It is not the weight that needs to change in reality it is your lifestyle. Anyone can lose weight, just stop eating for a while but the real challenge is keeping it off and not just for a little while but for the rest of your life. Most people who say that they want to change their life is really stating that they want to lose weight so that they can go back to what they were doing prior, which got them where they are today. “If I only lose ten, fifteen, twenty… one hundred pounds, my life will be better and I will change”, I hear so often. However that is the wrong attitude to have because you are approaching the problem the wrong way. Yes I agree that you need to lose the weight. But where I disagree is that once you lose the weight you would have gone thru a life altering experience.
I was talking to a bunch of people that other day and they were telling me how frustrated they were about trying to keep those unwanted pounds off. How do you keep those pounds off? Here were their answers:
1) Reduce your calorie intake
2) Stop eating between meals
3) Eat only three meals a day
4) Portion control
5) I don’t know (at least this person was honest)
I then asked them, assuming that they reach that magic number, what they would do to maintain that ideal number and they all looked at me like I had three eyes. They then asked me what my opinion was on the subject and my response was; plan an active goal and then go after it. Once you achieve that goal plan another active one and go after it and keep going until you cannot reach any more milestones then just maintain that level of activity.
Notice how I said nothing about food, eating or portion control? In the end, whereas that stuff in important to have under control, there are other pieces of the puzzle once understood, it will make your life much easier.
There are some basic understanding one needs to have before they can truly understand what I am saying so lets start with understanding what a calorie is. When I asked them that question they looked at each other as if someone had the answer or at least collectively they could figure it out and none of them could do it. I got answers such as:
1) Three thousand calories equal a pound of fat
2) Calories are evil
3) I know I eat too many calories
Of course at this point, after listening to them jabber on for some time, I finally chimed in and told them what a calorie was. A calorie is a measure of heat energy (it is a little more complicated than that but in a nut shell that is what is was for my example). Then I asked them another question, assume we gas our cars up with gasoline to go on a trip. At first we can put our hands on the engine and it is relatively cool. Burt after a while isn’t it impossible to put your hand on the engine because it is too hot? How did it get so hot? Was it the gas that caused it or was it something else? Well after talking about it for a while it was understood that it was not the gas but the friction from the engine that cause a lot of that heat. Now the gas is the fuel that the engine needs to work and the heat is what is formed so that the gas could be used in its proper state to make to car run. Isn’t that heat considered calories? Think about it. Yes it is.
Well with that said I then went on to discuss their first answers about how they were going to maintain or reduce their weight. You see it is not the food that is the problem but the lack of activity. Most of us just need to get a little more active and allow the body to work as it was designed to do.
Now is the calories in the food or in does our bodies generate them? Remember our example of the gasoline for the car. Well food does not have calories. Our bodies generate the calories to break down the food so that it can use it in its purest form. The more food you eat, the more the body has to work to break it down. Now let’s get back to our car example. Now let’s assume that on Monday we fill the car up because we are suppose to go on a long drive. However after filling the car up we only end up traveling 1 mile. Now we did not use a lot of gas so we still have a lot in the tank. But the next day you go back to the gas station and refill with the same amount as the previous day. Now what happens to that excess gas? Where does it go?
We do this to our bodies. We have become very sedentary in our lives but we eat like we are going on a long, very long hike. We eat like a champion and the next day after not doing a lot the day before we repeat the cycle. Now our bodies did not use the energy you gave it yesterday because of your inactivity so what it does is now take what you are eating and store it for a “rainy day”. You see what is happening here. It is not the food’s fault that you are getting heavier, but your inactivity so start getting more active.
Now with that said as I stated in the beginning it isn’t the weight that you need to change it is your lifestyle. Does it make sense now? If you just begin to get a little more active and plan goals, tangible goals, goals that once achieved you can better. It will make a big, no huge difference in the way you look at life and then weight won’t be the issue anymore.
It is not the weight that needs to be changed, but you lifestyle. Now go do it.
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