|
When we discover that we are heavier than we want to be,
we have a natural inclination to eat less food. We may skip
lunch or eat only a tiny amount of our dinner in the hope
that if we eat less our body will burn off some of its fat.
But that is not necessarily true. Eating less can actually
sometimes make it more difficult to lose weight because of
the imbalance in your lifestyle.
Keep in mind that the human body took shape millions of years
ago, and at that time, there were no such things as diets,
let alone fad diets. The only low-calorie event in people's
lives was starvation. Those who could cope with a temporary
lack of food were the ones who survived. Our bodies therefore,
have developed this built-in mechanism to help us survive
in the face of low food intake.
Losing weight is not something you can do overnight. A carefully
planned weight loss program  requires
common sense and certain guidelines. Unfortunately, there
is a lot of misinformation floating around and lots of desperate
people are easily duped and ripped off.
Every day you can open a magazine or newspaper and see advertisements
promoting products, pills or patches that will take excess
weight off quickly. Everyone seems to be looking for that
magic weight loss pill. Millions of people are trying to lose
weight, spending billions of dollars every year on diet programs
and products without long-term success.
Often people do lose some weight but if you went back and
checked with the same people five years later, you would find
that nearly all of them have regained whatever weight they
lost due to the fact that their lifestyle didn’t change.
The myth is that people get heavy by eating too many calories.
Calories are a consideration it's true, but overall they are
not the cause of obesity. People actually take in fewer calories
each day than they did at the beginning of the last century.
If calories alone were the reason we become overweight, then
we should all be overweight. But we are not.
Collectively, we are heavier than ever. Partly it is because
we are more sedentary now than ever before. But equally as
important is the fact that the fat content of the western
diet has changed dramatically. And because it’s quicker and
easier than ever before to purchase junk food full of saturated
fat, people simply eat too much of it without considering
the health related problems of eating so poorly. In a lot
of cases it’s not until people are actually confronted with
the real possibility of something happening to them that they
take action and commence a dieting plan.
On the other hand, when most people decide to do something
about their weight or determine that they want to change their
lifestyle, a lot of the time it’s a spur of the moment decision
or a New Year’s resolution. Deciding to lose weight without
having put any thought or planning into it is like wanting
to get a house built without a plan.
People find out and plan their holiday destination, plan to
build a home and yet when it comes to losing weight, they
don’t plan a thing. There is a great saying along the lines
of - people don’t plan to fail, but rather they fail to plan.
It’s so very true. If people took the same approach to weight
loss as they did at planning their holidays, then their chances
of success would be as good as having a great holiday.
The average person simply does not plan to lose weight, they
just want it to happen and unfortunately it just doesn’t happen
that way. As a minimum before commencing any dieting plan,
people should have short, medium and long term weight loss
goals. They should also write down who inspires them to help
them keep motivated through the tougher times.
It’s very important to know what’s being eaten on a daily
basis before commencing a diet, so a food diary is an absolute
must. People need to sit down and plan their meals. If meals
are being planned in advance then it’s more likely that sensible
eating habits will become a part of a healthy lifestyle. Along
with planning meals, people should plan to make time in the
day to exercise.
To reduce body fat there does need to be a focus on increasing
the amount of exercise that’s done and not just solely on
food intake. People who diet without exercising often get
fatter with time. Although a persons weight may initially
drop while dieting, such weight loss consists mostly of water
and muscle. When the weight returns, it comes back as fat.
To avoid getting fatter over time, increase the metabolism
by exercising regularly.
Leading experts now recommend that people who want to lose
weight should start increasing their physical activity. Just
being more active in general such as climbing the stairs instead
of taking the elevator, moving around instead of sitting still,
sitting up instead of lying down as well as showing some excitement
and enthusiasm instead of boredom are things that more effectively
burn calories and reduce body fat.
Generally these days people are more aware and accepting of
the fact that they need to be exercising and a lot of people
do commence exercising when they want to do something about
their weight. But what they don’t do, is change their eating
and drinking habits. They still eat the same bad foods and
probably more of it under the illusion that everything will
be fine because of the amount of exercising they are doing.
At the beginning of a new exercise and dieting campaign people
may take to the streets by walking slowly around in the hope
of losing weight. They exercise like this for a few weeks,
they don’t lose any weight and then they quit. And the reason
they quit is a very simple one; they become frustrated and
disillusioned about not having lost any weight.
Quitting is inevitable because the only thing that changed
for these people in those few short weeks is that they started
walking. However it’s very unlikely anybody is going to lose
weight by just by walking slowly around the street and not
changing any other aspects of their lifestyle.
People do the right thing as far as starting to exercise is
concerned but they want instant gratification, it’s the quick
fix syndrome. Instead of looking at the long-term picture
and working on changing their overall lifestyle habits to
accommodate gradual weight loss, it’s the same old thinking
of I want it now. And because it doesn’t happen now, they
quit and any weight that has been lost goes straight back
on.
Though what’s been written to this point are some of the main
areas where people and diets going wrong, the biggest mistake
people tend to make when starting a diet is to restrict what
it is they eat to such a degree that the body doesn’t get
enough of the essential vitamins and minerals, nutrients,
fibre, carbohydrates and protein to support weight loss. When
people do this, what they eventually end up doing is put the
body into survival mode and slow down their metabolism.
 Weight
loss will occur initially but generally it’s only excess water
weight that is lost and because the bodies metabolism has
slowed down, most of what’s eaten is then stored as fat because
the body is storing it for later use (survival). When people
then give up on their diet and go back to eating what they
were having before, they put the weight back on as quickly
as they lost it and gain more weight because their metabolism
is still working as slow as when they stopped dieting.
So where people and diets go wrong is through the lack of
planning, not having any goals, lack of inspiration to stay
motivated, not eating sensibly, skipping meals, restricting
what they eat, making bad rather than common sense choices,
having the wrong mindset, acting on a whim, not exercising
or not enough vigorous exercise, the lack of commitment and
not being mentally prepared to handle the bad days that come
along.
If people sat down and mapped out a plan of what it is they
wanted from a change of lifestyle just as they would if they
were going on a holiday or building the dream home they always
wanted, then the majority of people wouldn’t fail. A point
to remember is that the more a person knows about themselves
in terms of what they’re doing before starting a weight loss
plan, can make a huge difference to their long term success.
When it comes to losing weight and being able to maintain
it there are no shortcuts. People need to focus on the long-term
health benefits of a change of lifestyle rather than wasting
their time on unhealthy quick fix diets.
Successful long-term weight loss comes from a combination
of all the things that have been mentioned in this article.
The chances of success for those people who implement any
of the ideas contained here are going to be far greater than
for those people who decide do something about their weight
problem based on a whim.
Copyright © 2005 Mark Allan. All rights reserved.
This article may be freely distributed electronically or in
print as long as the author’s bio and links are included.
|
