When people say they want to be thinner what they really want is to be healthier and more attractive (not necessarily in that order). As far as I’m concerned the path to becoming more attractive is exactly the same as to becoming healthier so you can make your goal sound as noble as you want it to. Putting a lot of effort into becoming hot might seem a bit shallow. So instead do exactly the same thing and say you are trying to become healthier. My wife says she doesn’t care so you can assume my goals are very noble.
I’ve been researching “health” quite a bit lately and wanted to compile some of what I’ve learned.
Step 1. Don’t drink your calories
The easiest way to lose weight is to stop drinking things that have calories. One of the reasons Americans on average are so heavy is that we drink 50 pounds of sugar a year. Ok, that number is made up, but it’s probably pretty close since we ingest 100 pounds a year. Keep in mind that in studies people who’ve switched to diet soda have actually gained weight, so don’t do that. Drink more water. You probably need to drink more water anyway.
Step 2. Skip breakfast and take a walk
If you want to burn fat you need to put your body in a position to burn fat. The popular health advice to eat six high carb meals a day puts your body in carb burning mode all the time. Unless you are doing cardio like crazy you are going to hold on to your fat. No, what you need to do is not eat for a while so your body has to use your fat stores for energy. Then, instead of eating breakfast, go take a walk or ride your bike to burn some of that fat. By the way, the six meal a day recommendation is a myth. Eating more often doesn’t raise your metabolism. Hunger should only be an issue if you are eating too many processed carbs which we will talk about in the next step.
Step 3. Don’t eat processed carbs
The western diet is founded on processed carbs. It’s good to keep in mind that the USDA’s mission is not to make you healthy, but to sell more processed carbs. That’s their mandate. It’s no surprise, then, that processed carbs are the base of the USDA’s food pyramid. And who pays for medical research – the USDA and the processed carb companies. Don’t be surprised if the nutritional advice you hear is a bit skewed. Processed carbs are mostly empty calories that jack up your insulin levels and make you hungry (insulin is what makes you hungry). A piece of bread has a higher glycemic index than a snickers bar. Try to stay away from grains and sugary foods as much as you can. In my opinion, fructose and gluten are the two substances causing the most health problems in the West. As Michael Pollan says, “eat leaves, not seeds” and I would add in meat and vegetables.
Step 4. Lift weights really heavy once or twice a week
Muscle is a wonderful thing. It raises your metabolism, makes you stronger, makes your bones stronger, and, as long as you don’t have too much, makes you look better. A pound of muscle burns about forty calories a day just existing. That adds up quick. As we get older we naturally lose muscle. This is particularly true for women who lose roughly half a pound of muscle a year.
So getting more muscle is important. How do we get more muscle? We lift heavy things. Since our goal is to be healthy, we want to minimize impact on our joints. That means putting as much load on your muscles as you can while minimizing the amount of movement. When you lift then, lift as heavy of a weight as you can for only a few slow reps. I don’t care if you are a seventy-year-old woman. If you want to be healthy you should train like a power lifter. Don’t want to look like a power lifter? Well then don’t. You don’t do one set of bicep curls and have biceps like Arnold Schwarzenegger. If your muscles in a particular area are becoming larger than you’d like, work that muscle less frequently.
Step 5. Eat a lot of protein
To add more muscle you need to eat protein and because the Western diet is based on processed carbs you probably aren’t eating enough protein. The rule of thumb for gaining muscle is a gram of protein for every pound of body weight. For me that’s 180 grams a day. If you are like me you only eat a third of that amount. Maybe you don’t want to eat that much protein. I’m not sure I do. Regardless, eat more than you are now. Additional benefits to eating more protein is that it takes the more energy to burn than carbs or fat, which gives you a metabolic advantage, and it helps you feel full.
Step 6. Take vitamin D and fish oil
This step is more of a general health recommendation than anything to do with being thinner. Because of the Western lifestyle we don’t get enough sun and our Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acid ratio is way out of wack. To remedy this take 2,000 to 4,000 IU of vitamin D a day and two or three tablespoons of krill or cod liver oil. This will cost you about fifty cents a day which is a very low price to pay to be healthier.
Step 7. Don’t do cardio unless you really want to
This may sound counter-intuitive, but cardio hurts your joints, puts stress on your hormonal systems, and wastes tons of time. Besides you don’t need cardio to be thin and healthy. If you do these other steps you can get down to less than 10% body fat with no cardio.
Step 8. Binge on carbs once a week
This is kind of an advanced step called carb re-feeding. Once a week, you should eat a more like an American. That means you can eat all those things you avoided but were craving. This resets some of your hormonal levels, keeping your body primed for fat loss and it helps you resist temptation for the rest of the week because you know you get to pig out later.
Step 9. Take creatine
The last step is to take creatine. This is one of the few supplements out there that actually works with no side effects. Basically, creatine gives you more energy, makes your muscles bigger, and helps the muscles repair themselves faster. Again, it costs about fifty cents a day. Not essential, but helps you achieve your goal more easily without much expense.