Weight loss tips
The 1st 8 Top Tips to start off on your
journey.
- You need to first learn to enjoy exercise and in particular Cardiovascular exercise. Fail to learn this and you will fail to lose weight and you will fail to stay fit for the medium to long term. Many other things can and will help you in the short term, but only by learning to enjoy exercise will you keep the weight off for the medium to long term. These training programs and Tips are designed first to help you learn to enjoy exercise.
- Do not join a Gym to begin with - Unless you are going to work on a 1:1 basis with
a trainer or you are going to join an Octathalon Group Training session.
All too many gyms are soulless places where you will not get any real
help. Worse still these places are often found to offer their members many
of the wrong sort of exercising for those people wishing to lose weight.
Their information has been based on past knowledge which has since been
found to be ineffective and sometimes even damaging. We are not blaming
anyone here, as many people are genuinely interested in helping you
and they are just doing what they have been taught to do.
Unfortunately it is the system that is at fault as there is no solid
update mechanism that ensures better information replaces the old.
Sitting on a Bike, or an X- training machine, for 30 minutes will do
absolutely nothing for you in your early journey toward weight loss and
improved fitness. Instead the training programs we will supply you with
will start you off outside in the wide & free, open air before taking
your indoors and into a home or public gym. This is all you need to start
with and to help you to begin to enjoy your exercising.
- Get some Sun & some Sleep. You
have 2 critical hormones in your body Leptin and Ghrelin. Leptin sends
signals to your brain to stop eating (when you are full) and Ghrelin sends
signals to your brain to start eating (when you are hungry). If you do not
get enough Vitamin D from sunlight it results in lower levels of Leptin
which makes you think you are not full (this means you keep eating when
you really should stop as your body would have normally had enough). If
you do not get at least 7 hours sleep, you will get lower levels of
Ghrelin & lower levels of Leptin. (So now your brain thinks you are
hungry, when you are probably fine and it thinks you stomach is not full
enough). This is one of the many critical pieces of
information available within this website. So much of this is so powerful
and so helpful in the battle to lose weight, that you have to wonder why
it is so hard to find out about.
- Follow the 2 hour ‘Fat burning Window’ rule. When you exercise and when you eat is as
important as what you eat. Certain types of exercises will burn off
fat even after you have stopped doing them - as long as you obey the 2 hour rule.
Only drink water during those 2 hours – no fruit juices, no sports drinks,
no vitamin replacement drinks, no fizzy drinks (including no fizzy water)
& no diet drinks! This rule does not apply to athletes who are looking
to improve their performances, only to those people wanting to lose
weight. There are really strong reasons why you should do this and they
can be found in our articles on this website. It goes without saying of
course that your training programs contain many of these longer lasting fat burning exercises.
- Find out your Blood Type and follow the appropriate diet for that
type. Humans have evolved all around
the world on different diets depending on food availability in those
areas. What is also known is that different cultures have also evolved with
different blood types. When you eat food that is less natural for your
blood type, the body does not work as well to digest it. In today’s
multicultural world and the increased availability of foreign cuisine
there have been more illnesses occurring and more people with and
increasing weight problems that have been caused by eating too much food
that is not appropriate for their blood type. For a rough guidelines: -
Blood type O - Eat more animal proteins + salt water fish. Eat less
dairy products and grains. Avoid too much gluten which can be found in
wheat products. Blood type A - Eat more of a vegetarian diet with
fresh, pure, and organic produce & Soy Proteins. Eat less, or avoid,
meat and potatoes. Blood type B - People of this blood type should
eat smaller portions than other types as their bodies. If you need to eat more, you should keep to the the
same amount of food as you used to eat but you should eat that amount spread out over more times during the day. Eat less,
or avoid, corn, wheat, lentils, tomatoes, peanuts and sesame seeds &
Chicken. Blood type AB - Eat more Tofu, seafood and vegetables and
also eat smaller meals and if possible, for this blood group in particular, do not eat Proteins at the same time as
Carbohydrates. Eat less meat, and try to avoid smoked or cured meats. Read
more about this in the articles on the website.
- Avoid negative people. Losing
weight is hard enough without the constant negative remarks made by those
around you. Even some trainers think that shouting at you, and insulting
you, in order for you to work harder, actually helps you. It does not.
Having anyone around you continually making negative comments about your
weight and health, needs to be told to either leave or to desist in making
the comments – especially after the 1st 2-3 weeks. Losing
weight that will stay off takes time. It is not about losing weight early
on. Losing a few pounds each week is not your goal to begin with. Your
goal is to get into the right frame of mind so that you can follow rule
number 1 – Enjoy exercise - The weight will come off in due course.
- Start taking Probiotics. Inside
our guts we have a thriving population of many different types of
bacteria. These bacteria digest our food. We now know that it is ‘What we
digest’, not just ‘What we eat’ that is important. In a healthy person the
many different types of bacteria exists in a form of a balanced ecosystem.
This balance though can be affected by things like antibiotics, steroids
& birth control pills. Being overweight also affects the types of
bacteria in the gut. Research has shown that there are greater numbers of
particular types bacteria in the guts of overweight people. These
particular bacteria are more effective and efficient at processing
carbohydrates. It was found that inside Obese and Overweight people these
bacteria were able to get more calories out of the food that was placed there
than other forms of gut bacteria. This leads to even more fat being
extracted out of food than is normally going on in a healthy gut and this
leads to more fat than normal getting stored in and around the body of an
overweight person. This means that overweight people actually puts on
weight faster and more easily due to the imbalance of the bacteria in
their gut. The trick is to restore the balance so that there is less of
this particular type of bacteria. To begin to do this, you can start
taking Probiotics. The best time to do this is on an empty stomach. You can learn more about these and which are the best
for you within the site.
- Take the first step - True Motivation can only come from you – no one
else. We have designed the
Octathalon website to be as motivational as possible and to help people
get fit and to stay in shape as best we can, however the motivation has to
start from within you. People are motivated in one of only 2 ways. They
either want to ‘get away from’ something or they want to ‘get’ something.
It’s called the Pain / Pleasure choice as people look to avoid pain and
get pleasure. Many experts will tell you that you need to link your desire
to lose weight and to get in shape with either something very painful if
you do not do it, or with something very pleasurable if you do succeed.
However even this is a strategy often ends in failure as people reach
their goals and then fail to sustain the progress they made as they had
not clearly established further goals. They then end up quickly returning
to their former size and shape and sometimes worse.
Do not think about getting a great shape. Do not think about being incredibly fit. Think about those in later steps.
For now, all you need to do is to take the first step and we have made it an easy one.
In fact all the first few steps are both easy and enjoyable.
You will not lose weight immediately – that is not your aim at this stage.
All you have to do is to do these first steps and notice your enjoyment rising.
So now just take the first step and follow these tips and these training programs.
If you do you will find yourself progressing with the Octathalon all the way up to the Black Grade and with that will come the shape and health you want.
So what are the first steps?
1. Join up and become a member of this site.
2. Download the first Starter Training Program, read it and begin (You do not even need to be a member of a gym to do this program)
3. Learn to enjoy the exercise and you will be able to go on and complete all 60 training programs, you may even become a Black Grade member (Grading is all about improving your own personal performance over an Octathalon course)
Just do it, do not question it, just do it and you will soon be on the road to improved health and with an improved shape.
Get more Weight Loss Tips - Click here (Members only)
Go to the Training Programs Page where there are the Starter Training Programs - Click here