Beginner Weight Loss Value Pack

By Kelly Ferguson

This bundle contains three weight loss books:

Step By Step Fat Loss For Beginners:
With all the conflicting information about the best way to diet and exercise for weight loss, it can be difficult for beginners to figure out how to get started.  Former fat kid turned personal trainer Kelly Ferguson shares her back-to-basics, no-gimmicks approach to weight loss that has helped her clients, as well as herself, lose weight and keep it off for life. 

The Quick and Dirty Guide to Surviving Alternate Day Fasting For Weight Loss:
Once-fat-kid turned certified personal trainer Kelly Ferguson brings you her best tips and tricks that she learned along her own weight loss journey using Alternate Day Fasting.  Learn how you too can stop the endless struggle and finally be able to stick to a diet that works for you.

Get Fit For Free: Progressive Total Body Home Workouts With No Equipment Needed:
Get fit in the privacy of your own home!
Once-fat-kid turned certified personal trainer Kelly Ferguson brings you five full-body home workouts that are designed to target your major muscle groups for progressive full-body strengthening and sculpting, starting with the very basics.  Whether you are a complete beginner to exercise or simply looking for some great workouts you can do without having to set foot in a gym, you will find a workout tailored to your individual fitness level.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Ferguson
• Release date: Dec 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502282347

Book preview

Step One

Find Your Current Body Composition

If it has been a while since you last stepped on the scale, take a deep breath.  As tempting as it might be to skip this step and jump straight into your new weight loss plan, do yourself a favor and take the time to do things properly.  You will thank yourself for it later when you can look back and see how far you've come.

I recommend stepping on the scale first thing in the morning, before you eat or drink anything for the day.  It also helps if you weigh yourself naked.  That way, you are eliminating variables like clothing weight and minimizing the impact of food and water weight on your results.  It's impossible to completely eliminate variables altogether, but minimizing them helps you accurately keep track of your progress over time. 

As a note for people who weigh themselves frequently, try not to get caught up in worrying about the daily ups and downs.  Your body can lose or gain several pounds overnight from water retention or loss, and this will show up on the scale, but it does not mean you have gained or lost that much fat.  What you are interested in tracking is your starting weight, your end weight, and your weight at a few checkpoints along the way to make sure you’re staying on track..

Once you have found your starting weight, write it down.  You will be using this to find an estimate of your body fat percentage. 

Your fat, combined with all of the lean components your body contains, such as muscle, blood, bone, skin, and everything else that is not fat, makes up your total body weight.  Body fat percentage is, as the name suggests, the percent of your body that is composed of only fat.

The reason it is important to figure out how much of your body is made up of fat is so that you can be sure you are actually losing fat as your weight loss program progresses.  This is opposed to losing weight from muscle tissue or bone density, which would still show up on the scale as a downward trend, even though it is very far from your ultimate goal of shedding fat.  You should be re-assessing your body fat percentage every so often as you lose weight to make sure you are losing the type of weight you want to lose. 

Before you find your body fat percentage, you need to understand that this number is only an estimate.  It is very hard to ensure accuracy for a body composition measurement without being tested in a medical or sports facility with state-of-the-art equipment.  For your purposes, however, an estimate that you can find at home should be accurate enough to track an overall trend downward over time. 

You can start finding your body fat percentage right now with a measuring tape and an online calculator.  While I can't make a recommendation about the most accurate calculator out there, I can say that typing body fat percentage calculator into a search engine will yield several results.  These calculators often use different formulas and standards, so the body fat estimate you get from each will vary.  You can either use several calculators to take an average of their estimates, or you can pick one and use that one consistently through your weight loss.

If you're not against spending a little bit of money for the sake of convenience and accuracy, you can buy body fat calipers or a bioelectric impedance monitor to help you take a more personalized body fat percentage measurement at home.

Body fat calipers measure the thickness of your skin folds to track whether subcutaneous fat has been lost over time.  To get the most accurate reading, you will want to ask a friend to help you so you can stand still and be sure the measurements are coming from the exact same place every time. 

Bioelectric impedance monitors are the simplest at-home option because they require you to do nothing more than input your information and then let the device scan your body.  If you buy one of these, read the directions before you use it because they will often tell you to take your body fat readings first thing in the morning to make sure your hydration level is fairly consistent, as this will affect the result. 

A third and more expensive option is to shell out some cash for a Bod Pod full-body scan at a gym or medical testing facility that has the equipment.  You'll have to pay for each session, but the reading will be much more accurate than the estimates you can find at home, so it's worth it for some people who like to collect as much data as possible. 

Once you have your body fat percentage, write it down with your weight.  These will be your before measurements for you to look back on and gauge your progress.  Some people also choose to take before photos of themselves, but this is up to you. 

Step Two

Calculate Your Goal

Knowing where you're going is just as important as knowing where you came from.  Having a clear goal in mind gives you something to visualize to keep you motivated, and it also gives you numerical checkpoints along the way so you can gauge your progress. 

Pick a body fat percentage that you want to aim for.  As a general guide, the normal range is 18-24% for men and 25-31% for women.  Fit men would fall between 14-17%, and women would be between 21-24%.  Competitive athletes might find themselves lower, between 6-13% for men and 14-20% for women.  Dropping much lower than that is very difficult