So you’ve made a decision to lose weight. Good for you 🙂
But how do you get started? Figuring out how to make this all happen can be pretty intimidating, to say the very least. What foods do you eat? Which foods do you not eat? What should you do for exercises? And so on.
Well, I’ll be honest with you. When I first embarked on my weight loss adventure, I had no clue what I was going to do. I just knew I needed to do something!
So I started out with the most obvious thing that I felt was causing me to gain weight… late night snacks.
But before I get too deep into that, let me backtrack a bit, if you don’t mind. I want to let you know that for a little more than a year before I actually started to lose weight, I had been trying to get started with my weight loss efforts. Unfortunately, they weren’t really working.
I was able to stop gaining, but I could never quite get to where I was losing, so I was stuck at 200 lbs. I wasn’t obese, by any means, but I had rolls on my sides, on my back and on my belly. They were small rolls, mind you, but rolls nonetheless!
So I had managed to maintain my weight by making sure I was getting exercise fairly regularly. My wife and I had gotten into the habit of taking walks 5 or 6 times per week. We would walk roughly 3 miles each time at a brisk pace (mild power walk).
This was good for our heart and lungs, but like I said, it wasn’t enough to help me drop those unwanted pounds and those pesky rolls of fat.
So let’s get back to what I did to actually start losing those pounds.. late night snacks.
You see, I love snacks. I like to pick and grab a bite here and there. Worst of all, I had a tendency to reach for sweet snacks, like Dove chocolates, M&Ms, cookies, etc. Not good!
And at night, I would eat dinner and then have dessert. And of course I would always have something else later on, like cookies and milk, chocolate cake, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, etc.
And sometimes I’d have another snack right before I went to bed! That’s right.. a second evening snack. Sometimes it might be chips and salsa or even a half of a sandwich. Either way, I was taking in calories that would never get burned because I was going to bed immediately after eating them.
So as I thought about my dilemma, I decided that the night-time snacks would have to be the first to go. It was an obvious step, and I need to start somewhere. So one evening when my wife asked me what I wanted for a snack, I told her “nothing. I’m not having a snack because it’s after 8 PM”.
At first she looked at me kinda funny, but then she realized what I was doing and understood fully. From that night on, I made a decision not to eat anything after 8 PM. In fact, I also decided that I wouldn’t drink anything with calories after 8 PM, so no juice, no chocolate milk… nothing. ZERO calories after 8 PM.
And that’s how I got started! I know that might seem very simplistic, but that’s why I call this “No Nonsense Weight Loss”, because it’s simple and straight forward, with no gimmicks or hype.
So there you have a starting point for your weight loss efforts. Cut out those evening and late night snacks. It might be tough at first, but remember why you’re doing this… for your health.
Don’t get tricked into thinking that it doesn’t matter, because it does matter. YOU matter. And every little thing that you do to take better care of yourself matters and has a lasting effect on your life, your heart, your blood pressure, your cholesterol levels, your lungs, your longevity.
Keep it lean.
Curt
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