1-16 calories per Minute (60-1,000 calories an Hour)

It's funny we think about wearing a heart rate monitor when exercising but not the rest of the day to understand how our body works the rest of the day.

It's interesting to know as a 185 pound man I burn about 2 calories a minute or 120 calories an hour when I'm sitting at my desk working.

This is in contrast to burning 8-16 calories a minute when I'm exercising. 500 calories an hour is a typical workout. At 1,000 calories an hour I'm at my threshold heart rate of 185-190 beats per minute at the end of an hour of hard work. Remember I would have burned 120 calories an hour sitting at my desk so the calorie burn due to exercise is only 380-880 calories.

When I'm sleeping I may be only burning 1 calorie a minute or 60 calories an hour.

So if I'm awake 16 hours and sleep 8 hours my daily calorie budget is roughly 2,440 calories. If I eat this amount of calories I stay at my current weight. I take this 2,440 and divide it by 5 meals a day and I should eat about 488 calories every 3 hours to keep my metabolism ON and have steady energy throughout the day.

If I exercise I can either eat 500-1,000 calories more and stay the same weight or create a calorie deficit. If I create a 500 a day calories deficit I lose 1 pound a week.

The 20-52 hour journey (Importance of Fiber)

How much the colon holds depends on the diet of the individual. Your intestines are not loaded with "toxins, undigested red meat, and impacted feces". If they were you would be dead. It takes 10-12 hours for food to travel from the mouth to the end of the small intestine (20 feet) where it is dumped into the large intestine (5 feet). This is where diet comes in. If you are eating an average American diet where fiber, fresh foods, lean meats, and raw nuts and seeds are not being eaten, it takes another 30-40 hours for material to travel through the large intestine(colon). So you can be carrying 6-8 lbs of slow moving waste and feces. If eating a healthy high fiber diet the transit time in the colon is cut to 10-12 hours and you carry 2-3 lbs of fast moving waste. With water weighting a little over 2 lbs per quart you can have a quart to a gallon of material in the colon.

Gum can be your best friend when you're craving food

Gum can be your best friend when you're craving food

Juice Fast isn't about losing weight!

To me a juice fast is about getting focused on what you put in your mouth. You start to realize you don't need to eat as much as we do. We largely eat for the pleasure of it not to fuel our bodies. During the fast you're very focused on drinking water and staying hydrated. Assume each 8 ounce glass of freshly squeezed juice is about 100 calories. More for fruit, less for vegetables.

Don't let yourself go!

It happens slowly over time. Think about what you weighed when you graduated from high school or college. You can get back there!!! 100 calories a day is 10 pounds a year one way or another. Add 100 calories a day and you're 10 pounds heavier in a year. Cut 100 calories a day and you're 10 pounds lighter. It's that simple!

Eat to LIVE

Not live to eat. Lose your preoccupation with eating. Think about why you're eating what you're eating. Are you depressed? Are you feeling sorry for yourself? Or, are you eating to give yourself nutrients your cells need? This requires a change in mentality. A change in the way you think about food. You need to think about what you need to eat everyday in order to take care of yourself. In order to fuel your body properly. If you exercise hard 5 times a week you'll naturally want to go in this direction. The better you eat the better you recover and the stronger you'll be for the next activity you want to do.

1 lb = 3,500 calories

One (1) pound of fat is 3,500 calories. To lose one (1) pound of fat a week you need to either eat 500 calories less a day or burn (through exercise) 500 calories more. If Women burn 1,500 calories a day and Men burn 2,500 calories look at what you need to do. Women can take their daily calorie budget up to 2,000 by exercising and burning 500 calories more.

Sugar

Orange juice has as much sugar as Soda/Pop. Fruits and Vegetables should be how you give your body sugar. Avoid white flour, white pasta, white potatoes, white rice. Healthy alternatives are brown rice pasta, yams, and brown rice.

Portion Control

Portions should be the size of your fist. Think small, fist sized portions. No more super-size me!!! No more multiple portions. Think small and think one!!!

5 meals a day

Eat five meals a day. 6am, 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm. Don't eat late! Where your heart rate monitor for 24 hours and see how many calories you burn! Notice how you burn twice as many calories during waking hours and you do sleeping. Eat every 3 hours so you keep your metabolism up and so you never feel hungry. Establish how many calories you burn in a 24 hour period of time, divide by 5 and that's how many calories you should eat every 3 hours. Typically you'll find you need to eat 300-500 calories every 3 hours depending on if you're a man or a woman.

Perfect Foods Bar

Always carry good food with you! Perfect Foods Bars are one of my solutions! Eat as one of your 5 meals a day. Remember eat every 3 hours so you keep your metabolism going and you don't feel starved! If you skip meals you'll feel starving and go on an eating rampage!!! Oh, these are available online or at Whole Foods.

Drink Green Tea

Around 2-3pm I usually feel I need a pick me up so I drink a Green Tea which is also a great antioxidant!!! No need to drink an energy drink when you can drink Green Tea!!!

WATCH Food, Inc.

WATCH Ingredients

WATCH Forks Over Knives

Eat right so you don't have to undergo the knife!!!

WATCH King Corn

Corn is in everything we eat. Cows are fattened up for slaughter by being fed corn. Corn will fatten you up!!! Corn is used in high fructose corn syrup which is used as a sweetener in many of our foods, problem is our bodies don't know how to metabolize it!!!

Low Fat = High Sugar!

There are a couple things to be clear about here: 1) Low Fat doesn't mean it's healthy! Most Low Fat foods are HIGH SUGAR. Sugar is what's making us fat and diabetic! 2) Not all fats are bad. Saturated and Trans fats are bad -avoid them! 3) Packaged foods are BAD -don't each them. Eat real foods! Stay on the outside aisles of the grocery store. If it's packaged it has danger preservatives to preserve it's shelf life.

Skinny tastes GOOD

It takes a lot of discipline but it sure does pay dividends. Establish good habits and live by them!

Read Labels

Buy foods with Sugars 10 grams or less; with Fiber; low or no Saturated and Trans Fats; high Protein

Drink a Protein Shake

One of my 5 meals a day is a plant based, protein shake.

No Flour

I love bread but as you're learning bread is made of flour which are pulverized grains which have a glycemic index greater than sugar. So when you eat FLOUR your body thinks it's sugar, spikes your blood sugar levels, triggers insulin release which crashed your energy level and stores the rest of your meal's calories in fat. So the key to eating well is to find good substitutes for the bad things you love to eat. My answer for a bread substitute was and is Ezekiel bread. Ezekiel bread has no flour in it. This is true whole grain bread! It's made of sprouted grains -the healthiest form of grain.

Delayed Gratification

I key concept to understand is "delayed gratification." I think this is what makes losing weight do hard! When you eat you experience pleasure right then and there. When you don't eat ice cream you experience "pain." The pleasure of not eating ice cream doesn't come for weeks or even months. But it's interesting that when you do eat ice cream you only experience pleasure when the ice cream goes past your taste buds not the rest of the way through your digestive tract. The pleasure is only temporary whereas the pleasure of "fitting into your jeans" gives you pleasure all day long. So you have to give up short term pleasure to get long lasting pleasure!

Drink a lot of WATER

You are 70% water so this should be your #1 intake. Drink regularly throughout the day and drink before each meal -it'll make you feel more full and you'll eat less.

Buy a Scale

The scale should not only show you your weight but also other figures like your percentage of body fat, hydration level, etc.

Buy a Heart Rate Monitor

Wear it for 24 hours so you know how many calories you burn in a 24 hour period of time. T

his will be your CALORIE BUDGET and the basis of everything we do! It will also tell you what your heart rate is throughout the day. At rest in the morning when you wake up compared to when you go up a flight of stairs or just walk around.

Reducing the Risk of Diabetes

Reducing the Risk of Diabetes Five Lifestyle Changes Can Go a Long Way Toward Cutting the Odds of Type 2 By JENNIFER CORBETT DOOREN Adults, middle-aged and up, can cut their risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by as much as 80% by adhering to a combination of five healthy-lifestyle habits, a new analysis shows. Many studies have shown having a healthy diet, exercising, maintaining normal body weight, not smoking and consuming alcohol moderately can lower one's risk of developing diabetes and other diseases. The new analysis from the National Institutes of Health examined these individual factors to see how each—alone and in combination—contributes to a reduction in the chance a person will get the disease. The research will be published in the Sept. 6 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. The analysis shows keeping just one of these five healthy-lifestyle factors can reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, the most common form which 26 million people were diagnosed with last year. It is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control. More than 200,000 people who are part of a larger NIH-AARP diet-and-health study and were between ages 50 and 71 when the study began in 1995 were involved in the analysis. At the study's start, participants had no signs of heart disease, cancer or diabetes. Study participants filled out detailed questionnaires about what kinds of foods they ate, whether they consumed alcohol and if they were current or former smokers. People were also asked how often they exercised, and provided weight and height so that body mass index, or BMI, could be calculated. Study participants were followed for about 11 years. During that time, about 10% of men in the study and 8% of women developed diabetes. Researchers led by Jared Reis, an epidemiologist at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, grouped study participants into lifestyle categories ranging from "best" to "worst." People in the best category had all five healthy-lifestyle factors, while those in the worst had none. For diet, people received a score of one to five based on fruit and vegetable consumption, the amount of and type of fat they ate and other factors. Those who scored in the top 40% were considered to have a healthy diet. Exercising three times a week for at least 20 minutes, and being a nonsmoker for at least 10 years were two additional healthy-lifestyle factors. Alcohol consumption of no more than one drink a day for women and two for men was considered as another factor, along with weight. People with a BMI of between 18.5 and 24.9—a body-mass measure that is considered normal—were counted as being in the lowest-risk category for weight. Dr. Reis said the average study participant had two out of five healthy lifestyle factors. Overall, researchers found that body mass index had the strongest association among the factors for diabetes risk. When looking at BMI in isolation, men of normal weight were 70% less likely to develop diabetes than overweight or obese men, while normal weight women were 78% less likely to develop diabetes. In separate calculations of how factors add up to reduce risk, researchers found that men and women whose diet and exercise both were considered in the healthy range were just under 30% less likely to develop diabetes. When being a nonsmoker was added to diet and exercise, those people were about one-third less likely to develop the disease. Men who also consumed alcohol moderately, in addition to the previous three factors, were 39% less likely to develop diabetes while women had 57% lower odds, suggesting the alcohol factor played a bigger role in women than men. And when BMI was added to the other healthy lifestyle factors, men were 72% less likely to develop diabetes, while women had an 84% lower risk. Although weight is one of the most important factors in diabetes development, Dr. Reis said that even overweight people can lower their odds of developing diabetes if they adopt just one other healthy lifestyle habit such as exercising three times a week. Write to Jennifer Corbett Dooren at jennifer.corbett-dooren@dowjones.com

What's your daily Calorie Budget?

Wear a heart rate monitor for 24 hours to see what your base calorie burn (BCB) is. My BCB per day is about 3,000 calories. If I eat 2,500 calories I'm at a deficit of 500 calories. If I workout and burn an additional 500 calories now I'm at a deficit of 1,000 calories. Since a pound of weight is 3,500 calories I'll be losing 1 pound every 4 days at this rate or 7-8 pounds a month.

You don't have to starve while you shed weight. Slow and steady!

Eat like a Diabetic so you don't become one

Low glycemic foods. Study the Glycemic Index of foods you eat!

Exercise

Exercise is important for several reasons: 1) If you burn 500 calories per hour you create more of a calorie deficit so you accelerate fat loss. Remember 3,500 calories per pound of fat. If you use 500 calories more than you take in your lose 1 pound per week. 2) Exercise gets your heart into good shape. It's your body's most important muscle! 3) Exercise is the elixir of life. It make you look and feel good which shows up as good quality of life.

20 lbs OFF

I've been as low as 181 and think I can get to 175 without losing too much muscle.

Body types?

Ectomorphic: characterized by long and thin muscles/limbs and low fat storage; receding chin, usually referred to as slim.

Mesomorphic: characterized by medium bones, solid torso, low fat levels, wide shoulders with a narrow waist; usually referred to as muscular.

Endomorphic: characterized by increased fat storage, a wide waist and a large bone structure, usually referred to as fat.

You don't have to starve yourself!!!`

When you eat high quality foods you will feel full and content faster. They also put fiber into your system that help you eliminate waste regularly.

Ever eat a lot of chips or bread and wonder why you're still so hungry? You can eat and eat carbs and not feel content. The reason this happens is the sugar from these simple carbs spikes your blood sugar which releases insulin. Your blood sugar goes up then crashes. When it crashes you feel sluggish and hungry again.

Sample Meals for a day

6am Coffee and Ezekel toast
9am Eggs (no more toast)
12pm Salad
3pm Lunch meat (no bread) and cottage cheese
6pm Protein Shake

Notes: Ezekel toast is a high quality carb. Salad is high quality carbs tempered with proteins from cheese and nuts.

Schedule an Event as a GOAL

You'll see 3 events listed in the right hand column. We already did the WildFlower Tri. The other 2 are in August and September. Look for events in your area at www.active.com

Eat a SALAD a day

A salad should be 1 of your 5 meals a day. I add cheese, nuts and fruit to my salad to make it interesting. Just ate a spinach salad with avocado, feta cheese and pecans -it was awesome and highly nutritious!!!

A protein shake should be 1 of your 5 meals a day. The shake I like is Vega Chocolate -it's a bit sweet (naturally) which helps my desire for sweets at times.

Avoid Diabetes with Low Glycemic Foods

Eat like a diabetic to not be one!!! Low glycemic foods don't spike your blood sugar like high glycemic foods. When you keep your blood sugar levels smooth you feel better, have more energy and consume your calories as you take them in. When your blood sugar level spikes, insulin is released and calories are stored. So when you start your meal with a soda/pop, your meal largely goes into storage (fat).

Know the glycemic index of the foods you're eating.

See good carbs, bad carbs in the right hand column under Resources.

Eat every 3 hours

Eat at 6am, 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 6pm

At first it doesn't seem like a lot of food but 3 hours comes up fast and it's time to eat again. Eating small meals and eating frequently is the key habit to form.

Start reading labels and get educated about how many calories you're eating.

You only need 2,000 calories a day -you might be eating this in one meal!!!

300 calories times 5 small meals is 1,500 calories so at this rate you're losing at least 1 pound a week; in a year that's 52 pounds.

Exercise and burn off another 500 calories a day and you're losing 2 pounds a week or 100 pounds a year.

Losing weight takes time so be patient.

You are 70% water so drink a lot of water. A lot of times when you think you're hungry you're just dehydrated.

Down to 191 pounds

What's worked for me is picking up my activity and minimizing carbs! Eating small meals. Eating every 3 hours. Not eating late. Not eating out. Drinking a lot of water and iced tea.

What's amazing is at 191 I realize how much more I can lose. I'm now thinking I can go maybe to 175 -we'll see.

I wonder how the hell I tolerated being over 200 for so long.

Stop being lazy and get in shape!!!

400 calories less a day is 4 pounds a month

times 7 months is 28 pounds!!! Either reduce calorie intake or exercise more. 3,500 calories is 1 pound. Start counting your calories.

Cortizone

This is the fight or flight hormone. It is said that coffee raises your cortizone levels so it might make sense to give it up or cut back on it.

Could you only have 100 bites a day?

Do an experiment and count your bites of food/mouthfuls of food for one day and it'll give you a base case of how much you're eating.

Chew your food well and savor it and you'll eat less.

20 6am
20 9am
20 12pm
20 3pm
20 6pm