Why It's So Hard To Lose Weight

10 Reasons Why It's So Hard to Lose Weight

By Paige Waehner

Zing Images/Getty Images

If you pay attention to the weight loss industry, you've been told over and over how easy it is to lose weight—just take this pill, follow that diet, or buy this piece of equipment, and everything will melt away in a flash. In fact, we spend billions of dollars each year on weight loss products and services and yet we're still overweight.

If you struggle with weight loss, as most of us do, you've figured out just how hard it is to lose weight.

  The question is, why is it so hard and is there anything you can do about it?

There's no shortcut to weight loss, but you can make the process easier with a few simple changes.

One big problem for most of us, is we wait until the Doctor gives you a couple of prescription, like something for blood pressure and another pill for cholesterol and then before you can get out the door, he says "don't forget to lose weight". Your thinking that he could have left that part out. 

Your thinking the pill should be doing that, but the pills aren't for weight loss. The Doctor's nurse gave you this pre-printed diet as you were headed for the check-out but you were not fast enough. 

What they didn't tell you is that now that you have to take pills it will be a little harder to lose that weight. And they probably didn't tell you that if you lost the weight before you came in you wouldn't be taking the prescriptions. 

The post below from VeryWell.com will give you some good reason why it's hard for you to lose weight.

Complex Problems, Simple Solutions

The idea behind weight loss is simple: Burn more calories than you eat. This can be accomplished by changing just a few things in our diets—replacing soda with water, for example, or getting rid of processed foods.

We can increase weight loss results by adding at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. Sounds simple but, if it were that simple, why can't we do it consistently?

There are a number of factors that contribute to weight gain that you already know. But it's not just about finding time to exercise or choosing the salad over the burger. It's about a genuine commitment to making healthy decisions every day regardless of what's happening in your life.

If you're not ready to make some changes, losing weight will be hard.

Here are 10 things you'll need to look at in order to get yourself on a healthy track.

1. Your Attitude

If you're only on a health kick to lose weight or look a certain way, it will be hard to lose weight permanently. Why? Because, what happens if you don't see results quickly enough? You give up.

Weight loss is a great goal, but unless you have something else to motivate you, what's to keep you going if the scale doesn't budge?

It takes time to lose weight. How will you motivate yourself in the meantime? One way is to find more reasons to be healthy. Remind yourself of all the benefits of exercise—having more energy, feeling good about yourself, getting a better night's sleep, just to name a few.

Keep an exercise journal and write down every single success, whether you're losing weight or not. What you think about yourself and exercise is the key to staying committed. No one wants to do something they see as miserable, so think of how you can turn it around and look at exercise in a different way.

2. Your Workouts

If you don't workout consistently enough, it's hard to lose weight. Yes, it's possible to lose weight through diet alone, but you'll likely hit a plateau at some point.

You don't need to spend hours in the gym; you only need to set up a reasonable workout schedule that you can follow each week. It's not about killing yourself with workouts—it's about finding something you like and that you'll continue with for the long-term.

That means getting rid of activities you hate and building a program around what you enjoy, even if it doesn't exactly follow the exercise guidelines.

You have to be willing to be more active on a regular basis—not just for a week here and there.

If you're confused about setting up a program, find out where to start. 

3. Your Diet

Changing the way you eat is another thing you have to commit to for long-lasting weight loss. That means working to replace unhealthy foods with healthier choices and do that most of the time.

Some ideas to help include:

• Keeping a food journal.
• Spending more time in the grocery store reading food labels.
• Spending more time preparing meals.
• Understanding proper portion sizes.
• Making conscious choices about what you eat, rather than mindless eating.

For permanent weight loss, you need to pay attention to what you eat and make good choices more often than not.

Maybe a structured diet eventually ends, but healthy eating never stops. In other words, there will never be a time when you're done eating healthy, at least not if you want lasting weight loss.

You might feel you're sacrificing the good stuff (pizza, fast food, etc.) and your life won't be fun if you can't have those foods. However, you can still enjoy your favorite foods, just not every day.

It really comes down to being willing to take an honest look at your diet and, even if you just change one thing at a time, figuring out how you can reduce the calories you're eating.

You have to be ready to stop giving your body the most convenient thing available and, instead, spend time planning what and when you'll eat. That's what it takes to make real, lasting changes. 

4. Your Lifestyle

If you want a healthy life, you have to be willing to change how you live. It doesn't mean changing everything overnight, but simply being open to new ways of doing things. Some things you might need to change for a healthy life are:

• Daily routines. You may need to get up earlier to prepare your lunch or squeeze in a workout, use your lunch hour for exercise, or go for a walk after work instead of watching TV. Exercising on a daily basis changes your entire day, so sitting down with your schedule to see where those changes need to happen is your first step in establishing an exercise habit.
• How you spend your time. You might need to set new rules for yourself limiting how much TV you watch or how long you sit at the computer. You'll need to pay attention to how you spend your time and where you're out of balance, so you can add more movement.
• Your pantry. No matter how committed you are, having something unhealthy in front of your face is only going to make things harder. You have to set up your surroundings so they support your goals rather than sabotage them.
• Your schedule. If you're not willing to sit down and change the way you live each day to include exercise, time to prepare meals, and time to nurture yourself with sleep, it's hard to lose weight. People use a busy schedule as an excuse not to be healthy. Could you be doing that too? If you're not ready to take responsibility for the schedule you've created, it will be hard to lose weight.

5. Your Surroundings

Sometimes, you can't control the things around you. At work, you may be surrounded by temptations—donuts, vending machines, coworkers bringing junk food and the like. That's just one thing you have to deal with, but what about your home?

Surround yourself with things that will support you in your efforts to get healthy. That might mean spending some money on home workout equipment, setting up a corner of the house for your gear, or commandeering the TV a few nights a week to do an exercise video.

Set up an environment that encourages those healthy choices and reminds you of them. Sometimes, just walking into your kitchen and seeing a bowl of fresh fruit may be enough to remind you of what you're trying to accomplish.

Similarly, walking in and seeing a bag of chips may do the opposite. Consider cleaning out your kitchen of things that tempt you. If it's not there, you won't eat it. 

6. Your Support System

While getting healthy may be something you're doing on your own, it's a big help to have a support system.

At the very least, family members and friends who understand what you're doing and are either willing to participate or help. If you have a spouse who wants to continue eating the kinds of foods that tempt you, you need a plan to deal with that, so you can still reach your goals and keep your relationship together.

Try to surround yourself with people who support what you're doing and avoid those people (like that co-worker who always offers you a donut even though you refuse on a daily basis) who don't. A workout buddy is also an excellent idea for support. Learn more about how to get weight loss support from friends and family.

7. Your Mental Health

If you have other reasons for being overweight, maybe past hurts that you've used food to deal with, depression, or other problems, it's hard to lose weight.

For many of us, food is a comfort and something we've relied on all of our lives to help us deal with emotional problems. If that's the case for you, pinpointing those behaviors and what drives them is important for becoming aware of what you're doing and why. A counselor can help you with this or learn more about emotional eating and how you might be doing it without realizing it. Be willing to learn why you make the choices you make and to confront them.

8. Your Goals

If you've set impossible goals, you are guaranteed to fail. Weight loss becomes hard to achieve if you feel like a constant failure. No one is going to feel very motivated if he or she feels like a failure all the time.

If that's how your weight loss experience is, it's no wonder you keep quitting. The key is to set reasonable goals. So what is reasonable? That's going to be different for each person depending on your genetics, eating habits, exercise, and metabolism, to name a few. You're better off setting a long-term goal, like losing weight or competing in a race. Then focus your attention on daily or weekly goals. Your weekly goal might be to get in three cardio workouts, minimum. Pick things you know you'll achieve so you're always successful. It can be as small as you like, as long as it's reachable.

9. Your Flexibility

You hear a lot about lifestyle changes, but it's daily choices that really test you. What happens if you have to work late and you can't get to the gym? Or what if you get stuck in traffic and miss your fitness class? Any number of things can happen in a day that may throw you off track.

The trick is to be flexible. It helps if you're always prepared. Keep workout shoes in the car, so you can stop off at the park for a quick walk. Keep some food handy, so if you get stuck in traffic, you get a snack in before your workout. Often people skip workouts because something comes up and they simply aren't ready for it or they aren't willing to give themselves other options. For example, if you can't do 45 minutes, give yourself permission to do what you can, even if it's 10 minutes? Something is always better than nothing.

10. Your Willingness to Fail

You will not be perfect every day. If you're a perfectionist, this is a frustrating concept to accept, but we can't control every aspect of life.

On the good days, you'll eat all your fruits and veggies, say no to that pizza, and do your workout even though you're tired. On the bad days, you'll wake up late, forget to bring your lunch, have an extra piece of cake at your friend's birthday party, or skip your workout.

The bad days will happen if you're a human being. The trick is to never give up, even when you mess up. Work on overcoming your fear of failure and remember that you're not a loser just because you make some mistakes. You're simply a person trying his or her best to make good decisions.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog posts.

gettingtoahealthyweight.blog
idropped40pounds.wordpress.com
howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of websites looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the Smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Using The Time We Eat To Lose Weight

Did you know that when you eat may be just as important as what — and how much — you eat? Recent research suggests that the timing of your meals may play an important role in weight loss.

One study reported in the International Journal of Obesity found that people who ate their main meal earlier in the day (before 3:00 p.m.) lost about 5 pounds more than those who ate later (22 pounds lost versus 17 pounds for late day eaters), with the same diet and exercise program.

Another study in the journal Obesity revealed that people eating a large breakfast (and smaller lunch and dinner) lost nearly 19 pounds compared to just 8 pounds for small breakfast eaters who ate larger meals later in the day. In addition, hunger, blood sugar, insulin and blood fats were improved among the hearty breakfast eaters.

The role of meal timing may be why people who skip breakfast tend to be more likely to be overweight.

What’s more, restricting your “eating window” to about eight or nine hours a day may also influence weight loss. Researchers found that those who limited daily calories to an eight-hour window lost more weight and body fat and retained more muscle mass compared to people who ate the same calories over a longer period of time. And studies suggest that dieters who restricted their eating window were less likely to regain weight after losing weight.

While total calories are still very important for losing weight, studies suggest that timing of meals matters. Eating too many calories at night or later in the day may lead to weight gain and body fat storage and increased hunger. Although the reason for this is not yet fully understood, scientists theorize that our bodies have evolved to have a more efficient metabolic rate (the rate at which the body burns calories) during daylight hours.

Here are three ways you can ‘use the clock’ to help you lose weight and keep it off:

1. Aim to eat dinner by 6:30pm or earlier.

2. If you tend to spread out your meals from early morning until late at night, condense your eating hours until you get to an 8- or 9-hour eating period.

3. Eat most of your daily calories earlier in the day (before 3pm). It helps to have a substantial breakfast – a good mix of complex carbohydrates, healthy fat, and protein – as that may stave off hunger later in the day.

I'd like to comment on this post. Trying to eat all your meals between 7 and 4 may be a little difficult, what worked for me was to eat small meals every 3 hours. This will keep you from getting hungry. You will still want to finish eating by 6 pm and you will have to be careful not to overeat. I was eating about 300 calories, 5 times a day. 300 calories is all your food and drinks so I drank mostly water, coffee, and tea anything with zero calories so I could use the calories for food. 300 calories doesn't sound like much but if your eating whole foods and zero calorie drinks, you'll have plenty of food. The 5 meal-a-day plan, 3 hours apart takes 12 hours and you can shorten that up a little by squeezing the meals a little closer together. Personally, I think 2 1/2 hours apart is better, you never get hungry and you finish eating around 5:30.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of websites looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon, BN.com, iBook, Kobo, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores and on Smashwords.com. If you use the Smashwords promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (PJ42H). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Lose Belly Fat Safely and Naturally

This post from StrongLift.com is the way I lost my belly fat. In about 2 months I went from a tight 36 inch jeans to a loose 34 inch jeans. I could believe it, I haven't bought 34's for 40 years.
One of the biggest questions I get is “how do I lose my belly fat? I’ve tried several things but nothing worked”. When I ask what you tried I hear 100 daily sit-ups, cutting calories drastically, excess cardio, fat burners, etc. If you can’t lose your belly fat, you’re using the wrong approach. You don’t need endless sit-ups, supplements, starving yourself or worse surgery. 
Here are the 10 best ways to lose your belly fat – quickly and naturally. 
1. Stop Doing Crunches. Crunches will strengthen your stomach muscles, but won’t burn the belly fat that covers your abs. Spot reduction is a myth. You’re wasting time & effort doing 200 daily crunches. Crunches can also cause lower back pain, slouching shoulders & forward head posture. The Reverse Crunch doesn’t cause these problems, but again: spot reduction is a myth. To lose your belly fat, you need more. Keep reading.
 2. Get Stronger. Strength training builds muscle mass, prevents muscle loss and helps fat loss. The Squat & Deadlift work best to build strength. Your lower back keeps you upright from the back. Your abs from the front. Both muscles will work hard during heavy Squats & Deadlifts at keeping you from collapsing under the weight. Squats & Deadlifts allow you to stress your body with heavy weights, working all your muscles from head to toe. This helps getting stronger quickly and building muscle fast, including ab muscles. Spot reduction still doesn’t exist, so Squats & Deadlifts won’t burn your belly fat directly. However they’ll strengthen your abs and lower your waist size. If you never did both exercises, check StrongLifts 5×5. Only takes 3x45mins/week. 
3. Eat Healthy. As the saying goes “abs are built in the kitchen”. You can train hard & build muscular abs, but if you eat junk food all day, you won’t lose your belly fat. Stop eating processed food. Eat whole, unprocessed foods. Proteins. Meat, poultry, fish, whey, eggs, cottage cheese, … Veggies. Spinach, broccoli, salad, kale, cabbage, … Fruits. Banana, orange, apple, pineapple, pears, … Fats. Olive oil, fish oil, real butter, nuts, flax seeds, … Carbs. Brown rice, oats, whole grain pasta, quinoa, … No need to be perfect. Eating junk food actually helps fat loss by keeping your hormones sharp. Don’t overdo it though. Eat junk food 10% of the time max. That’s 4 junk meals/week if you eat 6 meals/day.
4. Limit Alcohol Consumption. To lose your belly fat, what you drink is as important as what you eat. Alcohol from time to time is OK. But forget about losing your belly fat if you drink beer & sweet alcohols daily. Beer drinkers always have a pear shape: belly fat & man boobs – especially as they get older. Alcohol also stresses your liver which has to overwork to clear the toxins. This can get in the way of building muscles. Drink alcohol 10% of the time. Example Friday & Saturday night. Normal alcohol consumption, not the get drunk. Rest of the time: water, water with squeezed lemon, green tea, etc. Either that or forget about losing your belly fat. 
5. Eat Less Carbs. You need carbs for energy. Problem is that most people eat way more carbs than they need. Your body will stock the carbs it doesn’t need as fat. And this is often how you get belly fat. Unless you’re a skinny guy who needs to gain weight, lower your carb intake. Keep eating fruits & veggies with each meal. But cut back on potatoes, pasta, rice, breads, … Eat these post workout only. 
6. Eat More. Eating tons of healthy foods won’t make you fat. Especially not if you exercise 2-3x/week. Starving yourself is the number 1 nutritional mistakes. Healthy nutrition is important for 3 reasons: Energy. Food is energy. Your body uses food for weight lifting, working, digestion, etc. Lack of food means lack of energy, in all areas of life. Fat Loss. Eating the right foods helps fat loss: protein has the highest thermic effect and satiates, healthy fats promote fat loss, … Maintain Muscle. If you starve yourself, your body will burn muscle for energy – NOT fat. You’ll become skinny + fat. Hunger means you’re not eating enough. Don’t worry about calories. Just eat breakfast and eat every 3 hours from there on, including post workout. Eat healthy foods 90% of the time to lose your belly fat fast. 
7. Eat More Protein. Protein has a higher thermic effect than other foods: your body burns more energy processing proteins than it does processing carbs and fat. That’s why high protein diets work great at burning your belly fat. How much protein do you need daily? Do like I do: eat whole protein with each meal without worrying about the numbers. Check the 10 cheapest sources of protein to keep it budget-friendly. 
8. Eat More Fat. Fat doesn’t make you fat. Bad nutrition and lack of exercise do. Eating fat actually helps fat loss. Your body won’t stock fat as easily if your give it a constant intake of healthy fats. Fish oil is the best source of fat to lose your belly fat. Fish oil naturally increases testosterone levels and increases fat loss. 6g omega-3 per day is a good start. Check Carlson Fish Oil: 1600mg omega-3 per tbsp. Stay away from trans-fatty fats present in products like margarine. Trans-fatty fats are bad for your health. Eat whole unprocessed foods 90% of the time as I recommend in point 3 and you’ll avoid trans-fatty fats easily. 
9. Lower Your Body Fat. As a man, your belly is the last place where you’ll get rid of fat. If you have man boobs and a double chin, you’ll have to lower your body fat to lose your belly fat. Here’s how: Get Stronger. Strength training builds & maintains muscle, increases fat loss, helps sticking to diet, … Check StrongLifts 5×5 if you don’t know where to start: it only takes 3x45mins/week. Eat Healthier. Apply the 8 nutrition rules. Eat breakfast. Eat every 3 hours. Proteins, veggies & fruits with each meal. Carbs post workout only. 2 cups of water with each meal. Whole foods 90% of the time. Add Cardio. 15mins post workout, build up to 3x45mins/week. If you have less than 15% body fat, just get stronger and eat healthier. That will lower your body fat and make you lose your belly fat. Check the fat loss guide for more info about how to lower your body fat. 
10. Stay Motivated. Looking at your belly or in the mirror gives you inaccurate feedback. What you see is influenced by food intake, water retention, light and your own perception. Self-image issues can make the last one tricky. Measure Body Fat. Every 2 weeks using a fat caliper. It doesn’t need to be accurate. What matters is that the trend goes down. 

Measure Your Waist. Also every 2 weeks. If you get stronger and eat healthy, your waist will go down fast. Your pants will start to feel loose. Take Pictures. Shoot pictures of yourself every 2 weeks: front, back & side. The side pictures will show the most change. Success breeds success. Track progress accurately so you know where you are and stay motivated to keep working at losing your belly fat. Don’t just read this post and go back to what you were doing. 

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog posts.

gettingtoahealthyweight.blog
idropped40pounds.wordpress.com
howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of websites looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the Smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Why Don't We Exercise?

If you follow the news about health and fitness these days and the constant focus on obesity, you may get the feeling that you're doing everything wrong. You sit all day at the computer -- wrong! You drive everywhere instead of walking -- wrong! You watch too much TV, don't take the stairs enough, don't exercise enough -- the list goes on and on. Sitting around, it seems, has become as dangerous as driving without a seatbelt and, yet, that's how most of us spend our time.

It's clear that our sedentary world doesn't call for much activity, yet we need that activity to stay healthy and lose weight. So, how can we make exercise a more natural part of our lives? The first step is to figure out what's really behind our inactivity.

What's Stopping You from Exercise? 

We're all familiar with the most common reasons we don't exercise -- we're too busy, too tired, it's too boring and confusing, etc. But are those reasons or are they excuses? We may tell ourselves we're too tired or busy, but the real reasons we don't exercise often go a little deeper.

1. We're not used to being active. For many people, structured exercise is something they've never had to do before. As a result, bringing exercise into an already busy schedule often feels like having an unexpected (and unwelcome) guest come for a visit. Having to rearrange your schedule to accommodate this guest causes stress, anxiety and even resentfulness.

That's often how we feel when we realize that starting an exercise program may require major changes in how we live and schedule our time.

2. Today's world doesn't require as much movement. The way we live now doesn't provide many opportunities to move around -- we don't have to be active to get things done.

If you come from an active family and have managed to stay active over the years, you may not have as much difficulty. But, if you don't have that foundation, you're now seeing how hard it is to work exercise in after years of being inactive.

3. We see exercise as a luxury. We know that exercise is necessary for good health, quality of life and weight management. Yet, even with experts asking us, practically begging us to exercise (and broadening the definition of exercise so much so that now housework is considered exercise), we're still trying to find a way around it. Whether it's a pill, a diet, a gadget or plastic surgery, too many of us still think we can get all the benefits of exercise without actually having to do it.

4. We view exercise as pointless or difficult. What do you picture when you think of exercise? Riding a stationary bike to nowhere, eyes rolling back into your head from boredom? Or maybe a complicated aerobics class where you're tripping over your feet? Unfortunately, too many of us see exercise (or at least what we've defined as exercise) as something negative. It's boring, pointless, difficult, repetitious...fill in the blank and you've probably thought it. And if that's how you view exercise, is it any wonder you don't want to do it?

5. The consequences aren't immediate. For most things in life, there are immediate consequences if we don't do what we're supposed to do. But what happens if you don't exercise? Usually, nothing. At least, not right away. Even knowing the possible consequences (such as weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, cancer) aren't enough to get us going because it's tough to worry about something that hasn't happened or may never happen, isn't it?

Do any of these ideas strike a chord with you? If so, you may be wondering if it's even possible to find the motivation to exercise. The good news is that even just a small change in how you think about exercise can make a difference.

Motivation isn't something that just happens to you, but something you create for yourself. Exercise may be all about moving the body, but you won't get anywhere until you move your mind first. Getting past your mental roadblocks can open the door for new ideas and new attitudes.

1. Accept the fact that you have to exercise. If you spend most of your time sitting and you want to lose weight and get healthy, exercise is a must.

Nothing, no pill or diet or surgical procedure can take the place of being active. Making peace with that fact often makes doing it a little easier and, the good news is, your choices abound. Exercise doesn't have to happen in a gym or take up hours of your time. Knowing you can create your own exercise experience may help you get up and get moving.

2. Acknowledge your lifestyle. In the past, we had more reasons to move. We had to cut our own grass, wash our dishes by hand, walk to and from school through eight feet of snow uphill both ways -- oops, that's my grandmother talking. The point is, things are different today and we can't go back to the past. Most of us aren't going to get rid of our computers, TVs, cars and cell phones and that isn't necessarily the answer. After all, these things are useful and important to us. But, these things can contribute to our health problems if we let them take over.

Acknowledging your responsibility as well as a need to find balance brings you one step closer to changing how you live.

3. Make exercise mean something to you. For many people, exercise is a means to an end -- a way to lose weight and get that perfect body...or at least a better one than they have now.

Future goals are nice, but there's another part to the equation that, when missing, makes exercise hard to stick to: Purpose. In other words, your workouts need to have value, regardless of whether you ever reach your desired goal. Always working for some future, intangible thing isn't enough - we need it to mean something now.

So, what does exercise mean to you besides a way to lose weight? Is there any value, outside of your weight loss goals, to working out? For me, exercise is a way to reduce stress and keep my energy up. For you, exercise might be the only time you get to yourself each day. Find you're own value and meaning and you'll find your motivation.

4. Find your own exercise path. Too often, the mainstream idea of exercise involves things like health clubs, cardio machines, fitness classes, etc. That's unfortunate if the thought of doing those things makes you cringe. Here's some good news -- you have the freedom to do whatever activities you like. If you hate the gym, you don't have to join one to get fit. If you hate the repetition and boredom of machines, you can try more interactive things like basketball or spin class. If you like to keep things simple, you could take several walks throughout the day or add some laps the next time you shop at the mall.

Find out what you like and forget the rules.

Getting Started

Reflecting on your mental exercise blocks is all well and good but, while you're chewing on that, why not take small steps towards a more active lifestyle? You don't have to turn your whole life upside down. Instead, use these resources to learn about simpler, smaller ways to start living a healthier lifestyle.

• Enjoying Exercise and Healthy Eating
• Getting Motivated
• Exercise for Couch Potatoes
• Beginner's Corner

There's no question that life is different than it used to be, but that doesn't mean we can't take control of our health and fitness.

All the new technology that keeps us so sedentary also offers us even more ways to be active. We now have streaming fitness videos, podcasts, fitness video games and a variety of health clubs to fit every need and budget. There's something out there for all of us once we take the time and effort to look.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of websites looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon, BN.com, iBook, Kobo, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on  Smashwords.com. If you use the smash word promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (PJ42H). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Reverse The Aging Process

Do you know that things you do every day can cause you to look older than you really are. Pills and beauty creams are not the real answer. It's all about what you eat and drink that ages you. You probably see people on the street that look really good and have all gray hair. You probably think, "Boy they look good for their age." Those people might be older than you think.

 I saw a senior on TV being interviewed about his service in the Army during the second World War. He was the oldest survivor of the D-Day invasion. I was listening to the interview and thought "this guy looks awful young to be in a war 70 years ago". He looks and talks like he's maybe 75 or 80. He looked good physically, he stood up during the entire interview and talked like a younger man. At the end of the interview, the Host congratulated the man on his One Hundredth  Birthday last week. That blew my mind. I only hope I can be in that kind of shape when I'm one hundred.

I did a little research and found that the little vices we all have, like smoking or drinking alcohol, eating some processed foods like canned hams, or other processed foods all contain things that will age your body. 

It's hard to eat fresh and eat clean all the time, but that's really the only way to avoid chemicals and hormone that can damage the body. We use to think that smoking, drugs and alcohol were the only way we could harm the organs of our body, but today we know that everything we eat or drink can do damage to us. Eating fresh means that you only eat fresh foods, vegetables, nuts, beans, fresh meat (no preservatives) and fresh fish. Sounds simple right, but add to that "eating clean" and that means your fresh foods should be free of chemicals, pesticides, hormones and any kind of growth stimulates. All these things are used today by commercial farmers to produce better crops, better poultry, and better meat.

That's why the trend of Organic Product is becoming popular today. Range free eggs or Organic Eggs, Grass-fed Beef, Free Range Poultry, Organic Fruits, and Vegetable; all these items are in all the grocery stores today, but they are expensive. Why, are they expensive? So people think that if it's in demand the stores will charge more for it. And some of that might be true, but when a vegetable farmer grows organic he will lose a larger percentage of the crop. You have to remember he doesn't use regular fertilizer, no normal type of pest control and he doesn't use anything to speed up the growth. So as a result, he'll have less crops going to market and make less money unless he charges more for his crops. 

Let's get back to aging; Can any occasional drink or meal out hurt your diet? Well, not much, but the little things do add up. For example, a well-known cola company has started importing their cola product from Mexico and the sale of that product is up 30% from a year ago. Why you might ask? In Mexico, the soft drink companies are only allowed to use sugar cane in their drinks and not Fructose (a sugar substitute used in North America). This is also true for their alcoholic drinks. No chemical substitutes in their food.

Soft drink companies have lost a large market share of the soft drink market in the past decade and have tried desperately to regain those sales. The juice drinks were very popular for a while and still are, but today the different flavored waters seem to be a big hit. Returning to natural additives may be the answer for the soft drink industry.

Besides things that we eat and drink aging us, also how much you eat can also age your body. Over-eating or under-eating can both cause health problems that will cause the body
to age. We are cutting our lives short by not taking care of your bodies and besides food and drink we need physical activity and when you don't get enough that will also age your body.

 Taking care of yourself will give you many extra healthy years added to your life.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog posts.

gettingtoahealthyweight.blog
idropped40pounds.wordpress.com
howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of websites looking for the material you want.
My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the Smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

We Got Healthy

Mandy & Conner Volpe Got Healthy With An App

by MYFITNESSPAL

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I'm not doing a commercial, but I look at the "myfitnesspal" website pretty often and saw this story and wanted to reblog it. Those of you that follow my blog know about my battle with weight loss and some of you don't think it's possible, so I found this story about real people and I want to tell you that this story is not unusual. Today more people than ever are trying to lose weight. This couple used the apps available on the MyFitnessPal website to help them drop a large amount of body fat. Yes, this guy still has a way to go, but you can tell by the photos that they lost a lot of weight already. I know anyone can do it because I went from 220 pounds to 160. And all I did was change the foods I was eating and started to exercise. The fat will melt away and I was over 50 years old. Don't tell me you can't lose weight. 

Mandy and Conner Volpe not only created a healthier lifestyle for themselves but have lost a combined 176 lbs. — which is more than either of them weighs now! In December 2014, Mandy and Conner celebrated one-and-a-half years of healthy living — something they started working on as a married couple because they wanted to create a healthier lifestyle for their marriage.

To help them live that healthier lifestyle, they both started using MyFitnessPal. Said Mandy: “MyFitnessPal changed the way we think about food and exercise. It’s become a way for us to track our food and fitness and to visually chart everything — we can actually look at how we’re eating and exercising and use it as a way to correct ourselves if need be. It lets me see how eating a certain way — say a cupcake — how that would affect my weight if I were to eat one on a daily basis.”

In addition to tracking food and exercise, Mandy and Conner love the variety of the MFP database, “It’s great because you can track your food whether you eat out, eat pre-packaged foods, or make foods from your own personal recipes,” said Mandy. “It’s so easy to integrate into daily life. It’s free so you don’t have to spend money to make it happen like you would for a gym membership or at-home equipment.”

Probably the greatest challenge for them has been shifting how they celebrate things. They now eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables and enjoy outdoor activities like hiking and half marathons. Though it’s been tough, they’re committed to this lifestyle. For them, it’s no diet or fad — and because of the work they’ve done, they’re healthy, have newfound athleticism and look at themselves in a new light.

After you lose that first 10 pounds of body fat you won't want to quit. You'll feel younger and more energized. You'll be a happier person and your doctor will love the change.

I write several blogs, check out some of my other sites.

gettingtoahealthyweight.blog

idropped40pounds.wordpress.com

howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of websites looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the Smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

The Mysteries Of Weight Loss

So you’re finally ready to lose weight. Now the question is: How?

The standard advice -- to eat less and move more -- isn’t so helpful when it comes to the “how.” You probably know you need to cut calories, but how many? Are you better off getting those calories from low-fat or low-carb foods? And what’s going on with your metabolism, your personal energy-burning furnace? Is it programmed to keep you overweight? Is there any way to fan the flames so you can dream of one day eating a piece of pie without gaining a pound?

Even science is still stumped on many of the basic questions of weight loss.

“Amazingly, in this era of obesity, there are still many things that we really don’t know,” says Robin Callister, Ph.D., professor of human physiology at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

Here’s what we do know about some of the most persistent mysteries of weight loss.

Do You Have to Cut 3,500 Calories to Lose a Pound?

No, the trouble is that the theory might have applied in 1958 when we ate real food. But today, our diets are different. We eat fake food, manufactured food and most of this food can't be processed by the body and that's why all of us have so much fat.

The 3,500-calorie rule doesn’t work because the body adjusts to the drop in calories. It quickly decreases the number of calories it needs to maintain its new, lighter size, says Corby Martin, Ph.D., director of the Ingestive Behavior Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA. That means weight loss slows down over time. People who expect to drop a pound for every 3,500 calories they cut will soon become frustrated when the scale doesn’t cooperate.

Let’s say a dieter knows they need to eat 2,500 calories a day to maintain their current weight. But they want to slim down. So they decide to shave 500 calories off their daily intake. According to the Wishnofsky Rule, after about a week of doing that, they should lose a pound.

“For the first week or two, the 3,500 calorie-per-pound rule kind of works, roughly, but after the first couple of weeks it doesn’t work,” Martin says.

Here’s why: In 3 or 4 weeks, you need less food to maintain that new, slimmer shape. I know you only lost a couple pounds and if you might only have to lose 10 pounds, you're going to plateau several times. The problem with this formula is that we don't have the same food today that we had in 1958. Believe me, I was there, I just started high school. In those days farmers did use pesticides to control bugs but we didn't chemically engineer our food like we do today. It's chemically engineered food that will cause food addiction and furthermore cause obesity.

Forget cutting back on the food you're eating; you have to go back to eating fresh foods. When it comes to fruits and vegetables, it's best to buy organic. Ration the red meat your eating; it's marbled with fat and it's causing you to increase your body fat. Seafood and chicken or turkey are a better choice. Never eat tube meat or any other processed or manufactured food. If you don't eat foods that add to your body fat, your body will burn the stored fat you have.

Are All Calories Equal?

 “Some folks, when they drink alcohol, feel like they have a license to eat whatever they want to, and they get into problems.

If a glass of wine weakens your will to resist that plate of cheese and crackers, it’s not doing your waistline any favors.

But if booze doesn’t affect your eating, then one or two drinks is probably OK.

As for calories from fat, carbohydrates, and protein, this is where one size, or one eating plan, really doesn’t fit all.

There is good science to show that people who have high blood sugar levels -- associated with conditions like type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, gestational diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome, and fatty liver disease -- benefit from diets that are lower in refined carbohydrates and higher in healthy fats and lean proteins. Examples of this kind of diet are South Beach, the Zone diet, the Mediterranean diet, and the low GI diet.

If insulin levels aren’t a concern, there’s little difference in a number of weight people lose if they cut their calories from fat or from carbs, says Kevin Hall Ph.D.  But he says protein calories are a different story.

In the lab, researchers have shown that higher-protein diets tend to increase the number of calories a person burns, Hall says. “So in that sense, a protein calorie is not equivalent to a carbohydrate or a fat calorie,” he says.

Protein helps you burn more calories during the day and helps preserve muscle. When people lose weight, they don’t just lose fat -- they also lose muscle. The more muscle you lose on a diet, the more your metabolism slows. That can make it tough to keep the weight off down the road. Protein also helps you feel satisfied for longer after you eat.

But people can eat only so much protein without changing their kidney function. U.S. dietary guidelines recommend that adults keep their protein in a range of 10% to 35% of total calories each day. Most diets fall into that range. Atkins, for example, one of the highest protein diets around, supplies 35% of daily calories from protein.

Weight loss is a mystery to some of us because we don't know how we gain the excess body fat, so we don't know what we have to do to lose the fat. Most of us think if we can just lose some weight the fat will disappear, but it doesn't work that way and that's why most of us give up trying.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my Ebook at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet.

“How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?”, is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites and search the title to find my Ebook. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the Smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.