Half Assed Fitness

I've mentioned the 80/20 rule previously in this post and again here. The general concept is that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise. But I heard something recently that really rang home:

Diet is for weight loss, Exercise is for getting fit.

This is similar to my own comments above but refines it more and separates it, which makes so much sense!


I've used this tactic in the past when I was ready to start getting healthier but changing both diet and exercise at once seemed too daunting. One surprising side affect I've discovered from doing it this way is that once you start eating better and losing weight, you start wanting to exercise.

The Diet Doctor mentions this on their website as well:

...few things are so overrated for weight loss as exercise is. Exercise cannot compensate for other issues in your life. Those must be addressed first.

If you just want to lose weight and get into a smaller dress or pant size, your eating habits will be the bigger factor here. If you want to look sleek, toned, and muscular, then you are going to need to put in some work but the two are mutually exclusive. You don't have to do both. And if you are only going to do one of them, your best bet would be changing your diet. At least that's what my experience has proven to me.

I've said it before and I'm saying it again now; consistency is key.

One of the things I've just recently realized about myself is that I have a nasty habit of weight cycling. I get motivated, work had, change my habits, start feeling and looking good and then I gradually start slacking off, letting myself get lazy and it doesn't take long before I have to start all of it over again. It's been difficult to recognize because it's usually years in between cycles. While it's consistent in that it's a pattern, it's consistently a problem.

The main problem with this process is that getting motivated is the toughest part of the whole equation.

The good news is I've noticed that I don't let myself regain as much between cycles as in the past. My first weight loss journey was 27 pounds, more recently 17 pounds and this time I'm on task to lose 11 pounds in 11 weeks. (A healthy, reasonable goal.)

Once again, I've allowed all of my old issues to surface and I've got to get them back under control. My first step was to run my numbers and figure out what my daily calorie goal is going to be using this formula. Then I purchased a new food diary and I've got a copy of the CalorieKing Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter on order. I haven't recieved it yet but I can always go online and look things up at calorieking.com.

My motivation is high and I'm going to reach my goal......again!

If you've been reading this blog at all, you may see from my words that I want to lose about 15 pounds but if you look closer, you may think that my actions aren't reflecting my intentions. That is correct.

I want to lose weight, I know how to lose weight, I've done it before but I am currently dealing with some new challenges that I've never faced before. Really it's just one challenge but there are many facets to it. My challenge? My new husband. This may seem funny at first but the influence of another person in your life may have impacts you would never expect. I am just about a year into my marriage and I'm starting to recognize some of the obstacles I face or, differences in behaviors I need to adapt to in order to maintain my happiness, and weight loss goals. For instance, here are a few of the new behaviors/habits that I am living with that I find to be challenging to my weight loss efforts:

• more junk food in the house
• less physical activity
• food "rewards"
• praise for the body I'm not happy with
• jealousy

As in the past, I'm seeing that I need to do running and gym time in the morning before my spouse gets up. If I wait until after work, it's too late. More often than not, by the end of the work day, he's got something planned for the evening which would put off my working out. I'm also going to have to firm up my resolve when it comes to junk food. When I live alone, I just don't buy it. Now, it's in the house whether I like it or not so I'm going to have to dig in my heels and remind myself that I don't really like sweets all that much. I appreciate that my husband loves me "just the way I am" but now I realize, if that's truly the case, he will love me if I lose 15 pounds too. I'm not happy about my body right now because I have lots of clothes I can't fit into. I need to stop letting my weight be ok just because he's ok with it.

The last one is a whole other ball of wax that will take longer to work out but I'm confident will be ok in the end. I'm positive one of the reason's my husband is alright with with me "having some meat on my bones" as he puts it, is because he doesn't want anyone else to be attracted to me. When I think about this it's just plain silly and I'm sure it will go away after we've had more time to solidify our relationship.

Intentional or not, he's not helping me in my weight loss. It's very easy for me to go with it and use his behavior as an excuse to let myself go. What I see when I really look at the situation is that I'm not ok with it and really, no one can change me but me. But that's always been the case. It's time (again) for me to accept responsibility for my actions and produce the results I want to see.

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Every so often, you need to re-evaluate your weight loss plan. Take a look at what you've been doing or not doing and what's working or not working for you. Of course, this only works if you've been documenting everything. For me, it's time to do that.

My scale died last week, not even a new battery would convince it to work and I had been wondering if it was reading properly for the last two months since according to it, my weight was fluctuating as much as three pounds every other day. Since I'm switching to a new scale, I've decided to start my weight tracking over again.

Sometimes for me, demotivation is just the motivation I need. This weekend, we attended a party and I had to go buy a new dress because I don't fit into anything I currently own. This was the final straw. I have a lot of clothes I'm not comfortable in right now and I want to wear them again.

I know by looking at my food diary that I have been lax in keeping my calories under control. My main source of empty calories comes from alcohol. I swear, every day is a party around here; it's either a barbecue with friends or an organized social event or just a private dinner with my husband but everything seems to involve alcohol. This will have to change.

I've just started my sixth week of learning to run, I'm looking forward to the increased calorie burning as I get better and my endurance increases. I plan to start getting back into the gym for weight lifting again. That was always my favorite workout. Paired with the running I'm sure I will see some increased progress soon.

So, with renewed motivation and determination, I've started my 16 week weight loss goal over again. Consistency is key!

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I mentioned previously that I didn't trust my scale; it died. I need a battery for it and they don't have any on island right now. What a pain. It could be a month or more before we get them back in stock, if ever. I'm thinking at this point I'm going to have to get a new scale. Arrggh! I'm going to have to spend $35 or more when I could have just gotten a battery for $3. Such is life on Kwajalein.

The running is going very well, I'm loving it like I never thought I would. The running intervals are starting to increase and I'm getting stronger. I've stopped taking music with me so I can hear the interval timer and the quiet is very enjoyable. I figured I'd have a hard time motivating without it but I find I don't even miss it.

Food is still a problem for me, keeping my evening calories down has been a challenge. I'm down a couple of pounds from my starting weight (if the scale could be trusted at all) but I'm not making any real progress. I'll have to figure something out but in the meantime, I'll just keep running.

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At this point I'm not sure I can trust my scale. I've fluctuated a pound or two before but the roller coaster results its giving me lately seems a bit odd. I'm thinking of getting a new one or running a series of tests where I weigh something I know won't change to see if it gives me consistent readings or not.

This week was my best calorie week so far, I managed to keep much closer to my goal than previous weeks. I also realized I've been reporting my gross calories rather than my net calories with exercise figured in. Next week I will start reporting net calories so it should look much better.

I see that I forgot to do a weekly report last week, nothing significant happened I guess.

My running program is going great, I just finished week three and I noticed an unexpected side affect; my complexion has greatly improved over the last three weeks. It wasn't horrible before but I'm pretty excited about it right now. I'm sure the increased blood flow helps out all the cells in my body.

I'm not calling this week a rousing success but I see improvements; little ones but I'll take what I can get. I hope I can report at least another pound lost next week. Wish me luck!

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I have to say I'm completely surprised I was able to drop yet another pound but I think I may know what's going on. When I did my initial calorie calculation, I (purposely) underestimated my activity levels. I ride my bike to work everyday and I did not figure that into the equation so that I would see more results. I forgot that I did this though.

I've significantly reduced my breakfast and lunch calories but I'm having some real difficulty keeping my dinner calories under control. This is going to have to be my new focus for the next few weeks. I think what I'm going to have to do is be more proactive about menu planning. Right now it's kind of casual, dig out whatever is in the fridge, grab a sandwich on the way home....maybe if I actually plan out a menu, it will be easier to stick to my goals.

The main problem with menu planning here is it can be difficult due to our limited and random stock in the store. Yes, I said store. We only have one. That's another story though. It will be difficult but I'll give it a try!


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As you may have noticed, I did not reach my weight loss calorie goal once this week. I got closer a couple of times and I blame the really high calorie days on being on vacation. I can only imagine the damage I would have done if I hadn't actually been trying to keep my calorie intake under control.

As it stands, I'm down one pound from my original weight; up two from last week’s measurement. I didn't trust that second number anyway so this is not a surprise to me. What is a surprise is that I'm down any at all. I've been over or at my maintenance goal both weeks so technically, I should have remained the same or gained weight. All I can guess is that I'm taking in so many calories less then I was that it's creating a deficiency somewhere.

This coming week I start implementing exercise and I've had two weeks to get used to reducing my calorie intake so I expect much better results from here on out.

The remaining 13 weeks I will be following the 13 week walk/run program in the The Beginning Runner's Handbook. I read the entire book while I was home sick a few days ago and I'm excited to get started. I've never been a runner but supposedly at the end of the 13 weeks, I should be able to run a 10k!


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It's been a full week since I made a concious effort to get back on track. I have gained 15 pounds over the last 8 months due to life stresses and just plain letting go of my program. I am currently faced with buying bigger clothes, dealing with my thighs rubbing together, and and overall unhappiness for my current physique.

My weight loss goal is to lose those 15 pounds in 4 months. My plan involves using all of the tools I've made available here on this site, take up running, and to post my progress for all the world to see. Or at least the one or two people that stumble across this blog randomly.

Based on the weight loss equation I got from the The Business Plan for the Body my daily calorie goal is 1307. This is how many calories I need to stay under in order to lose around one pound a week.

If you look at my graph in the sidebar, you can see I'm still trying to get a handle on this. I was over my calorie goal every day and I had a couple of all out disaster days as well. I'm not perfect and creating new habits is tough work. I'm not giving up, I just need to be more strict with myself.

Despite my difficulty in keeping my calories under my weight loss target, the scale this morning was down 3 pounds. I can't say I trust this number. We'll see how weigh in goes next week. I have been working hard to drink plenty of water so I don't think it's dehydration. I don't really have an explaination, maybe my starting weight was affected by something, we'll see how it progresses. At any rate, I'm not going to count it as a success just yet. Just so you know, I weighed a day early this week since I won't be around my own scale for the next 5 days.

Next week is going to be extremely difficult for me. I currently live on a military base on a tiny island in the Pacific. We eat in a "mess hall", not exactly exciting. I've been here for a year now and this week, today in fact, I'm headed to Honolulu for a long weekend. I haven't eaten in a restaurant for a long time, it's going to be a real treat. I just have to keep control of myself. One of the first things I plan to do is get a new copy of The CalorieKing Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter. This will help me minimize the impact at least.

You may have noticed that I haven't started exercising yet. I find it extremely difficult (remember, this isn't the first time I've had to lose weight) to implement both eating and exercise changes at the same time. It's too overwhelming and leads to failure; this will be different for everyone. I'm glad I know this about myself. I'll keep concentrating on reducing my calorie intake for now, and add the exercise in soon. I'm still waiting for my book on running to arrive too.

So, my main success this week was getting my mind in weight loss mode again. I'm concious of my calorie choices (hard to believe from my graph, I know) and implementing small changes to get myself moving toward my end goal.

On to week #2!

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I mentioned in my last post that my goal was to lose 15 pounds in the next 4 months. That's slightly misleading. Weight is just a number, there are a lot of factors that affect the number on the scale; water retention, whether you have food in your stomach when you weigh, how much buildup is in your bowels, etc. I typically use my weigh-ins as a tracking mechanism, not the end-all-be-all goal.

My weight actually falls in the healthy weight range according to the CDC. By healthy they mean I'm not apt to keel over and have a heart attack anytime soon but what I am looking for is a "comfortable" weight. One that doesn't make me want to come home after work and put on stretch pants or sweats, one where my thighs don't rub and make my shorts ride up when I walk.

So here's really what I'm looking for:

• I don't want to have to buy bigger clothes.
• I want my skinny thighs back!
• I dont' want my stomach to stick out as far as my chest anymore.
• I don't want to jiggle when I walk.

I know that I am going to have to be very firm with myself to meet this goal but I'm ready. I'm not happy and I'm the only one that can change it. Fortunately, I have all of the tools I need right here on this site. Follow along and you will see!





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Well, here it is, 8 months after my last post. If you read it, it mentions that my boyfriend broke up with me and I was realizing I was an emotional eater. Up to that point, I was on track, I had managed not to gain any weight despite taking a job with a military contract company that provides room and board and all the food you can eat and I was pretty pleased with myself. Well, I'm not pleased with myself anymore. I'm pretty disgusted really. I've put on 15 pounds in the last 8 months and it's time to slam the brakes on this weight gaining operation, right now.

I've had a lot of life changes in the last 8 month and I'm still on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific ocean. My personal life has stabilized now and I'm ready to get back on track. I'm posting this here with the hopes that someone out there is paying attention and will possibly help hold me accountable. I would love to hire a personal trainer to kick me in the butt, unfortunately that isn't an option out here. So I've got to motivate myself. Actually, my clothes are motivating me pretty well, they aren't comfortable any more and I am not buying bigger ones! There is no reason I can't get back to where I was 8 months ago.

My goal is to lose 15 pounds in 4 months. That's just under 4 pounds a month. This is completely doable but only if I am very careful with my calories. I have to schedule in gym time, get a new calorie tracking book and start now! I'm going to make it a goal to post everyday, I'll add a calorie and exercise tracker and I want you to bug me if I slack off!

I know it can be done, I've done it before so here we go....


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Wow,
A whole month since my last post....I always hate when I run across these types of posts on blogs. It usually means the poster is a slacker and the blog will be gone soon if it isn't already. You have to admit..I was a pretty heavy poster until I got to the island.

Not much changes here on a daily basis and keeping track of my calories so I don't gain weight has been my main objective since I've been here. I am very happy that I have not gained at all since I've been here. For one reason, because I think it proves that the method I use works. Counting calories.

Sometimes it sounds overly simple but it's not, especially in the beginning. Going from eating way too many calories to your recommended amount for losing weight can be a big jump and hard to tackle all at once.

I subscribe to MSN's Health and Fitness newsletter and sometimes they have some great articles. This week's article is called 78 Ways to Cut 100 Calories.

Truly, every little thing you can do to cut back helps. Baby steps, little at a time is great and will eventually produce results. It takes diligence and persistence more than discipline and strictness. And making small changes and building on them over time will get you there too. How fast it happens is usually what encourages or discourages people but just keep at it and you'll get there!


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Have you ever noticed how cheap calories are?

At the drive thru a 770 calorie Whopper at Burger King is only $2.39 (in my area), for something like another $2.25 I can add fries and a drink for another 550 calories. That's $4.64 for 1320 calories! What a deal.

If you go to the grocery store, the high calorie, ready to eat or quick fix items are always the cheapest. Box of mac-n-cheese...$.99, bag of chips...$.99. Quick easy, mindless.

On the other hand, buying fresh meat and vegetables and cooking at home takes a lot more time and typically will run you more money. For one it's perishable so if you don't eat it right away, it's completely wasted. If you take a look at this article at My Money Blog you can see that as you spend more money on the 200 calorie example used, the food gets healthier and fresher.

To quote the article:

We Are Getting Fat
You can really see the differences in prices as you go down the tables. The cheapest calories are from very basic items like flour, sugar, and oil. The next items are primarily processed snack foods - potato chips, candy, cheetos, and crackers. The most expensive calories include all the fresh fruits and vegetables.

How does this affect us? An estimated 30% of adults over the age of 20 are obese, and that number is rising. On top of that, the poor tend to be more overweight than the rich. Is this because we like to buy the cheaper (and more calorie-dense) food, with the poor even more so than the rich? I certainly ate my share of $2.99 Value Meals in high school because I could afford it. If you’re hungry and broke, you just want something that’s cheap and filling. Donuts and chips sound much better than white bread.

Maybe the less affluent are not as well educated about nutrition. On one hand, I can’t see how people can confuse a Burger King Stacker for health food. On the other, I think if there was a huge calorie label painted in food coloring on every single thing we ate, including eating out, it would definitely change my behavior.

I don't know if it's possible to reduce this trend or not but the wiser we are with our food and money choices, the healthier we will be overall.



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There are a couple of rewards from losing weight that I never consciously expected but thoroughly enjoy. They go along with my post You never know what you've got 'til its gone. I wasn't really even aware of these things at the time but now that I've experienced them they could be goals in and of themselves for me in the future.

No more jiggly belly:
When you are heavy, everything jiggles, and you get used to it. Your middle jiggles, your back jiggles, everything jiggles. It just seems like the way it is. I remember the first time I was aware that I didn't jiggle. I was out for a walk when it hit me; it felt great! It's a very satisfying feeling and one that I want to continue so I think about it when I'm being careless with my calorie intake.

Clothes are no longer torture:
Another thing that I didn't realize I was doing until I stopped was coming home from work and immediately changing into something more comfortable. The whole day was spend with my waistband of my pants digging into my stomach or dealing with tight shirts or "gapiosis" where there is a peekhole between the buttons of your shirt where its pulled too tight. Everyday I would get home and head straight to my closet to put on my sweats.

After working hard to lose quite a few pounds, I remember coming home a few times and getting involved in other things like checking the mail, sitting down to check my email, heading to the kitchen to make dinner, everything but trying to immediately escape my "work" clothes, I felt like I had really accomplished something.

How about you? Are there any small rewards you weren't expecting with weight loss, or any specific goals similar to theses that you are aiming for?


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Now why do you suppose you wouldn't want to give yourself credit for every minute you spend at the gym? You work hard when you are there, it should count shouldn't it?

A lot of time spent at the gym is transition time. You move from one machine to another, you rest between reps, then there's the obvious; changing your shoes and maybe showering.....these things shouldn't be counted or you will be off in your calorie burning calculations and it could cause your weight-loss goals to stall.

My typical routine at the gym includes 45 minutes of weight lifting. Now some of that time, I'm loading the weights or resting between reps, or just trying to get access to the station that I want. I am not spending 45 minutes solid working my muscles to exhaustion. For tracking purposes, I only write down 25 minutes to ensure all of that non-active time is accounted for. This is totally a guess and I try to underestimate as a rule. I could pay more attention and give it a more accurate number if I found that I was not losing weight as expected but it's been working out so far.

Trusting the treadmill (or other equipment) to figure the amount of calories you've burned is not going to help your cause either. I'm not sure what formula they program into those things but they are very generous with the numbers. Underestimating the calories you've burned is the easiest way to stay ahead of your goals; overestimating and then eating the extra calories you think you have burned is not going to produce the results you are looking for.

The number of calories you burn does depends on a lot of factors; how much you weigh, how intense you exercise, how long you sustain the activity. There are almost as many formulas out there for figuring calories burned as there are people. I've always used this formula:

• 4 calories per minute for light exercise like walking
• 5 calories per minute for a little higher activity like walking fast uphill, the elliptical, weight lifting
• 7 calories per minute for what I consider high intensity, which means I'm sweating and panting.

Rarely would I (personally- this is Half Assed Fitness remember) do what I would count 10 calories per minute exercise, if you are a runner, you may hit this mark. 10 calories per minute can only be reached after intense, sustained activity. I've done one or two kickboxing classes and had a few Spinning sessions with a super crazy instructor that got me there but I still didn't count the full 10 per minute for the entire class. It probably took me 10 minutes to get to the point where I was burning that much and then there is always the cool down. For an hour long class then I would probably count about 30 minutes at 10 calories per minute and the remaining time at 5. Like I said, I tend to underestimate but it works out well for weight-loss.

If you want an "official" calculation to use, try this one.



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I have a confession to make. Between the holidays and the strength training I've been doing, I've gained four pounds. I'm not sure how much of it could be new muscle but I have pretty much been a slacker for the two weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. (Thank god it's over!) I got cocky; feeling invincible. It just goes to show show how much more impact your diet has over exercise, I only missed one gym visit but I spent a lot of time shoveling snow to make up the difference!

It's a perfect time for the 31 days sugar-free trial. That's been my biggest weakness so far; cakes, cookies, pies, it's been ridiculous, it's everywhere I look. It's time to re-focus and get myself back on track though so I am going out to buy a new food diary, and will re-calculate my calorie goal and will basically go back into weight-loss mode. I've been in maintenance mode for about 5 months and I was doing really well until now without tracking. Since I've put on a couple of pounds, I need to keep track again to see where it might be coming from and get it under control. Better now than before it's 5 pounds, or 10 pounds.

According to this article it sounds like no more than one maybe two of these pounds could be muscle, the other two pounds would be fat. I'm really having fun building up my muscles, I want to make sure they can be seen so I need to keep my body fat percentages low.

Fruit is going to be a big part of my diet during the next month...I have a great all fruit dessert drink recipe I will post. It is soooooo yummy and I imagine I will need it to keep my sweet tooth at bay and my blood sugar levels up.

Wish me luck! And if you have a weight-loss goal that you are working on....good luck to you too!

This post updated 12/29/08


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I once knew a guy that drank a 12 pack of Coke everyday. EVERYDAY!!!!
Personally the thought of drinking even one a day is enough to make me hurl but I really don't like soda (pop, whatever you call it). One day he realized it probably wasn't the most healthy thing to do so he cut back to two a day. It makes sense, if it's something you really like, you don't really want to give it up completely, just cut back. Guess what happened? He lost something like 25 pounds in a matter of about 2 months. Wow!

Let's do the math....12 Cokes at 143 calories each is 1716 calories a day. (That's my total daily allowance right there, but that's another story). When he cut back to 2, his Coke calorie intake went from 1716 to 286. That's a calorie savings of 1430 a day. Since we know that 3500 calories equals a pound, he would be able to lose almost a pound every two days if the rest of his diet remained the same and he didn't start taking in extra calories somewhere else.

Alcohol was where all of my extra calories were coming from. I didn't really eat much sweets and I'm not really big on fried foods so there wasn't a whole lot of other places to cut back on calories. I'll admit, I was able to put away a significant amount of alcohol calories each week. Not a very healthy habit on a few different levels.

Instead of cutting back, I quit completely. In the first two months, I lost 15 pounds. Over the course of the next 5 months I lost a total of 27 pounds. That's a lot! While I did try to improve my eating habits to include more veggies and fruits and increasing my exercise as well, the drinking thing was the biggest change that I made.

Most of the overweight people I know have one main weakness that they keep giving into regularly. French fries, dessert, soda, alcohol, ice cream. All of these are high in calories and more enjoyable than they are healthy. If you are looking for a way to impact or kick start your weight-loss program, this can be a biggie. It can also be the hardest thing to do.

Isn't that always the way? Some of the most beneficial rewards in your life are gained through sacrifice and hard work. Why can't it just be easy?

What is the one thing you could sacrifice in your diet that would probably cause you to lose weight? How hard would it be to give it up?

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The principle behind Volumetrics is calorie density. For example, you can eat a candy bar, which is small and probably won’t fill you up, or you can eat 5 cups of broccoli for the same amount of calories. Not that you would eat that much broccoli in one sitting but if you did, you would probably be full for awhile. The concept is getting to eat as much as you can in volume without going off of your calorie goal.

Sometimes the amount of food is the most important. There are days when you just can’t get enough; you are hungry all day long. If you are tying to lose weight, this can potentially throw you off your plan but it doesn’t have to. This is very important especially when you are first implementing a calorie restrictive diet. When you are going from no control of what you eat to portion control, it can be shocking. But if you just nibble on high calorie foods you’ll hit your calorie limit before you get full and may just decide to blow the whole thing later because you are hungry.

It’s a balancing act and Volumetrics helped me get through this stage. I call it a stage because my system has now gotten used to eating less so it’s not as difficult to eat less quantity. This may not be the case for everyone, for some it may always be the goal to eat as much food as possible while staying under their calorie goal that’s perfectly fine, the number of calories is the most important factor.

From an article on Web M.D.:
The hook of Volumetrics is its focus on satiety, the feeling of fullness. Rolls (the creator of Volumetrics) says that people feel full because of the amount of food they eat -- not because of the number of calories or the grams of fat, protein, or carbs. So the trick is to fill up on foods that aren't full of calories. Rolls claims that in some cases, following Volumetrics will allow you to eat more -- not less -- than you do now, while still slimming down.

If that last part sounds too good to be true, it’s not. It’s all about making wise choices and knowing what you are putting in you mouth. Being able to eat more while still slimming down is perfectly doable, if you do it right. Again, with the example above, 1 candy bar or 5 cups of broccoli.....with the broccoli*, you are eating more food for the same amount of calories as the candy bar. What you are not doing is eating 5 candy bars instead of one and expecting to lose weight.....right?

* To clarify, I'm talking about steamed or boiled broccoli; not broccoli boiled with oil and served with a huge smear of butter or covered in cheese, that changes the numbers.

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Someone once told me that weight loss was 80% controlling your food intake and eating right and 20% exercise. I was very skeptical of this, I really thought that more of it would be exercise.

I don't actually have any hard data, (well I do but I'm not going to get around to calculating it all out and giving you a spreadsheet to prove it) but I can tell you from looking at my personal food and exercise diary for the last couple of years that this is quite true.

Figuring out my daily calorie goal and keeping track of my calorie intake and expenditure was the first thing I started doing; fitting exercise into my life and making it routine took a lot longer. I still only burn about 150 calories per workout and I still manage to lose weight. To me this further proves the calories in minus calories out = your weight theory.

In fact, as far as exercise goes, I don't think it's all that important in weight loss per se but it is vital in making your body look better and feel better and for increasing your overall health and wellness. It can certainly accelerate your weight loss goals when used in conjunction with calorie control but you'd be hard pressed to lose weight if you exercised but didn't control your calorie intake. Truly the best approach is to employ both exercise AND calorie control together.

Just remember you will do more damage to your weight loss routine by taking in an extra 1000 calories as opposed to putting off your 200 calorie exercise routine.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king punished in Tartarus by being cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll down again, and to repeat this throughout eternity.

Doesn't weight-loss sometimes feel like this?

If you look closely at the picture, you can see, Sisyphus is ripped! All that constant work has gotten him into phenomenal shape. And it will do the same for you too.

Continue to work, every day, day in and day out and what you will find is not that you go crazy or frustrated from doing the same thing over and over but that you become stronger and you change; you turn into someone that can easily get that stone to the top and when it slides, you just go back down and push it up again, no big deal. It becomes part of your life.

According to Wikipedia, the term Sisyphean can be used as an adjective meaning that an activity is unending and/or repetitive.