It’s no secret that the rate of obesity in North America is continuing to rise and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It’s now been shown that in Canada, 1 in every 4 adults and 1 in every 9 children aged 6-17 are now obese. Even the obese are getting fatter, as more Canadians are becoming morbidly obese (BMI of 40+) every year. It’s estimated that about 3% of Canadians have fallen into this category of extreme obesity, an almost 3% increase in the last 30 years.

The question everyone wants to know is why? Why do so many people struggle with making healthy choices in their life? Why don’t alarm bells go off in a person’s mind when their weight gets out of control? And why don’t they do anything about it? These people just need to move more and eat less; pretty simple right? If you’ve ever struggled with your weight or have ever worked with weight loss clients, you know that the problem with obesity goes well beyond the old “calories in and calories out” philosophy. While it’s true that obese individuals are usually guilty of poor lifestyle choices, obesity is more complex than that.

I’m talking about all of the lifestyle factors that contribute to obesity. Excluding individuals with confirmed thyroid dysfunction, mental health issues or any other medical condition, the following factors are, in my opinion, by far the leading contributor the obesity epidemic.

Improper sleep patterns

Sleep deprivation can include both acute (infrequent) and chronic (frequent) states. Either way, you will experience daytime sluggishness, sleepiness and appetite irregularity. Many people who are routinely sleep deprived, complain of feeling hungry throughout the day, even when adequately fed. Sleep restriction may also interfere with the body’s ability to metabolize carbohydrates, leading to high blood glucose levels and ultimately more fat storage. Sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, are quite common in obese populations and are exacerbated by equally common reports of low back pain, which can make sleep difficult.

High levels of stress

Even with all our modern conveniences, we still can’t seem to find enough hours in the day to get our lives in balance, and the net result is stress. Is it really a case of too many things to do? Or is it just a lack of priorities? Whatever the reason, stress can contribute to weight gain in many ways. These include consistent bouts of emotional eating, resulting in binges on “comfort food” that are typically of the refined, processed and calorie dense variety. Increased fat storage in the abdominal area has also been linked to high stress and deposits  around the internal organs and pose the greatest health risk compared to other areas of the body. As with sleep deprivation, stress stimulates the release of the “fat storage” hormone cortisol making it more difficult to assimilate glucose and utilize body fat stores.

Lack of fitness

At any age or ability, everyone should have a basic level of physical fitness. Mobility, strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular fitness, and flexibility are all important measures when quantifying your true level of physical fitness. An individual reaches obese proportions, it’s more likely that hese physical attributes will be negatively impacted. Conversely, improve these attributes and the body fat will reduce.

But how do you know if you’re really fit or not? Most people greatly overestimate their physical abilities, especially men. Wouldn’t it be nice if your doctor did a fitness assessment as part of your “routine physical examination”? Dream on. They aren’t qualified to do so and that service will likely never be covered by medical insurance. Only a competent personal trainer or kinesiologist can assess your fitness correctly, and most will offer this as a complimentary service. Everyone should have this done at least once to understand how your fitness compares to the fitness industry standards.

Poor nutritional habits

People who become obese don’t get that way by eating live, fresh, organic whole foods. They get that way in part from eating dead, sterile, processed junk loaded with damaging fats and refined sugars. As a result, many are chronically dehydrated (from insufficient water intake) and deficient in the nutrients necessary to sustain a healthy body. Of course, calories play a large part, but I believe if people just focus on eating wholesome food, and eating only what they needed, many weight issues would disappear.

In an effort to lose weight, many obese people follow diets that are too restricted and aren’t sustainable, leading to even more fat gain and eventual metabolic shutdown. The starving and binging merry-go-round becomes a permanent pattern for the rest of their lives.

Lack of social support and guidance

I truly believe that you become who spend your time with. If your friends and family are overweight, it can give you a sense of comfort, to the point where you actually justify being obese. A common exuse might be “everyone in my family is fat so I guess there’s nothing I can do about it”. Your friends will have a great influence over what you do and eat. If they engage in similar negative  lifestyle patterns as you, you don’t stand a chance of changing, at least as long as they are your friends. Birds of a feather certainly do flock together.

Many times peers will actually try to sabotage others’ efforts to lose weight in order to satisfy their  jealousy and other selfish motives. These people are like cancer and need to be removed before any weight loss program can begin. An example would be “you don’t need to lose weight, you’re beautiful just the way you are” or “all you ever eat is salads and meat, you’re no fun anymore since you’ve been losing weight”.  This kind of peer reinforcement can be very damaging and encourage further weight gain.

Unhealthy mindset

For an obese person to adopt a healthy lifestyle, they must first admit that a change is needed. Many don’t believe they have a problem or that they are even obese. Excess bodyfat (beyond 20% for men and 25%for women) is the hallmark of obesity, therefore, we cannot equate obesity or excess body fat with optimum health, ideal performance or self-respect.  If we have a very high degree of respect for ourselves, we will take action to prevent disease and protect our health.

 

My goal here was not to oversimplify a very real and complex problem that affects millions of Canadians. I just wanted to remind people that by focusing on a few key lifestyle factors, they can significantly impact this deadly trend of increasing obesity. According to a recent report, obesity costs the Canadian economy between 4.6 – 7.8 billion dollars annually. So this problem affects us all. Obesity increases a person’s risk of developing Type ll diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, cancer and many other degenerative and crippling diseases.

Many times these scenarios can be prevented. The science of wellness and positive emotion will be our driving force. What man or woman truly in love with themselves would knowingly allow themselves to deteriorate without opposition, especially when that same person understands the consequences of their own actions on their body and health?

Please share your comments below!

 

 

This was your year to dramatically change the way you look and feel. You admitted to yourself that you needed to lose weight and get fit to improve your quality of life. You set reasonable goals and established a deadline - check. You then established a positive mindset for achieving those goals – check. Next, you’ve cleansed your mind of unnecessary weight loss drivel and only left room only for the basic fundamentals of a successful weight loss program – check. You established a caloric deficit and have performed a progressive exercise plan at least 3x/week that included both cardio and weights-check. You lost some weight, broke though several plateaus , and eventually reached your ultimate goal weight.

Congratulations, you are now one of select few who you have been successful on a weight loss program. You’ve covered all the bases and can now reap the benefits of having a lean, healthy and attractive body. Your journey is now over…. isn’t it?

Are you going to revert back to the bad habits that contributed to your bodyfat problem in the first place? Do you have a plan for the future? A plan to maintain your weight loss or maybe even a plan to take things to an even higher level? You see the only real way to gauge the success of a weight loss program is on how well you keep the weight off in the long term. We all know or have met someone who dramatically transformed their body, only to rebound back to where they started in less than a year. Why does this happen?

You must first understand that to be lean and healthy there is always a price to pay. If anyone tells you it’s fast and easy, look the other way. What most don’t realize, is there is also a price to pay to maintain it. So what’s the price? More dieting and exercise of course. Not what you wanted to hear right? I’m sorry but you’re going to have strategies in place to maintain your new weight, just as you did in the weight loss phase.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  How to Ensure Successful Weight Loss Maintenance

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Have a Plan For the Maintenance Phase

To stabilize your new weight, establish a gradual transition phase that slowly increases your caloric intake back to maintenance levels.  Remember that your energy balance has now changed from when you were overweight. You now require much less food energy to maintain your bodyweight. Therefore you must transition to your NEW maintenance level. I provided the formula for finding this number here. From this point you’ll eat pretty much the same as in the weight loss phase, only a little more, and to match your maintenance level.  

Plan for weekly  ”weigh-ins”, to ensure your weight is not creeping back up. After a few weeks of this, assuming you haven’t gained any weight, you will have found your true energy balance or caloric maintenance level.  

Maintain high levels of exercise

Abruptly ending your exercise program will significantly reduce the calories you can burn each day. If you simultaneously raise you food intake (as in key #1) the weight gain implications are obvious. It would be very difficult to maintain your weight without exercise. In fact it would require extreme strictness and adherence to your diet to do so. It would also remove many of the health benefits you acquired during the weight loss phase, including raising your elevated resting metabolic rate. This will result in you burning less calories each day.

The solution is to maintain your high level of activity, but you are no longer under presure to improve your performance, unless you want to. These “maintenance workouts” will function as a constant reminder to your body, to stay lean and fit to better cope with the constant demands placed on it. How much and how often, will depend on your results. Always measure and track your results!

Get serious about weight training.

No other means of getting fit (at any age) is as productive at developing a strong, mobile, functional and lean physique than weight training. In my opinion, it the most essential component of an effective weight loss program. Getting lean without weights ( even if your weight stays the same) will only give you that “skinny fat” look, as you slowly lose the muscle you built and replace it with a fresh fat supply. Not good. Successful maintainers love the feeling
they get from lifting weights and essentially it becomes a hobby for them. 

Decrease your sedentary activities

It’s not just important what you do, but what you don’t do. Replace as many sedentary activities with active alternatives. I believe the best option for most people is to find a sport that they enjoy and participate as often as you can. People who do this just tend to stay lean all year round. Walk, stoll, hike, play with your kids and always try to find an alternative to sitting around. Stretch or perform light exercise in front of the T.V. This can be incredible productive if you have certain weak/tight muscles that you never seem to have time to work on. A foam roll is another handy thing to have around the house when your in sedentary mode. Just stop what you are doing for a minute, grab the roller and give yourself a massage. Remember this – the more active you are outside of the gym, the less you’ll need to do in the gym which makes things much easier.

Maintain Your New Eating Habits

Just as you cannot abruptly stop exercising after your weight loss program, it is equally counterproductive to abandon your good nutritional habits. The one’s I’m referring to are the nutritional habits of any successful, long term weight loss strategy:

• Eat at least 5-6 fruits and/or vegetables per day per day
• Eat a high fiber diet
• Eat breakfast everyday
• Eat at fast food restaurants 2 or less times per week
• Eat less dietary fat
• Reduce or eliminate incidence of emotional eating patterns

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Self Monitor Your Progress

Tracking and measuring and measuring your results throughout your weight loss phase was critical to getting the most out of your program, and the maintenance phase is no exception. You need to employ weekly, if not daily measures for tracking your bodyweight, body fat,  meal plans and calories ( especially from fat). These are key habits to keeping the weight off for good and act as an “early warning” system for weight regain. You must develop a a low tolerance for  regain and use the results of your tracking systemsto determine the culprit for the weight gain and correct it. Simple right?

Keep in mind that your weight can fluctuate by 2-3 pounds throughout the day, which is perfectly normal. Any weight gain outside that window should sound off your alarm,  springing you into reflexive  corrective action to bring things back into balance.

Where’s the Support?

One thing for sure, if you’ve surrounded your self with negative people and influencers, it will always be a struggle to maintain your new weight. If your spouse or family member keeps junk food around the house, it’s only a matter of time before you eat it. If your friends idea of a good time is to get drunk and eat pizza on the weekends, you’ll soon follow suit. Your social network should help you cope with personal or emotional problems that could trigger a relapse. If not, you might want to raise the bar on who you let into your life and re-evaluate what’s really important to you. Professional coaching, personal trainers or training partners are great options to give you the necessary support you need, at least as you transition into the maintenance phase.

If you mange to become, or have become, a real long term ( kept it off for 5+ years) weight loss success story, congratulations to you! You have done what 99% of those who try, can’t, won’t or don’t. You are now a role model to everyone around you. Take your new knowledge and success and pay it forward to someone who needs your help. Become a coach, or maybe even a personal trainer, as I’ve done. Whatever you do, become a support unit for others. You’ll find that the rewards of helping others, is far greater than the weight loss success you achieved. Please share your weight loss stories and leave a comment below.

Last week I wrote a post on how to break out of a weight loss plateau . Check it out if you missed it. Plateaus aren’t the only sources of frustration for people trying to lose weight. What about the ones who lose weight, only to relapse back to where they started. The dreaded “diet relapse” has plagued many dieters and continues to do so. In fact it has been shown that as many as 70-90% of dieters will relapse and gain the weight back within the first 1-3 years of the initial weight loss. In some cases, they will even exceed their pre-diet weight.

So the challenge is to understand why people relapse and and then integrate an effective prevention strategy into your weight loss plan. 

6 Reasons People Relapse On a Weight Loss Program

 

1. Following a Diet that is Too Strict

Severe calorie restricted diets are doomed from the start. Crash dieting, fasting, cleanses or weight loss programs that rely mostly on pharmaceutical aids, appetite suppressants or supplements in place of whole foods are short term solutions at best. In fact, I believe that any diet that reduces your energy intake more than 300 calories/day below maintenance, will be problematic in both the short and long term. This will encourage binge eating along the way and rapid weight regain when the diet is over. This is often referred to as “weight cycling” and can have serious consequences to your health, including blood pressure and cholesterol irregularities, reduced metabolic efficiency, and possibly even shortening your lifespan. It will also make it harder for you to lose weight with every bout of weight regain you put your body through. Over time, your fat loss system begins to shut down, leaving you more vulnerable to weight gain in the future. You also need to understand the direct correlation between your speed of weight loss and the rate of relapse you will experience. A nutrition plan that you can actually stick with and that isn’t overly rigid is extremely important in preventing the early onset of relapse.

2. Setting unrealistic deadlines

While it’s important set the bar high for yourself, the deadlines you set must be based in reality. It is not realistic to lose 30 pounds in 30 days, or even 20 pounds for that matter. When you understand that optimal weight loss comes at rate of 2lbs/week you can set your deadlines accordingly. So 30 lbs in 4 months is a much better projection. Always set smart, attainable and realistic deadlines and think twice before engaging in any system that promises weight loss in less time.

3. Abruptly stopping the weight loss program.

The word relapse is defined as  a resumption of old behaviors. Most people reach their goal weight and immediately abandon all the healthy habits they developed to lose that weight. In addition, they go back to negative beliefs and behaviors that created the weight problem in the first place. If you think the great results you got are permanent, think again. Putting on the brakes too abruptly will result in sudden relapse and the weight regain avalanche begins. Like anything in life, you need to ease in and out of the program. Giving your body a sudden influx of calories in combination with a dramatic reduction in activity level will send the message to your body to start storing fat all over again. You are going to have to maintain most of the habits that made your weight loss successful.

4. Not Adapting To Changing Maintenance Levels

At some point you established an initial maintenance calorie intake. This number reflects the number of calories needed to maintain your current weight at that time. Here’s the problem- when you were heavier, it may have taken 2200 calories/day to maintain your body weight. Now that you are a little leaner, you may only need 1900 calories/day to maintain. Most people don’t recognize this change and end up eating far more than they need. This problem is compounded if you don’t increase your activity levels to compensate, as most don’t. Always remember, the leaner you are, the less energy you need to function. You should be decreasing your calories slowly over time in conjunction with your current weight and energy needs, which is dynamic and always changing.

5. Poor Coping Skills

We all have stress in our lives. We are all burdened by the same pressures, expectations, unexpected life events and obligations. One of the reasons that lean people stay lean is the way they cope with these problems. Typically, overweight people use food and sedentary behavior (i.e. watching T.V., sleeping) to distract themselves or escape from life’s stresses. Doing so has obvious implications for losing weight. If you don’t find some productive stress coping strategies, you’ll likely struggle to lose weight and end up just another weight cycler. Always remember that food is for fuel and nourishment, not for coping with stress.

6. Rigid ideas of success

My clients typically lose 2lbs of fat/week and are quite happy about that, but occasionally some are not. Why? Even though the research shows that this is optimal progress, some people want it to happen so fast that they become disappointed. That disappointment, over time, becomes depression which triggers binge eating and other bad habits. This could be avoided if they weren’t so rigid in what they felt they should get out of the program. These people are “all or none” thinkers, or perfectionists. They are either on the program %100 or off the program. If they miss a meal, have a bad workout, miss a deadline or are non-compliant to the program in any way, they get frustrated and abruptly terminate the program. The 80/20 rule works well here. That is, if you’re compliant to the program 80% of the time, the other %20 won’t significantly impact your results. Ease up on yourself, it’s only human to indulge and make mistakes once in a while. Remember, fitness is a journey of self improvement. Give yourself credit for your achievements,  learn from your experiences and avoid the all or none way of thinking.

As I’ve shown you, there are many ways to go off the rails on a weight loss program. Not only is losing weight hard work, but you’re always worrying about plateaus and relapsing back to your old self. Anything worth having is worth working hard for, but as you now know, working hard is not enough. You have to work smart, set goals and plan ahead to avoid falling into another weight loss relapse.

Please leave a comment and share your weight loss experiences with me. If you’ve been frustrated by weight regain. I love to help you out.

It doesn’t matter how perfect you think your weight loss program is. It doesn’t matter how many people have had success using it. It doesn’t even matter if it’s been time tested and grounded in sound nutritional science.  At least not for long. You see, as long as you’ve correctly established a caloric deficit in your diet, you will lose weight. The method or dieting strategy you use is of less importance to this fundamental fact. The problem is that after  you’ve lost some weight, your progress will eventually slow down or come to a screeching halt altogether.

There are many reasons why people plateau like this. It certainly isn’t just a problem for weight loss but also for just about anything you want to accomplish in life. We’re going to focus here on why weight loss plateaus happen and what you can do to get your progress back on track.

“I had a client come to me once with a goal to lose 90 lbs. I was surprised when she told me that she had lost 90 lbs last year. She then admitted to me that  it was actually the same 10 lbs lost 9 times”.

This is a common example of the typical person going about weight loss all wrong. I don’t believe that this is an example of  someone who had hit a plateau after losing 10 lbs, but rather, of someone losing it too fast or who have succumbed to the social and emotional pressures that got them off track. Maybe they feel they don’t deserve success, maybe they haven’t attained the right mindset or maybe they lack the right support to get them past the first few weeks of a diet. While there are many factors that bring about plateaus I want to zero in on the diet itself.

For any diet to work you must understand energy balance. If your diet has stopped working,  you are no longer in a negative energy balance or calorie deficit. This is pretty obvious, but do you know how to determine what a calorie deficit for you is? Some people use trial and error and it works for them, but I prefer a more scientific approach. First you need to establish the number of calories necessary to maintain your current weight before you start lowering your energy balance. Here’s the most accurate formula available for determining thismaintenance energy balance  (if you don’t know your bodyfat%) :

Harris-Benedict formula

First we need to find your basal metabolic rate (BMR) which is the amount of energy you require for normal body functions at rest (does not include activity).

BMR Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X ht in cm) – (6.8 X age in years)
Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 X wt in kg) + (1.8 X ht in cm) – (4.7 X age in years)
Note: 1 inch = 2.54 cm.
1 kilogram = 2.2 lbs.

Example:
You are female
You are 50 yrs old
You are 5′ 4 ” tall (162.5 cm)
You weigh 140 lbs. (63.6kilos)
Your BMR = 655 + 611 + 292.5 - 235 = 1324 calories/day

Now that you know your BMR, you can calculate your maintenance level, (also known as total daily energy expenditure or TDEE), by multiplying your BMR by your activity multiplier from the chart below:

Activity Multiplier:
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job
Or 2X day training, i.e marathon, competition etc.)

Example:
Your BMR is 1324 calories per day
Your activity level is moderately active (I assume your already hitting the gym to work out 3-4 times per week)
Your activity factor is 1.55
Your TDEE = 1.55 X 1324 = 2051 calories/day

To lose bodyfat you’ll need to create a 20-30% caloric deficit to your TDEE which in this case is 1436 calories at the most extreme. If you do happen to know your bodyfat% then you should use the  Katch-McArdle method  for even better results. Here’s the formula:

To calculate your BMR (men and women) = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg). You’ll also need a deficiet of 20-30% from this number as well. Whatever method you choose, you really need to understand what this number means and how  to apply it to a long term weight loss plan.

Now that the boring math is done, we can answer the big question. “Why have you stopped losing weight”? The quick answer is because you are no longer in a calorie deficit. How can that be? You’ve calculated your maintenance energy expenditure and reduced it by 20-30% so you should be good to go right? Not exactly. Let me explain.

Just like any bodily process, energy balance is dynamic. This means that it is constantly changing based on the parameters you set for it. As your body changes, so does your BMR. You will actually require less energy to maintain your bodyweight as you get leaner. Failure to adjust to these new parameters is hands down the #1 reason for plateauing on the diet. It’s natural to want to keep using the methods that got you the great results initially, but you need to develop results-based-thinking to keep things going long term. This is done when you constantly measure and track your progress, this way you can see a plateau coming before it even happens. The best defense against weight loss plateaus are avoiding them in the first place, but what if you’ve already hit one and you can’t seem to break out of it?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   How to Break Out of  a Weight Loss Plateau

1. Confirm Your Compliance.

You should be using as many tracking and accountability tools that you can to boost your accountability to the program.  Keeping detailed journals that record your food intake, bodyweight/bodyfat trends, and exercise program results, will let you know if you’ve actually been following the program correctly or not. It’s pointless to get frustrated that you’re not losing weight if you see that your compliance has been less than optimal. Bottom line:  Record everything and if the answer isn’t there move on to strategy #2.

2. Re-calculate Caloric Deficit

As I mentioned before, your energy needs are dynamic. If you used to weigh 150 lbs and now you weigh 130lbs, you BMR is now lower to the tune of around 250 calories less/day, essentially taking you back to maintenance energy balance. This means you’ll need to burn an extra 250 calories to re-create the deficit that had you losing fat before the plateau. I recommend to start increasing your activity level. Add an extra workout day or an extra 15 minutes to your current workout days, if it’s viable for you.

If these options don’t appeal to you or you’re already working out 5-6x/week, you’ll need to reduce the calories from your diet. Start with food that offers little in the way of nutrition or benefit to your health. Reduce or eliminate starches and excess sugar first. Then get rid of any excess fat sources. You won’t have to restrict too much, especially if you stick to a diet that’s lean, green and marine.

3. Take a Break

Once you’ve exhausted the previous strategies and hit another plateau where you simply cannot exercise or restrict your calories any further without compromising your health; it’s probably time for a break. Most people hate to do this, fearing that they will lose momentum and gain all the weight back. This couldn’t be further from reality, unless you start mindlessly binging on calorie dense food. You shouldn’t even hit this point until after you’ve been losing weight for about 3-4 months and employing strategies 1 and 2 for as long as you can. When you do, and you will, plan for it. Take a vacation or just enjoy a week or rest, you’ve earned it. The psychological benefits alone are worth it. You may gain a little water weight back as your body recovers from you rigors of exercise but this is a good thing. After your break you should begin to enjoy the kind of the results you got when you first started the program. It’s like a program reboot!

Just remember that as you get leaner and closer to your goal weight, fat loss slows and this is perfectly natural. Plateaus are part of any weight loss program and now you know why they happen and how to overcome them. Keep your expectations reasonable, set your goals high and use a little critical thinking and no weight loss goal is impossible. Go here for more information on my Vancouver weight loss system.

At some point in your life, you’ve been on one.  I’ve been on one. In fact, most of us have, or will eventually, be on one.

Of course I’m talking about being on a stringent, sacrifice everything in your life weight loss program.  You’ve struggled to find the perfect routine, lost some weight, put back on some weight and, in the end, ended up back where you started.  Sound familiar?

The likely culprit for your lack of long term success could be attributed to your personal belief systems.  What you believe directly impacts your behaviour, and weight loss is no exception.  Today, weight loss myths are as rampant as ever.  Some are old, some new and many more are surely on the way.  It’s not enough just to know that these myths exist, but it’s far more important to understand why you keep believing them. Only then can you change your perception, get back on track to losing weight in the real world and keep it off! Lets start by looking at some of the top weight loss myths that many of us get sucked to believing.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             “The Great 8″ - Modern Weight Loss Folklore 

 

1. “Overweight people have a slower metabolism than thin people”

Many people believe this statement to be true.  But, not only is it false, the opposite is actually true. A person’s metabolism or resting metabolic rate (RMR) is linked to their total body mass (TBM) and their lean body mass (LBM).  Large individuals have far more TBM and LBM.  A tremendous amount of energy is required to move their large frames around.  Don’t think so?  Try hiking or climbing stairs with a weight vest or backpack on.  Do you think you’d burn more calories?  Of course.  Large people burn far more energy while performing the same tasks as a thin person.

2. “Eat as much as you want and still lose weight”

Keep dreaming.  Unfortunately, this is still a popular headline for unscrupulous marketers of various “miracle” weight loss products.  They are outright lying to you.  Many people are still duped by this myth because they don’t understand the energy balance equation on an intellectual level.  It is the most basic fundamental of losing weight -  calories consumed must be less than calories burned.  If a weight loss product makes these kinds of claims, forget about it, it’s a scam.

3. “Some people are just “diet resistant”

It’s true that certain thyroid disorders can make weight loss very difficult for a few.  However, these are rare genetic anomalies and chances are that you’ve never even met someone who actually has one.  For those who believe that they have such a condition, they need to be diagnosed and treated by a medical professional.  Once this is ruled out, it’s mostly a level playing field. You may have been convinced everything is against you:

• menopause
• slow metabolism
• age
• medical problems
• bad genes

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 This simply isn’t so. I’ve worked with countless clients over the years who lost weight (to the tune of 2lbs/week) despite having many of these so-called limitations.  If you’re not losing weight, the problem likely stems from believing many of the myths on this list or your mindset needs to change.  It’s also possible that you are simply underestimating how much food you are actually eating.  In fact, most of us are pretty bad at estimating our own caloric intake - especially women for some reason.

4. “Eating healthy will make you lose weight”

To illustrate this point I’ll rewind to 3 years ago. I ballooned to 230 lbs. Sure I was strong and muscular but I had more than my share of body fat too. What went wrong? I ate all the right foods at the right times and spent top dollar on nutritional supplements. So why did I become fat? Iate too much, that’s why.

This is the health/body fat paradox at work here. You can eat healthy and still gain weight like I did. You can also lose weight if you don’t eat healthy, although this approach will compromise your wellness. You need to strike a balance. Eat for your health but keep the portions low enough to actually lose the weight.

5. “You just have bad genetics”

Maybe. But that’s not why your struggling to lose weight. Being predisposed to weight gain from a genetic perspective is extremely rare. If you consider that the obesity epidemic in our country only began about 50 years ago, genetics can hardly be blamed for that. Your social and physical environment, behavior and biology play a much larger role.

Even if your genes are less than ideal in the body fat department, you still have plenty of influence over how your genes express themselves. Surround yourself with supportive friends and family, exercise, keep stresses low, practice positive behaviors and even those with the worst genes can be successful on a weight loss program.

6. “Eating fat makes you fat”

Even in today’s carb- fearing society, dietary fat still makes most people cringe. If I eat fat, surely I’ll get fat right? This is absolutely false. What makes fat an issue when dieting is the caloric density. At 9 calories/gram, a little too much fat can wreck a diet in a hurry. Of course moderation and proper selection is the key.  Also note that just because something is low in fat doesn’t make it healthy or even lower in calories. Extra sugar is usually added as flavor compensation to the product which in turn increases the total calories.

7. “Carbs make you fat”

In the past we tried to restrict fat from our diets (because conventional medical wisdom told us so; and still does to some degree today) and guess what happened? We got fatter and sicker. In recent years the pendulum has swung the other way and carbs were restricted from our diets. You guessed it, we are now the fattest we’ve ever been as a culture.

Preoccupation with singling out one nutrient as the sole reason you’re overweight is lunacy. It’s not the carbs, the fat or the protein or any ratio thereof that is thereason why the weight just won’t come off. Read myth # 4 again for the real reason. Any proposed diet solution that tries to manipulate your carbohydrate intake is missing the point and can only promise short term results at best.

8. “Insulin resistance causes obesity”

Insulin is in part, a fat regulating hormone and being resistant to insulin can cause all sorts of metabolic problems. This does not equate to obesity though. That is, unless you construct a lifestyle that exacerbates that weakness. Like every other function in your body, insulin production needs to be regulated. Having chronic high levels in your blood can result in:

• high blood pressure
• high trigricerides
• low HDL (good cholesterol)
• high fasting blood sugar
• excess abdominal body fat

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   These are usually characteristics of an obese person but by eating for your body type and exercising you can help keep this hormone in check and enjoy weight loss success just like anyone else.

Let’s now examine the typical behaviors that influence our belief systems and ultimately make us susceptible to this weight loss folklore.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       8 Reasons Why We Believe These Myths

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 “Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs arrived at for non-smart reasons.”

 

1.  Social proof

People just like to do what everyone else is doing. We want to be part of the group. There is very little consideration if everyone else is right or wrong. This behavior breeds ignorance and the end result is a bunch of followers following other followers. If everyone else is doing it it must work. It is this need to conform that many people will fail at losing weight. Always looking for a solution without understanding the fundamentals. The solution? Do the opposite. If 97% of people are doing it and obesity is still on the rise, then clearly the solution exists elsewhere. Learn to think for yourself.

“Does history record any case in which the majority was right?” —Robert Heinlein

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           2. Loyalty to the gurus

Everyone loves a leader. A weight loss messiah, sent from above to deliver us from our bulging waistlines. Blind faith in any one system will be one dimensional at best. Even if it’s good information, your probably missing the bigger picture. Most gurus have a firm grasp on the basics but usually only give you the hundred mile view of  the truth. You’re left putting fragmented information (articles,blogs,reports etc.) together in hopes of it all making sense. This is far from ideal learning.

Not all fitness gurus are correct in thier approach. Some may have expetise in one specific area of fitness and very little in others. And what biases does the guru have. We’ve all got them. You need to consider what thier motivtions are. What is thier professional ambition? Are they affiliated with a nutritional supplement company or engage in other related product endorsements? Do they have political agendas? Even notable scientists are not immune to lying for money. Do their views swing too far in one direction and conform to thier own personal ideology? The bottom line here is that authority doesn’t matter but facts do!  Always verify information coming from even the most trusted authorities.

3. Wishful thinking

Living in a fantasy will lead you down a path of inactivity. Dreaming of miracles or instant results will make you a huge target for weight loss marketers. While your waiting for your miraculous transformation to happen, precious time is wasted where you could actually be doing something really productive to lose the weight.

4. Habitual thinking/appeal to routine.

When we experience success with a given protocol, it is human nature to want to repeat it. The problem is when the law of diminishing returns arises. You can’t keep doing the same program and expect different results. Change and challenge are the keys to continual progression or your weight loss will stagnate. Increase your exercise demands even a little and you’ll see the scale finally budging once again.

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 5. Confirmation bias.

These people only seek information and weight loss solutions that confirm their own beliefs. They will reject anything that contradicts their current belief systems. Why would anyone be so narrow minded? Is it just narcissism? We all feel good when we are right and generally don’t like to be wrong but at some point we need to exercise little humility if we hope to become enlightened to the truth.

6. The media says so

The media, in all it’s forms don’t always convey facts accurately. I’m sure most journalists try to deliver news accuratley and objectively. Quite often they are under big pressure to serve up the next “big scoop” and don’t always have time to research (or know how to) and weigh the facts on an issue. They often present second hand information without checked out primary sources.

Sensational headlines that invoke fear in our minds is big business in the media. This captures our attention and makes the information more memorable, right or wrong. So this might not be the best way to get your weight loss information but if you’re looking for information on current events then your local news station has you covered. The bottom line here is take the weight loss and health information you get from media sources with a grain of salt and be prepared to corroborate claims with your own intensive research.

7. Testimonials.

Many people are seek out product reviews before they commit to a particular product or services, and that is a good thing. The problem is that there are advertisers out there who use false testimony to persuade people to buy. With photo enhancing tools like photoshop, it’s easy for anyone to make detailed alterations to before and after pictures. In fact many of these are setups and outright fakes. Then there are paid celebrity endorsements and affiliate review sites that perpetuate the advertising falsehoods.

Unfortunately the few that are guilty of this charge ruin it for everyone else and it has become challenging to see the truth through the smoke and mirrors. Testimonials should be viewed as little more than hearsay and never accept them at face value. They can add support to the facts but by themselves are worthless.

8. Confusing correlation with causation

Correlation does not equal causation. People who do not make this distinction will often believe that something related to their weight loss problem must in fact be the source of problem. Here are some examples.

• T.V. causes obesity

While it’s true the ecessive hours spent watching television is correlated with weight gain, is it really the cause? Does the T.V. emit rays of energy that convert your body into a vessel of fat storage? Of course not. People who watch a lot of T.V  are more likely to engage in other unhealthy activities that bring about weight gain.

•  Restaurants make you gain weight

Many healthy and lean people eat at restaurants all the time. Overweight people tend to consume more calorie dense foods and oversized portions compared to lean people. So the restaurant is not the cause, rather it’s the individual’s choices that are made once inside, that impact body fat.

•  Night-time feeding makes you fat

People who eat at night tend to eat mindlessly and opt for calorie dense comformt foods. But eating at night itself, does not cause you to become fat.

•  Diet sodas make you fat

Certain studies have shown that overweight people tend to drink a lot of diet soda, but did it cause the weight gain? Of course not. In all of these examples, shifting the blame to only the related variables only serves to distract them from understanding the true reason they’re overweight.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I’m sure that you are an intelligent, logical thinker who’s out there looking for real world solutions to your weight loss goals. This however, doesn’t except you from falling victim to any of the 8 weight loss myths I’ve presented here today. Learn the funementals of healthy, long term weight loss and apply it. Forget about what everyone else is doing and do it right. Please take a moment in the comments to share which of these points resonated with you the most, and how you would overcome them to make your weight loss program more effective than ever.

Some people who read my blog and see “Physique Transformation Strategies” might think I’m going to offer cool new fat loss or muscle building programs using the latest training techniques. While I do offer insight to such things, the point of my blog has always been to offer real information that you can apply to your health and wellness campaign. It’s about empowerment and enlightenment to the truth of what it really takes to transform your health and life.

Today I want to write about that little thing in your head called fear and show you how it  inhibits many of us from making positive changes in our health and fitness and offer some suggestions on how to overcome it. Fear is our basic alarm response to something we believe is threatening to ourselves or others. Although fear does in fact protect us from real danger, it is the same mechanism that causes us to resist change or advancement in our lives. Some people embrace it and are rewarded with a life rich in exploration, adventure and success. Where others prefer to dwell in the comfort of safety, and where risks are low, things will stay at the status quo. The real problem with the second group is that I don’t believe anything in this world stays the same. If it’s organic, it’s either growing or eroding. This applies to people as well. You can either get better (or at least slow the aging process) or you just sit back and get worse.

So why do so many people give in to the latter and accept living their lives as a shell of who they really could be?  The answer might be in how we confront fear. Fear manifests itself in many forms but is quite recognizible in people who are negative thinkers and talkers. These people only commit to their narrow vision of reality and often blame others for why things aren’t getting done. Instead of confronting their fears, the finger starts pointing and the excuses start flying. In the context of health and wellness, they say  “there’s no time”, “I’m too busy at work”, “my kids drain my energy”, “I don’t have a workout partner to rely on”, “everyone in my family is fat so I guess I should be too”, ”‘I’d exercise if someone would only show me how”, ” I’ve tried every diet on the market and nothing works so whats the point?” and the list goes on and on. The point is that fear of facing new challenges make some people view external forces as an obstacle for doing what you want to do.

The benefit (or detriment, depending upon your view point) of living in a  ”moan and groan society” is that we don’t have to create our own happiness when it’s easier to blame others for not giving it to us. But until you understand that you, and only, you create what goes on in your head you will never be in control of your life. When you allow outside forces to influence who you are, you give up power and create an environment of pain, paralysis and depression. Anything that takes away your power makes you a victim. Do you play the role of victim in your life? Don’t become a victim of yourself, take responsibility and move from a position of pain to power. Once you do this you’ll soon realize that the only one that can help you get healthier is you.

Learn to recognize the following symptoms of not taking responsibility in your life:

• anger
• pain
• vengeance
• self pity
• envy
• helplessness
• impatience
• joylessness
• fatigue
• addictions
• disappointment
• jealousy
   

and so on……

Have you ever felt any of these emotions? These are all negative emotions and can only bring you pain and paralysis. If so, ask yourself what you are not doing in your life that is causing you to feel this way. This can help identify where you are losing your power and understand why you’ve felt so powerless and fearful in facing the reality that you need to get healthier.

When we are afraid not only do we feel powerless but we give into that little voice in our head that only seems to point out the negative. There is a basic assumption in our society that negative views are realistic and positive ones are unrealistic. This is flawed logic. It is reported that 90% of the things we worry about never actually happen. One should then reason that being positive is much more realistic than being negative. It takes a lot of practice and time to become a positive thinker but once you “out-talk your negativity”  you’ll be amazed at the power you obtain.

“Ships in harbour are safe, but that is not where ships are supposed to be”

 

If the path you are currently on isn’t providing you joy, satisfaction, personal fulfillment, health and a positive way of life, get off that path because it isn’t working. Don’t think that simply changing external influences will correct your problems internally. It works the other way around. Change your mindset and all that is right will follow. 

I believe fear is the main obstacle that most people face in the pursuit of  becoming an athlete in the sport of life. Become your higher self. Say yes to things you are afraid of, take responsibility for your choices and exude positive energy inside and out. When you find your higher self you will truly find it easy to accomplish your fitness goals and anything else you aspire to as well.