I’ve been on a diet for two weeks and all I’ve lost is fourteen days. ~Totie Fields
I’ve always been health and fitness conscious. Growing up, my mom liked to run 3 miles per day and my dad was a second-degree black belt, so yeah, fitness was just something we did. We didn’t even think about it.
But fast forward to this past year. I was blessed to meet a really wonderful guy, but I also have allowed myself to become a bit too comfortable. It started out innocent enough – a few of our favorite chips here, a cup of ice cream there. Pretty soon I even found myself lounging in sweats (and considering I live in heels outside the house, that’s saying something). And now I’m tipping the scales at the high end of my “happy” range, and quite frankly, I’m unhappy about it.
In my usual style, I’ve been researching various methods to get back down, and I thought that perhaps my readers would enjoy what I’ve found as well. With that said, always check with your physician before beginning any diet or exercise regimen!
1. Learn how to fast.
Fasting tends to get a bad rap in American culture. I think this is because we have been told so many times that severe dieting slows your metabolism, makes you hungrier and leads you to binge, and so on. Unfortunately, it’s important to understand that weighing and eating more both increase your metabolism, and neither are associated with being thin. Even anorexic patients, consuming <800 calories per day for extended periods of time, are believed to return to their normal basal metabolic rate after six to twelve months, as suggested by the American Society for Clinical Nutrition. However, the longer the anorexia persists, the less likely patients are to return to their prior metabolic state. It is also much harder for these metabolic effects to be ameliorated in children and adolescents (18 and under), for whom muscle tissue essential to metabolism is still developing.
With that said, a one-day fast is unlikely to do any harm (though still check with your physician first). Instead, it is more likely to reset your internal clock and break bad habits. So much of our days is built around eating, from a lunch break with colleagues to zoning out in front of the TV with popcorn to social late-night drinks with friends. We tend to build our days around these rituals, and so many of them become mindless. Every calorie definitely doesn’t get its worth in pleasure anymore.
We all know that the key to weight loss is to eat less and exercise more, or to burn more calories than we consume. But to actually do this, we need to set new habits for ourselves. A fast is a great way to figure out where you are messing up. I realized through a one-day juice fast that I was running for the vending machine everyday around 4 PM. I got so hungry! But through my fast, I learned this about myself, started to pack a high-fiber and high-protein lunch, and was no longer hungry come 4 PM.
One of the best books I’ve ever read on fasting is Cherie Calbom’s Juicing, Fasting, and Detoxing For Life. Is everything in that book medically accurate by today’s standards? No; most physicians would cringe at phrases like “the liver needs to be detoxed”. But are the recipes nutritious, the fasting instructions informative, and the mental training useful? Yes, absolutely.
I can’t say that fasting is the key to losing weight. But I can say that it is definitely helpful in breaking old habits and recognizing destructive patterns – a step in the right direction.
2. Aim to fail.
One of my favorite quotes is from Samuel Beckett: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
We often fail on diets because we set ourselves up with these unrealistic expectations. We think one diet is going to change our lives like a knight in shining armor. But just as we find that our knight in shining armor sometimes uses up all the hot water once we get him home, so we discover our diet isn’t all that we thought it would be.
So my idea is this: Choose 3 or 4 diets you think look interesting that you feel could work for you. Take them all to your physician, and get them all approved as potential methods. And then try them, one at a time.
I did this with the Frozen Food Diet, the Weight Watchers Diet, and the Slim Fast Diet.
With the Frozen Food Diet, the sodium from the frozen food diet left my 5’4″ figure at the same weight and even feeling a little bloated, despite my enthusiasm at having consumed exactly 1200 daily calories and 15 fat grams. (So low!) Despite the advice of its proponents to “stick with it,” I quit the next day.
The next morning, I was enthused and ready to try the Weight Watchers Diet. (A friend gave me the books.) Essentially, every 50 calories or 9 fat grams count as 1 point, and every 4 grams of fiber grants a -1 point deduction. For my weight, I was allowed 20 daily points and 15 “flex” (i.e., extra) points for the week.
Day one of Weight Watchers went really well. The secret, it seemed, was lots of fruits and vegetables, which were either 0 or 1 point apiece.
On day two, I had a gourmet breakfast, which set me back 17 points. Obviously, I don’t need to say much more. That day was Fail.
So the next day, I tried Slim Fast. Made it till 8 PM, when my boyfriend greeted me with chips. Fail.
The moral of this story? I realized what I liked the best (Slim Fast), and through the Fail Method, I didn’t feel any of that guilt or anguish normally associated with failing on a diet. Instead, I treated it like an experimental process, generated results, and moved on!
3. Bet on yourself on “Lose It Or Lose It.com”.
If you’re the “put your money where your mouth is” type, always betting on your favorite team to win, then this method is for you. Lose It Or Lose It.com is a website where you wager that you will weigh a certain amount at each of 10 weekly weigh-ins — or else you lose your wager for the week. The beautiful part is that you set your own wagers – whether it’s $1.00 or $1000.00. The ugly part is that you input your own weight, so you theoretically could lie. It takes a person of integrity and fortitude to cough up the dough, but that’s the way it is designed to go. So whether it’s your honesty, weight, or money, you’ll lose it – or you’ll lose it – or…you get the idea. 😉
4. One pound lost = $10,000.
That caught your attention, didn’t it? According to one of my favorite self-development writers, Martha Beck, we all have a price for which we not only will work, but will do so with a smile on our faces and a whistle in our step. Most of us wouldn’t bother losing a pound for a dollar, but if someone offered $10,000, I wouldn’t even bother finishing this post, I’d be running hills outside!
Now, don’t go bankrupt over this idea. But decide upon an amount that is both motivating and affordable for you, and go for it.
And while you may think this sounds a bit inane, robbing Peter the Banker to pay Paul the Trainer, consider this: Self-control is a muscle, and when you make strides in one area of your life, others will fall into line as well. You may think you are spending $30 extra this week for losing 3 pounds, but in reality, you have probably saved $50 on not eating out, packing your own lunch, drinking less, exercising outside instead of going to the movies, etc. You’ll be surprised!
5. Seek out free nutrition and fitness advice.
One amazing bit of advice I’ve learned in the past few years: Everybody loves to give advice on what he’s good at. Everybody. You may be a bit shy to ask at first, but trust me, just about anyone who is in incredible shape would be willing to give you his two cents on how he got there. This includes asking your personal trainer about her diet, or your nutritionist about how he works out.
It’s a great idea to keep track of your diet and exercise habits for about a month – honestly – and then consult with experts. Your primary care physician may or may not study nutrition, but just asking him or her if it is an area of expertise can lead you down the right path. I have met some dermatologists who are in unbelievable shape, and I’ve been known to slip an inquiry or two about diet and exercise in there between skin care questions!
Many grocery and wellness stores (i.e., Giant Eagle Market District, Whole Foods, Right by Nature) also sponsor free monthly events where licensed nutritionists will come in and meet with customers. Some elite gyms also sponsor this service. Again, the key is to be proactive and ask, or at the very least look online for events in your area.
6. Meditation, yoga, hypnosis – get your mind straight.
There are pragmatists, and there are dreamers. But no matter whether you follow your logic or your dreams, there’s a reason the ancients said “a sound mind in a sound body” – it’s extremely difficult to have one without the other.
Going along with the above, I am pretty much willing to read anything motivational. I find The Secret to be a little too far-fetched (too much dreaming, not enough doing), but I find Think and Grow Rich to be the right mix of training yourself not only to think positive, but to also act in the disciplined ways necessary to change your life.
Of course, my more practical-minded friends only want the facts, and find the “think-positive stuff” to be a little hokey. For them, I have heard anything from old school meditation to yoga works. Even hypnosis has been found its scientific footing recently: A meta-analysis published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychologyreviewed 18 separate hypnosis studies and found that patients who receive cognitive-behavioral therapy plus hypnosis for conditions such as obesity, insomnia, anxiety, and hypertension show greater improvement than at least 70 percent of those who undergo therapy alone. Excellent.
Bottom Line
I’m re-starting my weight loss plan tomorrow, so we’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep you updated here and on Twitter!
Did you like this article? Â Be sure to follow up with my October 6 post, How to Lose Weight: Â 5 More New Methods You Haven’t Tried!
Image source: © Amy Walters – Fotolia.com