I receive several email messages every day
from people who have given up on weight loss.
They are at wits end and they don’t know
what to do. They’ve “tried it all” and they
believe it’s impossible for them to lose
weight.
Many of them have lost weight and gained it
all back, and more. Some of them have struggled
with losing weight all their lives and have
never been successful with it. One lady from
Alabama wrote to me last spring, “I have been
trying to lose about sixty pounds for over 23
years. I quit! I’m resolved to the fact that
I will be fat for the rest of my life”
How saddening that comment is. but I’m happy
to tell you this lady, with a little
guidance, is now 65 pounds lighter than she
was one year ago.. and she has some muscle
tone. Needless to say, she no longer believes
that she’ll be fat for the rest of her life.
I tell you this simply to illustrate the fact
that you don’t have to give up on weight loss.
YOU can lose weight, but you have to be
willing to do what it takes.. and here’s what
it takes!
If we look at people who have been successful
at weight loss *and* maintaining that loss,
a couple of things are very apparent. These two
factors are present in the lives of most of
them.
1. They do some form of aerobic exercise 5 to
7 days per week. These people aren’t
exercise wimps! They know how critically
important this is to their weight loss/
maintenance and they get out and do it!
They average 45 minutes per day with the
range being 30 to 90 minutes per day.
This not only burns lots of calories,
but, perhaps more importantly, it elevates
their basal metabolic rate.
2. They do some type of weight training 2 to
3 days per week. This has a tremendous
affect on basal metabolic rate and
muscle tone. Success at maintaining a
weight loss is much higher in people
who have weight trained while they were
losing weight versus those who haven’t.
Now, obviously, healthy eating habits are also
very important. However, most of these people
say that their exercise habits seem to dictate
their eating habits.. meaning that if they
can be consistent with exercise, their eating
habits seem to fall into place.
I’ve had many clients tell me that their daily
exercise puts them in a “healthy” frame of
mind and helps them to make better food choices.
Bottom line; when they are exercising
consistently, their eating habits are better.
I firmly believe that a major factor in most
peoples frustration with weight loss is that
they haven’t been told the truth about
exercise. You see, twenty minutes, three days
per week isn’t going to cut it for weight
loss. If you’re serious about weight loss,
then you have to get serious about exercise.
-It’s all about changing your basal metabolism
through exercise.
-It’s about looking at exercise as a part of your
daily routine, just like brushing your teeth.
-It’s about viewing exercise as something you’re
doing to get healthy and feel great!
“If you *vigorously* pursue fitness and health,
weight loss will happen”(tm)
copyright 2007 by Greg Landry, M.S.
Author and exercise physiologist, Greg Landry, offers free weight loss and fitness success stories and targeted, highly affective weight loss programs for women, men, type 2 diabetics, and people with slow metabolisms and hypothyroidism. Visit his site: [http://www.GregLandryFitness.com]
