Weight Loss, a lifestyle choice achievable by the power of self will.

by malcolm pugh

HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT. This is my personal view built on personal ideas. It works for me.
The plain truth is that we are not stupid, we all know how to lose weight. There is no miracle cure, no overnight sensation, no morning after pill, as the times we live in would love to have you believe. They want you to believe this so money can be made out of misery year on year with amazing new breakthrough diets. As I said, we are not stupid, but somewhat lazy and glad of the excuses bandied about what is actually a simple truth.

You would not expect a major operation to be folllowed by a training session the next morning, followed by discharge in the afternoon, and work the next day, these things take time to overcome, a gradual recuperation period.

I think we all accept that is pretty much of a fact, yet we seem to think that weight loss from a grim start weight is achievable overnight with no attendant dangers if we rush our attempt using dangerous techniques.

The plain truth is that to lose weight you have to take less calories in than you are burning off. End of story. Period.

In order to do this we might like to exercise more as this speeds up our sluggish and near terminal metabolism towards a semblance of its old self.

Tell me if Im losing you at any stage here, but I am assuming you are all intelligent enough to be with me so far.

There is only one major obstacle to this being a life changing revelation. The obstacle is you, and that is a large obstacle.

Insidious advertising does not help much either.

The problem is your body, your triggers, your impulses and your mind set. There is also the question of duration. Many can adopt a new regime for days, weeks or even months at a time, but making this into a permanent change is also a huge problem, especially given that advertising wants you to do it EVERY year, not just once. There is little money in your just doing it once, for people whose job it is to sell you on diets.

The Atkins diet seemingly defied the odds, and propounded you could eat as much as you liked and eat yourself slim. It seemed calories in were meaningless, that they would disappear without exercise or effort. That calories in versus calories out was wrong. It appears now that the fact that high protein foods contain less calories than carbohydrates, pound for pound, coupled with the fact that in most cases high protein foods trigger the body into saying, now hold on here Im already full up with food, does in fact follow the age old principle of calories in must be less than calories out.

I would question whether it is necessary to be swimming in fat and not just grilled or poached or boiled, as I see the main benefit being in the eating of high protein in exchange for high carbohydrate, that is my own deduction from the data available to date.

This high protein being a lower calorific value and a trigger to being full and damping down pangs of screaming appetite, must surely be the basis of a simple dieting plan. Let us investigate other known benificial tools for us to diet and choose for ourselves our own method from the resulting possibilities, as contrary to what advertisers would have you believe there is no set way for a whole nation of slimmers.

It also is seemingly true that leaving a thirty minute gap between courses actually means you often do not want the next course, as apparantly the body takes about fifteen to twenty minutes to tell you you are full after a main course. You want a dessert or a sweet as it is different, and most of us have a sweet tooth, but your body probably does not need it. You would not eat your main course twice, but a sweet is appealing. If you leave it twenty minutes, chances are you will not need it, as the better Restaurants will allow. Perhaps this is why we are sometimes rushed to order in lesser establishments.

Obviously also there has to be a set amount of calories per day that is a pseudo upper limit for that day, depending on hieght, structure, age, and exercise regime, otherwise we would be eating the right things in inordinately large amounts.

There has to be a balance.

Below is a list of what I would say are the most salient points to note. 1. Exercise increases metabolism. 2. A faster metabolism burns more calories. 3. Substitution of high protein for carbohydrates works. 4. Our metabolism is fastest in the morning, slowest late at night. 5. Food eaten early will burn up quicker than food eaten later. 6. Leaving a thirty minute gap after a course may save a course. 7. Small portions over a day put on less weight than the same weight of the same food in say three sittings. 8. Weight watchers type unit watching works if followed. 9. Eating after seven pm accumulates fat due to slow metabolism. 10. A large obstaclee is our sweet tooth for chocolate, cakes, sweets biscuits, and desserts. 11. Few of us take in enough water per day, though it makes up eighty per cent of our being, and is important in releasing toxins.

These seem pretty obvious statements, but we can glean our own weight loss plan for the future just using these simple ingredients.

I have evolved my own method, which I will endeavour to explain to you, not as a follow this this is the way, but as a this is how I used the above information to help me in my own way, as no doubt you are clever enough to adapt it to your own way. This is where many weight loss programs fall down. They make it seem insurmountably hard to achieve without their patronisingly know all ideas and cures and proclamations.

I was in computing when it first started, and programming was nowhere near as difficult as people would have had you believe, but you hardly tell your customers that when you are charging the earth for your services. You make it seem difficult, almost a guru type thing, so clients will not worry too much over the cost.

It seems this way to me with slimming. Certain companies would have it deemed almost an insurmountable obstacle without help and guidance, which of course you pay for willingly, believing it to be of benefit, and like all things having a healthy self doubt in your own ability, unless you are the Prime Minister. My own method is as follows. You may well view this as a dont try this at home.

a. Find out your calorie or unit allowance per day for your hieght age and frame, Your GP will assist in this, or Weight watchers type meetings can be joined locally or over the internet. This is important to allow yourself treats now and then, which are necessary in any regime. This is a bit like knowing how much you have to spend for a week and not going over weekwise, probably a bad example in the era of credit cards and loans.

b. Do a simple exercise which takes little time morning noon and night. For me twenty sit ups is fine, and helps to hold in my stomach, but you could walk up and down stairs, or do simple step ups.

c. Eat a decent breakfast, preferably high protein, minimal fat and minimal carbohydrate, grilled poached or boiled as opposed to fried. I go for eggs, bacon and sausage with high meat content.

d. Do not eat anything else for thirty minutes, if desperate drink water.

e. Remember, the longer the day goes on the less your metabolism burns food. Basically eating late is bad news eating early is good, besides which you need breakfast to get through the day, as in break fast. f. I find lunchtime I only want something light, but try eating high protein where I can. Often I eat pilchards, sardines or salmon, not only for high protein but for oils good for the joints, which are creaking more.

g. I tend to carry a small bottle of water with me at all times in the car, or out walking, as it fills a gap other things might fill.

h. Evening meals are a dangerous time for me, as I tend to convince myself I did more exercise than I actually did, and deserve a treat. Now I try also to keep to high protein, as in lean meat, vegetables and fruit. I have tended to cut down on potatoes and bread in favour of high protein, which seems odd at first But soon becomes more enjoyable and more varied. I think we tend to eat what we have always been used to eating, almost out of habit. i. Your sweet tooth should be allowed within the confines of your calorific and units plan, as it is no use supressing what you like in a lifelong lifestyle plan, it will always surface in the end, probably explode. Better to appease your demons than shut a lid on them. If you cannot do this in moderation then you will just stay fat, and there is no point in trying to change. There is after all an element of will power involved here. You only cheat yourself.

I found that cutting out cakes, sweets, sugar, biscuits for a while at the very start helped me to feel in control from the word go, and more easily assess what I could eat without their distraction. I eat them sparingly now and then now, but to start with it was useful.

I only ever now eat up until I feel full, I eat what I need, not what I would like.

Generally speaking we know what we should be eating and what we should be doing, but doing it is quite another matter, not helped by the food chain stores and diet gurus making it seem tantamount to impossible, or at the very least difficult. This is simply just not so, if you use common sense it is achievable.

following these simple guidelines will at least give you some foundations on which to base your own regime to suit your own unique situation. There are at least some concrete facts here on how to go about it in a sensible way for yourself.

Obviously age comes into the equation, as Im in my fifties now it is harder to Lose weight as my metabolism is a little slower, but too often this is used as an excuse as correspondingly it is often true that as we get older we need less calories to achieve what we do on a day to day basis, and in any event you can always tailor your suit to suit your cloth calorie wise, at any age.

The best help is your own will power and determination, and the long term goals of more energy, better appearance, less strain on the joints and back and heart, more self confidence and greater fitness, and the great boost to pride of feeling more vibrant and more attractive. It is an upward spiral, instead of an out of control downward spiral which saps your self confidence and esteem. It is not a wish to look like waif thin role models bearing no semblance to reality, but more a sensible healthy lifestyle gateway to energy and fitness and happiness. These go hand in hand, as the fitter and less fat you get, the higher the serotonin levels and the greater the feeling of happiness.

You have it in your own power to do this for yourself, it is not unachievable, or supreme effort, or an endless struggle, as adverts would have you believe. It is an eminently achievable long term goal to be achieved once by a conscious change of lifestyle, a gradual recuperation after the operation, a new life in a new way with a new happiness achieved by your own common sense and willpower ONCE. All the guilt and hardship and super methods to help you slim are to produce one result, the spending of money on others to do something for you, preferably EVERY YEAR with a new method and a new fad and more money down the drain. You can do this yourself. You do not need anyone telling you how to diet, it is all there for every one of us to read, it is just taking control of your own destiny which seems difficult, and is made to seem doubly difficult by those with vested interests in selling you slimming plans.

I make no money whatsoever in publishing this article free in ezines or letting you read it on the internet here. It is to help people take Control of their own destiny and future, and hopefully we will all benefit in the long run and have more time and energy to enjoy life.

Best of luck in your quest.

Malcolm Pugh March 2004.