs and my body fat percentage is close to 14%.  My goal in this blog is to share with you the simple ways I have lost fat.  I will post a new update roughly once a week with the secrets that I have come across.

This is what I use to look like:

Age 17

And this is what I look like now:

If you don’t believe that the first one is of me leave a comment and I’ll go ahead and post my two most recent driver’s license pictures.