Weight Loss is a Full Time Job!

I keep wanting to apologize for not posting on my blog each day. I would like to talk about all sorts of things each day. I'm consumed these days with health and weight loss.

The reason people find it hard to lose weight, is because it's hard to do. It's hard work to change your lifestyle and generate consistent results.

Since February I've been on a weight loss learning curve, and exercise program. I've done alot of things right, and alot of things wrong. I'm finding that it takes a considerable amount of time each day to do the right things consistently.

Case and point: It takes time to burn calories.
Cycling 5 miles burns around 350 calories. It takes 20 minutes to cycle 5 miles. This is in city road cycling. The other day I did approximately 13 miles and it took me around 2 hours, as I went to stores etc.

You have to go out and do the miles on bicycle, or whatever exercise you prefer in order to burn the calories. You NEED TO burn more calories than you take in. If you don't, then you don't lose weight.

To consistently burn 3500 calories, or 1 pound of fat, on the bicycle you would need to travel 50 miles, taking 200 minutes. 200 minutes to burn one pound of fat each week. Being that I used to sit on the couch and watch TV, 200 minutes is alot of time to take up exercising.

It takes time to prepare food each day
This is just the exercising .. then there's food preparation.
I once talked to a body builder who said, "I spend more time in the kitchen then I do lifting weights"

At the time I didn't understand what he meant. I ate out at restaurants all the time and NEVER cooked my own meals.

These days I cook everything I eat from scratch. I don't use preprocessed foods at all. I don't want to spend 200 minutes of exercise time burning calories gotten from processed foods!

By cooking all of my own food, I know exactly what goes into my system, the approximate calories, and how I'm going to feel after eating them.

When I used to eat junk food and processed foods, I never felt full, and I was constantly binging on these unhealthy foods to try to get that full feeling.

Cooking my own foods saves alot of money. I rarely eat in restaurants, and don't ever buy expensive process foods. Eating whole foods costs me a fraction of what I used to spend on a weekly basis.

Exercising is saving me money as well. Instead of sitting in front of the television set, or going to movies, etc I am now spending way more time bicycling, going to the gym, doing the sauna for 30 minutes each day etc.

I've never felt better in the last 25+ years!! It's time consuming however, the results have been wonderful.

Losing weight takes commitment
Losing weight is hard work. I have to be committed to it each day in order to be successful. I have to remind myself why I'm changing my lifestyle and why I'm doing all of these things I'm not used to doing.

I guess I'll keep apologizing for the next few months for not blogging on a daily basis. I'm hoping that once I've lost the weight, I will only have to spend time doing maintainence exercises etc. Hopefully that will free up some time.

Until then, I am committed to losing weight, I am having great success, and will continue until I get down to my goal weight.