Why a fast start for fat loss is essential....

Today's Post: Friday, 2-17-2012

There are two reasons a fast start for fat loss is essential.

1. If you don’t start fast, you may not start at all!

No start equals NO effort at successful strategies which equals zero fat loss or fat gain instead.

So far, statistics show that half of all adults in the United States are fat.

In round numbers, a third of us have a BMI of over 30.0. (Except for something like half of one percent of men, where the extra weight is muscle from LOTS of heavy strength training, for virtually the whole third it’s from excess fat.)

Of the remaining two thirds or 4/6 1 out of 6 are just under a 30.0 BMI AND have a fat enough tummy to be clearly fat. (For men, that’s over 40 inches on their waist measurement and for women over 35 inches.)

So, 3 out of 6 or one half are too fat by one or both of these measures.

And many of the remaining half are chubby enough to be very close to being in the fat half and still gaining!

Many of these people have thought about trying to lose fat. Some have even decided to try it. But without a fast start of actual effort after deciding to or thinking about it, NO fat is lost.

2. Successful and permanent fat loss takes doing many different but small and doable strategies or efforts.

To achieve a fast start, you need to begin several of these that are quite easy to do but definitely work.

Each one at the start needs to be simple and not too challenging to do at least at first. And, each one must be effective for most people who use it.

After doing this for a month, if you find each one doable and sustainable and you lose inches or pounds or both in that first month, you realize you can lose fat and that the methods ARE sustainable.

And that’s the foundation for successful and permanent fat loss.

At that point as I once realized myself, you will realize, “I can continue doing these things; and since I hardly want the fat to come back!, I’ll just keep doing them.”

Important Warning:

But it’s ALSO essential to use only fat loss methods that tend to not make you more hungry and that are permanent lifestyle upgrades and not a temporary “diet.”

The problem is that too many people include sharp and temporary cut backs of total calories by simply eating less of almost everything or by being extremely strict to the point that they become too hungry.

Even some otherwise good fat loss and weight loss and programs otherwise do this such as Weight Watchers and the South Beach Diet.

The good news is that people do lose enough to notice just in the first few weeks by doing this. At first, that’s fun and people continue the effort which helps the provider make money.

The far worse news is that over ninety percent of these people won’t keep it off because they slashed calories so much initially, the high level of their body’s fail safe emergency famine response kicks in. When that happens their perceived energy level drops to avoid using calories and their hunger more than triples. If they have access to food, they’ll gain it all back!

a) In fact, this looks to be why so many people think diet soft drinks can help you lose fat!

A recent study provides the information that supports this conclusion while seeming to be a paradox.

That study had 3 groups of people who began while they normally drank soft drinks.

One group just tried to lose fat on an overall program that sounds like it was mostly a good program.

The second group just switched from regular soft drinks to diet soft drinks only.

The third group just switched from regular soft drinks to water only.

Each group lost about the same amount of weight during the few months of the study.

The result for the diet soft drink group clashes with the other studies that found that people who drink diet soft drinks for a few years are fatter with thicker waists than people who drink regular soft drinks!

We know why that happens -- because the artificial sweeteners act as a strong appetite booster and one focused on eating more sweet things besides!

But in the new study, the clue or smoking gun was that the people who switched to diet soft drinks began to have too high blood sugar readings while the people who switched to water stayed normal or improved.

The people in the study were able it seems initially to override the appetite boost. But the blood sugar readings show that the extra sugar and insulin that tend to make fat loss hard to sustain and keep for people who need to lose more fat to keep losing it WERE there.

That means that diet soft drinks are just like cutting calories too much, they look good at first because fat comes off—at first. But they are virtually guaranteed to cause the fat you lose to come back by making you too hungry.

So, to get a fast start on PERMANENT fat loss, you need several doable methods to lose fat that do NOT boost the heck out of how hungry you are all day long.

So the key or “money” question is this: What ARE those things?

Good news! You just read one.

People who drank regular soft drinks and stopped entirely and just drank water instead lost as much fat as people on a seemingly more comprehensive program!

How can that be? And will they be able to keep the fat off that way?

Switching from regular soft drinks to water—or tea or green tea or unsweetened soda or carbonated water or coffee black or with some lowfat milk only—makes you LESS hungry!

Really!? Yes, really.

When you drink regular soft drinks, you do NOT get less hungry despite taking in a good bit of the most fattening kind of calories. Then your blood sugar surges and your body surges your insulin to turn it down so much it overdoes and your blood sugar becomes low. As soon as that happens you get HUNGRIER.

With water, you get no calories AND you don’t get that surge of rebound hunger. The result is you are less hungry.

Your famine response stays turned completely off! But if you keep drinking only water over a year or two you will effortlessly lose 10 to 50 pounds of fat that will never return!

All this means that if you drink regular or diet soft drinks now, by far the most effective and in many ways easiest hunger free fat loss method you can do FIRST, is to throw out any you have in your house if you can, stop buying more, and never drink them again.

If you live where other people still drink soft drinks, it’s harder to be sure. But explain you are working to lose fat permanently and never drinking soft drinks is the best hunger free fat loss strategy, so you no longer are willing to make yourself fat by drinking them.

b) The second method to be sure to include if you aren’t already doing it is to begin regular exercise including some kind of strength training and interval cardio.

Do these at home if you can. And do at least some of them first thing in the morning.

Why? Even though many people won’t do enough exercise at first -- and likely should not -- to lose much fat at first, that’s a good question.

It has two answers.

WHY do you want to lose fat?

Do you want to feel better about yourself? Do you want to feel better generally and less depressed? Do you want to feel and be more in control of your life? Do you want to look better? If you have a sex life, do you want it to improve? Do you want to be less stressed?

In your fat loss plan, wouldn’t it help if all or almost all of the weight you lost was fat?

In your fat loss plan, wouldn’t it help if some of your net calorie cutting required NO cuts in how much you eat?

First:

Exercise begins to deliver every one of the first set of things within just days or weeks of beginning to do it regularly!

You may have only lost a pound or two or five but not that much. BUT, you’ll already begin to HAVE many of the things you are losing fat to get! THAT does make you a success right away.

Better, you do begin to be more in control of your life and able to make the other upgrades you need to lose fat

Second:

Best of all, you get the next two things. AND that’s huge. Those two things are key strategies to keeping off the fat you lose permanently.

And starting is doable.

If you have to, start your walking program with five 3 second walks and do that three times a week. Just always do those 3 walks and build up to more over time. If you can start with four ten minute walks and it will easily fit in your current schedule do that.

If you have to, once you can walk for a few minutes, speed up until it’s a bit of an effort for 30 seconds several times during the walk. Sure, if you are young enough and healthy enough to do five sets of 30 seconds of fast jump rope too for interval cardio that’s better. But start with something easy, safe, and doable and build up to it if you are too heavy or have existing heart disease or are a good bit older and haven’t exercised or done it for 20 years!

If you have to, start your strength training by getting up out of your chair two or three times or doing part of just one pushup from your knees or use 5 pound dumbbells.

The key is it has to be easily doable. You have to begin doing it regularly and keep it up. It is close to essential that you keep a log so you can see your progress or see early if you miss too often. And it’s essential that you gradually keep improving.

c) EAT MORE! That won’t make you hungrier either!

Eat more nonstarchy vegetables. And, if you aren’t allergic eat more beans, lentils, and black eyed peas.

If you’ve not been doing this, just add one of these things a week but eat it four days a week to every day for at a week or two.

Build up to a serving or two of beans, lentils, or black eyed peas most days; and five to seven servings a day of nonstarchy vegetables.

The beans, lentils, and black eyed peas will turn off your hunger longer because they have so much more protein and fiber.

But the raw cruciferous and other nonstarchy vegetables both raw and cooked are a key way to be healthy and stay that way. And they turn off hunger far better than no food at all despite having almost that few calories!

d). Are there any foods that like soft drinks tend to make you hungrier that you can make fast progress by just no longer eating?

You bet there are!

There’s a big list! Some of the things you’d do best to just never eat again. Some, you might like a lot and are not that bad if you eat them seldom enough.

Chips, French fries, and other salty snack foods made mostly from refined grains and bad for you fats and oils besides the salt are a good choice to join soft drinks on the virtually never eat again list. They are proven fatteners for people who eat them every week of every year. Save your calories for real food.

Nuts if you aren’t allergic are so filling they’ve been found to not add net calories when you eat them and the raw and unsalted ones make great health-OK snacks. Some raw nonstarchy vegetables make great snacks. So do some low glycemic fruits. If you are really hungry and it will be a couple of hours or more, before your next meal try some raw walnut halves, some raw broccoli or cauliflower florets, and an organic apple.

There are also some ingredients that are so fattening or bad for your health, it makes sense to never eat anything they are in ever again if you can possibly manage it.

If it has refined grains or hydrogenated oils or oils high in omega 6 like corn and soy or high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners or colors, take a pass totally virtually every time.

That stuff is dreadfully bad for you and proven to fatten you. And, the oils are high in calories and the other things tend to be like regular soft drinks and have little or no fiber and cause rebound hunger.

Most bread and rolls and buns and virtually all commercially baked goods and desserts simply disappears off your menu if you follow that rule.

The sooner you do it and the more completely you stick to it, the more fat you will lose and the less will ever return.

Desserts are a special case because they can be so enjoyable. But when you do eat them, try extra hard to have them be home made, make sure they contain only real sugar and refined grains at worst and NO high fructose corn syrup or harmful fats and oils. AND have them be a few times a year or a month and never several times every single day!

e) In addition, to eating more beans, lentils, and black eyed peas, eat more health OK protein foods.

Wild caught fish, unpolluted seafood, low fat and nonfat dairy, naturally fed, 100% grass beef or lamb sometimes and naturally or pasture fed poultry and eggs are the best choices. Very lean and fat trimmed grain fed meat and poultry is not as good; but is far healthier for you and with fewer calories than the fattier versions.

However,

Avoid all preserved meats such as salami, pastrami, lunch meats, bacon, sausage AND hot dogs AND regular hamburger and the like at least 99% of the time. They all tend to be from grain fed animals and fattiest plus the preservatives in them apparently help cause heart disease quite strongly according to recent research.

Avoid all farmed fish. It turns out to be usually fed grains and is too polluted to be safe to eat.

A solid intake of protein helps you be less hungry AND it slashes getting the famine response or turns it way down – plus it helps ensure you lose fat instead of muscle when you lose pounds on the scale.

Each and every one of those is a huge asset to permanent fat loss.

f) You’ll notice that most of the things to remove tend to make you sick or cause disease and most to all of the things the to eat or drink more of support or cause good health.

That’s another key to permanent fat loss.

Every calorie of bad stuff you stop taking in is less excess fat you’ll have. And every time you chose to support your health, you’ll tend to produce permanent fat loss.

Then too, when you are not that motivated by the fat loss temporarily a focus on health will also keep you on track so your fat loss will be permanent and add to your motivation also.

So, for a fast start, simply make plans for several of these methods and begin them with easy actions you start this week or schedule today.

Choose five or six or seven small things you know you CAN do and begin them all.

You can lose almost as much as the poor fools that cut too much out of what they eat in the first few weeks if you do that many and do them well.

But unlike them, you won’t be extra hungry all the time, you can keep doing the things you began and do them better and better, and your fat loss will continue and be permanent!