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The Biggest Loser (Australia)
The New series of ‘The Biggest Loser’ (Australian version) starts tonight and I think this year I’ll probably end up watching most of it.
I have watched episodes of previous series before, and really do quite like the show, but I’ve never built up a religious following to it or anything, I guess on some level it made me feel a bit disappointed with my weight (fair enough), and so I never really embraced it as I probably should. As a motivational source to lose weight, the show can really provide some stunning stories - some of the guys on last years series weighed less than me and this year I’m still pretty close in my weight to a couple of them, so just by watching them achieve their weight goals has got to provide positive support for me trying to reach mine.
While I’m obviously not going to attempt to lose the weight in a couple of months like these contestants are doing, some of the fitness and workout tips they cover are definitely something that I can implement into my own weight loss strategy, and it’s those weight loss and fitness tips that I will be covering here throughout the series.
Technorati Tags: biggest loser, tv shows
Share this article, I appreciate your support.February 3, 2008 | Filed Under Biggest Loser
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My blog page on Squidoo
You’ve probably got no idea what Squidoo is, and for the most part you’re not really missing out on too much – it’s just a site that lets anyone make a simple web page. They give you heaps of tools to add cool stuff to it, you provide the content, they slap a heap of advertising on it and split the profits with you or distribute it to charity and away you go.
For anyone looking at building a few simple web pages, or create a few additional links back to your blog, then it’s probably worth the small amount of time you spend on it.
Anyway, I’ve set up a page How I am going to lose 40kg in 12 months which gives a brief summary of my blog. I’ll add a bit of additional stuff up there from time to time, but it’s another way to get the word out a little more. Why don’t you head on over there and let me know what you think?
Share this article, I appreciate your support.Using free Internet tools to help you lose weight
I’m a pretty keen Internet user, in fact I spend just as much time surfing around reading stuff online as I do work (usually the line between ‘work’ and ‘play’ overlaps, so I do have a bit of an excuse).
One of the main topics I want to explore in this blog is how some of the fantastic tools available online (most of them free), can help us lose weight. I’m really keen to dig a little deeper into the many social networks and build a huge support network that we all can feed off and help motivate each other.
The first web site I will be looking at is Twitter – I won’t go into too many details right now (it deserves a whole post that I’ll put together early next week), but essentially it is like an Instant Messaging service where people can not only type messages to each other in real time, but follow the thoughts of a whole network of people. It’s like having all your friends in the one room, if you say something, they will all hear it… think of the possibilities, if you’re thinking about eating that ice-cream and need a little extra motivation to leave it alone, send a tweet on Twitter and get instant feedback from some of your friends to help build your resolve.
If you’re already on Twitter, you can follow my conversations by going to my Twitter page, it’s a bit empty right now as I’ve only just setup the profile, but I’m keen to grow a network of people who follow this blog, so ‘follow me, and I’ll follow you!’.
Share this article, I appreciate your support.February 1, 2008 | Filed Under Social Networks, Weight Loss Tools Leave a Comment
My Weight Loss Update - Feb 1st 2008
Ok, it’s the 1st of Feb and I’m taking this as my official start to reaching my goal of losing 40kg in 12 months. I’ll try to keep these updates as regular as possible – the plan for now is about 2-3 times a week, but I’ll reassess that at the end of the month once I see how it is going.
If you’re trying to lose weight as well, I would welcome any comments you may have at the end of this post – why not share with us one or two things you’ve done in the past couple of days that is helping you to lose weight? The more people we have participating in these updates, the better motivated we’ll be to do that little bit better!
There’s probably no point to making note of my weight everyday – in fact it’s probably not a good habit to get into as factors such as water gain/loss can be greater than the actual weight you may have lost which tend to make the day-to-day results more or less irrelevant. Instead, I’ll document my weight each week, I’ll make the official ‘weigh-in’ every Friday at 8am - I’ll even try to take a photo of the scales each time so that I have proof!
Let’s get the ball rolling, my current weight is: 131kg
…and here is what the scales look like (believe it or not, my camera - which I’m holding to take this photo - weighs exactly 0.3kg!):
What have I been doing these last few days? The important one is starting my weight loss program, which has meant changing my diet as I documented in my earlier post How I plan to lose 40kg in 12 months (part 1), the other major thing I have done is to start this blog!
Having made the choice to lose weight and open myself up in this blog really empowers you to do more – I feel revitalised, I feel fantastic, I feel… in control.
So what have you done today that will help you take control of your weight?
Share this article, I appreciate your support.February 1, 2008 | Filed Under Updates Leave a Comment
How I plan to lose 40kg in 12 months (part 2)
In my previous post How I plan to lose 40kg in 12 months (part 1) I talked about the strategy I’m using to change my diet. Now I want to discuss adding a regular exercise program.
Stage 2 – Becoming more active
There are two basic things you can do to lose weight – eat less (which I covered in part 1), or burn more calories (additional exercise), which is the topic of this post.
When you’ve got as much weight to lose as I do, just changing your diet will be enough to ensure some decent results in the beginning… when I say ‘just’, I mean I should be able to lose weight even without doing any extra exercise, I don’t mean to imply that waking up one day and changing the way you eat is an easy process, it’s not – you’ve got to teach your body to form new habits, and that’s the main reason why I choose to tackle these areas one at a time.
As the weight loss starts to slow down though, I’ll need to form some regular exercising habits, here’s how I plan to address it.
1. Structured Exercise Time
This is important in forming habits that will continue over time, try to exercise at the same time every day and gradually push yourself further each time.
It’s important to not only find something that you can easily do on a regular basis (go for a walk, work out at the gym – whatever you’re comfortable with), but also find a time where you don’t feel under too much pressure to finish quickly and get home. Last time I tried to increase my exercise I went for a walk/jog (ok, mostly walk) each morning nice and early. As I am usually the one to get up early with the kids though, I think the pressure of finishing up and getting home was a little too much – this time I plan to exercise in the late afternoon where I will have less time pressure on me.
I live in a semi-rural suburb, all the houses around here are acreage, so there are plenty of wide open spaces for me to explore. My eldest son is just getting to the stage where he wants to ride his bike a lot, so part of my exercise regime will likely be a slow casual ride with him, followed by something more strenuous afterwards. We also have a swimming pool, so a lunch time swim will definitely be on the cards during the warmer months.
2. Non-Structured Exercise
By non-structured I simply mean taking advantage of any opportunities I come across throughout the day – things like kicking a ball with my kids, mowing the lawn, parking further from the shops than I normally do etc.
While the structured exercise program forms the basis of meeting the goals I want to achieve, it’s all the extra non-structured bits that will really help to make a difference, so the more I can take advantage of the better.
A quick word about goals
Setting clearly defined goals is going to help you achieve success in virtually anything you try to do, so it is definitely something that I need to address here. My general strategy for goal setting is to define something that is easily measured and has very specific time frames attached to them – that way when it comes time to review my progress, the analysis is pretty straight forward and I can be quite tough in my assessment about how I’ve gone.
My overall goal (to lose 40kg in 12 months), while specific, still needs to be broken down further so that I can analyse my progress effectively. Setting monthly goals would be the most useful here, weight loss can be pretty erratic over a week or so, but the results from month to month should show a definitely progression to the goal and offer plenty of time to analyse and adjust based on actual performance.
I could break the weight loss goals down into equal amounts per month (40/12 = 3.33kg/m), but this doesn’t take into account the easier times I should have initially where the weight will drop off a lot easier, and the tougher times towards the end, so I’m going to structure my weight loss goals something like this:
- February – July: 4 kg/m
- August – November: 3 kg/m
- December – January: 2 kg/m
All those weight loss targets should be pretty easy to meet if I stick to the plan, and that’s where the analysis comes in each month as I will revisit these goals and adjust my focus appropriately.
I do have other goals I want to meet, specifically addressing each point I outlined in stage 1 of my weight loss plan yesterday – they are something that I will analyse on a weekly basis to make sure I’m sticking to the basic principles of my plan.
Well, that’s it – that’s the ‘plan’. If you have any questions, be sure to leave a comment and I will try to answer as best as I can.
Before I end this post, I would like to quickly point out that I’m not a nutritionist, not a doctor – so please take anything you read on here as my opinions only, and not gospel. I do spend quite a bit of time reading and researching most areas I have an interest in, and weight loss in particular is something that I have spent a great deal of time examining, but these are just my opinions – please seek professional advice for your unique situation before acting on anything I might say or imply in this blog… I have been known to be wrong on occasions 
January 31, 2008 | Filed Under Weight Loss Strategy 1 Comment