Andrew Cate - Lighten Up: 365 Ways to Lose Weight and Feel Great

To my parents, for a lifetime of love and support.

Thank you always.

THIS BOOK is the culmination of more than 15 years of work as a personal trainer, weight-loss coach and health and fitness writer. It includes all the tips, tools and training techniques I know can help you lose weight and get results.

But more importantly, it gets you to look at weight loss from a totally different perspective. Isnt it worth putting a bit more time towards something that would dramatically improve the quality and quantity of your life? Isnt it worth more than just a few weeks on a crazy diet that you know you cant stick to?

Think about the tortoise and the hare. Its easy to be tempted to race off at 100 kilometres an hour and seek out fast results. But that approach is almost certain to fail. All it leaves you with is a few extra kilos a month or two down the track. A slow and steady approach is not so flashy, but its much more likely to be successful. It wont happen overnight, but it will happen.

Inside Lighten Up youll find 365 ways to help you lose weight, trim body fat and boost your energy levels. Lighten Up has been written to consistently and progressively inform, educate and motivate you in three key areas-attitude, food and movement. The book is focused on giving you proven facts on how to lose weight but also, and more importantly, giving you practical ways you can apply this knowledge to your life. Thats why youll find a Living it section on every page of Lighten Up.

I encourage you to read Lighten Up like a tortoise, just one slow, steady step at a time. Think about each topic and how it applies to you. That way, you can absorb the information and live it progressively, instead of feeling overwhelmed. If that doesnt suit you, you could always read seven tips a day, and transform Lighten Up into an 8-week program. Thats still a realistic amount of time to make some changes and kick-start your journey. Either way, try slowing down a little to get ahead. Enjoy the journey.

Andrew Cate

Taking one small step is where every great journey begins. While you tend to hear a lot about where a journey starts and where it ends, its the small steps along the way that get you there. You are about to embark on such a journey to a better body and better health, so congratulations on starting. This book is virtually guaranteed to help you lose weight; however, in order to complete that journey, turn your attention towards the steps you need to take along the way.

Living it

As you progress through Lighten Up, try to pick out at least one strategy or thinking habit that you will adopt each day or each week. Dont try to do too much too early because you will get better results by focusing on only one or two things at a time. One step leads you closer to the next step. Try to fight that little part of yourself that wants to know it all now, start like a bull at gate, and have results by yesterday. Havent you tried that before without much success? So for today, and for the rest of your journey with Lighten Up, concentrate on mastering one thing at a time.

Whether you are concerned about losing fat, or just maximising your health and vitality, food is the key ingredient. Eating good food will increase your chances of getting great results. Healthier eating is not about perfection, or lettuce leaves. Healthy eating can still be enjoyable. As you become accustomed to it, healthy eating can be one of lifes true pleasures.

Living it

Learn to get control over food instead of letting it control you. There are no good foods or bad foods, but there are some foods that I encourage you to eat more of and some to eat less of. Throughout this book youll find loads of information on strategies to regain control over food, but try these to begin with:

• Plan your meals
• Shop to a list
• Freeze healthy meals so they are easily available
• Keep a food diary
• Aim for a lifetime eating plan, not a diet
• Involve your immediate family (the people you eat with regularly)
• Manage your stress, and find ways to relax
• Create a no-fail, no-willpower-required healthy environment at home
• Dont deprive yourself of anything, just use small portions of treats
• Start with small dietary changes and build week by week.

You probably realise I am going to encourage you to start moving more.

But there are some circumstances where you should consult your doctor for a medical examination before you start. Youll be glad to know that its pretty rare that a doctor will encourage you not to exercise. In fact, its been said that if you could bottle all the benefits of exercise, it would be the most heavily prescribed medication in the world.

Living it

See your doctor before you start to exercise if you:

• are aged 55 years or older
• have had a previous heart attack or stroke
• are very overweight
• are a heavy smoker
• have a medical condition such as diabetes, asthma, arthritis or high blood pressure
• are taking prescribed medication
• have a family history of heart disease
• are pregnant, or have given birth in the last 6 weeks
• have any doubts about your health.

Once you have clearance from your doctor, or even if you dont, begin gradually and ease your body back into regular activity.

Get a grasp of this heading, and youll go a long way towards getting a handle on the key ingredient to losing weight and fat. That ingredient is changing your energy balance (or kilojoule balance). Whatever kilojoules you eat or drink, you need to burn them off, and then a little extra. The problem I see regularly is that when people hear the words energy balance, or kilojoule balance, they switch off. No matter how important it is, there just doesnt seem to be any relevance. So to keep things practical, try to remember the heading of this tip. Burn off what you eat, and earn any extra kilojoules you drink with physical activity. Get this right, and your fat cells will have no choice but to get smaller.

Living it

If you burn off more kilojoules than you consume on at least 4 days out of every 7, more often than not you will be removing stored body fat. But try to be aware of your kilojoule balance on a daily basis, and make adjustments to your kilojoule intake and expenditure to keep it under control. Use the tips in this book to find ways to minimise your kilojoule intake (without starving yourself) and maximise the kilojoules you burn off each day.

People get fat by eating too many kilojoules, and not burning off enough.

To reverse the process and lose fat, you need to consume less kilojoules and burn off more. You need to create a kilojoule deficit, so you burn off not just the kilojoules you eat, but also tap into the reserve of excess kilojoules stored as body fat. The key is to eat enough protein and fibre to fill you up and minimise hunger. Lets face it; the only way you will stick to dietary changes over the long-term is if you are always hungry.

Living it

Its simply not possible to lose body fat without cutting back on your kilojoule intake. What high-kilojoule components of your diet can you change or improve upon? Here are some changes that would help reduce your kilojoule intake (well talk more about them throughout the book):