This week our winner was Susan Hooper, who lost 7.6 lbs. This was an important week for her, because she’d been having problems getting her diet dialed in. For the last three or four weeks, she’d been worried she was eating too much, so she kept eating a little less each week.
Unfortunately, although she’d eat less, she’d gain weight. This happened three weeks in a row. I kept encouraging her to try to hit her minimum calories (eat more), but it seemed like an awful lot of food for her. Then, last week, she decided to go ahead and try it. After all, she’d been eating less and gaining.
The result was pretty stunning: 7.6 pounds. I’m hoping that it wasn’t water weight or muscle, but she swears that she was eating more this week. We’ll see next week. If she does have it dialed in, and is hitting her minimum, her metabolism should start speeding up and allow her to start burning fat for fuel. That’s what we want.
Susan had previously lost 30 lbs in another Biggest Loser contest just prior to starting this one. That’s exactly what people need to do, too. Hit it hard for 12 weeks, and then set a new goal. Hit it hard another 12 weeks and then another 12 weeks until you get what you want.
Susan was followed by Gene Rigdon and Carol Laughton, both of whom lost 4.4 lbs, and Karl Degenhardt, who lost 4.2 lbs. We’ll see how next week goes.
As I spoke about last week, it’s one thing to have a great week once. It’s quite another thing to have good results (1 ½ to 2 lbs off) every week! Like I told them, it’s next week’s results that will really tell me what’s going on—if it was water weight, muscle loss, or if it was really fat loss.
I’m also still seeing some of the gals not eating enough. That’s a killer every time. You’ve got to hit your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)—I call it your minimum—or your metabolism will think you’re starving, and slow down making it very hard to burn fat for fuel. Somehow your body thinks you need to hold on to that fat.
Hitting your minimum will satisfy your body’s basic energy needs, so it will release its death grip on your metabolism, and you’ll start losing weight. Have I said this before? You’ve got to hit your minimum! It sounds crazy, but sometimes, you have to eat more to lose weight.
This isn’t a license to go nuts the next time you get in the buffet line. It just means you have to eat enough to satisfy all your minimal energy needs so your body is working correctly. Then you can start burning fat.
On the workout side of things, we combined the kickboxing workout I’ve been teaching them on Fridays with their weight routine. They also combined the two different Free Weight routines to make one bigger routine.
About everyone said it was the toughest workout yet. And that’s the key—boosting the intensity a little bit. Using more muscles burns more calories and jacks up your metabolism.
Next week they’re about to embark into new territory for the final month. I’m start showing them my Level 3 and Level 4 workouts, but more on that later. Until then, what are you waiting for? Get out there and burn some calories!
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