Thursday, November 30, 2006

Diets Fail Let s Get Back to The Basics

There are basically thousands of diets out on the market today. Most of them are promising quick weight loss. However it may be true that some diets work, most of them fail. What’s worse is the more diets we have, the heavier we get. To put it another way. There is more fat people today than there was yesterday. It’s getting worse. The one thing most of us haven’t gained is the knowledge it takes to lose it. What we have done is complain and blame other things for our own situation.

I’m sure your just like most people. I bet you think of your weight all the time. If you are thinking about your fat, then you may be more justified. There really isn’t a simple way to say it. We don’t want to concentrate so much in losing weight as much as we need to focus on losing “fat”.

It may be time to take apart each diet and see exactly what is wrong with them if this is the road we prefer. I have a better way though. Before you start looking at the problem with the diets, it may be time to you start looking at your environment and your habits.

If you are a baby boomer, chances are you grew up with only 3 channels on the television. I’m fairly sure that you were told to play outside. If not, you preferred it. Times have really changed. We now have over 100 channels to watch on television. We have computers with unlimited time. We also have some of the greatest video games around.

Lets look back again. We had movies to go to. We had video games to play in town. We also had computers back then. We also had to leave the house to see a good movie, or play a game on a video.

Lets take this one more step. When you were young, chances are you only got to go to the store on rare occasions. Personally, I had to walk for about a mile to get there. By the time I got back, I am sure, I burned the calories completely up from the candy I got. If you look now, you see quick food places popping up everywhere. It doesn’t take much to stop and get a fix.

What’s is worse, we are teaching our kids to do things indoors. We don’t spend our time with them. We’d rather have them watch television. Some of the problems today is fear of our children being stolen, raped, killed, or hurt in some way. I have to admit, my parents worried more about the strangers coming to town in my neighborhood.

We can fix this. The first step is to realize the problems I’ve just discussed. Once you are aware of it, we have to stop blaming these circumstances. Then we must change ourselves to deal with it. Our environment may get worse, but we don’t have to get any fatter.

The second step to any weight loss is to educate yourself. I mention fat several times instead of weight mainly because you really can be at your normal weight and still be fat. To take this one step further, we don’t want to lose muscle in our diets. It’s my opinion that this is actually what most people lose when they are on the Atkins diet.
There is a real good chance, you’ve already started your education. It may have started when you failed on several diets. I can personally testify, that I’ve tried so many diets and gave so much money, I should be a genius on diets.

What’s worse in this episode is the fact that a lot of fat people are depressed. They are also treated for depression. This treatment sometimes makes them gain weight faster. Well, it was hard enough just to maintain your weight, now you are fatter. Here is a quick tip. Did you know that some of these people that take omega 3 is losing weight?

The first thing I realized is the fact, that diets don’t work. Everything I’ve tried only made me hate diets more and more. I also felt like if something tasted good, it was purely unhealthy. I also found that the people telling me to take some pill and eat anything I want is nothing short of garbage.

Now, lets look back in history again. Naturally you didn’t play on the computer all day, so get up and go for a stress free walk. Also, you more than likely ate at the table 3 times a day. Mothers are in a hurry today and in our fast paced life, we feed our kids on the run. We need to slow down.

I’m sure more women work today than when I was a child. It presents a problem. Is it easier to stop off and get something for the kids from Mcdonalds? You bet it is. We can stop this too. Who ever gets home first can start dinner. It doesn’t have to focus on the woman. Fixing dinner can also take an effort. Make it a family effort. Have the kids set the table like we did.

Now, look at everything we discussed and start changing your life. You don’t want to deal with any more diets. Can we agree that diets don’t work. If so, then we need to change our way of living.

Now, here’s the hard part. You have to make a decision. You most likely found out that you are not going to lose weight with pills, patches, or liquid only. If you are as lazy as I am, you have to decide if you are happy with being fat, or if you are willing to do the responsible actions it takes. Basically it is easy if you were taught this as a child.

Eat three squares like you’ve heard before. Sit at the table and not in front of the television. Go to movies more often. Stay away from fast food places and plan your meals for the whole family. When you shop, be very aware of what you are buying. Last, keep educating yourself on nutrition. I’m sure you’ve heard that losing weight fast is a sure sign that you’ll more than likely gain it back. I’m not telling you anything you didn’t know. You are a smart person. You just have to decide what is more important.

If you are aware of counting calories, you should know that cutting back 7000 calories per week is by far enough to cut back on. A pound is equal to 3500 calories by what I’ve read. If you don’t lose enough weight to see it on a scale for a few days, don’t get discouraged. You have changed your life and eventually you will be where you want to be. Relax. Quit worrying about it. Just change your life. Good luck.