Want to Know How to Lose Weight?
Whenever we set out on a fitness journey to change our physiques, it’s never as seemingly straight forward a task as one might initially think. Generally speaking, it’s rather easy to oversimplify anything, especially if it’s such a daunting undertaking that we’ve had to muster up all of our courage and resolve in order to even begin thinking about doing it.
Losing weight is absolutely no different. For some, it’s a huge uphill battle, that unfortunately, doesn’t reward with instant gratification, nor is it a process that becomes less laborious and less needing of our commitment and determination in order to ultimately succeed. Depending upon how much weight you need to lose, it can be an overwhelmingly difficult process that feels much more like an ordeal.
As a South Austin personal trainer for over 20 years and gym owner for a decade now, I can assure you that there is far more than meets the eye when it comes to losing weight. One very common problem, is that a lot of people are known as what we refer to as emotional eaters. These are people who take comfort in food when they feel stressed, challenged, sad, or anxious. If they would ingest carrot sticks during these times, it wouldn’t be as problematic, but the reality is that these people have a great propensity to indulge themselves with junk food such as pizza, chips, cookies, cake, etc. Much like alcoholics or drug users who are seeking escape from stressful situations or daily life’s challenges, these people, if they are to succeed, need to find a healthy replacement for their binges. Unlike the struggles alcoholics and drug addicts face in their recovery, emotional eaters can often times break their cycle of their problematic feedings by altering their lifestyle’s, and creating new healthy habits which are pleasurable, and maintainable.
A lot of people have said to me over the years that while they changed up their nutrition, they haven’t managed to lose much, if any weight. A closer examination of the facts often times reveals that while yes, they have made some better changes in the diets, they still have made a plethora of poor choices as well. These are usually justified by the person seeking to lose weight with something along the lines of a cheat meal explanation. The problem with cheat meals, is that what have you cheated other than yourself and your weight loss efforts? Another problem with cheat meals, is that once we have one, the second is far too easy to succumb to, and on down the line.
Yet another common roadblock in the path of success, when trying to lose weight, is that people will frequently justify larger portion sizes because they exercised that day. Even if it’s a healthy type of food, like say chicken, for example. There’s no need for someone who wants to lose weight to eat a 12 ounce serving of chicken in a single serving. Protein is great, and extremely vital to our bodies for a multitude of reasons, but too much of any one macronutrient is not a good thing.
There’s a huge myth permeating society that it’s carbohydrates that make us fat, so you’ll very often see someone take the bun off their big greasy cheeseburger in the name of health and weight loss. This is as silly as drinking a diet soda while eating a large pepperoni pizza and thinking that you have negated the fattening effects of your meal. Carbohydrates are very necessary to fuel our bodies. The thing to remember is that fuel, just like the kind we put in our cars, comes in varying grades of quality. Cheap fuel is likely to make your car under perform, likewise with our bodies. Cheap fuel will make you lethargic, hold more water weight, and burn out quickly. Carbohydrates are not categorically the enemy. Poor choices are the enemy and the usual downfall of those who are trying to lose weight.
Women as they grow older, more so than men, tend to have higher blood sugar levels. This means that weight lose for that group of people is more complex because with a higher blood sugar level to begin with, and then the subsequent introduction of a few cookies, etc, and now it’s turned into a hormonal situation as the pancreas will secrete insulin to drive back down the blood sugar levels in the body.
Fasting is another approach that a lot of people have tried in their efforts to lose weight. Simply put, it’s a very bad idea. Depriving your body of the fuel it needs it requires in order to function, is just plain silly, but we see it quite often. The other day, a gentleman weighing well over 400 pounds submitted a food journal to me anonymously on the internet, and by my calculations, he was consuming no more than 900 calories per day. He was, by his own admission, light headed, sluggish, uninterested in performing his daily routines, etc. No wonder he felt that way. He had no fuel in the tank, so to speak, so how could he possibly have the energy to function?
If you want to lose weight, it’s like anything else in the health and fitness world. You need to come up with a series of stepping stone goals, along with your ultimate goal. You also have to have a strategy in place so you will be able to do all that you need to do in order to lose weight. So how do you lose weight? By consistently making good dietary choices. By consistently doing your cardiovascular workouts, whether you feel like it or not, and by consistently keeping a positive and determined mindset that you will succeed. One day at a time, one meal at a time, one trip to the gym at a time. Put that all together and focus on the little victories as you journey down the scale, and you will surely reach your goals.
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