Exercise, Nutrition, WLS, and Cooking Q&A - 06/17/2014

If you have questions about Exercise, Nutrition, WLS, or Cooking I just may have an answer for you!

Let's Hear It!

I got sleeved 8 weeks ago and doing well with weight loss just through diet.  Exercise motivation right now is low.  I have been thinking about a wrist type monitor like the fit bit to help motivate.  Do you have a recommendation?

Also, in your post and blogs, you cite how many calories burned during a workout.  How do you determine that?

Thanks for the advice.

Gregg

I wear a Jawbone UP24 all the time which counts my steps. For my workout the most accurate way to determine calorie burn is with a heart rate monitor. In my orange theory classes the whole class wears one and you can see where everyone is at all times. For a similar experience Polar makes a bluetooth enabled heart rate monitor that connects to your smart phone and their app is essentiality the same thing, it shows your pattern through your workout and tracks calorie burn, etc. It also links to just about every other app and service like MyFitnessPal. Polar makes the software and monitors we wear at OrangeTheory as well.

Getting motivated to exercise is the hardest part about exercising. Nobody really wants to do it. Well if you do it long enough and stop you will want to do it, but that takes a long time. My best advise to people just starting out is to get there. For example, go to the gym. Drive there and park in the parking lot, make that your goal. Once you are in the parking lot there is not way you are not going to go in. Or if you are not part of a gym, go to the park and park in the parking lot, there is no way you are not going to get out and at least walk a little bit once you are there. Start slow, start with 20 mins at the gym or park. Do something to get warmed up. Do 5 mins of something you don't want to do and spend the rest of the time doing something you enjoy doing. You will be back after that. You need to train your mind that working out was enjoyable and then the more you go the more you add the things you do not necessarily enjoy but are beneficial.

I will tell you something that really helped me with workout motivation is education. The more I learned about how it all worked the more I wanted to do the things I was reading about and watching. Also using a program like C25k to ease you into a much larger goal like running a 5k is very helpful in getting you to your goal.

Goals are important too. Setting a goal gives you something to shoot for. Make your goal attainable and as soon as you meet your goal set a new one. You will be amazed at how quickly you go from dud to stud.

The FitBit is definitely the way to go because it has the most robust support network. The others can have nice features, but being the most popular means that FitBit gets the most support. Both from the company and from other apps seeking to integrate with it. 

Hi Keith! I am one month out. After I eat I get really hot for about 15-20 minutes and was wondering if this is normal or what it could possibly mean?

                                                                                     Thank you

Can you give me a little more info on what your are eating or it doesn't matter? It happens to me once in a while but it depends a lot on what I eat. If you are eating food that is high in carbs that will definitely do it. It can also mean that you are eating too much. But its not that cut and dried. I would look for a pattern of what you are eating, is there something that is common?

I thought it was with anything I ate, but after reading your reply I have come to realize it is when I drink milk-(any kind) skim, soy, lactaid-- it also happens when I attempt to drink a protein shake- I absolutely can no longer drink protein shakes- they make me feel really bad and gag. It also happens when I eat refried beans.

Well it actually sounds like it could be a couple of things. At first I was thinking you have a sensitivity to milk proteins (which would explain the milk products and the protein drinks) but the beans and soy milk do not really fit in that scenario.

I would try a few things like start with basic foods and find out what does not cause the problem. If you are finding that everything still does, you should talk to your doc to do a leak test. If you find that it is only certain foods we need to look to see what the pattern is for those foods and then make sure you are not getting them. You can always try to reincorporate them at a later time. It took me 9 months to be able to eat chicken.

As for protein, change brands, change the way you make it (try almond milk or water which is thinner, try hydrolyzed whey which mixed thinner). You have to have an easy way to get a large amount of proteins. I am almost 2 years out and still drink at least 1 protein shake per day so get used to it. There are lots of types of proteins. Go to bodybuilding.com or vitaminshoppe.com and check it out. There is pea protein, beef protein, egg white protein, vegan proteins. There are other ways than whey and milk proteins. You just need to find what works best for you but you will need some way to get your protein.

Another question.  I understand maintaining low calories right now.  I am averaging 600-800 calories a day and losing about 4lbs per week.  What I dont understand is why is it recommended you maintain 1000-1200 calories once a goal weight is reached.  I did a check on calories to for a guy to eat to maintain 175 lbs and it is 2000 calories.   And this is with light activity.   What am I missing here?

Keep in mind that you are not average. You have a particularly slow metabolism that will almost for sure not be ever be "normal" That statistic is for someone with a normal metabolism. Its also not that cut and dried. Right now I eat somewhere between 1200-1500 calories per day and I can maintain my 194 lbs. By the standards you cite I should be losing still. My weight goes up and down within a few lbs. Everybody is different, once you get to maintenance you will have to adjust your diet to figure out exactly what your calorie in take needs to be. As much as all the literature would like to make it sound like its a perfect science, it is not. I just read an article yesterday that explained no one actually knows where 3500 calories is a lb comes from so all bets are off. I have stopped focusing on those types of specifics and looked more for a diet that is high in nutrition and keeps me headed in the direction of my goal.