How to Fail at Losing Weight
By Robyn Littlewood, Personal Trainer
Desert Spa, Villa del Arco
An estimated 40% of US citizens are now considered “morbidly obese”. Millions of people are on diets, buying diet books, prepackaged foods and record numbers of pounds are being lost. Low carbohydrate diet products are a 15 billion dollar industry in the US every year. Why then, do the numbers of morbidly obese people continue to climb in the US, Mexico and Canada?
They must be following the standard disaster plan I will outline for you below:
How to Fail at Permanent Weight Loss
- Make a decision to go on the latest diet that severely restricts calories so you can burn off your lean muscle mass. Your body will do that for you when it believes you are in a famine. Since lean muscle mass is the only sure-fire way to increase your metabolic rate, that should help you put back the fifty pounds you lose on the diet almost immediately upon resuming your normal diet.
- Repeat the above scenario every time a new diet book or fad emerges. That will help you become completely demoralized as you fail time and time again.
- Buy yet another exercise gadget from an infomercial that promises you rock-hard abdominals in only minutes per day. Store it under the bed or in the closet, where it will stay, unused, until you finally sell it on Ebay or Craigs List. (If you want to save money on the gadget go directly to Craigs list where you will find loads of barely-used discount home exercise items….).
- Make a decision to join a fitness club. Spend all of your exercise time exclusively on the cardio machines, working at a low intensity. Bring a book so you can really zone out and pay no attention to where your heart rate is at all. This will ensure poor results from your exercise regimen.
- Make a decision to add some weights into your fitness program, since you heard about how important it is for your health. DO NOT hire a certified personal trainer who could show you how to safely get results and design an effective weight lifting program for you. Be sure you learn by watching what other people in the gym are doing. This will ensure that you make all of the standard weight-lifting mistakes that 80 % of gym goers are making.
- Eat nothing all day and be sure to make up for it at night. Stay up late at night watching television and snacking so you can have a really lousy sleep. Get up the next morning and skip breakfast on your way to your stressful job. Your body will produce the stress hormone Cortisol all day and further destroy your muscle mass. Repeat this regimen daily until you have a nice big spare tire around your waist. That will help you get an even worse sleep so you can further throw off the hormones grehlin and leptin, the start-stop eating signals between your brain and your stomach.
If you are in the Los Cabos area, and you are ready to start winning at weight loss, visit me at fitness center in the Desert Spa in Villa del Arco. Go to www.robynlittlewood.com for weight loss that works or email me at robynlittlewood@yahoo.com for a free fitness evaluation.