Naturally thin people do not understand why overweight people struggle so much with weight management. After all, it seems pretty straightforward. If you eat too many calories your body will store what you do not use as fat. If you want to lose weight, just make sure that you are burning more calories than you eat. To stay at the same weight, eat and burn the same number of calories. If “how to lose weight fast” was that simple, nobody would be fat.
Obesity On The News
Look around. What do you notice? Yes, there are a lot of fat people walking around. In fact, one-third of adults in the United States are considered obese. That amounts to 72 million people. Kids are fatter today than they were 20 years ago. Children are contending with high cholesterol, type II diabetes and other diseases formerly limited mostly to adults. A full 16% of children are obese. Today’s kids are not expected to outlive their parents, something that has not happened in more than 100 years.
Smacking Ourselves Into Line
It is no secret that being overweight sets you up for a myriad of health problems. We know in our heads that it would be best if we achieved some fat loss. Still, many do not even try. Others try and regain the weight. Some people develop eating disorders and laxative addictions. Why does it not seem to matter that we can die at an earlier age? Part of the answer is that food is more than just something we eat to stay alive.
Giving Up, Getting Fatter
Maybe we should all just give up the struggle and get more and more unhealthy and obese. Ultimately, that does not seem like a very attractive option. Maybe we should go on a very low calorie diet and get rid of the weight once and for all. That is too drastic for most people to do for very long. Before you decide to give dieting one more try, look at your expectations of yourself. Chances are you are expecting yourself to achieve 100% compliance with your diet. Your success is doomed before you even begin. Nobody can be 100% compliant with anything 100% of the time for any extended length of time. Life gets in the way.
Re-Thinking The Issue
What would happen if we adjusted our expectations of ourselves before we even ate that last piece of chocolate cake before we start our diet? We know that berating ourselves does not work. Re-thinking the issue and looking at it from another point of view is what we need to do. Do you think that you could eat healthy meals 50% of all of your meals in a day or a week? Could you do it for 60%, 70% or 90% of all of your meals? At what point does the thought of not having unfettered access to your favorite foods start to cause anxiety in you? Start right at that point. If you start getting anxious at eating healthy 60% of meals, begin eating healthy for that percentage of meals. You make it okay to eat less healthy foods and so you do not feel deprived. Over a few weeks, work your way up the percentage ladder until you are eating 90% of your meals based on healthy foods and 10% whatever you want to eat.
Now do the same thing with exercise. Could you exercise for five minutes, 10 minutes, an entire half hour one or two days a week? Find what works for you without provoking a huge anxiety response and build from there until you are working out 30 minutes for at least five days per week.
Acknowledging The Fear Of Being Deprived
Has listening to that critical voice in your head helped you to understand how to lose weight fast? Probably not. It is time to take another track and acknowledge the fact that not having access to or eating our favorite foods to our heart’s content is frightening for many people. Food is a comfort and the thought of being deprived brings up a lot of anxiety. What if we respect that? Have a talk with yourself. Let that scared part of you know that you are not out to deprive yourself. You will have a chance to eat that beloved food, but not in excess. Make sure you tell yourself that you will take fat loss step by step so that this time you will have permanent success and be kind to yourself in the process.
– Ben Pate