How I did it: Put simply, I read a book - Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins.  Within 10 weeks of turning the first page I lost two and a half stone (30-odd pounds).  The best part is that a year later the weight has not returned :)

Lessons & tips: Loosing weight (more specifically, loosing fat) is basic math.  To loose 1 pound of fat you have to burn 3200 calories.

Everyone burns a certain number of calories just by living and breathing, this is called your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR - some people call it BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate).  At 5 foot 10 inches and 14 and a half stone my RMR was about 2500 calories a day.

To burn fat, I had to make sure that the number of calories I was consuming was less than I was burning.  Most people are tempted to simply reduce their calorie intake and watch the fat fall off.  The problem is that your RMR also drops and the fat quickly piles back on once you start consuming a "normal" number of calories.

The trick to effective fat loss is to reduce your calorie intake to a reasonable level but at the same time boost your RMR by eating the right things at the right times (5 or 6 smaller meals a day, never miss breakfast).  You can boost your RMR even further by building a bit of muscle.  And you can burn a few extra calories on top by doing regular exercise.

At 12 stone but with a little more muscle my RMR is now probably somewhere around the 2250 mark, which means I can eat quite well without putting the weight back on.

It's so simple I can't believe it took me so long.

Resources: Book: Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins

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Mar 30, 2009, 08:53AM PDT | 0 comments | 1 cheer