To lose weight

Rhonda is 36 years old. She is 5′4″ and has wanted to bring her weight down to the 120’s for a long time. She recently accomplished her goal by losing 20 pounds and going from 143 to 123 pounds.

She did this by starting a regular and rigorous walking program. She walks four or five days a week around the neighborhood and this saves her the commuting time to the gym. It took her four months to lose twenty pounds. See her story here.

The photo here is Walking in the Rain by clairity.

Phil lost 192 pounds. He lost the first 100 pounds in seven months. He started off by just walking a mile a day and switching to a low-carb diet of 15 - 30 grams a day. There’s a really nice video about his before and after weight loss story here. Check out his inspirational story at CNN.

Paul has lost 20 pounds in the past month since he started a new lifestyle as a New Year’s Resolution. He wants to lose 30 more pounds but he is absolutely elated about his progress so far. He’s changed his diet by eliminating fast food and eating healthy meals. He snacks on fruit and nuts. He’s been walking a lot and plans to join the gym as a next step.

Now I’m not jealous or anything, but it’s pretty hard to truly lose 20 pounds of fat in one month. Half of it might be water loss. When you give up junk food, all the excess sodium in your body that was forcing you to retain water will help you lose a lot of water weight. Also, it is possible to lose more than 1 or two pounds per week when you initially weigh 270 pounds. Anyway, as he starts exercising and building more muscle over the next month, his weight loss will definitely slow down, but he’ll be looking and feeling even better than he does now.

See his photo and story here.

I’ve been keeping to my New Year’s Resolution of raising my walking schedule to twenty miles a week. I wasn’t keeping track of my walking mileage before this, but it was probably averaging only about seven miles per week.

I didn’t make any plans on changing my diet for a couple of months, but was just going to focus on the increased exercise. I’m already feeling much better with the increased exercise. I’ve got more energy and am in a better mental and emotional spirit. But I haven’t lost any weight and it’s been over a month now!

But I do feel more toned, and though I didn’t measure myself at the beginning, it’s quite likely I’m losing a bit in inches around most parts of my body. My sister is trained as a dietician. She says they were told muscle is three times as dense as fat. Meaning a pound of fat takes up three times as much space as a pound of muscle. So she thinks I’ve added a little bit of muscle and have lost some fat. The scale doesn’t show this difference at all, but if it’s true, it would be a big improvement.

I’ve done over two hours of research on the web, trying to find the definitive answer for the muscle versus fat density question. (This is as good procrastination as any for delaying my walk today ;-)) There are a lot of conflicting answers out there. If anyone has a good online reference, and more encouragement for those of us who have started exercising but don’t see the good results on their scales, please let us know!

I just came across this inspiring video of before and after weight loss photos. These people all lost their weight by exercising and making changes to their diet.

Also check out their website at ShapeFit.com for the many interesting and detailed weightloss success stories.

There was a good article in the New York Times yesterday encouraging people to eat less meat. Check it out and let me know what your think.

Michelle Obama looks really fit for her age. She just celebrated her 44th birthday last week. The highly publicized story is that she works out most weekday mornings on her treadmill, starting at 4:30am and is in bed by 9:30pm. She has two daughters aged 5 and 8. I’d be interested in getting more information about her actual workout routine, can anyone supply some good information?

Kathy was told she had high blood pressure and had to lose weight. She started on the South Beach Diet in June and had lost 49 pounds by this January. See her story and a couple of other stories of people who want to lose some weight at the New York Times today.

The art print above is Apple Modern.

Heather has been fat since her teen years. But now at age 31, she is very slim for the first time since childhood. She weighs 140 pounds and her height is 5′9″.

She lost 110 pounds in just over one year. See her inspirational story at CNN.

There’s been several studies that show pedometers can be helpful to encourage people to get moving and walk more.

In this other study from a few years ago, researchers found that sedentary women had a higher BMI and a higher belly fat ratio than more active women. This would seem obvious to most people but the numbers are interesting anyway. Here 80 middle-aged women wore a pedometer without changing their activity level for a week. The researchers measured their body mass index (BMI) as well as waist and hips (to determine belly fat).

The average sedentary person walks 2,000-3,000 steps per day.

This study found that women who typically walked less than 6,000 steps had a BMI of 29, 44% body fat, a 37-inch waist, 42-inch hips, and a 0.87 waist-to-hip ratio.

6,000 to 10,000 steps had a BMI of 26, 35% body fat, a 32-inch waist, 40-inch hips, and a 0.80 waist-to-hip ratio.

10,000 steps or more had a BMI of 23, 26% body fat, a 29-inch waist, 29-inch hips, and a 0.75 waist-to-hip ratio.

Basically those who walked less had more total fat, and more centrally located fat.

Walking 10,000 steps is doable in 30 minutes time.

The pedometer shown above costs less than $20. It’s the best-selling Omron Pedometer