Hey Everyone,
I realize this is a somewhat controversial title and some people might not want to hear it.
But in terms of losing weight, pretty much everybody wants quick fixes or at least to have a finish line in sight. Ask a handful of people what their current goals are and you'll get: "I want to lose 10 lbs as fast as possible!" or "I want to look great in my swimsuit by beach season!" And losing 10 lbs or getting your body toned for the beach aren't unreasonable goals at all-many people just have unreasonable notions about how they can achieve them. Cause here's the deal: despite our nature of wanting results fast, ESPECIALLY if we're working our butts off for them, in the case of fat loss, slow and steady wins the race.
The reason for this is that fat CAN'T be dropped quickly. Your body's not stupid: it's not going to relinquish it's precious energy stores just because you want to look a certain way by a certain time. So if you starve it, put it on a fast or "cleanse", or even work it out intensely for 7 days in row and eat completely healthy, the MOST you will drop in a week's time will be 1-2 pounds of fat. Anything more than that will be temporary water weight, or worse, muscle mass.
It doesn't help that the advertising industry capitalizes on people's desires for quick fixes with the minimum amount of work by promising them results with "new, groundbreaking diet pills," fancy equipment that can tone specific areas like arms or abs or your butt (COMPLETELY false because you can't choose where to lose weight from-that all depends on your gender and your body's genetic makeup), or diets/cleanses that will make you "see results immediately" or guarantee "EXTREME tranformations." Well, doesn't it make sense that if something can get you results SOOO amazingly fast, that you can lose those results just as quickly and possibly end up worse off than you were before?
Here's the scientific, if somewhat boring explanation for why anything EXTREME or FAST is bogus. Fat is denser than muscle, so a pound of muscle consists of 600 calories, while a pound of fat is a hefty 3500 calories. This is why it's easier to lose muscle than fat, and also explains the people who end up "skinny fat." You know, the ones that have a low body weight and may look slim at first glance, but complain about not being toned and unable to shed "those last few pounds." This can result from a number of reasons:
•They don't have enough muscle to burn those extra calories (they either don't build enough muscle and/or don't eat enough protein to support it)
•They're strictly dieting with not enough/no exercise
•They only stick to one kind of exercise that the body has adapted to but still take in more/the same amount of calories as they burn, so there's no resulting weight loss
•They lose a little, get comfortable with that, eat more/exercise less, gain some, and get trapped in a yo-yo cycle of losing and gaining a few pounds (keep in mind too that 90% of dieters who don't exercise gain back whatever weight they initially lose, and in most cases, gain back even more)
Another reason that most extreme approaches don't work long-term for many people is the factor of deprivation (which is what many people perceive, consciously or subconsciously, diets to be). People don't like to be told or feel like they can't have things, especially if those forbidden things taste amazing and everybody else around them is having them. Will power only lasts for so long. So maybe the first few times you can resist, but after a few episodes of temptation when that will power is worn down...then binging or falling off the wagon comes into play.
The only realistic way healthy habits can be consistently followed is if you think they're fair to yourself, to your body, and can be carried out long-term. The way I've come to compare the fat loss journey is like slowly building up savings in an account. 7000 calories (2 pounds of fat) seems like a LOT to burn off the bat, but if you think about it in terms of a week, saving up "dollars" in little bits throughout the day, cutting a few extra calories here, adding some more intensity in your workout to burn some extra calories there, by the end of the week, 7000 calories is pretty doable. It's frustrating not being able to see the tangible evidence of your hard work on a day-to-day basis, but just remind yourself when you're putting in that work, those dollars, that it's going towards that long-term savings, and your weekly, then monthly, eventually yearly results will be the "interest" that you will continue to build.
Getting back to fast weight loss, spurts of inspiration to look hot and toned for a certain event or time of year isn't a bad thing at all. Sometimes we need a sense of urgency to kick our butts into gear and take our exercising a little more seriously, or eat a little more healthfully. But the bottom line is that the only way to be able to lose those 10 lbs or tone up is to have healthy guidelines for your lifestyle to begin with so when you have that deadline to get ready for, you don't have to go through the whole process from scratch of reprogramming yourself to buy healthy foods to bring home and cook for your meals, developing muscle to improve your metabolism, and throwing yourself back into an exercise routine to burn off fat. Just maintain and keep chipping in towards that savings account and you'll already be well on your way to that hot bod.
Next time, I'll be explaining why the scale can be very misleading for monitoring your fat loss progress.
I realize this is a somewhat controversial title and some people might not want to hear it.
But in terms of losing weight, pretty much everybody wants quick fixes or at least to have a finish line in sight. Ask a handful of people what their current goals are and you'll get: "I want to lose 10 lbs as fast as possible!" or "I want to look great in my swimsuit by beach season!" And losing 10 lbs or getting your body toned for the beach aren't unreasonable goals at all-many people just have unreasonable notions about how they can achieve them. Cause here's the deal: despite our nature of wanting results fast, ESPECIALLY if we're working our butts off for them, in the case of fat loss, slow and steady wins the race.
The reason for this is that fat CAN'T be dropped quickly. Your body's not stupid: it's not going to relinquish it's precious energy stores just because you want to look a certain way by a certain time. So if you starve it, put it on a fast or "cleanse", or even work it out intensely for 7 days in row and eat completely healthy, the MOST you will drop in a week's time will be 1-2 pounds of fat. Anything more than that will be temporary water weight, or worse, muscle mass.
It doesn't help that the advertising industry capitalizes on people's desires for quick fixes with the minimum amount of work by promising them results with "new, groundbreaking diet pills," fancy equipment that can tone specific areas like arms or abs or your butt (COMPLETELY false because you can't choose where to lose weight from-that all depends on your gender and your body's genetic makeup), or diets/cleanses that will make you "see results immediately" or guarantee "EXTREME tranformations." Well, doesn't it make sense that if something can get you results SOOO amazingly fast, that you can lose those results just as quickly and possibly end up worse off than you were before?
Here's the scientific, if somewhat boring explanation for why anything EXTREME or FAST is bogus. Fat is denser than muscle, so a pound of muscle consists of 600 calories, while a pound of fat is a hefty 3500 calories. This is why it's easier to lose muscle than fat, and also explains the people who end up "skinny fat." You know, the ones that have a low body weight and may look slim at first glance, but complain about not being toned and unable to shed "those last few pounds." This can result from a number of reasons:
•They don't have enough muscle to burn those extra calories (they either don't build enough muscle and/or don't eat enough protein to support it)
•They're strictly dieting with not enough/no exercise
•They only stick to one kind of exercise that the body has adapted to but still take in more/the same amount of calories as they burn, so there's no resulting weight loss
•They lose a little, get comfortable with that, eat more/exercise less, gain some, and get trapped in a yo-yo cycle of losing and gaining a few pounds (keep in mind too that 90% of dieters who don't exercise gain back whatever weight they initially lose, and in most cases, gain back even more)
Another reason that most extreme approaches don't work long-term for many people is the factor of deprivation (which is what many people perceive, consciously or subconsciously, diets to be). People don't like to be told or feel like they can't have things, especially if those forbidden things taste amazing and everybody else around them is having them. Will power only lasts for so long. So maybe the first few times you can resist, but after a few episodes of temptation when that will power is worn down...then binging or falling off the wagon comes into play.
The only realistic way healthy habits can be consistently followed is if you think they're fair to yourself, to your body, and can be carried out long-term. The way I've come to compare the fat loss journey is like slowly building up savings in an account. 7000 calories (2 pounds of fat) seems like a LOT to burn off the bat, but if you think about it in terms of a week, saving up "dollars" in little bits throughout the day, cutting a few extra calories here, adding some more intensity in your workout to burn some extra calories there, by the end of the week, 7000 calories is pretty doable. It's frustrating not being able to see the tangible evidence of your hard work on a day-to-day basis, but just remind yourself when you're putting in that work, those dollars, that it's going towards that long-term savings, and your weekly, then monthly, eventually yearly results will be the "interest" that you will continue to build.
Getting back to fast weight loss, spurts of inspiration to look hot and toned for a certain event or time of year isn't a bad thing at all. Sometimes we need a sense of urgency to kick our butts into gear and take our exercising a little more seriously, or eat a little more healthfully. But the bottom line is that the only way to be able to lose those 10 lbs or tone up is to have healthy guidelines for your lifestyle to begin with so when you have that deadline to get ready for, you don't have to go through the whole process from scratch of reprogramming yourself to buy healthy foods to bring home and cook for your meals, developing muscle to improve your metabolism, and throwing yourself back into an exercise routine to burn off fat. Just maintain and keep chipping in towards that savings account and you'll already be well on your way to that hot bod.
Next time, I'll be explaining why the scale can be very misleading for monitoring your fat loss progress.
Laurel Holloway is an active Muay Thai fighter as well as a NASM (National Academy of Sports Medicine) certified New York City Personal Trainer. She has been involved in and passionate about fitness for 7 years, including strength training, running, cycling, yoga and mixed martial arts. Her fitness philosophy is to find a form of exercise that you really enjoy and constantly challenges you so it doesn't feel like work and will keep you coming back for more. Fight training has been that inspiration for her and has made her even more passionate about pursuing good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle and helping and showing others how to do the same. She teaches a Central Park kickboxing boot camp called Fitness Fight Camp. Find out more about it at http://www.fitnessfightcamp.com
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