Weight Loss is Not a Sprint

Feb 12
09:39

2008

Terry Sandhu

Terry Sandhu

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Most people who try to lose weight break every rule in the book.This why so many people fail in their attempts.

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There is no product or miracle cure that can get around the fact that to lose weight in the long term,it is going to take you time to do it.Anyone can lose some weight for a few weeks.If you are happy with that,then fine.However if you want real lasting weight loss,then read on.

Most people want to lose weight as quickly as possible. However following this pattern almost always results in failure. Too many people seek the fastest solution to help them to lose weight,but fast solutions and weight loss do not go together. This is just wishful thinking,if you don't believe me ask people who are overweight how many times they have failed to lose weight. The truth is that quick weight loss is a gimmick. If this is not the case why are more and more people becoming overweight? People never learn and they will continue to jump from one quick fix to another,Weight Loss is Not a Sprint Articles leading to one failure after another, until they just give up.

Unfortunately we live in a 'I want it now' society. Patience is no longer considered a virtue. This is true in our working lives and in our own personal lives. When it comes to losing weight people are not interested in what they are going to look like 12 months down the road. They want to look good now; they don't want to waste time in reaching their goals. People are prepared to purchase anything as long as that product is appealing to them and doesn't seem to involve too much work.

Too many products offer a dream scanario where people can lose all the weight they want by very little effort,completely ignoring the science behind weight loss. People believe the hype and any logic just seems to evaporate. This happens because the products appeal to your emotional senses and when that happens, logic becomes irrelevant. Now on the face of it many of these claims will sound wonderful to you, but unfortunately your body will not share this joy. Any sudden and drastic changes to your lifestyle will lead your body to fight you every step of the way. This is why after a short initial period of weight loss, any results you may have been getting will slow down to a crawl or more than likely stop completely. This is such a common story amongst people who try to lose weight.

There are two things I want to mention. Fact number 1 is that 1 pound of weight roughly consists of 3500 calories. Fact number 2 is that if you wanted to lose 30 pounds of weight within a one month period, then you would have to find a way to remove and burn 26500 calories a week from your current diet. This comes down to a loss of 35000 calories a day. No mean feat when you think that the average intake of calories for a woman is between 1800-2400 calories a day. It would mean a massive reduction in the food that you are eating and taking part in long periods of intensive exercise. Most people haven't the slightest idea of what the results of such changes would do to their well being?

The human body is a hugely complex entity. Not many people know that their bodies are actually large defence mechanisms. Its main role is to protect you and to keep you alive any way that it can. If it feels you need to be protected it will pull out all the stops,completely ignoring what you might want. Although your body is more than capable of change if done right,it likes continuity. If your life has been filled with no exercise and bad food for a long time,then this is the way that your body has got used to living.

When suddenly out of the blue you cut back heavily on the food that your body is used to receiving and impose a rigorous exercise program on it what do you think will happen? Your body will percieve these new changes as a threat,and will take action to counter this threat. It will go into starvation mode and this will lead it to hang onto all the calories it can. Because it is getting a lot less calories than it normally gets,it feels threatened and goes into starvation mode. This means it will do everything it can to hang onto any calories, simply because it thinks you must be starving.

Apart from this,because you jump into a new lifestyle so quickly,your mind will fight you on this because it hasn't come to terms with what you are trying to do. It will do this by sending you constant messages telling you that it is too hard, you cannot do this, let us go back to the way it was, and so on. This is why at some point you will have to give up. How can you succeed when both your mind and your body are fighting against you?

You must understand that your body will accept change more easily if that change comes in small steps.Your mind and body will not accept change if it is done overnight. As time goes on add more activity, but do it steps. Using this method allows the changes because it is in your body's abilities to do so.

So Time is the golden rule for weight loss, and remember that you are where you are today because of the choices that you have made. If you really want to lose weight then you have to change the methods that you have tried in the past.