How to lose weight without giving up....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 3-22-2011

Some people lose fat and keep it off.

But until now most people who have tried to lose fat weight have tended to give up within a few weeks or months.

One source says that the two main reasons given by people who give up are that they get too hungry or miss enjoyable food.

The most basic problem is that most people think of losing weight or fat as a temporary starvation or deprivation to be put up with or endured.

They then use methods that make them hungry a lot or even worse, trigger their body’s fail-safe famine response. Oops!

When that happens, your body lowers your metabolism and cuts down your feeling of energy to ensure you burn less calories. It prevents you losing any fat reserves you don’t absolutely have to have to survive. And, it makes you something like five times as hungry.

In addition, they often use methods that produce hunger and are likely to trigger that response. They then get tired of doing that and being always hungry or they trigger the famine response or both. Small wonder that they quit!

Effective and permanent fat loss comes from a very different strategy.

This involves making sustainable lifestyle upgrades that cause smaller calorie cut-backs and do not cause extra hunger or trigger the famine response.

Many of these are quite simple.

1. Stop ingesting things that feed you calories without making you less hungry. Stop ingesting things that make you less hungry at first and then make you hungrier later.

Regular and diet soft drinks and foods made from refined grains fit the bill.

Switch from soft drinks and diet soft drinks to chilled club soda – water that is carbonated only, spicy vegetable juice, ice water, green tea &/or black tea with no milk or sugar added, &/or coffee with no sugar – black, with some 1% lowfat milk, or cream sometimes.

If you have been drinking 3 or 4 soft drinks a day and are like many people today, over a couple of years you may well lose 45 to 60 pounds of fat. GUESS WHAT?! You will also be less hungry than drinking the soft drinks during that time. That’s like a fat loss thunderbolt! Doing this gives you lots and lots of fat loss and no boost in hunger.

Refined grain foods have much the same effect. They boost your blood sugar more than sugar. They make you less hungry at first but more hungry later and provide virtually no fiber to make you less hungry that way. The blood sugar and insulin boosts also tend to cause your body to add fat.

Eat much less grain and only 100 % whole grains when you do; and always eat it with health OK oils or protein to help it cut down your hunger and avoid that sabotaging blood sugar boost. (Extra virgin olive oil or nuts or avocados are all good for this.)

And, eat more nonstarchy vegetables and beans and lentils instead. They have more nutrition, much more fiber, and turn down your hunger better and longer, particularly if you eat beans and lentils, because they have more fiber and protein. But, these foods have a hidden surprise, because they can often turn down your hunger better AND they have less calories.

2. Get regular exercise that helps you burn more calories. No, you can’t eat lots of sugary treats from a few hundred extra calories burned a week from exercise because they have more calories than that. BUT, you can eat quite a bit more good for you foods and still run a lower calorie balance.

That means that you lose weight and fat but with less hunger. And, because that’s what our bodies are evolved to handle easily since before about 100 years ago when most people got that exercise, you do NOT trigger the famine response.

Best of all, these exercises have dramatic health benefits from improving your self-esteem to protecting your heart and slowing aging. And, you get these benefits soon even before they help you remove all the fat.

Progressive strength training and interval cardio each week can be done in as little as 15 minute sessions most day. They add muscle and cause you to burn extra calories for up to several hours after you do them. Doing both gives you extra health benefits too.

If you have time beyond that, regular walking, regular Tai Chi sessions, or doing moderate things you actually like such as dancing or gardening all help also.

3. Always eat breakfast. The sooner you get protein in you when you first get up each day, the better your fat loss will be. Getting too little protein tends to cause the famine response and getting it early in the day has the reverse effect. You have more energy and lose fat more easily and are less hungry for sugary foods the rest of the day.

But best of all, people who always eat breakfast have more control over their appetites the rest of the day. AND, they both eat more calories than fatter people who don’t and are less fat.

In short, always eating breakfast is a stealth way to lose fat without being too hungry because you can actually get away with eating MORE and still lose fat

4. Eat a stricter version of your health oriented foods and drinks every other day. And, at least once a month, allow yourself some of the foods you find extremely tasty but which tend to fatten you if you eat them several times every day.

This allows you to net fewer calories over a week than never being strict. But because you get a regular break from making an extra effort it’s more doable for you. But the huge hidden benefit is that the fat and weight come off and you do NOT trigger the famine response. That has actually been researched and tested to work!

For fattening foods that you have actually liked, a three part strategy is very effective for many people.

If the food was a 6 out of 10 or less, you can deal with not having it. You really didn’t like it that much and can hold out for those treats that you rate 8 or 9 or 10.

Know what the health harm is from the components and bring those to mind when you are tempted. That mental focus literally lights up your higher brain centers and those that give self control. You know better and remember you do.

The other one is that you can tell yourself. No I can’t have that now. But since it is a 9 or 10 for me I can have it later. Then once a month, have some. Since it’s a rare treat and one you really like, you get more out of it that way.

5. Find dozens of ways to make savory dishes of health OK protein foods and nonstarchy vegetables and beans. The more of these you know how to fix or where to buy, the more you will enjoy eating the goods for you foods.

That way, you DO get many foods you actually enjoy every week and every month.

That also helps a very great deal.

The summary is that lifestyle upgrades that give you more good for you and nonfattening foods and more and better exercise have multiple benefits.

You get the health benefits even before all the fat comes off.

Each part of it is sustainable can be part of a lifestyle you often enjoy.

And, since you keep doing it, over time most of the excess fat comes off. Best of all the excess fat never returns!