I remember in the first few classes in beginners, Cleo told us that
she had lost 6kg from pole and that the trick was to get obsessed with
it. Well, obviously I have taken that advice to heart 
This year I plan to lose another 10kg. When I say that, it shocks a
lot of people because if you were to look at me with clothes on, you
wouldn’t think I had that much to lose, but I hide it well with baggy
clothes and I’m always holding in my stomach.
When I was younger I went to a sports high school so I used to row. I
trained 4 hours a day and ate like a horse. I had no fat on me and was
ripped. I had abs and all my muscles were defined.
When I left school, found alcohol and became sedentary, I put on just
over 30kg. I became very fat, and very unhappy. It took my family
continually teasing me about my weight to finally do something about it,
and I lost the 30kg. Between then and now I lost it again and put on a
fair bit of weight, so now is the time that I’d like to get back down to
the ripped version of myself, which means losing another 10kg.
The biggest issue with losing weight is that once you get fat, the
new fat cells are there and even if you lose weight, they will always be
there. They never disappear, they just shrink. So if you lose the
weight, it’s going to be much easier to put it back on again, so you
need to continue working for it once you’re done. If you lose weight too
quickly, it doesn’t give the fat cells time to shrink and it’s much
easier and a lot faster to put weight back on.
You’re probably wondering where this is all going?
I’m going to tell you how I’m going to lose the weight (as I did
before) and hopefully give you guys some motivation to lose a few kgs if
you’ve been wanting to.
First thing – losing weight is mostly about diet. The average
sedentary woman burns 1800 calories a day, and the average sedentary man
burns 2200-2400 calories per day. If you are burning more calories than
you’re eating, you will lose weight.
Here is where it gets tricky. If you under eat, you will put your body into starvation mode and you will not lose weight.
The minimum amount of calories a woman should eat per day to still
stay healthy is 1200. If you eat under that, your body will go into
starvation mode, your metabolism will slow down, and you will not lose
weight. Your body will store everything it consumes.
Second thing – calories out. 7000 calories = 1kg. This doesn’t mean
that you have to burn 1000 calories per day (unless you want to keep
eating your 1800 calories per day ladies).
So here’s the trick – deficit in calories you’re eating plus exercise = shedding kilos.
The easiest way to lose 1kg per week is to eat 1300 calories per day,
and burn 500 calories per day. This means that your diet is in deficit
of 500 calories, which essentially means you’re burning 500 more
calories, then plus the 500 calories you burnt from exercise, that’s
1000 calories per day. After a week, that’s 1kg.
“I don’t have time to count calories” is what I just heard about 90% of you say.
Yes you do. There are 2 of the easiest ways to do this that will make you wonder why you never did this before.
1 calorie = 4.2 kilojoules
When I look at the back of the pack of what I’m eating for
nutritional information, I just simply divide the kj by 4. I always
think it’s better to overestimate than underestimate.
Next thing, most people have a smart phone these days. There is an
app called “My Fitness Pal” which is free for iphone, android. and
blackberry. This application tells you exactly how many calories to eat
each day by allowing you to find the food you ate and it automatically
calculates the calories for you. It also allows you to scan the barcode
of what you’ve eaten in case you don’t want to search for it in the app
which I find saves a lot of time. It keeps track of your weight, your
measurements (if you put them in) and tells you at the end of each day
how much you will weigh in 5 weeks if every day was the same as the day
you had. I find that this is a major motivator for me. The best thing
about this app is that is syncs with the web straight away.
Don’t have a smart phone? Don’t worry. Most of us are at a computer
every day and they have a website where you can do all this at
www.myfitnesspal.com.
So there really is no excuse for why you can’t count your calories
and track what you’re putting into your mouth and getting out of your
body.
The very best thing about tracking what you’re eating is that you get
to see how many calories everything is. I can tell you that this was a
HUGE eye opener for me because there are things you’d think are very
good for you that are not and vice versa. You may think that salad
you’re eating is good for you, but on occasion you’d be better off
eating a deep fried chicken schnitzel burger. Once you see how good and
how bad things are for you, you will totally change the way you eat.
So there you go. That’s how I’m going to do it.
Our gym just opened up in our building at home, so I have been going
to the gym at 6am 3-4 times per week. I’ve also been going to pole
classes twice a week and training for pole 2-3 times a week. This week I
lost a kilo.
A few other things that will help – don’t just do cardio. Try to get
some weights in there too, because the more muscle mass you have, the
more calories you burn when you are sedentary.
Do yourself a favour and buy a heart rate monitor. You can get them
with a soft strap so that you can wear them during your pole class – it
fits just under the elastic of your sports bra. I wore mine tonight and
all throughout the class we monitored how many calories I had burnt. At
the end of the class, warm up to cool down, I had burnt 537 calories. We
were all very surprised.
Lastly, weigh yourself first thing in the morning (after you go to
the loo) with no clothes on. This will give you a better indication of
your weight loss. If you weigh yourself in the evening after a full day
of eating, you will see inconsistent results.
You can do it too! Anyone can do it. If you think you don’t have time
for exercise, start by a deficit in your calorie intake. Once you see
the kilos start dropping off, you will change your mindset and WANT to
exercise.
I hope I’ve given you some inspiration!
Good luck
Good luck