Since I was in high school I have lost 80 lbs in total during any point in which weight loss was my goal. I have realized that nutrition is thee most important aspect of weight loss. As a matter of fact. TIME FOR A LIST!
These are what I think are the most important things in regards to weight loss.
- Nutrition
- Cardiovascular Exercise
- Resistance Training
- Rest
Nutrition:
For me this has always been the hardest part. I just recently started cleaning up my diet. What I did that helped me lose weight was eat less crap. Now, “what is crap?” Crap = fried food, artificial sugars, sweets, certain fats, or simply eating too much. When I lost weight, I cut sweet drinks, fried food and started adding more vegetables. Things I have eaten recently are lentils, quinoa, spinach, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, 6 oz of meat per day, peanut butter, jelly, whole wheat foods, beans, eggs and dairy.
Cardiovascular Exercise:
During any point when I wanted to lose weight, and successfully did, I would do high intensity exercise. Things like sprints, jump roping, and playing basketball. I realized that jogging for 45 minutes never gave me the results I wanted because that type of training was more for endurance than anything else. Things like football drills, basketball drills and sprints have always benefited me more.
Resistance Training:
Typically when you lose weight, its due to a caloric deficit, unless you are sick. So if you are eating at a deficit you cannot expect to do the same volume of exercise you were doing before hand. This is especially the case when it comes to lifting heavy weights. What has worked for me is dropping virtually all pressing movements and doing only pull up variations and dips. The only 2 exercise I must do, are the Squat and the Deadlift. I would drop volume to about 2 sets of 8-12 challenging reps for all exercises.
Rest
Just sleep mo’FO! This difficult for some, but it is vital. Remember.
“The body complains, it don’t explain.” Leroy Colbert
This is my experience and what I have done in order to lose weight. I will post another on how I gained weight.
My brother and I used to eat dry top ramen like nobodies business back in the day…yum!! I now know better, but it still tasted good…I think.