How many times have you proclaimed, "I need to go on a
diet"? How many of those diets resulted in long-term
success? Not many. Millions of people are looking for the
answer to improved health and fitness, and spend billions
of dollars every year on diets and weight loss. Diets
continually fail to deliver results because no matter how
compelling the underlying principles for any diet may seem,
no one can stay on a diet forever. Eventually, you will
drop the diet and go back to your normal eating habits.
Typically, you not only gain back the weight you lost, but
statistics show that you will also gain additional weight.
Anything built on a faulty foundation has little chance for
success, and most weight loss programs are riddled with
pitfalls and over inflated promises. Weight loss and weight
management are lifelong commitments. Until you accept the
reality that they are a learning process that takes ongoing
work and focus, you will continue to look for the fast and
simple solutions that are nothing more than a bunch of big,
fat lies.
Long-term success with health and weight loss requires
significant changes not just in how you eat, but in the way
you live. Attaining results must be achieved in a way that
enhances your life and allows your body to reach its
optimal weight naturally. This is in sharp contrast to the
quick-fix mentality, which attempts to trick the body into
short-term weight loss with diets and other rapid results
formulas.
There are six basic principles that allow long-term
positive change to occur. Each plays an integral role in
achieving health and fitness success:
1. Understand how addictions can negatively impact your
lifestyle choices. There are many forms of addiction that
go unrecognized or fly under the radar of conventional
thinking, negatively impacting our health. In our
stressed-out society, we search for escape from the harsh
realities of life. We smoke, drink alcohol, take drugs and
overeat. The number one reason people give for not
exercising is time, yet the average American watches more
than 4 hours of television every day. All of these
activities make us fat, lazy and out of shape. They prevent
us from obtaining optimal health.
2. Reduce toxic exposure and stress. The definition of
toxic is poison. Sadly, we are surrounded by poisons that
damage our health and put our lives at risk. We have been
conditioned to believe that small amounts of toxic exposure
are safe, but they are not. There are thousands of untested
chemical combinations injected into our food and water
supply, and there are deadly chemical compounds in our
personal hygiene and cleaning products. Stress is the
number one toxin, contributing to as much as 80 percent of
all disease. Educate yourself about the deadly toxins or
watch your health slowly and quietly deteriorate.
3. Create a mindset for change with no time limits. The
starting block for any long-term success is changing the
way you think about your body and your health. Changing
your mindset means that you have made the unequivocal
decision that you will improve your health, which may
include weight loss and ultimately weight management, no
matter what it takes. Your determination must be strong and
cannot waiver. Obviously, this cannot be achieved with a
six-week diet or any other type of short-term solution.
Until you change your mindset, all of the decisions you
make regarding your health or weight challenges will be
flawed. Your new mindset must focus on how your actions and
attitudes will help you achieve your goals for the rest of
your life. If you do not have a weight problem or if you do
not feel that weight loss is important to improve your
health, your new long-term mindset is no less important.
The end result of implementing a new, long-term mindset
while applying the principles outlined here will naturally
result in weight reduction and, more important, improved
health.
4. Provide proper nutrition to feed your body and your
brain. Did you ever try to fill the gas tank in your car
with diesel fuel? If you have, you would have found
yourself stuck on the side of the road watching your car
smoke and sputter because you fed it fuel that was not
designed for you car's optimal performance. Everything we
eat and drink affects us on a cellular level. Food is the
fuel for the body and brain. The type of fuel you choose to
consume will determine how your body operates. Most of our
food choices are made with our taste buds, driven by the
desire to obtain pleasure with little thought about the
consequences of our actions. There are many small but still
palatable changes you can make to your eating habits that
can have a big impact on your health.
5. Engage in physical activity in the form of consistent
exercise. It takes a deficit or surplus of 3,500 calories
to lose or gain a single pound of body fat. Everyone burns
a certain number of calories just by being alive. This is
called your resting metabolic rate (RMR). After you account
for your RMR, a caloric surplus (weight gain) or deficit
(weight loss) is a simple mater of calories consumed
through eating and drinking versus calories expended
through physical activity. It is a proven fact that even
small amounts of activity can dramatically improve your
health.
6. Adjust your lifestyle with habits and routines that will
enhance your life. Human beings are creatures of habit, and
we follow the same patterns and routines every day. Think
about what you do every morning when you wake up and every
night before you go to bed. It is human nature to fly on
autopilot, constantly repeating our actions without
thinking about them. You will never be successful achieving
your health and fitness goals with fads or quick-fix
solutions. Lasting results can only be obtained with
lifestyle changes that you can stick with for the rest of
your life.
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Craig Pepin-Donat has trained thousands of people within
the fitness industry. Craig has created numerous
professional training programs based on his formula for
success that have helped millions of people to living a
healthier and more active lifestyle. He brings that
knowledge to you in his ground breaking book, The Big Fat
Health and Fitness Lie. He founded
http://www.FitAdvocate.com to enhance the lives of health
and fitness consumers.
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