Weight-loss Strategies  

Flip through the pages of dieting history -- hey, there's a riveting read, huh? -- and you'll encounter some pretty big names: Pritikin. Atkins. Some guy called Pyramid.

 

But there's one name you'll probably never see, even though he's crucial to losing your spare tire: Sigmund Freud. That's right, the world's most famous shrink can help you shrink your gut.

 

"Most guys don't think about it, but studies have shown that a man's personality -- his strengths, weaknesses, quirks, even character flaws -- can have a big impact on how successful he'll be in following any given diet," says Kathleen Vohs, Ph.D., a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University. In other words, choose a weight-loss strategy that's wrong for your head and you'll never make things right with your gut.

 

The solution? Stretch out on our couch, friend -- we've laid out the perfect weight-loss strategy for four common male personality types. Follow our advice and one thing's certain: You'll never make another Freudian slip when it comes to food.

The Free Spirit

A guy like you: Jack Nicholson

You are: Independent and rebellious, with the spirit of a Harley (the Fatboy model). You're also easily bored and love anything that offers spontaneity or variety. If there's too much planning or repetition in an activity, you tend to lose int-- Hey, are those doughnuts over there?

 

Your weight-loss strategy: Don't go on any more diets. "You won't follow them anyway," says Hillary Wright, R.D., a Boston nutritionist. Instead, keep a magical, rebellious number in your head: 500. That's the number of calories you need to cut from your diet each day to lose a pound of fat a week. "Having a single goal provides the structure you need to lose weight," says Wright.

 

How to do it:

Prioritize your snacks. You want your bag of BBQ potato chips every day at 3 p.m.? What do we care? Eat 'em. "It's okay for you to snack. If you don't, you'll end up craving certain foods and ultimately eating even more of them once your willpower finally caves in," says Wright.

 

The key (and the catch) is making a list of the six snacks you eat every day, and then ranking them in order of importance. Got it? Now cut that list in half. Eat your usual amount of the top three, but say goodbye to four through six.

 

Substitute X for Y (or U for V). Go ahead and order that Sausage McMuffin -- but ask for an extra slice of cheese instead of the recycled pig parts. Or eat a cinnamon-raisin bagel in place of a cinnamon roll. You're getting what you want -- sort of -- but you're cutting calories while you do it.

 

"It's important for an impulsive person to still feel that he's making his own choices," says Vohs. "You just have to make those choices healthier."

 

Don't trust yourself any farther than you could throw yourself (which, at this point, isn't very far). That's right, you are not to be trusted with "Family Size, 75% More Free!" packages of anything on your list of favorite munchies. Pick up single-serving sizes of the stuff instead. "If you're incredibly impulsive, you're also very likely to cheat," says Wright.

 

Take a menu to the gym. Here's what your mind keeps saying: "As long as I have options, I can always be spontaneous." So give yourself plenty of options -- in your diet and your workouts. "Instead of forcing yourself to do the same thing every day, give yourself a menu," says Craig Ballantyne, C.S.C.S., a strength coach in Toronto.

 

Make a list of three or four different weight-lifting programs and cardiovascular workouts, and each day pick the one that gets you most psyched. "The only rule is that you have to do something each day," says Ballantyne.

 

Go to the next page for The Planner...

The Planner

A guy like you: Bill Parcells

You are: Conservative and focused -- lost without a schedule in hand. Spontaneity? Sorry, that never quite makes your to-do list. You're much more interested in keeping your life as organized as possible.

 

Your weight-loss strategy: Put those organizational skills to good use. You already enjoy making lists and schedules and keeping track of numbers, so, according to Vohs, "to lose weight, you just have to help that love of order cross over into another part of your life." The part called your stomach.

 

How to do it:

Keep a journal. We're talking about the kind where you write down your deepest, darkest secrets, like what you ate in your car on the way to work. "Journals help you to see how much you're eating during the day," says Ross Andersen, Ph.D., an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins. "Once you see that, it's much easier to find ways to cut back."

 

Pencil in your workouts. You write everything else on your calendar, so why not jot down when you're going to the gym? At the beginning of each month, block out 30- to 45-minute chunks of time on the days when you plan to exercise.

 

Then keep the appointment -- no matter what. "If something urgent comes up, move your workout to another slot on your calendar," says Darren Steeves, C.S.C.S., a trainer in Halifax, Nova Scotia. "Erasing the workout altogether should never be an option."

 

Plan meals the way Ike planned D Day. Remember when you used to ask your mom, "What's for dinner?" And there would be no reply because she was hitting the bottle again? Well, buck up; it's time to be your own mom.

 

"Not knowing what they're going to eat until mealtime is a prime reason planners end up cheating," says Andersen. "Instead of leaving things to chance, sit down once a week to write out your entire week's menu."

 

Or, sign up for the Men's Health Personal Trainer. You'll get a weekly shopping list, a daily meal planner and an exercise plan. (Cost is less than $10.00/month.)

 

Score points with yourself. The best way to make sure you're exercising enough? Keep a running tally. "Give a specific point value to exercises you like doing, and then establish a total number of points you need to accumulate each week," says Tim Kuebler, C.S.C.S., a trainer in Kansas City, Missouri.

 

For instance, give yourself four points for each time you lift weights, two points for each mile you jog or bike or half hour you swim, one point for every game of tennis or volleyball you play, and half a point for every 20 minutes you spend walking or having sex. Try to accumulate at least 25 points each week.

 

"If you miss a workout, make up the points the following day," says Kuebler.

 

Go to the next page to read about The Short-Attention-Span Man...

The Short-Attention-Span Man

A guy like you: Emeril Lagasse

You are: Eager and excited, but lacking commitment. Blame it on your hunter-gatherer past. Evolution has bred you to be the ultimate searcher, constantly looking for something better, whether it's a woman, a job, or a way to burn fat. Your downfall? The second you can't find a quick fix or easy answer -- bam! -- there goes your interest.

 

Your weight-loss strategy: Incorporate a bit of order into your life. "You need to work on your follow-through in order for a diet to work long-term," says Andersen.

 

How to do it:

Start slowly. Like everything you do in life, when you start a diet, you rush into it -- barrels blazing. That's a problem. "The more passionate you are about a program in the beginning, the harder it is to maintain that passion and stick with the program," says Andersen.

 

Instead of a big, revolutionary goal, like eating more healthfully, give yourself a specific goal -- like eating one additional piece of fruit each day, or avoiding beer on weeknights. "By keeping things simple and focusing on specific tasks, you'll increase your chances of losing weight and keeping it off, " says Vohs.

 

Chew on this. Slowly. You do everything fast. But experts say that when you inhale food from your plate, your brain doesn't have time to tell you to stop eating. To figure out how long it should really take you to eat a meal, try this exercise: After each bite, put down your fork and take a sip of water. Keep doing it until your plate is clean and your cup runneth dry.

 

"That's how long it should really take you to finish a meal," says Wright. Try repeating the process -- without the water -- next time you eat. You'll eat less and feel full sooner.

 

Be more consistent. You change your workouts more frequently than Madonna changes hair colors -- it works for Madonna; it doesn't for you. "The biggest reason men don't get the results they want is that they constantly jump from plan to plan," says Alwyn Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., a gym owner in Santa Clarita, California.

 

Instead of following the latest fad, Cosgrove suggests picking short-term programs -- under 4 weeks is ideal -- that involve very specific goals. "It's easier for guys with a short attention span to stick with a 3-week arm-building program or a month-long weight-loss program than a longer-lasting program," he says.

 

Go to the next page to read about The Crowd Pleaser...

The Crowd Pleaser

A guy like you: Bill Clinton

You are: Without a doubt, the life of any party. You thrive on the company of friends and family, and have a very active social life. The attention you get from people boosts your ego, motivating you to be a better person. Unfortunately, too much partying also turns you into a bigger person.

 

Your weight-loss strategy: Build your own social support system. "A true crowd pleaser enjoys being around people and the support that being part of a group provides," says Andersen. For you, the best chance of sticking with a diet is to find a group of friends, coworkers, or even total strangers from whom you can gain inspiration.

 

How to do it:

The easy way. Visit the weight loss message center on this Web site. It offers the cyber camaraderie of thousands of men like you -- men who are interested in losing weight and improving their health, but who need motivation to make it happen.

 

Team up. Join a league, or start playing a regular game of basketball with the guys at work. "If you're part of a team and have a bit of built-in peer pressure, that makes it harder to quit," says Vohs.

 

Be accountable. Tell a friend or significant other that you're trying to lose weight. Then ask your cohort to play bad cop with you at least once a week. Aside from the chance to mess around with handcuffs, the weekly questioning will remind you that somebody's going to be checking your progress.

 

"Knowing that you have to account to another person can have a positive influence on your behavior," says Andersen.

 

Challenge yourself. Find a picture of yourself at your heaviest, and another of yourself at your fittest. Run 'em both through the copier a dozen times and stick them in places where you'll frequently see them -- like in your car and on the refrigerator.

 

"Seeing yourself at your best -- and worst -- can be all the motivation some people need to lose weight," says Steeves.

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