Fitness Training: 3 Harsh Truths About Weight Loss That You Need to Know! by Anders N W Lindgreen

24 Months to a New Body

It is safe to say that you will never see a health magazine with this title, and still most transformations take 6, 12 or 24 months (or more!) to achieve. But that doesn’t sell. Media knows that anything else than exceptional, easy results in no more than four weeks will be rejected, and then they’d be out of business. It’s not their fault, not really; it’s just supply and demand. If we demanded better quality articles regarding fitness training and eating, they would give it to us, but we don’t. This charade means that most people begin their journey with false information, assuming that they’ll lose insane amounts in a very short time, and when they don’t, they get discouraged and may not try again for another year. This doesn’t mean that you can’t achieve great results in four weeks, you absolutely can! But if you have outrageous expectations brought on by the latest fad, you are setting yourself up for failure (and that’s often for the long-term too). So, realise it willtake time, BUT you CAN get there! And as long as you stay on track, those results will keep on coming, making you feel better and better about yourself every day.

Change is Hard (and your body fights it)

Anyone claiming change to be easy is dead wrong. It is not. Believing all the hype and assuming it will be and you’re in for a nasty surprise. Look, it is light-years away from being impossible, but if changing behaviours, habits and lifestyles were easy, I mean really easy, just about everyone would. And physiologically, your body will actually fight it. It loves to stay the same and any change will be resisted until your persist enough. That is why start-stop attempts rarely generate short or long-term results. The inconsistencies lead your body to doubt your intentions and it just sits where it’s comfortable. I can illustrate this easily by comparing the 30 second stretches you do after your workouts with having your arm in a sling for six weeks. Six weeks down the track with a little bit of stretching here and there will do little for your flexibility, but keep that arm in the same position for six weeks straight and your body will shorten up your muscles, as it assumes that is what you want. So, either you do or you don’t, anything in between and you might as well do nothing.

No Attempt is Better than a Weak Decision

Research tells us that most weight loss attempts (especially the extreme ones) will result in gaining back the lost weight PLUS an additional 15% over the long-term. Not only that, if the weight loss was done in a poor fashion, there is likely to be severe muscle loss involved as well. And when you gain that weight back, it will be little if any muscle. This is terrible as muscle mass increases the energy our body requires at rest and at activities and therefore helps us to maintain our weight. Without it, keeping the weight off is even harder. So, stay away from weak “maybe sorta’ kinda’” attempts and make a firm decision to change. If you don’t, you are probably better off not doing anything at all. I would pick standing still over two steps forward, three steps back. But trumping all of that is making your mind up and do it already! You will be so happy you did.