We live in an obesogenic environment. Blogger doesn't recognize that as a real word, but it basically means that conditions are ideal for those of us who wish to become obese. Calorie-dense food has never been cheaper nor more widely available, most modern tasks are designed to use as little physical energy as possible, and since being overweight would put you in the majority you would no longer be viewed as a social pariah!
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If you need advice on how to gain weight and become obese, I can tell you it has never been easier. However, some of you would like to know how to lose weight, and that's a bit trickier.
The physical activity side of the equation, believe it or not, is pretty easy to deal with. You can hire a particularly handsome personal trainer, and he'll explain, in a sultry but reassuring tone what exactly you should be doing and how to do it. But if you want to be successful in your pursuit of losing weight, nutrition is what will make or break you. And, unfortunately, it is much harder to deal with.
The problem will always come down to our finite source of willpower. Many of us just have too much on our plate to make good decisions about what's literally on our plate; most commercial diets require such a radical change in the way we eat that we just don't have enough willpower left over after dealing with work, family, and other life problems to follow them with any degree of success. And if you do manage to claw your way through a tough diet and lose a significant amount of weight, you're at a great risk of gaining it all back.
According to this study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the subsequent article by the New York Times, a significant reduction in calories that results in weight loss (a diet, in other words) can lead to a physiological and psychological response that promotes weight gain. In the study, the obese participants were fed a very low calorie diet that consisted of low-starch vegetables and a drink best described as "liquid sadness". After ten weeks, the participants lost an average of 30 pounds.
The (fairly predictable) bad news? After a year, almost all of the participants had gained some of the weight back, and reported feeling hungrier and more preoccupied with food than they were before the study.
At Skape Fitness, we're big advocates of a sensible approach to nutrition. Most people wanting to lose weight want to do it quickly, and while that's understandable, it's not exactly practical. Look at it this way: if you are 40 years old, and you want to get back down to the weight you were at 20, you've spent half of your life gaining this weight! You can't expect to lose it in six weeks without some serious consequences.
So what can you do to approach nutrition in a sustainable way that doesn't sap your entire supply of willpower?
Our answer: one step at a time.
Every month, make a small change to your diet. Just one. Something bigger than "pick the pepperonis off my pizza", but maybe smaller than "only eat organic kelp and distilled water." Focusing on one thing at a time is not only more manageable than a complete diet overhaul, but may help you identify the real problem foods that have been slowly moving in over your belt. Here are some suggestions:
-Start taking fish oil. I'm not even going to take the time to tout the benefits of fish oil. Take five seconds to Google it. It's cheap, it helps with heart health and brain function and weight loss, and come on all you have to do is remember to swallow two pills a day. Do it.
-No soda, diet or otherwise, for a month. Soda is the pinnacle of empty calories. Fitness people throw that phrase around a lot, but basically it means that pop will provide calories, but without any other nutrients and without making you ever feel full. Diet soda may -or, hopefully for my sake, may not- be harmful to your health, but I can tell you that I very rarely pair healthy food with my diet cola.
-No alcohol for a month. Booze is not only empty calories, but it is basically anti-muscle juice when consumed in large quantities. Give it up for a month to see if your lifts go up. Also, if after two days you start shaking, you'll know you have bigger problems to worry about.
-Eat at least 30 grams of fiber per day for a month. If you've never paid attention to fiber in the past.... well, never be more than twenty steps away from the john. I promise it's worth it, and any friends you lose in the process probably weren't all that great anyhow.
-No cold cereal for a month. This once is geared specifically towards me. I love me some Honey Nut Cheerios. Thing is, a human-sized bowl of any cold cereal is about three or four servings; that 120 calories written on the side of the box refers to an amount of cereal that I would consider to be no cereal left. It's also a poor macronutrient profile for either gaining muscle or losing weight, and it never tends to fill me up. If you have a similar weakness, consider giving it up for a while.
By implementing this strategy, you can start to zero in on what your biggest source of weight gain has been. If you look more defined after a month of abstaining only from alcohol, it might be worth avoiding. If soda has been your Achilles heel, you might find that out this month. The point is to make simple, targeted changes that you can implement without completely turning your daily routine on its head.
So there you go. Try focusing on just one thing every thirty days, and keep track of your progress. You might not see the 30 lb transformation you've always dreamed of just by switching to whole-wheat bread, but you might drop a pound or two and make progress toward a healthy lifestyle without devoting all of your extra energy towards it. I hate to say this, but there are more important things in life than being skinny.
Like lifting heavy things, for example.
