Diet rant...

Okay, here’s my grip session about exercise and diet for the week... I’ve been listening to various people go on and on about these crazy diets that are supposed to target specific areas of the body. The bottom line is that if you want to get rid of fat, you have to exercise at higher levels of intensity for longer periods combined with a sensible diet so that you burn more calories than you take in. That’s the only way you’re going to lose weight, including fat. Doing something crazy like eating nothing but grapefruit for two weeks is only going to help you lose weight because you’re consuming fewer calories than you’re burning. Period.

Going on crazy diets not only increases your chance of failure exponentially, it deprives your body of much-needed nutrients. All you’re doing by going on these crazy, crash fad diets is hurting your chances of actually losing weight and keeping it off.

And getting your heart rate up to 65% of your maximum heart rate for 20 minutes is not going to do the trick (unless you are incredibly out of shape and that 65% is your starting point for health and safety reasons, but if you’re that out of shape and overweight I would hope that you’re starting your weight loss journey under the direct supervision of a health care professional) and you’re just fooling yourself. Yes, some activity is better than no activity, but if you really want to lose weight (and fat), you’re going to have to rev it up a bit. Period.

People need to face the fact that weight loss and maintenance is a lifelong journey, and that you’re going to have to put the time and energy into doing it. You can’t have someone else do it for you and it’s going to take a lot of work. But, if you make the right changes to your diet and activity levels a part of your everyday life (after you kick butt to get down to the weight that you want to maintain), it’s not that hard to maintain.

One main problem is that so many people don’t want to face themselves – why they overeat, why they eat when they’re stressed or emotional or bored, why they let themselves get fat, what they really want to look like, and what is actually realistic for their body type. We, as a society, have let ourselves become brainwashed into thinking that you have to be a size zero with no curves to be beautiful and sexy and attractive. Until more people stop thinking that way and start sharing their healthier mindset with their friends, more young men and women will suffer from low self-esteem, eating disorders, and depression because they don’t look like what they see in movies and magazines.