Easy Healthy Way to Lose Weight by John Howard

Jennifer’s Goal: Weigh-in around 120 lbs in 52 weeks, which is a loss of 93 pounds

Weekly Update: Full summary listed below
12/18/12 Week 38: Weigh-in:157.0 Total Weight loss 56.0 lbs

When I met Jennifer Hawkins (pictured left) she weighed 213 pounds and looked pale and a little sickly, but she had this beautiful wonderful soul.  I easily saw I had stumbled upon a goddess, she just needed a little motivation and direction to have the confidence to see what I saw. I designed a meal plan for us and started a work out regime to not only help her lose weight, but bring her back to a more healthy lifestyle. Now, to set the record straight, we did not religiously follow the plan and still don’t, but we do stay focused for the most part. The main parts to this successful way to lose weight is: Diet, Portion Control, some Exercise (which we hardly do right now), and Sunlight. (Recent picture posted to the right)

The Diet

The word diet has so many aspects to the word and sometimes can invoke a range of emotions depending on who you are talking to.  Most use it for a regimen of eating to reduce calories, however, we (Jennifer and I) use the term for just what we eat in general.  So this plan is to make you healthy which is the best way to lose weight and keep it off.  You eat better, you feel better, and life becomes better as you begin your journey to a new you.

As you may know from our Facebook, Jennifer and I have our nights of eating out and drinking and just plain having fun (sometimes a little too much fun, lol).  If you are not on our friends list on Facebook, take a moment to click on the little blue icon at the top right of the page and send me a friend request.  It is a great way to follow what we do, as we post usually what we are eating.  Our diet is not so much about restriction of calories as it is eating certain food and portion control plays a vital part.  First off, stop putting artificial anything in your mouth.  Get away from all synthetic chemicals if you can.  This includes not just foods, but other chemicals as well, such as parabens found in lotions and shampoos;  things that bring down your immune system. You want your body to function the way it was designed to and not have to fight so hard everyday just to process all the crap bombarding it.

Now I have noticed many people seem to have a lot of mis-information on food.  For example someone posted on our friends Facebook (Tammy McNamara) about a picture of a salad. The poster said, “great choice, no carbs”.  Seriously, that is all a salad is, almost all carbs.  For the record, carbs are not bad at all. As a matter-of-fact, you need them to add glycogen in your muscles and liver. Without glycogen you would be hard pressed to just walk or do anything a little strenuous, and I predict if Tammy stays on her current diet of trying to rid herself of most carbs, she will start to feel run down all the time and without energy (Tammy since this writing stopped the no carb diet and confessed to feeling run down all the time).  Every single athlete knows, without carbs, they might as well stay home. Now, the reason the Atkins type diets do not like carbs and favor a fat/protein diet is two fold.  One, protein is a better choice when trying to fuel your body inefficiently.  It makes your body jump through hoops in order to store protein as an energy source.  So, a high protein diet not only helps maintain a stronger body, it makes it harder to get the energy you need to function, so you end up burning more calories to convert and store the stuff. If you do not need any repairs to your muscle tissue or any other tissue then whatever you have left of protein will be converted to an energy source and tried to be stored in your muscle cell as glycogen, however, this process is not easy at all for your body to do; most of the time any excess protein will just go to waste.  Second, and the reason carbs kind of got a bad name for more sedentary people is when eating carbs your body will continue to convert the excess glucose into glycogen for the next 8-12 hours and store it away in mostly your muscle cells and liver.  Now, because you have these carbs as an energy source your body will store fat without burning it.  Which means all the fat you eat mostly gets stored away as fat.  Now, your body is extremely adaptable and made to survive.  If you cut out nearly all your carbs, your body will change the way it converts energy.  Since glycogen is vital to functioning your body will horde the carbs and use fat as its energy source. This may be a scientific fact, but seriously, dropping carbs to add fat is just a crazy way to lose weight.  Your body is capable of force survival this way, but it is not how it was designed. For losing weight, the fastest way and best way would be to cut out almost all fat, greatly increase protein, and have carbs as your energy source.  Although, most people in the diet world say that carbs will be stored as fat, and yes, they can be, but it isn’t that easy.  Your body much prefers to combine chains of glucose into glycogen and store it in that fashion, to convert it to fat is a long process and again, would only be done in a different survival type mode.  To look at it a different way, when was the last time you saw a fat Vegan?  Vegans nearly eat their entire meals made up of carbs.  Just think about it.

Water is essential to the overall function of our bodies.  This valuable resource is mostly under rated in most diets but vital to over all health.  In today’s global economy there is nearly no excuse not to drink the highest quality of water on the planet. Every meal and through out the day Jennifer and I drink Artesian Water – Currently Fiji Water because it is the only one really offered at our local grocery store.

So, our “diet” is mainly focused on protein, and the rest (carbs and fat), we let God sort out.

We try and eat at least 6 meals a day, so every three hours we are eating. I might add we keep a container of organic spinach which we nibble from and usually add to food we cook. The following is our “meal plan”

8am:
Cottage Cheese & fruit, topped with Cayenne pepper and some Kefir. (Beginning on week 30, added a Monday, Wednesday, Friday Deviation)

Deviations from the above:

Monday, Wednesday, Friday:
Around 3-4 stalks of Celery with Cayenne Pepper and sriracha sauce

Saturday:
We usually have a Migas or Barbacoa Breakfast Taco from some Mexican drive-thru place.  Of course we add Garlic Salt and Cayenne pepper to it.

Sunday:
We usually have a Potato, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Taco from Whataburger, a fast food burger place. Yummo!

One other day during the week we will usually hit up a taco stand for a morning taco.

11am:
3 cups of Coffee and a protein shake.  Coffee is made with Cayenne Pepper & Cinnamon. The protein shake is usually a Mix 1 Chocolate Shake.

2pm:
Zone Perfect Protein Bar

5pm:
Another Protein Shake, However we usually make this one from scratch with Nature’s Plus Spiru-Tein Whey Chocolate and use Lactose Free Organic Milk.

Monday

Grilled cheese sandwich

Tuesday

Bacon, egg, & cheese sandwich

8pm:
Some sort of protein & complex carb meal… Below is a list of what we usually have.

Monday – Grill Night!

I fire up the grill and cook some very tasty hunks of beef!
A couple of beers each
Organic Mac and Cheese
Organic Broccoli and Spinach

Tuesday – Pizza Night!

Newman’s Own – Uncured Pepperoni – I add extra Mozzarella, Asiago, & Cheddar cheese, plus organic onions, organic spinach, organic garlic, mushrooms, jalapenos, garlic salt and cayenne pepper.

Wednesday – Creative Leftovers Night!

Leftover Fried Chicken, Pork Roast, Pizza, whatever fast food or restaurant we went to last week. I usually just fry it up in a skillet with some canola oil, maybe add some flour.
Organic Mac and Cheese
Organic Broccoli and Spinach

Thursday – Fried Chicken Night!

1 piece of Fried Chicken goodness!
2 Jalapeno Poppers

Friday – Fast Food Fridays!

Some sort of take out food such as Chinese Fried Rice, Cheeseburger, Fried Chicken, just about any Fast Food place is up for the taking

Saturday – Schlotzsky!!!!!

Albuquerque Turkey baby from Schlotzsky’s, Yummo!

Sunday – Go Out to Eat!

Some suggestions:

Sushi
Nachos
Wings
Beer, Beer, Beer
Basically any Restaurant

11pm and Later

We eat lots of Popcorn and below is a list of some of our favorite snacks

Late Night Snacks:

• 3 Snyder’s of Hanover Pretzel Rods & Slice of Tillamook Cheddar Cheese
• Organic Popcorn cooked in Coconut Oil – No Microwave Popcorn
• Any Organic Fruit, I usually have grapes
• Beer

Supplements:

The meal plan, while nearly giving you everything you need to get your daily recommended intake of vitamins and minerals does fall short in a couple of areas. We do take these every now and then.  We actually forget them more times than take them. There are so many different types of supplements, just make sure your source is as natural as you can get. Keep in mind these are supplements, not a food source.  You are not looking for 100% of RDA just a little something extra; that especially holds true for the multivitamin. We either shop at our local vitamin store or order online through Puritan’s Pride and Amazon.

• Fish Oil Complex – Everyday
• Grape Seed – Everyday
• Chromium – Monday – Friday
• Magnesium – Monday – Friday
• Multivitamin – Monday, Wednesday, Friday
• Calcium – Tuesday & Thursday
• Vitamin E – Tuesday & Thursday
• Iron – Sunday

Lets Recap:

Portion control is paramount when eating out. We split all our meals, so if we order a burger we cut it in half.

We have a garlic salt, Cayenne Pepper mix that we add to just ab0ut everything.  If we go to a restaurant we take it inside with us. Consuming Cayenne Pepper is not only extremely healthy it will help burn around 100 extra calories a day because of its thermogenic properties.

Artesian Water – drink it up, always.  Get a minimum of 2 liters a day if you can.  Again, if we go somewhere we always have this water with us.

Salt everything, without it, you will die. Most people do not really know the reality of how dangerous a low salt diet is.  Jennifer had high blood pressure when I met her, however, I increased her salt intake with sea salt and cut out most of her processed salt and her blood pressure dropped.  She no longer takes medication for it or any medication for that matter.

Exercise

Okay, I know, you probably hate it.  I mean lets face it, if ya exercised all the time you probably wouldn’t be reading this. So, the real question is, can you still lose weight following this program without exercise and the answer is yes.  Several weeks, Jennifer did not exercise and the weight still came off.  However, I might add we had lots of sex, so try and do something.  At least take a walk in the sun twice a week and have lots of sex, whether it be solo or with a partner.

Exercise is important and we were pretty good about going to the gym three times a week and taking walks about 4 times a week, but then Summer came and the kids got out of school, and getting to the gym became a hassle.  We now make it about once every two weeks and try and walk at least twice a week, but we do have a lot of sex, so…  Once school starts up again, I am sure we will get back to the gym.

Ideal work-out schedule:

• Sunday – Walk on the Beach
• Monday – Circuit Training warm-up (12 min), Weight Training Chest, 15 Flights of Stairs, and Tan
• Tuesday – Walk on the bay front.
• Wednesday – Circuit Training warm-up (12 min), Weight Training Arms, 15 Flights of Stairs, and Tan
• Thursday – Walk on the bay front
• Friday – Circuit Training warm-up (12 min), Weight Training Back, 15 Flights of Stairs, and Tan
• Saturday – Walk on the bay front

I should point out that we have only made it to lifting weights for the Back, once, lol; which means we rarely made it 3 times a week for weight training.  Of course the circuit training does help tremendously with overall muscle tone.

Our Circuit Training routine is doing a weight station for 30 seconds and then active rest for 30 seconds.  Our active rest is jumping up on a platform 5 times and then doing steps.  It is a great warm-up.

One thing I didn’t mention that we do everyday is sex, I just th0ught that would be a given, besides if I listed on the “Ideal work-out schedule” for everyday it might get a little confusing, as in, does he mean have sex at the gym.  Which of course I suppose you could, certainly might make you popular, but Jenn and I usually perform this exercise at home, usually…

Sunlight

It drives me crazy to see people covering themselves in some synthetic chemical called sun block and then try and take some moral high road if you reject partaking in such madness. Okay, I am not going to get into this as people have some really strong views on sunscreen.  However, I will add they really should read actual medical journals on skin cancer before propagating a regurgitation of main stream media.  Most skin cancer fear mongering headlines are based on some of the worst guess science and yet millions of people believed it must be true; even though we all know sunlight on our skin can cure many, many types of cancers.  Here is something to think about, every worldwide stat will show you more developed countries have higher rates of skin cancer than developing countries and countries with more direct sunlight have less skin cancer than those with less sunlight. Think about it for a while, something is certainly off from what we are told…

JOURNAL OF WEIGH-IN WEEKS

Weigh-in Weeks

03/26/12 Monday weigh-in: 213 lbs

Took a walk a couple of times and started new diet

04/02/12 Week 1: Weigh-in: 212 lbs Total weight loss 1 lb

Lost 1 pound for the week

04/11/12 Week 2: Weigh-in: 205 lbs Total weight loss 8 lbs

Lost 7 pounds for the week

04/18/12 Week 3: Weigh-in: 201 lbs Total weight loss 12 lbs

Lost 4 pounds for the week

04/22/12 Week 4: Weigh-in: 198 lbs Total weight loss 15 lbs

Lost 3 pounds for the week

05/02/12 Week 5: Weigh-in: 197.8 lbs Total weight loss 15.2 lbs

Lost .2 of a pound for the week.  Jennifer started to get scared, but I wouldn’t let her quit

05/09/12 Week 6: Weigh-in: 196.4 lbs Total weight loss 16.6 lbs

Lost 1.4 pounds for the week

05/16/12 Week 7: Weigh-in: 195.6 lbs Total weight loss 17.4 lbs

Lost .8 of a pound for the week.

05/22/12 Week 8: Weigh-in: 193.8 lbs Total weight loss 19.2 lbs

Lost 1.8 pounds for the week

05/29/12 Week 9: Weigh-in: 191.2 lbs Total weight loss 21.8 lbs

Lost 2.6 pounds for the week, woohoo!

06/05/12 Week 10: Weigh-in: 188.8 lbs Total weight loss 24.2 lbs

Lost 2.4 pounds for the week, woohoo!

06/12/12 Week 11: Weigh-in: 187.8 lbs Total weight loss 25.2 lbs

Lost 1 pound for the week

06/19/12 Week 12: Weigh-in: 186.4 lbs Total weight loss 26.60 lbs

Lost 1.4 pounds for the week

06/26/12 Week 13: Weigh-in: 185.6 Total weight loss 27.4 lbs

Lost .8 of a pound for the week and only went to gym once.

07/03/12 Week 14: Weigh-in: 185.4 Total weight loss 27.6 lbs

Lost .2 of a pound for the week.  Did not go to the gym once and one morning ate a huge breakfast taco and then ate half of mine and then ate a large piece of cake. lol.  I know crazy!  She also ended up going off the diet a few more times, but at least she lost weight for the week

07/10/12 Week 15: Weigh-in: 182.0 Total Weight loss 31.0 lbs

Great Week! Losing a total of 3.4 lbs! Woohoo!!

07/17/12 Week 16: Weigh-in: 180.6 Total weight loss 32.4 lbs

Lost 1.4 pounds for the week

07/24/12 Week 17: Weigh-in: 180.0 Total weight loss 33.0 lbs

Lost .6 of a pound for the week

07/31/12 Week 18: Weigh-in: 178.4 Total weight loss 34.6 lbs

Lost 1.6 pounds for the week

08/07/12 Week 19: Weigh-in: 177.8 Total Weight loss 35.2 lbs

Lost .6 of a pound for the week

08/14/12 Week 20: Weigh-in: 177.0 Total Weight loss 36.0 lbs

Lost .8 of a pound for the week (Vacation next week, so, we will see what happens!)

08/21/12 Week 21: Weigh-in: 176.8 Total Weight loss 36.2 lbs

Lost .2 of a pound for the week.  Vegas was a mecca of fast food and free alcohol.  It really tested our resolve and I ended up eating a lot of Jenn’s food, but in the end she still pulled it off. (barely)

08/28/12 Week 22: Weigh-in: 173.6 Total Weight loss 39.4 lbs

Lost 3.2 pounds for the week. Jennifer’s mother passed away and it has been a very hard week.  She tells me she must have cried the pounds away in tears.  She really didn’t eat too much and slept a lot.

09/04/12 Week 23: Weigh-in: 172.2 Total Weight loss 40.80 lbs

Lost 1.4 lbs for the week!

09/11/12 Week 24: Weigh-in: 171.2 Total Weight loss 41.80 lbs

Still going strong and lost another pound this week!

09/18/12 Week 25: Weigh-in: 169.6 Total Weight loss 43.40 lbs

After not working out for the whole summer we started going to the gym again!  Jennifer  lost 1.6 pounds this week!

09/25/12 Week 26: Weigh-in: 169.2 Total Weight loss 43.80 lbs

After working out last week and gaining some muscle back her weight loss was understandable not has much as has been lately, but she is losing inches faster! Her weight loss this week was .4 of a pound.

10/02/12 Week 27: Weigh-in: 168.8 Total Weight loss 44.20 lbs

Another .4 of a pound lost! Any weight loss is always a step in the right direction.

10/09/12 Week 28: Weigh-in: 167.4 Total Weight loss 45.60 lbs

Very nice weight loss this week of 1.4 pounds!

10/16/12 Week 29: Weigh-in: 166.0 Total Weight loss 47.0 lbs

Another great week, losing 1.4 pounds again!

10/23/12 Week 30: Weigh-in: 163.4 Total Weight loss 49.6 lbs

WOW!! Lost 2.6 pounds this week! We switched to Celery, Cayenne Pepper, and Sriracha sauce for breakfast on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

10/30/12 Week 31: Weigh-in:163.2 Total Weight loss 49.8 lbs

.2 of a pound lost this week. That is 31 weeks in-a-row of losing weight! Special note here, we noticed Jennifer drank half the amount of water she normally drinks and this is probably what cause her to only lose .2 of a pound.

11/06/12 Week 32: Weigh-in:161.4 Total Weight loss 51.6 lbs

Great Week! Lost 1.8 lbs this week.  Jennifer passed the losing 50 lbs mark!

11/13/12 Week 33: Weigh-in:161.2 Total Weight loss 51.8 lbs

Lost .2 of a pound, still losing!  We ate out quite a bit this week and had some huge dinners, but she still managed to take a little weight off.

11/20/12 Week 34: Weigh-in:159.8 Total Weight loss 53.2 lbs

Lost 1.4 pounds this week!  We started juicing for breakfast the last 2 days, but still haven’t made it to the gym, lol

11/27/12 Week 35: Weigh-in:158.8 Total Weight loss 54.2 lbs

Lost 1.0 pounds this Week! Another great week of losing weight!  She made it through the Thanksgiving holiday with flying colors!

12/04/12 Week 36: Weigh-in:158.6 Total Weight loss 54.4 lbs

Lost .2 of a pound this Week. This was a hard week. We had to work really hard to get that weight of 158.6.  Usually, on Friday we do a walk/run/stairs/hike in the hot sun to guarantee a low weight for the week, but after Friday, she still hadn’t beaten her weight from the week before, so we repeated the processes on Saturday and managed to get a lower weight.  I hope this is just a fluke and not something we will have to do every week.

12/11/12 Week 37: Weigh-in:157.6 Total Weight loss 55.4 lbs

Lost 1.0 pounds this Week! Woohoo!  Great week and still going, keeping an incredible streak of 37 weeks of losing weight.

12/18/12 Week 38: Weigh-in:157.0 Total Weight loss 56.0 lbs

Lost .6 of a pound.  Another week of weight loss! That is 38 weeks in-a-row, incredible!!

Sample of Actual Meal Log for one Week:

Overview of the week

• Never made it to the Gym
• Took a Walk only 2 times
• Take out Fast Food for 11 Meals
• Total weight loss, over 3 lbs for the week

07/01/12 Sunday

Meals – Always drink Artesian Water with everything & spice all food with a Garlic Salt, Cayenne Pepper mixture.

8am
Fast Food: Whataburger: Potato, Egg, & Cheese Taquito with picante sauce.  Added garlic salt and cayenne.

11am:
Half a protein shake with coffee

2pm:
Cottage Cheese with granola

5pm:
half a piece of sliced cheese and half a pretzel

8pm:
Restaurant: Take Niwa: Sushi: Half a Mexican Roll & Half a Angry Bird Roll with garlic salt, cayenne, soy sauce, & wasabi. Drink was some Midori, Coconut Rum, & Pineapple juice.

11pm – 6am:
Split 2 big bowls of popcorn added garlic salt, cayenne, and cayenne hot sauce with John. One grilled cheese sandwich with butter and mayo. Split a can of natural cola with John

Work-Out

Took a Walk on the Bay Front for about 45 minutes.

07/02/12 Monday

Meals – Always drink Artesian Water with everything.

8am:
Slept through

11am:
Still Sleeping

2pm:
Protein Shake, 2 Pretzel Rods, & 1 slice of Cheddar Cheese

4pm-5pm:
Black Coffee
Half cup of Cottage Cheese with 1/4 cup Granola

8pm – 9pm:
BBQ grilled meat 6oz and a grilled Chicken Breast
2 Corn Tortillas

11pm:
1 Beer
Large bowl of popcorn

Work-Out

Nothing

07/03/12 Tuesday

Meals – Always drink Artesian Water with everything.

8am:
1 slice of bacon, 1 fried in bacon grease scrambled egg with cheddar cheese, and 1 slice of toast with butter

11am:
Slept through

2pm:
Protein Shake
3 Pretzels & 1 Slice of Cheddar Cheese

5pm:
Half cup of Cottage Cheese with Organic Pineapple & Organic Strawberries. 1 tsb of strawberry Kefir

8pm:
3 Slices of Pepperoni, Newman’s Own Pizza with added, garlic, spinach, onions, mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, assiago cheese, and cheddar cheese

11pm:
1 bowl of popcorn, made with coconut oil

Work-Out

Nothing

07/04/12 Wednesday

Meals – Always drink Artesian Water with everything.

8am:
Sleeping

11am:
Coffee with half a serving of Bolthouse Farms Chocolate Protein Shake

2pm:
Half a cup of Cottage Cheese with Granola

5pm – 6pm:
Taco Bell Bean Burrito & a piece of Steak Quesadilla

8pm:
At Work – Coffee with half a serving of Bolthouse Farms Chocolate Protein Shake

11pm – 1am:
At Work – Half a serving of Bolthouse Farms Chocolate Protein Shake

Work-Out

Nothing

07/05/12 Thursday

Meals – Always drink Artesian Water with everything.

8am:
Migas Taco from Taqueria Jalisco

11am:
Sleeping

2pm:
Coffee with 1 tbs of milk & 1 serving of Kefir

5pm – 6pm:
Church’s Chicken 1 Thigh and 2 Jalapeno Poppers

8pm:
Skipped

11pm – Midnight:
3/4 Pitcher of Beer and a Jellyfish shot

3am:
1/2 of a Cheese Burger & 1/2 Large order of fries

4am:
Bowl of popcorn

Work-Out

Nothing

07/06/12 Friday

Meals – Always drink Artesian Water with everything.

8am:
Sleeping

11am:
Sleeping

2pm:
Sleeping

5pm – 6pm:
Coffee with tbs of milk
1/4 order of Chicken Fried Rice from Hunan Express & 2 crab rangoons

8pm:
Work – Coffee with Protein Shake

5am:
Work – Protein Shake

Work-Out

Nothing

07/07/12 Saturday

Meals – Always drink Artesian Water with everything.

8am:
Migas taco from Taqueria

11am:
Sleeping

2pm:
Sleeping

5pm – 6pm:
Coffee Black
Half a Large Albuquerque Turkey Sandwich from Schlotzsky’s

8pm:
Skipped

11pm:
Half an order of Bean & Cheese Nachos from Gator’s Bar & Grill

Midnight – 2am
Jellyfish shot and 4 pints of beer

3am:
Half an order of Bean & Cheese Nachos from Taco Cabana

4am:
Bowl of Popcorn

Work-Out

Walk on Bay Front

Jennifer and I wish you well on your journey to losing weight and getting healthy.  Try and remember it probably took you years to gain the weight, so give yourself at least a year to lose it.  If you follow the outline I have laid out here, you will succeed and reach that goal weight.

Stay Healthy and Best of Luck,

John & Jennifer