Lose Weight Like a Guy
Lose Weight Like a Guy
Provided by Prevention
THE GUY THING
He goes for weights with muscle
Women are catching on to strength-training, but some experts think women ought to approach weights more like a man. "When a guy goes to the gym, he'll usually pick an exercise that allows him to use the most impressive-looking weights," says Lou Schuler, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and author of The New Rules of Lifting. The result: muscle building in less time, working a range of muscles at once instead of one in isolation. "A woman, on the other hand, will go for light dumbbells and do an exercise that allows her to use perfect form--but will do the least amount of good." To wit: "the 12 triceps exercises women do" to rid themselves of underarm dingle-dangle, says Schuler. "All those little exercises are like Chinese water torture for your muscles: a little drip here, a little drip there. You think if you do them enough then these nice, streamlined muscles will show up, but no, they won't." So, stop wasting your time, and do what the Y chromosome folks do:
Drop the "Barbie" weights
If you're doing two sets of 12 or 15 reps, your weights are probably too light, says Schuler. Graduate to the black weights--the ones made of real iron--and move toward higher poundage that makes you strain to do 8 to 10, says Schuler. "Once your body is used to 10, then increase the weight until you're only able to do 3 reps. At sports medicine conferences, I've seen scans of women's upper arms before and after this kind of training program, and the girth of their upper arms hasn't changed, but you can see the fat tissue is reduced and how much more muscle there is."
Work out in life's gym
Daily tasks offer opportunities to strength-train. "As you boogie through your day," advises Peeke, "say, 'No, I can lift those grocery bags. I don't need a man to help me.'"
THE GUY THING
He doesn't use food as a therapist
Women are twice as likely as men to binge because they're depressed, reports a 2004 University of Minnesota study that examined the eating behavior of 1,800 people for a year. Women are also twice as likely as men to be depressed, which makes for a lot of eat-a-thons. Worse, after a binge, a woman is likely to feel guilty, become even more depressed, and soothe herself with more gluttony. Confessed one woman (who requested anonymity because her boss reads this magazine): "When I'm really depressed, I've been known to wheel into McDonald's and order two shakes--one for me and one for my invisible friend in the back seat. No kidding. One vanilla, one chocolate. Sometimes I even turn my head around and say, 'What do you want, chocolate?' like the drive-thru guy on the intercom can see me. It's sick!" Bottom line: No guy thinks he can boost his mood by mainlining frozen dairy products. You shouldn't either. Get off that circuit with these tips:
Identify what's behind your need to feed
Start making the connection between stuffing your face and stuffing your feelings. To do this, think Richter scale, says Santa Barbara, CA, psychotherapist Gloria Arenson, author of Five Simple Steps to Emotional Healing. "Rank your desire to eat on a scale of 1 to 10 as if it were an earthquake, 10 being 'Watch out!' If it's an 8, then look at what in your life was an 8 that day. Your boss yelled at you? Your dog ran away? Your kid got into trouble at school?" By matching your numbers--the craving and an equivalent stressor--you'll soon learn how to determine whether you're hungry or medicating a bad mood. The technique works by erecting a mindfulness roadblock between you and that soothing piece of chocolate cheesecake. With practice, most people who use the rating system stop themselves before taking the first bite, says Arenson.
Take time for yourself
Guys do it, says Sass. "They'll say, 'I need to get away,' and go out and play basketball or golf with their buddies. Women don't say, 'I need to take the day off and get pampered.' For many women, their only pleasure, their only source of gratification and reward, is food." Starting today, snag a few hours for yourself, but don't use it to meet your girlfriends for lunch. Give yourself something inedible to look forward to, whether it's a Saturday morning at the outlets or a monthly girls' night out for pedicures at a spa.
Get physical with anger
"The standard prescription for a guy who's angry is to go out and pound nails, not eat chocolate," says Abramson. Guys are more likely to do something physical to dissipate their negative emotions. Women tend to swallow them--usually with an entire row of Oreo cookies. So when you get mad, get moving.
Stop making such a big deal
Guys may be less vulnerable to emotional eating because they tend not to dwell on things. Women, on the other hand, can spend hours turning one small negative thought around in their minds, adding a few others, and whipping it all into critical mass, says Yale University researcher Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, PhD, author of the new book Eating, Drinking, Overthinking. That's called rumination, and research suggests it can lead to depression, which itself can lead us directly to where we've hidden the Milano cookies. Again, there's biology involved: In the brain, thoughts are linked in a network of associations, so I'm a fat pig lives on the same neural pathway as I'm a lousy cook and You're not going to amount to anything (that one's from your mother). Think about one and the others light up like an old-fashioned switchboard. Don't fall into the trap of using food to snap out of it. Instead, try this suggestion from Nolen-Hoeksema: Pick a word or phrase that makes you aware of what you're doing and helps you gain control (like Knock it off! or I won't let myself get sucked into this).
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