MANY people have the ambition to achieve what they aim for in their lives but sad to say, only very few succeed. This is especially true among those who at first are very eager with their fitness and weight loss program only to stop because they got bored. A common reason why this happens is that these people expect immediate success. This kind of thinking can actually work against them rather than for them in the long run.
Most people who are in a weight loss program experience rapid weight loss in the early days of a health plan. Depending on your age and other factors such as personal metabolism and total body mass index, you can lose as much as seven to 10 pounds in the first week. While doctors may be dismissive of such an initial spurt by calling it “water loss” it sure looks good on the scale and it may you false hopes that if seven pounds can be shed in first week, you can lose 28 pounds or more in a month. While that may in fact happen for some on a very strict and radical diet, there’s a greater likelihood that weight loss will come in waves. After a dramatic initial success, you may actually go a week or more following a very strict regimen and not lose any weight. Then the next week, you will suddenly drop four or five pounds. It is also possible for your weight to fluctuate as much as five pounds a day which can be attributed to water retention or other factors that your doctor can explain far better than I could. Frankly, weight loss can often be acquired rather quickly but health will take a while. Remember, your goal is not next month’s reunion, but added years and a better quality of life.
There’s a good chance that you have spent years developing an unhealthy body. The process of change can begin within minutes and hours from the time you decide. Some results can be seen within days or weeks. But don’t let anyone kid you into thinking you can give yourself 12 weeks to completely change all your habits then, at the end of this period, put your feet up, relax and consider your job complete.
Maybe some of you may be depressed or discouraged when I tell you that your goal is not merely the lose of a prescribed number of pounds but to regain your lost health. Don’t set a specific target for weight loss. While I realize this may seem totally contradictory to most weight loss approaches, I also know there are inherent dangers in targeting a certain amount of weight as if it is the secret to good health. There is no question that excess weight is unhealthy but it is not the only indicator of poor health. In fact, many health experts in the aging process note that it is better to be fat and fit than it is to be thin and terribly out of shape.
Fitness involves a great deal more than just what is revealed on the bathroom scales. There are some overweight people whom I know are much healthier than some of their thin friends. One of our goals in life is to stay fit and healthy. In order to do this we must also combine both exercise and food discipline so that we can achieve what we want for our body. Just as the alcoholic must give up alcohol and consider sobriety a lifetime decision, so the “foodaholic” must give up the habits of unhealthy eating and behavior and make it a lifetime effort. One major difference of course is that a person can live without alcohol and hopefully was not introduced to it as an infant. We started eating before we can remember and we cannot simply quit. We have to learn how to change our eating habits and develop new types of craving. The really good news is that just as our body learned how to crave junk food and developed an insatiable appetite for unhealthy things that same body can be retrained and in the process our health regained.
While you will certainly want to keep up with your weight changes, try to avoid the temptation of weighing yourself every singly day because if you go three or four days with very strict food consumption and exercise and then don’t experience a single ounce of weight loss and in fact gain a pound or two, you may be tempted to say: “This eating plan is not working and I might as well eat a half gallon of ice cream tonight.”
Our body is like a car. In addition to the speedometer, there are many different gauges on the dashboard of your car that you need to keep your eyes on to know what kind of shape your car is in. if you don’t look at the gas gauge, oil indicator, oil pressure and other important indicators, you might find yourself stranded on the side of the road. When it comes to your body, there are also several gauges you need to keep your eye on. I have already suggested that you go to your doctor to get a good medical check up and analysis so you will have a baseline with which to compare your progress. Blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol level and heart rate are all factors you need to focus on more than just weight. Even so over time you will very likely reverse dangerous trends if you truly follow a pattern of good behavior regarding what you eat and how you exercise. But it is best that you consider these observations and check them once a month rather than once a day.
We all know that it takes about nine months from conception until the birth of a baby. It takes months of careful attention to simply grow some vegetables in our backyard. So, don’t be fooled into thinking that a lifetime of unhealthy behavior will change into a lifestyle of healthy behavior in a few days, weeks, or even months. Take the pressure of yourself to achieve someone else’s image of you. Expect that over the next several months or even years, you will lose weight, you will look healthy, you will be able to shop in the regular section instead of the big and tall section. But gauge your success not so much by the numbers that will show up on your scale as by the sense of satisfaction and self-worth you attain from having change your habits and the direction of your health.