Losing weight is easy. Give up eating for a few days and watch the scale drop. The most difficult part of losing weight is keeping it off. There is a reason that there is a new fad diet every week. My standard answer for all questions regarding fad diets and new exercise equipment is “Yes, it does work. Everything works if you actually do it.” What is the best piece of home exercise equipment to buy? “The one you will use.” What is the best diet for weight loss? “The one that you will actually follow is the best one.” Unfortunately friends, there are no shortcuts to long term weight loss success! NONE. I will never forget going to a lecture when I was studying nutrition and hearing the doctor say “ I just want a t-shirt that says ‘It’s the calories dammit!’” I love it! A combination of a balanced diet and consistent cardiovascular and resistance exercise is the best way to lose weight. I know, boring.
Stacy is recording her food intake on myfooddiary.com, she is lifting weights with me 3 days a week for an hour each time and she is running/walking 2 times a day for 6 days each week. What is the number one question she is asking this week? “What else can I do to speed up this process when I am on my own?” AAHHHH! What else? This is a classic move for a yo-yo dieter. Her incoming commitment level is high and she wants more results NOW. Unfortunately, long term success does not work in short term rapid gains. Stacy keeps commenting on how weird it feels to try on clothes in her size now when she actually feels like she is 4 sizes smaller. There is some good news. The exercise and the eating well is actually making her feel better. The difficult part of this process is staying committed when there are no visible results. The feel good wears off when the look good doesn’t fall closely behind. Maintaining one’s weight doesn’t feel nearly as rewarding as losing 20 pounds. And exercise doesn’t sound like fun if the scale doesn’t reward you. For now, I am just telling her no when she asks “can I do these at home?” or “are you sure I shouldn’t eat less?” Next week we will talk more candidly about why all those things are bad ideas at this point.
Workouts are still descending in repetition and ascending in weights. Stacy is starting to develop noticeable muscle tone in her arms and calves! She is starting to appear to stand taller and she is beginning to look different. She sees a lack of progress; I see something exciting starting to happen!
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