Being fatter than Homer Simpson
Obviously, there are a lot of complex reasons why someone ends up overweight. I would just like to share a few hacks for anyone struggling with this issue that they may not be aware of:<p>- Try rucking. This is the name for walking with weight in a backpack. You may hear it referred to as &#x27;tabbing&#x27; in the UK. You will burn almost as much calories as jogging but without the strain on your knees and it doesn&#x27;t suck half as much. You can get dedicated rucksacks and weight plates for it or you can just sling some bricks or sandbags in a regular backpack. Try and get one with well padded straps. If you have a dog, just stick the backpack on whilst you are taking it for a walk and you are now essentially, in terms of calories burned, doing a run every day.<p>- Try meal shakes. There are quite a few of these available now. Huel is probably the most globally available. The problem with the whole philosophy of &#x27;just track your macros and run a calorie deficit&#x27; is that it takes a lot of work. If you are overweight, you are likely already feeling tired and worn out. Adding on exercise AND meal prep AND calorie tracking on top is a pretty big jump. It is far easier to buy a meal replacement shake, have it for breakfast and lunch and then be relatively relaxed about what you have for dinner.<p>- Rather than tracking ALL the food you eat which is time consuming, boring and can lead to an unhealthy obsessive mindset in some individuals, try tracking just the junk food. Then aim to reduce it each week until you get to a reasonable level. If you ate 20 bad things this week, aim for 19 next week. Personally, I wouldn&#x27;t aim for this to ever be zero. Moderation in all things.<p>- Lift weights a few times a week. The more muscle mass you have the more calories you&#x27;ll burn without having to do any work. Find a plan with an app and stick to it.<p>- Reduce your risk of injury. If you injure yourself, you lose all momentum and end up back at square one. If you&#x27;re overweight you&#x27;re already at higher risk of injuring yourself so you have to train smart. If you keep doing the same exercise every day, you increase the chances of injuring yourself. So if you run on Monday, cycle on Tuesday. Utilise low impact cardio. Find the two or three options you like most from the following list and keep rotating: row, ruck, swim, cycle, ski-erg, roller blading, elliptical, stepper, aqua jogging. Try to stretch every day for at least 15 minutes.<p>- If you&#x27;ve got the time, do lots of zone 2. If you have a heart rate tracker, you can separate heart rate into zones. Zone 2 is where you can go for hours on end. You will hear a lot at the minute about how HIIT &#x27;can burn as much calories as endurance training&#x27;. I&#x27;m sorry, but it&#x27;s bullshit. I&#x27;ve seen plenty of people doing Crossfit consistently for a couple of years that are still carrying extra body fat. It is unlikely you will see someone who has been at a local triathlon or cycling club for the same period of time carrying that weight. No matter how hard you exercise, if you&#x27;re only doing it for 20 minutes a day you will not burn as many calories as someone doing cardio for 2 hours a day, 6 days a week. And if you are exercising for a couple of hours a day it is very hard to eat enough calories to stay fat.<p>- Reduce friction for desired behaviours, increase friction for undesired behaviours. Junk food lives on the top shelf at the back of the cupboard where it&#x27;s harder to reach. Pack your gym bag the night before so all you have to do is grab it and go in the morning. Make your protein shake the night before etc.<p>- Attach a negative emotional response to food you don&#x27;t want to eat. This one may be more controversial but I remember reading it in a Tony Robbins book and it does make sense. If you can&#x27;t stop eating chocolate, eat nothing but chocolate for the next 2 or 3 days. Literally nothing else. You will start to feel sick of it and attach a physical repulsion to it which will lesson your chances of wanting to eat it in the future the same way you probably have an alcoholic drink you can&#x27;t stand anymore if you threw up after having it when you were first trying out drinking. You can do the same the other way and attach a positive emotion for foods you don&#x27;t like but are healthy. Prepare whatever it is in advance then go without food until you are absolutely ravenous and then eat it. If you only drink fizzy drinks and don&#x27;t like plain water, stay in a steam room or sauna until you feel uncomfortable and make sure you have a bottle of cold water outside waiting for you. You may have to repeat it a few times when you&#x27;re trying to build a positive association. You probably won&#x27;t with the negative associations.<p>- Most of all, find something you enjoy. If you don&#x27;t enjoy it, you&#x27;re not going to stick with it in the long term.