Realizing Harmony

Losing weight is really quite simple.  CERTAINLY not easy, but simple.

How simple is it?

To lose weight, all you have to do is burn more calories than you take into your body.  Do that successfully for enough time and you’ll lose whatever amount of weight you need to lose.

So, what makes it so difficult to do?

Several things.

Reducing calories often means reducing or eliminating the foods we most desire and enjoy.

Just reducing calories isn’t necessarily healthy – since our bodies need good nutrition, even if they don’t need the calories.

And then as we reduce our calories, our bodies respond first by shedding some weight, then by slowing down the rate of caloric burning (better known as metabolism.)  Our bodies do that to avoid death by starvation.  (If you’re interested, to determine your Body Mass Index (BMI) and Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) check out this web page.)

And as we shed the weight, the body needs to flush out all the toxins that are stored in the fat that we’d previously accumulated.  Fail to do that, and you might lose weight, but still feel miserable.

So, what can we do to drop calories, keep the nutrition up, keep our bodies from shutting down metabolism, and get all the toxins out?  Suddenly it’s much more clear why that simple idea is often anything but easy to do.

Well, I’m here to say, it doesn’t have to be all that difficult, and you don’t have to starve.  In fact, you shouldn’t starve.

Before I go any further in talking about what to do, it’s VERY important to take a first CRITICAL step: See your physician, and confirm that it’s safe for you to lose weight, and what restrictions and/or limitations s/he recommends you adhere to.  Your body may very well have certain special needs that MUST be attended to, even if it’s OK for you to lose weight.  Your physician should know what those needs are.

So, have you checked with your Doctor now?  If not, don’t read any further.  Go see your Doctor.  Then come back here and read the rest of this blog entry.

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OK.  Everybody all checked out and approved to move forward?  GREAT!  Let’s talk about the basics of this program.

There really are only a few key features.

1. Daily movement
2. Daily water
3. Daily Vitamin/Mineral supplementation
4. Daily eating plan

That’s pretty much it.

Now let’s talk about each of those in a little more detail.

1) Movement.

Rather than trying to make a huge commitment to sweat to the oldies for an hour each day, or give yourself a wedgie getting into some skimpy spandex outfit so you can embarrass yourself in front of a class of sleek aerobicizers, why not keep it simple?

Just move.

Do what you can.  But set a goal of taking at least 8,000 steps each day.  Then, as that becomes more easy, and routine, see if you can get it up to 10-12,000 steps each day.  (The easiest way to track steps is with a Pedometer that you clip on as soon as you get out of bed, and don’t take off (except to take a bath or shower) until you climb back into bed.)

If you want to go to the gym to get a serious workout  – fine.  (Assuming your Doctor said that’s OK.)

So, how do you get so many step in?  Use your creativity.  Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

• Park as far away from the entrance to the store as you can find, then walk in.
• Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator
• Find longer ways to walk places – instead of finding the shortest route to walk, see if you can figure out the longest route
• Take shorter, faster steps while keeping up the same speed
• (Your own ideas that fit with your daily life)…

I think you get the idea.

2) Water

Every day, you need to drink plenty of clean, filtered water.  This is true whether you’re trying to lose weight or not.  Your body needs water.  It needs about 1 ounce for every 2 pounds of weight.  (If you weigh 160lbs, you should be drinking 80oz (10 eight-ounce glasses) of water each day.  If you weigh 320lbs., you should be drinking 160oz (20 eight-ounce glasses) of water each day.)  But be careful – you need to be sure you’re getting enough electrolytes in your system.

That’s one reason why the water is not to be consumed all in one sitting!  (There is such a thing as overdosing on water.  And yes, it can be fatal!)  Spread it out, a little bit at a time, all through the day.  For me, it worked well to try to consume a glass of water about every hour throughout the day.

Yes, you’ll have to go wee a lot more than you’re probably used to.  But you’ll be flushing out your system.

3) Vitamin/Mineral Supplementation

Your body can’t get the vitamins and minerals it needs when you’re limiting your food intake.  I strongly recommend you use supplements that are made from certified-organic plants.  That way you’re assured to be getting all the necessary associated phytonutrients with the critical vitamins.  And you’re not getting any dangerous chemical pesticides.

4) Eating Plan

You need to have (and follow!) a healthy daily eating plan  that cycles through a weight-loss portion followed by a metabolic adjustment portion.

After 4 weeks of restricting your calories so you’re losing weight, your body will start to shut down the metabolism and go into starvation mode.  (Ever notice that on diet programs, after the first month or so the weight often just stops coming off?  That’s likely because your body has shut down.)  If you continue to try to restrict the calories, you may be able to continue to lose weight.  But after an extended period of weight loss and the resulting metabolic reduction, if you increase your caloric intake, your body will take that as a signal that the famine is over, and it’s time to pack on extra fat to protect against the next famine.  What’s that mean to you?  You gain a whole bunch of weight right back – if not more than when you started – and you feel like a yoyo (or is that dodo?)  You work so hard starving yourself, and then it all slams right back on as soon as you let up.

So, DON’T TRY TO LOSE WEIGHT FOR MORE THAN 4 WEEKS at a time!!  After 4 weeks, you MUST give your body a break for a couple of weeks.  Send it a message that says, “There, there… I know you’ve been letting go of a lot of cherished fat.  I’m not going to kill you.  It’ll be OK.”  You do that for two weeks, and your body will kick its metabolism right back up.  Then you can go back into weight loss mode for up to 4 more weeks (if you still need to lose more weight.)  And you’ll continue to get good results.

Now, what are the general guidelines for each of those phases?

I’ll cover that in another blog.  Meanwhile, if you read this far without checking with your Doctor, you’re done reading this blog for now… go see you Doctor!!!  (Or at least talk with him/her.)