As slimming and healthy as this Pescetarian eating plan is, it’s not enough to put you in the ranks of the long-term weight loss maintainers. It alone can’t catapult you to a level of health where you’re buzzing energetically and enthusiastically through your day (and through the many days and years to come).
To get a firm grip on your weight and achieve that high-energy, feel-good health, you need three more things: exercise, sleep, and emotional nourishment.
In fact, without these three things, it’s difficult to sustain this Pescetarian way of eating. Here’s why:
• If you forgo exercise, you lose that “calorie cushion” and you’ll have to eat ridiculously little to keep your weight down. Who wants to stay at 1,200 calories or even 1,500 to lose weight or to keep it off? No one! That’s one reason most diets fail. And exercise is one of the main reasons people do maintain their weight loss, according to a great many studies.
• When you skimp on sleep, you’ll have a much harder time controlling your appetite.
• When you feel lonely, stressed, or overwhelmed, healthy eating and exercise go out the window. Even worse, food can become your coping mechanism.
I’m no athlete, but what I can say is that I’m faithful to fitness: I’m at the gym three times a week, pretty much every week. And on non-gym days, I walk. What’s the key to my consistency? I’ve made exercise a priority, and I set achievable goals.
Sure I’d like to try a bunch of cool new exercise classes and do more strength training. But if I shoot for those things, I’m setting myself up for failure, given the other demands on my life. Instead, I make sure to get 150 minutes of aerobic exercise weekly—often more. I periodically increase the resistance at the elliptical and the slope on the treadmill. When my strength routine starts feeling too easy, I move up to the next heaviest weight. If things calm down someday and I have more time, I’ll probably do more. But for now, I’ve hit upon a plan that works for me.
My approach gets the nod from exercise physiologist Bob Greene. “It’s better to consistently exercise at a middle level of fitness than reach a higher level but go on-and-off again,” says Bob, who has written a number of bestselling diet and fitness books, such as The Best Life Diet and Total Body Makeover (the latter of which I strongly recommend as your how-to-exercise book).
Working with Bob for a number of years, I’ve watched him inspire totally sedentary people to get moving. How? He meets them at their own exercise level—and doesn’t make them feel bad about it. Then he helps them gradually move up. Plus, his unmistakable passion for exercise mixed with a gentle “no excuses” vibe is hard to resist! Through his books and television appearances (he counts Oprah among his clients), he has motivated millions to start moving.
You’re next! If you’re not hitting your 150 minutes of exercise per week (or working up to it), what’s holding you back? “There are lots of reasons not to exercise, but I’ve never heard a good one,” says Bob. The top three excuses he hears:
1. “I don’t have time.” When something is a priority, you drop something else (like a few hours of TV) or reconfigure your schedule to find the time. And Bob notes, “Flexibility is key. When you can’t do your regular workout—maybe you’re traveling, or it’s snowing, or things got extra busy at home or work—always have a Plan B. If the most time-pressed people can do it, so can you! Even new moms (who could be more time-pressed?) can invest in a jogging stroller or work out to exercise videos.” (Bob has been spotted running up and down the stairwells of hotels for exercise as his Plan B.)
2. “I have an injury.” This is a tough one—I’ve seen regular exercisers stop moving after being injured in an accident or fall. “First, ask yourself (and your doctor) what you can do, and start there,” says Bob. In fact, he says, exercise is usually prescribed to treat injuries. “While you’re on the mend, work on building strength elsewhere. For instance, if you’ve injured your leg, work out your upper body with weights, stretches, and if you have access to one, an upper-body ergometer (it’s like an exercise bike for your arms). You might even be able to swim. Your goal is to keep up as much endurance and strength as you can so you can go back to your prior workout level, or close to it, once you’ve recovered.”
If your injury is chronic—say, back problems that preclude running or jumping—you can usually find an exercise that keeps you fit. “Try a stationary bike or even a recumbent bike. You might not be able to run on a treadmill, but if you can gradually increase the slope, you can have just as challenging a workout that way,” he advises.
3. “I don’t enjoy it.” “People who hate exercise have often had traumatic experiences, sometimes going back to their school days. Maybe they were last to be picked for a team or were ridiculed by their gym teacher. Or later on in life, they may have tried a brutal workout class or got into some other over-your-head exercise situation,” Bob says. If this sounds familiar, Bob has two tips for you: “This time, start with an activity you like, such as walking on a beautiful trail with a friend, dancing, or swimming. You can turn virtually any form of exercise into a calorie-burning workout.”
Second, he recommends recasting exercise as “non-negotiable,” the same way you take medication if needed or brush your teeth every night, even when you’re tired.
A fifteen-minute walk around your office building at lunch every day could grant you three extra years of life, according to a study of 416,175 Taiwanese men and women. That’s just one example in a litany of studies demonstrating the dramatic impact of exercise on disease prevention and treatment and longevity.
One look at the list of exercise benefits below, and it becomes clear that our bodies were designed to be active. Physical activity:
• Enhances weight loss, especially fat loss (belly fat, in particular)
• Makes it a lot easier to maintain your weight loss over the long term
• Lowers risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and pretty much every other disease
• Enhances your sex life
• Gives you a tighter and more toned look
• Allows you to eat more
• Boosts energy
• Improves mood
• Sharpens the brain
• Reduces the risk for dementia later in life
• Suppresses inflammation
• Lowers blood pressure
• Raises “good” cholesterol
• Regulates blood sugar
• Enhances immunity
How much exercise is “enough”? Here are the latest recommendations from the American College of Sports Medicine (adopted by most of the major health authorities). For a sample exercise program, take a look at “Adding Physical Activity to Your Life” on the Centers for Disease Control’s website or the “Get Moving” plan on ThePescetarianPlan.com. A solid, basic book that’ll get you started on both an aerobic and strength-training program is The American College of Sports Medicine Complete Guide to Fitness and Health.
This type of exercise includes walking, jogging, biking, working out on an elliptical machine, or any exercise that gets your heart pumping and lungs working a little harder for a sustained period of time. How much do you need? Here’s what the American College of Sports Medicine and other major health organizations recommend.
• To help prevent weight gain, heart disease, and other chronic conditions, aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, preferably spread out over five days (for instance, five sessions of 30 minutes each per week).
Or log at least 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise per week, done on at least three days of the week. (On the next page is a section on exercise intensity.)
• If you need to lose weight or maintain a weight loss, do at least 250 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise weekly.
Or rack up at least 125 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity weekly. Less than this—150 to 250 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise weekly—is associated with just modest weight loss. It appears that you need to break 250 minutes for significant pound shedding.
The big caveat: These guidelines apply to healthy adults. If you’re not a regular exerciser, even if you’re pretty sure you’re healthy, check with your doctor or other health care provider before increasing your exercise levels.
If you’re thinking that 60 minutes a week is a challenge, much less 150 minutes, just remember: You can work up to these goals at your own pace, continually challenging yourself to add more minutes.
You’ll notice that the guidelines require working out twice as long at “moderate” intensity than at “vigorous” intensity. Intensity, or how hard your body works during aerobic activity, is one of the most important factors of fitness. The exact same exercise—for instance, going 3.5 miles per hour on a treadmill set at a 2 percent grade—might be moderate for a fit person but vigorous for someone who’s been sedentary. So intensity is about how you feel when doing a particular exercise.
Although I give examples below of exercises that might place a “fairly fit” person into light, moderate, and vigorous intensity, that’s just for example’s sake—it may not apply to you. What determines your intensity is how hard your heart is beating and how hard you’re breathing.
• Light intensity. Your heart rate is just a little higher than at rest, and you’re breathing normally or just a little bit harder. For a fairly fit person, this would be walking from room to room, washing the dishes, supermarket shopping, or other chores that don’t require much effort. It feels easy.
• Moderate intensity. Your heart rate is obviously higher, and you’re breathing more quickly, but you’re still able to carry on a conversation (although it’s hard to sing). The workout is somewhat hard—it’s physically challenging, but you’re not pulling out all the stops. A brisk walk or mowing the lawn might be considered moderate for a fairly fit person.
• Vigorous intensity. Your heart is pumping hard, you’re breathing quickly and deeply, and you are most likely sweating (perhaps profusely)—this is tiring! You can still speak, but not enough to carry on a real conversation. You can’t say more than a few words without drawing a breath. You definitely can’t sing. Running; a challenging game of tennis, basketball, or other sport; increasing the resistance on the elliptical or the speed/slope on the treadmill; a nonstop aerobic exercise class; or going uphill on a bike can usually push you into this zone.
If you haven’t been doing even moderate-intensity activities, then ease into them. Even 10 minutes at a moderate intensity may be enough. When it gets easier, increase your minutes or the intensity. Gradually work up to vigorous intensity.
Free weights, machines, or exercise bands all do the same things: They make you stronger, tone and tighten your body, and help fight age-related declines in muscle. For examples of strength training moves, check out Bob Greene’s Total Body Makeover. Another good resource: the Centers for Disease Control’s site. They have videos showing you how to do the moves. And, there’s even a strength training program (designed for older people, but the exercises are appropriate for all ages). I’ll also post the links to the specific CDC web pages on ThePescetarianPlan.com.
Your guidelines:
• Do at least 6 exercises (total) for both upper and lower body, two to three times per week.
• Do 2 to 3 sets per exercise.
• Aim for 10 to 12 repetitions per set.
These exercises not only make it easier to reach up into a cabinet or touch your toes, they can also improve your posture, stability, and balance. Again, the CDC website and Total Body Makeover offer great examples.
• Do at least four types (stretching legs, back, arms) at least twice a week; you’ll see the greatest gains if you do them daily.
• Hold your stretch for 10 to 30 seconds, until you feel slight discomfort. Older folks may see even more improvements in range of motion if stretches are held for 30 to 60 seconds.
While it may seem admirable to tough it out and operate on just five hours of sleep, you’re better off proving your mettle in some other way. Otherwise, you may not feel so heroic when you’ve gained forty pounds and developed diabetes, heart disease, or any of the other conditions caused by chronic lack of sleep!
Experts say we need seven to nine hours of sleep, but 67 percent of Americans don’t even log the seven-hour minimum on most nights, according to the most recent National Sleep Foundation survey. We all know the reasons: We are hooked on late-night TV, electronic toys, and smartphones; we try to finish up work and chores; or we stay out late having fun. Plus, there are medical reasons why we’re not getting our forty winks: medications, menopause, insomnia, and aches and pains can keep us up. Stress, excessive caffeine, and a lack of exercise can also interfere with getting the requisite shuteye.
How bad for you is shortchanging sleep? Getting six hours or less has been linked to an increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, impaired cognitive function, slower reflexes, and premature death. Quite a sobering line-up!
If you’re not getting the sleep you need, it’s time to practice “good sleep hygiene,” as they say in the biz. Some tips:
• Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, including weekends.
• Set a relaxing bedtime routine (warm bath, low lights, listening to music, and so on).
• Turn off tech: The light from your computer, phone, TV, and e-reader can sabotage your sleep.
• Skip the pre-bed booze: While alcohol helps some people relax and fall asleep, your sleep quality throughout the night suffers. It actually prevents you from entering the deep, most restorative phases of sleep.
• Darken the room at night, but make sure that some light creeps in during the morning.
• Create a restful and restorative room: Keep it cool, dark, and quiet. It’s not always possible to get all three, especially with small children. But do your best to create a peaceful environment that works for you. Consider investing in blackout shades, wearing an eye mask or ear plugs, or buying a white noise machine.
• Pick a comfortable, supportive mattress and use it for sleeping and intimacy only.
• Curb caffeine, which can pack a lasting punch; some people can feel its effects for up to twelve hours later.
• Stop smoking. Nicotine is a stimulant, and smoking before bed can keep you up and make it hard to rouse in the morning.
• Exercise. Meeting the guidelines outlined in this chapter will make it easier to fall asleep and stay that way. The old thinking was that you should refrain from exercise at least three hours before bed, but recent research has shown that exercising before bed does not keep you up at night. The best practice is whatever works well for you.
• Have sex. Among its many benefits, sex can leave you feeling more relaxed and better able to fall asleep.
If you’ve been working through the Seven Pescetarian Principles (Chapter 5), you’ve become a very savvy eater. But even when you know just what you should (and shouldn’t) be eating, you might still struggle with your weight. That’s because the emotional and biological pull of food is so strong.
By biological I mean that your particular genetic makeup can make it harder to resist overeating; for instance, your levels of “appetite hormones” may make you feel hungrier and less full after a meal, particularly if you’ve recently lost weight. Or maybe you have a propensity for addiction, and food becomes your substance of choice. The types of food on the Pescetarian Plan, which are very filling for the calories and low in addictive elements like sugar and salt, can help circumvent your biology, as I explained in Chapter 1. If you suspect you might be a food addict, take the addictive eating quiz on ThePescetarianPlan.com, which also includes advice on overcoming food addiction.
But a little different from true food addiction is emotional eating, although there is some overlap. It’s not as much a biological drive as simply getting into the habit of using food to cope with stress, loneliness, depression, and even positive emotions such as excitement and joy. And boy, can that trip you up! If you’re turning to food to cope in a big way, neither the Pescetarian Plan nor any other diet will work for you. Habitually reaching for the cookie and candy stash in your desk drawer when things get stressful at the office, stuffing your body with large portions at dinner to cheer yourself up, opening the fridge and chowing down when you’re bored—all of this can be disastrous for your waistline and your health.
In research studies, people who successfully maintain their weight loss are not emotional eaters. Many were once but overcame the problem. You can, too. It would take another book to guide you through this issue, but fortunately, many good books on the topic are already out there. For instance, The Life You Want: Get Motivated, Lose Weight, Be Happy, which I cowrote with Bob Greene and Ann Kearney-Cooke, is an excellent guide. If you’re a binge eater, an oldie but still top-of-the-line classic goodie is Christopher Fairburn’s Overcoming Binge Eating. Judith Beck’s The Beck Diet Solution also offers effective strategies to retrain your brain.
You might wonder why I’m calling this section “Love.” Because finding the strength to overcome emotional eating involves love. For instance, if you’re overwhelmed with demands from other people and food has become your sanctuary, you have to love and respect yourself enough to say no and reduce your stress. You have to love and respect yourself enough to stop calling yourself “fat” and “worthless” and treat yourself with compassion and sympathy and give yourself permission to carve out time to relax, to exercise, and to take care of yourself.
It’s not just upping your self-worth; outside support can be tremendously helpful. Anything from hiring a babysitter or cleaning service to supportive friends and family all help reduce stress and make it easier to cope without abusing food.