We asked our email subscribers what is their biggest challenge to losing weight. Over 1,700 people responded and the answers were quite interesting.
There were 4 common themes from all of the responses. We asked fitness expert Greg Alario to address these concerns and offer solutions:
- Eating too much
- Eating the wrong things
- Not exercising enough / finding the time to exercise
- Discipline
1) Eating too much
Eating too much can be prevented. For many eating too much is habitual and unconscious. Your eyes, stomach and perception of fullness all accept what they are used too. It may come at certain meals, dinnertime being the most popular, or in reaction to certain situations. There are many things we can do to eliminate or reduce our overeating habits.
The majority of Americans would not need to worry about over eating if the staples of their diet were of a more wholesome nature. The first step to consistently maintaining weight or reducing body fat weight is to restock your pantry with wholesome, fresh food products. Many individuals will get their desired results from this step alone as it is much harder to over eat if your meals are balanced and consist of healthy, fresh ingredients.
Eating 5-6 moderate, healthy meals per day will have an incredible, positive impact on weight loss and maintenance by substantially increasing your metabolism. Metabolism will be raised due to the fact that the body has to work to digest food, especially lean protein foods and complex, fibrous carbohydrates. A raised metabolism is like increasing the idle speed of your car, causing the vehicle to burn more fuel while not moving.
Eating 5-6 meals per day will regulate balanced blood sugar, leaving you with more energy on a consistent basis throughout your day. Balancing your blood sugar is the key to reducing hunger attacks that occur when your blood sugar is low and telling your brain it is empty and needs a fill up.
Another benefit of frequent meals is that nutrition absorption is increased. One of the biggest reasons for over eating at dinner is that the calories taken in with a normal breakfast and lunch have been used by around 3-4 pm, which is why many feel sleepy and tired at that time and have them reaching for a caffeine and sugar fix. If you were to take the same amount of calories that are keeping you at your present weight and consume them over 5-6 meals, using healthy food choices, you will start losing body fat weight.
The next step is to determine the amount of calories needed to maintain your present weight. Your individual maintenance level will be determined by calculating the total number of calories your body uses in a 24 hour period, including physical activities. The average maintenance level for women in the United States is 2000-2100 calories per day and the average for men is 2700-2900 per day. These are only averages; caloric expenditure can vary widely and is much higher for athletes or extremely active individuals. Calorie requirements may also vary among otherwise identical individuals due to differences in inherited metabolic rates.
2) Eating the wrong things
The quality and choices of the food that make up our diets is critical for successful, healthy weight loss and lifestyle. Educating yourself and establishing a healthy diet is your undeniable responsibility if you want to look and perform your best in life. You are going to need to make some changes but the good news is that there are incredibly delicious ways to do this. Be open to change and acknowledge the fact that poor food choices provide instant gratification but overall disappointment in yourself.
Proper planning makes it much easier to make the right choices. If you have your meals planned out you won’t just grab fast food. If you don’t have a cupboard full of cookies you won’t eat a box of them for a snack.
3) Not exercising enough / finding the time to exercise
Our bodies are designed for physical activity. We are built to move, and move we must if we desire reaching and sustaining peak health. One of the biggest reasons for finding excuses not to exercise is the perception that it must be of a level that is intense in nature. That is a myth propagated by the health club industry to get your money.
Some of the healthiest people I know choose 30 minutes per day of yoga and/or walking to maintain their fitness. Those who embrace daily physical activity have found a choice or combination of activities that appeal to their personal nature.
I prescribe yoga exercises and body weight calisthenics for the many of my clients because it gives them the biggest return in overall fitness, economizes time spent, and can be done in the privacy of their own home. The key is to be consistent, start out at a reasonable level and progress gradually. Every one has the time. It is just a matter of finding what works for you and making a commitment to using it.
4) Discipline
Creating the correct mindset and creating a support system will make discipline much easier to maintain. The first order of business is making a commitment and taking responsibility to get the help you need to help yourself.
First find your reasons for committing to a healthy lifestyle. I recommend finding both a short–term and a long-term reason to lose weight and live healthy. An example of a short term commitment for many would be fitting into a certain dress or dropping weight for a class reunion.
For long-term reason to keep the weight off and stay healthy many of use choose to be healthy so we can enjoy our children or our grandchildren. You may choose to keep the weight down because of a family history of diabetes or heart attacks. But most importantly your reasons need to be YOUR real reasons not your spouse’s or our reasons.
You have made that sincere commitment and found your reasons for losing weight and living healthy. You need to find a source of information to create a personalized plan that will work to achieve your goals. A source that will supply you with the resources to make any adjustments needed.
Lastly you need a network that provides the accountability of a mentor and support from like minded group members. This shall provide the solution for short and long term success.
Additional Considerations:
Plateaus
Plateaus are the scourge of quick fix, unhealthy diets. Diets that consist of unreasonably low caloric value, which most do, or are not compromised of whole foods are UNHEALTHY!
A science based approach to changing your eating habits, especially with daily physical activity, should not have any plateaus, but should allow for gradual increases in calories as the enhanced metabolism takes hold and the body adapts to exercise and allows for increased physical efforts.
Planning / Getting Started
1. Get back to nature. Fresh, wholesome, unprocessed ingredients need to be the staples of your diet. Fresh Fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes and lean protein choices are whole, natural foods and must be the foundation of your food staples.
2. Empty the pantry, refrigerator and freezer of all that is not on your list of healthy staples or fresh ingredients needed for the weekly menu. Simply eliminating these temptations will make eating healthier much easier.
3. Time manage the components of your system by scheduling the following in your weekly planner:
- Write your weekly menu, compile recipes and create a shopping list
- Go shopping as needed. This can be done as frequently as daily but must be done at least once a week to assure fresh ingredients.
- Meal and next day snack preparation.
- Set your meal and snack times.
I know these steps sounds like a tremendous amount of work but once put into place for 30 days you will have effectively changed your eating habits, and have started to enjoy the benefits of healthy weight loss and increased energy and vitality.
