It's tough when someone you love starts selling diet products. You want so much to be supportive, and yet that part of you that is logical and understands that diet and exercise are the ONLY long term solutions to weight loss makes you block the Facebook posts. I have been there. I have tried a few of them, and lost some weight. Water weight, but long term, I gained what I had lost back and then some. Not worth it.
Juice cleanses are exactly as effective as fasting. Studies show, fasting for 24 hours with clear liquid is okay, and safe once in a while. Those that do three to seven day juice cleanses are not benefiting themselves at all. As a matter of fact, those that do the juice cleanses end up weighing up to five pounds more 30 days after they stop the cleanse. The reason is your body is in starvation mode from lack of nutrients. It will hold on to carbohydrates, salt, and fat for storage the next time you decide to do a fast. It is better to eat right, and exercise consistently.
Weight loss is a BILLION dollar industry world-wide. We ALL want to be beach ready-yesterday. This taking two years to lose 40 pounds sounds like... work. And yet it's worth it.
Our bodies are magnificently made. We have kidneys, and appendix that filter out most of the junk we eat. Our colon is hundreds of feet of awesome. We abuse it by eating the wrong foods (high red meat, low fiber diets). Your colon is responsible for the absorption of nutrients you eat. Your overall mental health can be effected by the health of your colon.
We need to think of our bodies as a temple. You wouldn't walk into the Roman Colosseum with a can of spray paint. But that is what we are doing to our bodies when we opt for short term solutions.
You need to eat 0.4 grams of lean protein per pound of body weight every day. You can get the protein in a delicious smoothie made with protein powder, veggies, and fruit. You can eat poultry. Tofu, Greek yogurt, and cottage cheese are also good options.
To lose weight, you need to know your body mass. I like My Fitness Pal app, and Fitbit. Weight Watchers is fantastic also, but I have the caveat that you need to be in a meeting. Weekly face-to-face accountability is the best weight loss tool there is.
Here are the five tools I have used to lose weight and keep it off:
1. Write down every single thing you eat. I have been using the fitbit app lately and I love the system that they use; within goal is a green arrow, yellow arrow is below, and red arrow means you are doing some late evening cardio. It is a clear, easy to understand system.
2. Move a little everyday. You don't have to train for a marathon, but you have to do something everyday. A pedometer (plain, old, strap-to-your-pants pedometer) is only $8.00 at most sporting good stores and with that aim for 10,000 steps every single day.
3. If you are feeling emotional, call a friend and go for a walk. Stay out of the kitchen at all costs. Growing up food was comfort. We ate a lot of spaghetti. As a matter of fact, that is what my mom for our rehearsal dinner. Sad=chocolate chip cookies. Happy=ice cream with the chocolate chip cookie. Food was both our enemy and best friend. Breaking that habit has been a decade in the making.
4. Sure, you can have a treat, but not every day. Chances are, you don't have supermodel genetics. They can eat cake everyday and stay trim with yoga. I don't have it like that. I have to run up a cliff to make a scale move. Most of us can afford to have a treat two times a week.
5. I have to eat a lot of fiber. I compete with the likes of horses for the grams of fiber I consume. We eat two pounds of spinach and a pound of kale every single week. There are four of us. One of whom, won't eat kale. You get the picture, we put away our greens in a serious way.
I will throw in one more piece of advise: join a local weight loss group of some type. I have joined two, because I want to know how to make my body the strongest, leanest machine it can be. I will always have a bit of junk in the trunk and stretch marks, but isn't that what makes us unique and beautiful?
Don't strive for perfection or quick weight loss. Strive for one goal. Hit one goal at a time and you will reach your big goal before you know it.
Copyright H.Jennings, United States of America, March 23, 2015. Do not steal, translate, swipe, copy, or otherwise spin my posts. If you steal any of my works, may you get seagull poop on your sandwich. If you want me to write posts for you, ask nicely.
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