Get Serious.

When I lived in Lafayette, I had two really good friends -- Jen and Chad -- that I met at church and went to the gym with on occasion.  My favorite thing was a phrase that I believe originated with Chad and was pretty universal in most all situations.

The phrase always contained the words "I'm serious about..."  You could be serious about so many things, but it was all in the way you said it.  For example, "I'm serious about getting serious!" sounds pretty intense.

The point...  If you want to lose weight, you must get serious about losing weight!  It will not simply happen.  You must do something to change!  You have to watch what you eat and burn some calories in the process.  If all you do if cut calories, you will lose weight, but much of it might be muscle mass and not fat mass (which is what you want to lose!).  If you workout but do not watch what you eat, you could stay the same weight or even gain weight because you are working your body more and making it hungrier.  In the end, calories in + calories out = net calories and that number needs to be less than whatever it is that you burn by simply sitting around all day.

For instance, I burn 2200 calories or so a day if I do nothing.  If 3500 calories is 1 lb, I could lose 1 lb a week by reducing my food intake by 3500 calories or 500 calories a day.  That means I can eat 1700 calories a day and in theory lose 1 lb a week.  However, I'm also interested in burning fat by building muscle.  Thus, I workout and burn several calories a day.  Currently, this is what I am trying to target each day.

Intake from food: 1400 calories
Output from exercise: -200+ calories
NET: 1200 calories or - 2 lbs a week

Here's a link to the article that inspired this post.  Again, if you want to lose weight...

YOU HAVE TO GET SERIOUS!