How much weight should I lose?

The amount of weight you want to lose, of course, depends on your body type – if you’re an endomorph you have significantly more body fat than any other body type however, the “weight” you lose will also be “replaced” by some muscle that you gain. You see, you want to have some muscle-preferably fat burning (slow twitch) muscle like we discussed a few pages back. If you are an endo-meso you will lose more “weight” but less mass than if you had no muscle at all. If you are an ecto-meso you won’t “lose any weight” in actuality because you are thin but with very little muscle and losing all body fat without building any muscle will cause you to look unhealthy. You’ll essentially be a human clothes hanger.

Last 10 pounds:
If you just want to lose 5-10 lbs, you are probably interested in body shaping, meaning your friends think you are insane for wanting to lose weight but the reality is that you are thin but have a flabby body. So you look fine in clothes but you aren’t satisfied with your body naked. By following the diet of an endo-ecto and using the Body Type workout online videos and DVDs for male or female, this change can take place in as little as two weeks. Once you make your goal weight, you can start to add foods you normally would eat or have one to two cheat days per week. You will probably want to continue your cardio and resistance training so that your body becomes harder and more beautiful.

10-21 lbs:
If you have 10-40 lbs to lose, determine your body type using the pictures provided. Follow your eating plan, keep your cardio at 5-6 days per week and start at the level you are able. If you have not done cardio before, start with 5 to 10 minutes, and build up to an hour. The same goes for your resistance training. If you are already doing it slowly, build up to one hour.

21-85 lbs:
If you have 30-40 lbs to lose, again, look at the pictures, find out what body type you are, and follow that eating guidelines stated in previous sections. You have a good amount of weight to lose, so you must be strict with your eating and cardio. The eating plan is 90 percent (Yes, you saw that correctly!!!) of your success.

If you have a choice between taking an hour (or more) to go to the gym and utilizing that time to prepare your meals for the next couple of days, prepare your meals! Cardio will be more important than resistance training for most body types except ecto-endo and endomorphs. You want to eventually build up to a “trudge” which is a type of cardio where you jog at about 2.5 to 3.0 miles per hour. This is the type of exercise that will help you develop fat burning muscle and make it much easier to stay lean. If you are a pure endomorph you should take at least 20 minutes 3 times per week to do some form of resistance exercise to help your skin to tighten. However, if you eat properly, your skin should change with your weight loss.

***IMPORTANT NOTE: Your skin is an organ-it can change. It is the last organ in your body to receive nutrients. If you starve your weight off (calorie cutting diets) then your skin will more than likely become saggy because it did NOT receive the nutrients to change. However, if you eat 5 to 6 times per day your skin (depending on how many times you have gained and lost weight) should contract with your fat loss.
Endomorph –

85 + lbs
If you have 70-100 lbs to lose, you are probably an endomorph or endo-meso. At this level, the weight loss is not merely cosmetic in nature – this amount of excess weight is absolutely dangerous to your health. BUT you can lose it and keep it off. However, you can’t just do it by adhering strictly to the eating plan and the fitness regimen. You must change your thinking! Think healthy! If you treat this as merely a weight loss program and not a lifestyle change, you will have to do this all over again. I understand how good pizza tastes! I understand all those yummy foods-and there absolutely is room for those treats in your life! But at a moderate level, and not all day, every day. DO NOT cheat every day or even every other day, because you will only be cheating yourself out of a longer life, and a life of quality.

Anybody with 100 lbs or more to lose is most likely endomorphic. You may have mesomorphic tendencies on your lower body from walking around with that kind of weight. With this level of weight loss, you must get a physical. In fact, anybody with 70-100+ lbs to lose, should get a physical and blood work. You may have already developed obesity-related complications (such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and more) and these complications absolutely have an impact on how you design your eating and exercise plan as you will see in later sections.

I have worked with many people who have this much weight to lose and more. It is as much a mental outlook as a physical change. They tell me that they feel deprived when they “can’t” eat certain favorite foods. I tell them that they are depriving themselves of a healthy, ordinary life by dragging 100 pounds or more around that they don’t have to that are exhausted from and “can’t” keep up with their friends and family. Go to the gym and lift two 35 pounds dumbbells and walk around for one minute. Then put those dumbbells down and walk around for a minute again. This is how you would feel if you lost all the excess weight you were carrying! You would feel much more free!

*****IMPRTANT NOTE: Don’t tell yourself or anyone else that you can’t eat something because you are on a diet! They will convince you that you can diet tomorrow because this thing in front of you is too good to pass up. Tell people, and more importantly yourself, that you don’t eat that stuff. When you tell yourself you “can’t” your inner rebel says “Why not! Yes I can-gimme that!” and you sabotage yourself. If you tell yourself “I don’t eat junk food” and you follow it up with actions that are true to that statement-you change your mindset!