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Real Weight Loss
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You know the routine...
...eat monotonous fare everyday...
...religiously avoid all the stuff you love, and exercise like a fiend for a week...
...jump on the scale to discover you've lost 1/2 pound, or maybe 1-2 pounds...
...but you wanted to lose 5-10! After all, your friend did and those people in the advertisements on tv do. And those contestants on The Biggest Loser television show enjoy double digit losses week after week!
So you throw your hands up in despair and eat a pint of Chunky Monkey 'cause all your efforts are fruitless anyway.
Sound familiar?
If you're human, you'd like to enjoy fast weight loss. And you're human if you're disappointed when it doesn't work out the way you want.
But remember this: the thing that's way worse than not experiencing fast weight loss is not experiencing any weight loss!
If you give up because you're disappointed in the speed of your loss, then chances are you'll never reach you goal.
Why not lose 1/2-1 pound a week...
...every week...for a year. That's 26-52 pounds. A year is going to go by anyway!
Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? The moral is that slow and steady wins the race.
It feels great to see numbers go down on the scale, doesn't it? Well, when the numbers go down, you're losing one of three things:
- water
- fat
- muscle
You want to lose fat, right? But losing weight quickly usually just means that you've lost water weight. Unfortunately water weight tends to come back as quickly as it comes off.
3500 calories are stored in one pound of body fat. In order to lose one pound of true body fat over the course of one week, you have to create a 500 calorie deficit per day. (Do you know how to create a calorie deficit?)
If you begrudgingly give up your morning latte habit only to find you've barely lost 1/2 pound in a week as a result..know that it makes perfect sense!
Forgoing a grande latte with 200 calories x 7 days per week creates ~ 1400 calories deficit per week which is less than 1/2 pound of body fat.
So you see...
...it takes a while for cutbacks (that may seem huge!) to add up.
(Wanna know how many calories you need in a day?)
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My professional advice?
Recognize that the promise of fast weight loss sells products. There are bookshelves of diet books promising fast weight loss. The only thing that's really fast are the dollars disappearing from your wallet if you buy into the notion!
In reality, weight loss takes time and work. Just what you don't want to hear, I'm sure! But as your personal nutrition guide, I'd rather be honest than mislead you. The good news...
...weight loss IS possible over time...
...and time goes by anyway.
Read more on hidden calories in coffee, alcohol, beer, wine, restaurants/fast food, and pizza.
Contact me for 1:1 weight loss counseling.
Back to Personal Nutrition Guide Home.
