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Today is the Thanksgiving Day holiday in Canada.  The American Thanksgiving holiday happens in November.  What do we do to celebrate?  We eat.  We eat turkey, and mashed potatoes, and stuffing, and gravy and pie.  And we eat a lot.  What can you do to lose weight during a holiday?

The short answer is: not much.  A holiday is not the time to be trying to lose weight.  Take the day off from your diet and enjoy the food.  Losing weight should not be your goal.  Your goal should be to not gain weight.  Here are two tips:

First, skip a meal.  If you know you will be having a huge dinner, sleep in, have a late breakfast, and just have a small healthy snack instead of lunch.  You may eat more calories at supper, but if you have virtually no calories at lunch, the total number of calories you consumed for the day may still be reasonable.

Second, get some exercise.  Go for a walk.  The advantage of exercise is it helps burn calories, and while you are walking you probably won’t be eating, so it’s a win-win.  Take the entire family for a walk.  It will be fun for everyone, it will help with your weight, and it will build your appetite for the evening meal, which for today, enjoy it.  You can get back to your healthy eating tomorrow.

We all have heard the “conventional wisdom” about the importance of exercise: if you engage in moderate exercise, like walking, for 30 minutes a day three or four times per week you can lose weight.  But is that true?

In a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine on July 28, 2008 (here’s the link: Effect of Exercise on 24-Month Weight Loss Maintenance in Overweight Women) it was discovered that the more you exercise, the more weight you can lose.

In the study, 201 overweight and obese women aged 21 to 45 years old were told to reduce their caloric intake to 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day, and they were split into four groups based on physical activity (from light activity up to vigorous intensity).

They discovered that individuals sustaining a weight loss of 10% or more of initial body weight at 24 months reported performing more physical activity (1835 kcal/wk or 275 min/wk) compared with those sustaining a weight loss of less than 10% of initial body weight.

The study concluded that the addition of about four and a half hours per week of vigorous physical activity, combined with a reduced calorie diet, is very important in allowing overweight women to sustain weight loss. The message is clear: if you want to lose weight, more exercise is better. Don’t just go for a leisurely walk three times a week, go for a brisk walk for 45 minutes to an hour six times a week, or add in other forms of physical activity to enhance weight loss.

People everywhere are constantly searching for the product that will help them to achieve their weight loss goals.  The recently released weight loss pill, alli, with the convenience of being available without a prescription and with the safety and comfort of FDA approval, seems like the answer to everyone’s weight loss dreams.  With the promise of increased weight-loss and the possibility of curing obesity-related diseases, the alli weight loss pill seems too good to be true.

Olistat, the active ingredient in alli has been available by prescription for years by the brand name Xenical.  Alli is a reduced-strength version of this same drug which when taken with meals prevents the body from breaking down and absorbing 25% of the fat in food.  With less fat available for energy, the body must tap into its fat reserves and use up the excesses resulting in weight loss.

Using alli along with a low-calorie, reduced-fat diet and increased exercise could help in losing up to 50% more weight than with traditional dieting alone.  Maximum weight loss is usually achieved within the first six months of using the product.  Unlike some other diet pills, alli acts only in the digestive tract and has no effect on the brain eliminating the addictive qualities that cause other diet pills to be susceptible to abuse.

This all sounds great, however there are some dangers to using alli to lose weight.  Some of the common side effects include increased flatulence and more frequent, difficult-to-control bowel movements.  The alli program suggests that meals include no more than 15 grams of fat to prevent these side effects from worsening; however some people may find it challenging to know exactly how much fat their meal contains.  A multi-vitamin may need to be taken as alli can interfere with the absorption of vitamins A, D, E and K.  Because alli is a relatively new drug, the long-term effects are unknown as of yet.  In clinical trials, when alli stopped being taken, many people gained back the weight they had lost and so the pill may need to be taken indefinitely.

Alli should only be used as a dieting aid for people who need to lose weight for reasons of health and not for already thin people to keep their weight off.   All aspects of the alli weight loss program need to be followed including the recommended dosage, the diet and the exercise.

Well, I have now finished the first week of My Weight Loss Plan. How did I do?

Quite well, actually, thanks for asking.

I started the week at 198 pounds, and today I weighed in at 194.5 pounds, for a loss of 3.5 pounds on the week. I of course realize that some of that loss is water weight, but I’m happy; I wanted to lose weight, and that’s what I did.

How did I do it?

First, I gave up carbs for breakfast. Every morning I ate eggs (you can read my egg post for more details). For lunch and dinner I ate a lot of vegetables and chicken and salads. There are lots of things you can do with those foods, so it wasn’t boring at all.

Second, I did a moderate amount of exercise. During the week I went for one 30 minute walk, I did one cardio session (30 minutes of walking and jogging on my Precor 9.33 treadmill). I also did two twenty minute weight training sessions.

Why only 20 minutes each? Because I knew, since I’m just getting back into it, my muscles would be tired and would need time to recover, so I didn’t want to over do it.

Also, one problem with exercise is that it makes you hungry, so I wanted to exercise enough to get the benefit of exercise, but not so much I just had to eat more to satisfy my hunger. (I’m using the Turbulence Training concepts discussed here earlier).

Week one was a success, let’s see how we do in Week #2.

I’m now on day #3 of my weight loss plan, and today I want to talk about exercise. We all agree that exercise is good, because it helps burn calories and it makes you feel better.

However, I have found that it’s not easy to use exercise to lose weight. As discussed in my article on the 3,500 calorie weight loss challenge, a pound of fat is the equivalent of about 3,500 calories, meaning you need to burn 3,500 calories to lose a pound of fat. That may sound easy, but it isn’t. You would need to walk for seven and a half hours to burn 3,500 calories. That’s not easy.

My point: you cannot rely on exercise alone to lose weight. It is far easier to cut 3,500 calories out of your diet than it is to walk for seven plus hours!

The other problem with exercise is that it makes you hungry! Your body burns calories, which makes you hungry, so you want to eat more. If your eating increases by the same amount of calories you just burned, you won’t lose any weight! It’s simple math.

That doesn’t mean exercise is bad. With exercise your heart gets stronger, you sleep better, and you feel better. But you don’t necessarily lose weight.

So, what’s my plan? I plan to do limited exercise. I want the maximum “bang for the buck”, so I’m not going to walk for seven hours. I am going to do resistance training, also known as weight training.

Weight training can be done in a relatively short period of time (30 minutes two or three times per week), and it’s effective because it helps you build muscle. We all know that muscle weighs more than fat, because it’s more dense, but muscle also needs more energy to grow and survive. Energy is another word for calories, and it’s a simple equation: the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn, even when you are not exercising!

Research Turbulence Training.

I plan to use the strategy developed by Craig Ballantyne in his revolutionary Turbulence Training System, where you can lose fat while gaining muscle with just three short (but intense) workouts each week. Mr. Ballantyne is a world-renowned Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), and author articles in magazines such as Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Oxygen, Maximum Fitness, and Muscle and Fitness Hers.

The Turbulence Training System is designed to burn fat in the least amount of time. It takes some work, but I believe the results will be worth it. (For more information, click here to read more about Turbulence Training.)

My plan is to do 30 minutes of high intensity weight training two or three times per week to build muscle mass, burn calories, but not work out so much that I just increase my hunger levels. Check back to see how it works.

Yesterday I talked about my plan to lose weight, and I said that as part of My Weight Loss Plan I am going to eat eggs. Here’s what I mean:

To lose weight, I want to keep my carbohydrate intake low, and focus only on good carbs. Therefore, during the week, I’m going to skip having cereal for breakfast, which is high in carbs and sugar, and replace cereal with eggs, which are high in protein.

Today for breakfast I took one whole egg, and three egg whites. (I buy the egg whites separately; it’s easy, and I’m not wasting the egg yolks. I like one whole egg for flavor, and the egg whites for volume with fewer calories.) Today I chopped up some fresh spinach, some feta cheese, and some black olives.

I mixed the egg and egg whites, poured them into a frying pan coated with olive oil, and made an omelette. Once cooked enough to allow for flipping, I flip in over and dump on the spinach, cheese and black olives. I fold it over, and put the pan to the side of the stove for one minute (I don’t want the eggs to cook so much they get rubbery, but I want the spinach limp and the cheese somewhat melted).

Then it’s put it on a plate and eat.

How hard is this? It’s easy, because I do most of the preparation the night before. I chop the spinach, feta cheese, and black olives and put them in a Ziploc container, so in the morning all I need to do is dump them on.

One word of caution: I find that with this diet I need to nd drink lots of water to counter balance the salt in the olives and the cheese, and to keep me regular.

Tomorrow, some thoughts on exercise.

Many weight loss programs want you to buy fancy and expensive foods to lose weight. Here’s a tip that costs you almost nothing: drink lots of water.

Water helps with weight loss because it flushes your system out, keeps you hydrated, has no calories, and if you are drinking water, you are not eating.

Six cups of water per day is a good target; eight is even better, particularly if you are exercising.

Water has the added benefit of keeping you full, so instead of reaching for a cookie, reach for a tall cool glass of water.   Make water an essential part of your weight loss program.

One of the greatest secrets of success in every weight loss program is to fill up on low density foods. A low density food is a food that has fewer calories in every bite.

For example, a piece of cake is loaded with dozens of calories in every bite. A vegetable has relatively few calories. You would need to munch on a lot of carrots, or beans, or broccoli to get the same number of calories as you would find in a small piece of cake.

Eating low density foods works as a weight loss technique because if we eat a vast quantity of food we can trick our brains into thinking we are full. A big heaping salad looks filling, even though it contains few calories.

So start your meal with a soup or salad. Drink lots of water or tea (without sugar). And eat lots of vegetables to fill up and jump start your weight loss program.

Any good weight loss program will tell you to eat lots of fruits and vegetables, and most weight loss programs advise you to eat some lean meat, fish, and whole grains. They also tell you to avoid processed grains (like white bread), and foods with added sugar, like soft drinks.

However, eating healthy is not enough. You must also limit the amount of calories you consume. The math is simple: you must burn more calories than you eat to lose weight.

A boneless, skinless chicken breast is healthy, but if you eat ten of them in one sitting you will gain weight. So watch your portion sizes to cut down on the amount of food you eat. A serving of meat should not be bigger than the palm of your hand; if you are eating more than that, you are eating too much.

Eat healthy foods, but eat everything in moderation.

This tip is a no-brainer. Every single book about how to lose weight will tell you the same thing: avoid junk food.

Soft drinks are nothing buy sugar and water. They provide no nutritional benefit, but are loaded with calories. Fast foods like fries and hamburgers and milkshakes are the same: lots of calories, no nutritional value.

Instead of drinking soft drinks, drink water or tea. Instead of getting a burger and fries, order a sandwich. For more information, read about weight loss and Wendy’s.

And remember, you can bring a snack of carrots or beans to work; you don’t need fries and a soft drink!