The Best Weight Loss Program
By Donovan Baldwin
WHAT THE BEST WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM IS NOT.
The best weight loss program is NOT about
diets, diet pills, fad diets, or even dieting.
While it involves physical activity...we're
all adults here, I'll use the word..exercise...it
is NOT about pushing your physical limits,
embarrassing yourself in front of the neighbors,
joining an expensive gym, or hiring a personal
trainer. It is NOT about joining a cult, avoiding
friends, alienating your family, eating only
disgusting, uappealing and unappetizing foods
or feeling guilty and depressed. Most of all,
it should NEVER be about BEING ALONE in your
struggle.
WHAT THE BEST WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM
IS!
In it's simplest form, the best weight
loss program is the one you will stick
with. Let's modify that a little and say
that it is a healthy, doable, rational,
flexible program you will stick with...that
works!
THE BASIC FACTS ABOUT DIETING AND WEIGHT
LOSS!
Diets don't work. Yep! That simple. Oh,
if you want to drop 5 or 10 lbs to look
good at your sister's wedding, a quick
diet might be okay. But if you truly have
a weight problem, as over 50% of Americans
do, it is a lifelong condition and requires
lifelong measures. However, don't consider
yourself doomed to a life without pleasure
or happiness, and don't 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 just cover a few facts. Quick and
dirty. You can scan through them and just
get the basics. This article is not going
to be big enough, nor intimidating enough,
to include everything.
WHY DIETS DON'T WORK.
Diets don't work for a lot of reasons,
physical and mental, but I don't have
enough space here to cover all of them.
If you would like to read more on this,
I have a webpage at http://nodiet4me.net/10reasons.html
that gives 10 reasons why diets don't
work, and those aren't the only reasons,
either. The main reason a diet will not
work is that your body has some really
effective self-regulating mechanisms.
If you deprive it of it's expected calorie
intake over a period of time, it will
adjust itself to need less calories. Although
you will be eating less (and definitely
not enjoying it), your body will settle
into a new pattern and your weight will
level off with only a small weight loss.
Even worse, when you stop dieting, as
you know you will, the body will keep
its new level of calorie need while you
return to your old eating habits. This
brings us to another point.
THE BASIC LAW OF WEIGHT LOSS AND WEIGHT
GAIN.
Everybody's body works to it's own rhythm
and needs, but they all follow the same
law. If you take in more calories than
your body needs, it will store the excess
as fat. Bottom line. Fact. End of discussion...almost.
Using the information in the paragraph
above, you can see that when you quit
your diet and go back to eating the old
way after your body has adjusted its needs
downward, you now have MORE EXCESS CALORIES
TO BE STORED AS FAT! This is why people
often GAIN WEIGHT after a diet...or 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 little
more information. We can still say that
the best weight loss program is the one
you will stick with, and now you know
a little more about why. Since we are
all 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
stick with. The biq question in your mind
is...
HOW DO YOU FIND "YOUR" BEST
WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM?
There are a lot of things you can do
to improve your health, your life, and
your personal weight situation, such as
drink more water, get plenty of sleep,
do things that you enjoy, for example.
These can all contribute to weight loss,
but let's just look at two things for
now.
1. Become more active: Notice, I avoided
saying, "exercise". Whoops!
I said it. Look, exercise equals activity.
If you want to do Richard Simmons' tapes
and "Sweat to the Oldies", more
power to you. If you choose to buy a Bowflex
and in a few months look like the grandmother
in their TV commercials, that's great!
Odds are however, you just need to make
some lifestyle adjustments and become
more aware of the opportunities that exist
to "exercise" in daily life.
Oh sure, a planned and scheduled exercise
program is great, but so is a walk, or
gardening, or swimming, or cleaning house,
or...well, you get the idea. The only
need is to make it regular,at least 4
or 5 times a week, and to make it challenging.
Only you can assess what is challenging.
What is challenging today may simply be
walking out to the mailbox and back. One
lady started her "exercise program"
with that simple step (no pun intended).
Another gentleman started his program
by walking to the end of his block. That
first day, he thought he wouldn't even
be able to get back to his house. A few
weeks later, he was walking over a mile.
At one point in my life, I regularly ran
over 6 miles at a time. However, the first
time I ever tried to run, I didn't make
it half a block. The key is to get started,
do it regularly, and challenge yourself.
Becoming more active not only burns calories
during the activity (remember, the more
calories burned the less fat stored),
but continuing the activity over time
(you were going to do it regularly) causes
your body to shift to a new level where
it automatically burns more calories than
it used to. The facts behind this are
not complicated but require a lot more
space than we have here, and I did say
I was going to keep to the basics.
People drop out of "exercise programs"
for a lot of reasons. For your purposes,
do the activity as it fits in your schedule,
pick the activity that pleases you, and
vary the activity...if you cleaned house
yesterday, take a walk today. By the way,
if I told you to exercise, to take a walk,
you might begin that avoidance process
that makes people drop out of formal,
planned exercise programs. Why don't you
take the grandkids to the zoo instead?
If that isn't a workout, I don't know
what is. Be creative. It's your "exercise
program", make it what you want it
to be.
2. Eat sensibly: You know how you SHOULD
be eating, right! Back to basics. Lots
of vegetables, cut down on portion sizes,
have an apple instead of pie or a candy
bar. Take the sugar out of your life.
There are all kinds of diet tips running
around. Not a single 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 only one thing is probably not
going to make a big difference, but...IT
DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE! changing seventeen
things might make quite a difference,
but there's a secret...
Don't try to make all seventeen, or twelve,
or thirty changes all at once. Start with
one change, and once it is part of your
life, make the next one. You might want
to learn a little bit about Kaizen. Small
steps in the nutrition area will help
get you where you want to go eventually,
just as taking that small walk out to
the mailbox may someday lead to walking
one or two miles 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 is important to choose activities
you enjoy and learn to make better nutrition
choices while still enjoying the pleasure
of eating. Also, many people have weight
loss problems because they have personal
issues with life. Your personal weight
loss program, regular activity plus nutritional
common sense, equals a sense of control
over a situation that produces many negative
affects in your life. A sense of control
over that situation allows you to remove
many of those negative affects and move
on to rearrange other parts of your life
that may need attention.
One last point. I have kept this as simple
as possible, but it is based on a large
body of information. If you truly want
to create the most effective weight loss
program for you, you will 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 entice you
with diet pills and lose-weight-quick
plans. Stay focused on a lifestyle change
that will last all your life. Even if
diet pills, fad diets, and things like
weight loss belts or devices that supposedly
exercise for you do work, their affect
is short lived (and sometimes dangerous)
and, as was pointed out above, once you
quit the pill or the program you may gain
back even more weight than you lost.
A FINAL TIP:
Find a weight loss buddy. Share your
goals, and the information in this article,
with them. Make sure they are on the same
wave length. You might want to walk with
them, you might want to shop with them,
but most of all, if there is no one else
who understands what you are going through...they
will, and that is worth more than gold.
The author is retired from the Army after
21 years of service, has worked as an
accountant, optical lab manager, restaurant
manager, and instructor. He has been a
member of Mensa for several years, and
has written and published poetry, essays,
and articles on various subjects for the
last 40 years. He developed an interest
in health and fitness in the '70s after
reading numerous books, including Dr.
Kenneth Cooper's "Aerobics".
This has led him to continue his personal
research into health and fitness for over
30 years, and to pursue course work on
health and fitness. He now has an online
health supplement store at http://eherbsstore.com.
Find more weight loss tips at http://nodiet4me.com.
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