Health, Resolutions and weight loss

As my stomach pushes into its new found territory, letting my cookies roam my mind races on to New Years Resolutions. This IS the season isn’t it? The time of year where people decide to latch on to the fleeting thought that they have had for the previous months. They now vow that it is the time to do IT. IT, varying from personal growth, numerous health challenges, financial responsibility and maybe even blogging.

Earlier this week I stumbled upon this article and it caught my eye. Just even the title made me giggle and then quickly changing to my minds eye being intrigued. The title is Resolutions ‘bad for your health’. It is bad when our striving to be better or different can be dangerous or work opposite of the goal.

This is the time of year that the majority of people take on a weight loss plan and it is not surprising since the average American can gain between 5-10lbs during the holidays. So it is not shocking that weight loss would be on people’s mind. Now even thought that has been proven you have other weight loss companies that like to say that gain is not true. They do so to keep their clients hopes up. Just tell them it is not true so they will keep working toward their goal.

Weight loss can be broken down to a few simple things:

• Increase NOT decrease your frequency of meals – that seems easy enough doesn’t it? Well try it on for size for two weeks and see what hurdles you run across. For most people it is counter intuitive to eat more when trying to lose weight (oups that sentence could send me down a deep rabbit hole which I choose to avoid right now)
• Eat Protein – ask yourself ‘Got Protein’. This also seems easy as well but start looking at your meals and ask yourself how much protein am I actually consuming. Then come the questions of how much protein do I really need. Well that depends and here we have tripped on another rabbit hole. Eating protein that equals between 13-18% of your total calories.
• Decrease your portion size – once again something so simple but not always so easy. It depends on where you live but look at the standard American portion size. It is TOO large. How do you expect to increase your frequency if your portions are out of whack? Try filling your plate with your veggies/salad first before you go for anything else.
• Cut out wasteful calories – or empty calories. Here we go again an idea that seems so easy to do. However, first you have to be aware of what are those calories and what do I actually consume. Most of us are on auto pilot. For a lot just cutting out their favorite drinks will cut back 100-200 calories a day. It only takes eating about 500 calories less than your expenditure to produce safe consistent weight loss. Now don’t get me going here just yet. It is NOT as simple as calories in calories out BUT it is a good place to start. Just start out small and cut out simple things and then get present to what you actually consume. There are many tools out there on the internet to assist you like Fitday which provides a free membership.
  

Take these four not so simple tips into your daily life for the next few weeks and see just what results you can produce and I will, if another rant does not pull me off track, cover more tips and techniques or support later.

Currently my mind is on work AND at the same time it is spinning and planning. In a few weeks I leave for a climbing trip to Thailand and Cambodia. You could imagine with that lingering so close in my future it can be a challenge to stay focused.

Thought for the night: If it IS that easy why do we have a hard time sculpting the body we all want?

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