WHAT IS NOT THE BEST WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM.
The best weight loss program is probably NOT about diets, diet pills, fad diets, or even dieting! While this is about physical activity… we’re all adults here, I’ll use the word… exercise… It’s NOT about pushing your physical limits, embarrassing yourself in front of the neighbors, joining an expensive gym, or hiring a trainer staff. It is NOT about joining a cult, avoiding friends, alienating your family, eating only unattractive and unappetizing food, or feeling guilty and depressed. Above all, you should NEVER try to BE ALONE in your fight.
WHAT IS THE BEST PROGRAM TO LOSE WEIGHT!
Simply put, the best weight loss program is the one you stick with. Let’s tweak that a little bit and say it’s a healthy, doable, rational, flexible schedule that you’ll stick with…it works!
THE BASIC FACTS ABOUT DIET AND WEIGHT LOSS!
Diets don’t work. Yes! It’s that easy. Oh, if you want to drop 5 or 10 pounds to look good at your sister’s wedding, a crash diet might do the trick. But if you really do have a weight problem, as you do with more than 50% of Americans, it’s a lifelong condition and requires lifelong measures. However, do not consider yourself doomed to a life without pleasure and happiness, and do not give up. Go back and read the first paragraph, and realize that there are things that CAN be done, and YOU CAN DO THEM. In the meantime, however, let me cover a few facts. Quick and dirty. You can scan them and get the basics. This article is not going to be big enough, or intimidating enough, to include everything.
WHY DIETS DO NOT WORK.
Diets don’t work for many reasons, physical and mental, but I don’t have enough space here to cover them all. The main reason why a diet won’t work is that your body has some really effective self-regulation mechanisms. If you deprive yourself of your expected calorie intake over a period of time, you will adjust to need fewer calories. Although you’ll eat less (and definitely not enjoy it), your body will adjust to a new pattern and your weight will stabilize with only a small weight loss. Worse yet, when you stop dieting, as you know you will, your body will maintain its new level of calorie needs while you return to your old eating habits. This brings us to another point.
THE BASIC LAW OF WEIGHT INCREASE AND LOSS.
Everyone’s body works at its own pace and needs, but everyone follows the same law. If you eat more calories than your body needs, it will store the excess as fat. Bottom line. Done. End of discussion… almost. Using the information in the previous paragraph, you can see that when you go off your diet and go back to eating as before after your body has adjusted its needs downward, you now have MORE EXCESSIVE CALORIES TO STORAGE AS FAT! This is why people often GAIN WEIGHT after a diet…or a series of diets.
SO WHAT IS THE BEST WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM?
As you can see, you are back at the beginning of this discussion, but with a bit more information. We can still say that the best weight loss program is the one you stick with, and now you know a little more about why. Since everyone is different, the obvious fact should be that what you need to find is not THE best weight loss program, but YOUR best weight loss program…the one YOU will follow. The big question on your mind is…
HOW DO YOU FIND “YOUR” BEST WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM?
There are many things you can do to improve your health, your life and your personal weight situation, such as drinking more water, getting enough sleep, doing things you enjoy, for example. All of these can contribute to weight loss, but let’s look at two things for now.
1. Get more active: Notice, I avoided saying “exercise.” Oh! I said. Look, exercise equals activity. If you want to do the Richard Simmons and “Sweat to the Oldies” tapes, more power to you. If you choose to buy a Bowflex and in a few months you look like Grandma in her TV commercials, that’s great! However, chances are you just need to make a few lifestyle adjustments and become more aware of the opportunities that exist to “work out” in everyday life. Sure, a planned and scheduled exercise program is great, but so is walking, gardening, swimming, cleaning the house, or… well, you get the idea. The only need is for it to be regular, at least 4-5 times a week, and challenging.
Only you can assess what is challenging. What is challenging today can be just walking to the mailbox and back. One lady started her “exercise program” with that one simple step (no pun intended). Another gentleman started her program by walking to the end of her block. That first day she thought she couldn’t even go back to her house. A few weeks later, she was walking over a mile. At one point in my life, he would regularly run 6+ miles at a time. However, the first time I tried to run, I didn’t make it even half a block. The key is to get started, do it regularly, and challenge yourself.
Becoming more active not only burns calories during activity (remember, the more calories you burn the less stored fat), but continuing the activity over time (I was going to do it regularly) shifts your body to a new level where automatically burns more calories than before. The facts behind this aren’t complicated, but they require a lot more space than we have here, and I said I was going to stick to the basics.
People drop out of “exercise programs” for many reasons. For your purposes, do the activity that fits your schedule, choose the activity you enjoy, and vary the activity…if you cleaned the house yesterday, go for a walk today. By the way, if I tell you to exercise, go for a walk, you might start that avoidance process that causes people to abandon formal, planned exercise programs. Why don’t you take the grandkids to the zoo? If that’s not a workout, I don’t know what is. Be creative. It’s your “exercise program”, make it how you want it to be.
2. Eat sensibly: You know how you SHOULD eat, right! Return to basic. Lots of vegetables, reduce portion sizes, eat an apple instead of a cake or chocolate bar. Get the sugar out of your life. There are all kinds of diet tips out there. Not one of them is worth a hill of beans… but a bunch of them add up to a lot more than a hill of beans. Changing just one thing probably won’t make a huge difference, but… IT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Changing seventeen things can make a world of difference, but there’s a secret…
Don’t try to make all seventeen, twelve, or thirty changes at once. Start with one change and once it’s a part of your life, make the next one. You may want to learn a bit about Kaizen. Baby steps in the area of nutrition will help you get where you want to go, just as taking that little walk to the mailbox may one day lead to walking a mile or two at a time.
HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO STAY ON THIS WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM?
Well, for the rest of your life. That’s why it’s important to choose activities you enjoy and learn how to make better nutritional choices while still enjoying the pleasure of eating. Also, many people have trouble losing weight because they have personal problems with life. Your personal weight loss program, regular activity plus nutritional common sense, equals a feeling of control over a situation that has many negative effects on your life. A sense of control over that situation allows you to eliminate many of these negative effects and move on to reorganizing other parts of your life that may need attention.
One last point. I’ve kept it as simple as possible, but it’s based on a lot of information. If you really want to create the most effective weight loss program for yourself, you’re going to have to learn a lot more than you probably know now. The public library is a good place to start, as is the Internet. Be aware, however, that many people will try to tempt you with diet pills and quick weight loss plans. Stay focused on a lifestyle change that will last a lifetime. Even if diet pills, fad diets, and things like weight-loss belts or devices that are supposed to work for you work, their effect is short-lived (and sometimes dangerous) and, as noted above, once you off the pill or program you may regain even more weight than you lost.
A FINAL ADVICE:
Find a weight loss buddy. Share your goals and the information in this article with them. Make sure they are on the same wavelength. You might want to walk with them, you might want to shop with them, but most of all, if there’s no one else who understands what you’re going through…they will, and that’s worth more than gold.