As you regularly limit your carb intake to 170g, you’ll start losing weight. And you’ll feel good about it, initially. Soon, you’ll find out that you are getting tired and feeling less energetic. Pretty soon you’ll decide that without eating more food you are going to continue to feel less energetic. So you’ll eat more carbs and the next thing you know you’ve gained weight. Solution? Exercise.
This is how it works. When you reduce your intake of carbs, your body creates glucose from your muscles. This makes you feel weak. You lose weight but not the bulge around your waist and are disappointed. Losing weight from your muscle mass has a couple of other problems too. One, the muscles burn more sugar than other tissues. So if you reduce muscle mass then you’ll actually slow down the process of weight reduction. Two, your heart is made mostly of muscles. You don’t want to weaken your heart.
When you exercise the exact opposite happens. Your muscles crave for energy, your brain needs glucose to operate, and the rest of your body wants energy too. What happens next? You guessed it, the message goes out to the reserve storage of energy, fat, to convert itself into usable energy in the form of glucose. The next thing you know is that you are losing that bulge. Many times, as I found out, you’ll lose the bulge before the weight loss shows up on the bathroom scale! Also, you’ll feel more energized.
The best exercise you can do is also the simplest. It does not require any paraphernalia. Walking 30 to 60 minutes a day gives you all the exercise you’ll ever need. When you walk you make all your big muscles work. When the muscles have to work they don’t lose mass, instead they grow by consuming energy in the form of sugar. Now the body has to provide more energy for that expenditure. Where does the body get the needed extra energy from if you don’t eat it in the form of carbs? By burning fat.
The body has its own intelligence. It will take fat from where it thinks it is most expendable. In my case, I first lost fat from around my face and neck, and much later from around my tummy. Also, don’t get discouraged if you lose weight quickly initially and if there is no change for two or three weeks. The body likes to adjust itself in mysterious ways. There is no need to solve the mystery. Just as long as you are losing about a pound a month on an average, then you are doing really well.
I don’t like to exercise. I did not exercise regularly prior to ending up in the hospital. Now I walk regularly for 30 to 60 minutes a day. I get 30 minutes of walking out of the way in the morning. I do not like the gym scene; heads bobbing up and down on treadmills, smell of sweat, jocks flaunting themselves, CNN blaring away every disaster, FOX news spewing out negativity. I do not like to walk on treadmills even at home. Walking on a treadmill is very boring for me. Most people watch TV while walking on a treadmill. I am averse to watching news and don’t need to know who got murdered. I like to walk on the streets of downtown San Diego. There is always something new and interesting to see every time. In Gaithersburg, I like to walk around the lake at Washingtonian Rio. There, I try to walk in the sun if it is cold and at night if it is hot outside. If it is snowing, we drive to a mall and walk there. If the roads are icy, then I walk in my apartment for 30 minutes. If you can’t walk for 30 minutes then walk for 10 minutes three times during the day. A recent study found that women who walked once every day for 30 minutes received the same benefits as the women who walked three times a day for 10 minutes each. There are no excuses for not being able to walk.
Here is a multiple choice quiz for you. You are traveling and have to catch a flight. You reach the airport at least an hour before the flight takes off. These days you have to reach early for security reasons. Which of the following three would you do upon reaching the departure gate?
(a) Settle down comfortably near the entrance of the gate and read a book.
(b) Go to the Starbucks in the terminal, pick up a cup of latte and a muffin, and relax while enjoying the treat.
(c) Walk around the terminal building for 30 minutes.
If you don’t know the answer to this question, then go back to the beginning of the blog and read it again.
By the way, it is perfectly OK to do other forms of exercises. Swimming, jogging, and bicycling are also good. Here is why walking is the best. Swimming requires going to a pool. Jogging is high-impact and can damage your joints. Bicycling needs a bike. I used to bike a lot in India and had to be operated upon for pilonidal cyst because of that. Walking has none of those side effects. Finally, how fast should you walk? Answer: at whatever pace that is comfortable for you.
Mantra: I will walk 30 to 60 minutes every day, no excuses.
Repeat after me:
This is how it works. When you reduce your intake of carbs, your body creates glucose from your muscles. This makes you feel weak. You lose weight but not the bulge around your waist and are disappointed. Losing weight from your muscle mass has a couple of other problems too. One, the muscles burn more sugar than other tissues. So if you reduce muscle mass then you’ll actually slow down the process of weight reduction. Two, your heart is made mostly of muscles. You don’t want to weaken your heart.
When you exercise the exact opposite happens. Your muscles crave for energy, your brain needs glucose to operate, and the rest of your body wants energy too. What happens next? You guessed it, the message goes out to the reserve storage of energy, fat, to convert itself into usable energy in the form of glucose. The next thing you know is that you are losing that bulge. Many times, as I found out, you’ll lose the bulge before the weight loss shows up on the bathroom scale! Also, you’ll feel more energized.
The best exercise you can do is also the simplest. It does not require any paraphernalia. Walking 30 to 60 minutes a day gives you all the exercise you’ll ever need. When you walk you make all your big muscles work. When the muscles have to work they don’t lose mass, instead they grow by consuming energy in the form of sugar. Now the body has to provide more energy for that expenditure. Where does the body get the needed extra energy from if you don’t eat it in the form of carbs? By burning fat.
The body has its own intelligence. It will take fat from where it thinks it is most expendable. In my case, I first lost fat from around my face and neck, and much later from around my tummy. Also, don’t get discouraged if you lose weight quickly initially and if there is no change for two or three weeks. The body likes to adjust itself in mysterious ways. There is no need to solve the mystery. Just as long as you are losing about a pound a month on an average, then you are doing really well.
I don’t like to exercise. I did not exercise regularly prior to ending up in the hospital. Now I walk regularly for 30 to 60 minutes a day. I get 30 minutes of walking out of the way in the morning. I do not like the gym scene; heads bobbing up and down on treadmills, smell of sweat, jocks flaunting themselves, CNN blaring away every disaster, FOX news spewing out negativity. I do not like to walk on treadmills even at home. Walking on a treadmill is very boring for me. Most people watch TV while walking on a treadmill. I am averse to watching news and don’t need to know who got murdered. I like to walk on the streets of downtown San Diego. There is always something new and interesting to see every time. In Gaithersburg, I like to walk around the lake at Washingtonian Rio. There, I try to walk in the sun if it is cold and at night if it is hot outside. If it is snowing, we drive to a mall and walk there. If the roads are icy, then I walk in my apartment for 30 minutes. If you can’t walk for 30 minutes then walk for 10 minutes three times during the day. A recent study found that women who walked once every day for 30 minutes received the same benefits as the women who walked three times a day for 10 minutes each. There are no excuses for not being able to walk.
Here is a multiple choice quiz for you. You are traveling and have to catch a flight. You reach the airport at least an hour before the flight takes off. These days you have to reach early for security reasons. Which of the following three would you do upon reaching the departure gate?
(a) Settle down comfortably near the entrance of the gate and read a book.
(b) Go to the Starbucks in the terminal, pick up a cup of latte and a muffin, and relax while enjoying the treat.
(c) Walk around the terminal building for 30 minutes.
If you don’t know the answer to this question, then go back to the beginning of the blog and read it again.
By the way, it is perfectly OK to do other forms of exercises. Swimming, jogging, and bicycling are also good. Here is why walking is the best. Swimming requires going to a pool. Jogging is high-impact and can damage your joints. Bicycling needs a bike. I used to bike a lot in India and had to be operated upon for pilonidal cyst because of that. Walking has none of those side effects. Finally, how fast should you walk? Answer: at whatever pace that is comfortable for you.
Mantra: I will walk 30 to 60 minutes every day, no excuses.
Repeat after me:
· I will eat no more than 170g of carbs every day.
· I will never eat a scone or a muffin again.
· I will never eat from a buffet at an Indian restaurant.
· I will never eat commercially prepared cereal ever again.
· I will wait at least three to four hours after dinner before lying down to go to sleep.
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