Weight Loss Basics -- Resources

(Seventh in a Series)

 

Help

Pride and independence often tell us the story we want to hear: we can do this on our own, we know we can; we don’t need any help.

That may well be true if you only have ten or so pounds to lose to get into last year’s dress for a party. Live on lemon juice for a week or two while you treadmill yourself ragged for two hours a day. Sure, you’ll get into that dress—though you probably won’t again a couple of weeks after the party.

If, however, you’re facing a long-term weight loss project of fifty, seventy-five, one hundred pounds or more—and especially if you’ve tried, and failed, a few times already—it’s time to swallow your pride and acknowledge that, yes, you could do with a hand here.

The ability to accept help, freely and without resentment, is undervalued. Few have it innately. Most have to work at it. And as a long-term dieter, you had better acquire this skill sooner rather than later.

Once you have come to terms with needing a hand, however, you will find that such hands abound.

Weight Loss Sites

This paragraph opens with a warning: there are so many Internet sites devoted to weight loss that you can easily spend the rest of your days perusing them all and never quite get around to losing weight.

Also, many weight loss sites are pure money making schemes, praying on your need (getting more and more desperate as time, and failed diets, pile up) to lose weight. The best way to detect such sites is by their promises, which are always a little over the top, and always stress how easy it will be, if only you spend $50 a week with them.

This is a dead giveaway, for long-term weight loss is not easy.

But there are many helpful sites as well, providing all manner of tools and tips. FitDay and SparkPeople are two of the best. There are, however, many excellent sites. Just search for what you need in terms of information and support, and watch out for outlandish promises.

Nutritionists

If you have the financial resources to afford one, or the insurance coverage to provide one, a nutritionist can be of invaluable help to you. An experienced nutrition professional has been there and done that with almost any scenario and can provide excellent, and real, advice to follow.

Doctors

It goes without saying that if you have medical problems, or even concerns, of any kind, you need to consult—and gain the support of—your doctor before you set out on a long term weight loss program.

Many medical problems—although causes may appear to lie elsewhere—tend to resolve once you reach a healthy weight, for the body is an amazingly efficient self-healing organism. Once it no longer has to cope with and battle the ills of being overweight, it can turn its attention to other, medical, problems, and more often than not successfully resolve them.

Still, you need to enlist your doctor on your team. If your current doctor is less than enthusiastic about your weight loss efforts, it might serve you well to recruit a new one who is. The support guidance of a medical professional is an invaluable resource.

Loved Ones

Possibly the most important support you will need, especially over the course of a long-term weight loss project, is members of your family and friends, whether an old roommate, significant other, co-worker, parent, or child.

Knowing that those who love your are squarely in your court and willing to do anything to help you, can make all the difference; can in fact, make or break the success of long-term weight loss.

Successful Dieters

Another priceless source of support comes from those who have successfully lost the amount of weight you are setting out to lose. They have been there and done that on the field of battle, and they have won. They know what problems you will face, and they know how to overcome them.

Not unlike sponsors in an Anonymous group, they can offer you very real and applicable advice to virtually any situation. And they will, just like your loved ones, be firmly on your side against the mountain that often seems quite impossible to climb.

Seek them out by any means, and stay in weekly, if not daily contact, to benefit from their experience. It cannot be overvalued.

Help Revisited

The fact that you may have tried many times to lose weight, but has yet to succeed, is a clear indication that pride must be swallowed, and help must be sought and accepted—whether freely or grudgingly, it doesn’t really matter.

This can be hard to do, but for the sake of your own health and happiness, you must do it; you’ll find that it is nowhere near as hard as trying to go it alone.

The multiTRIM Diet

All diet plans—except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound—have only one goal: for you to burn more calories than you consume.

Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health while easing hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink.

A multiTRIM Journal

A friend recently set out to shed 143 pounds over 18 months with the help of the multiTRIM diet. The blog-record of her journey can be found here.

 

About the Author

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho based Ulf Wolf writes about health and weight loss for various clients and publications.

Weight Loss Basics -- Willpower vs. Barrier

(Third in a Series)

 

A to B

If we are to believe Nike, it is simply a matter of “Just Do It.†Looks good on paper, and even better in the commercials—but of course, all those Nike hard-body models have long since arrived at B (or never left, more likely).

When A is 300 pounds and B is 150 pounds the commercial simile “Just Doesn’t Do It†and quickly at that. In fact, it can seem an insurmountable task, not made simpler for having accumulated a dozen or more failed attempts to “prove†how impossible it is.

Still, the not so healthy you at A knows that you must arrive at B, come what may. Remaining at A is not an option. You doctor tells you so, those who love you tell you so, you tell yourself so (over and over). Yet, B seems at least 5,878,630,000,000 miles (a light year) away. The other side of some very impressive mountain range, say the Himalayas.

Some pessimists maintain that you cannot get there from here. Pessimists tend to lie.

The Mathematics

I like mathematics. Mathematics is so unemotional. And it well behooves us to bring an unemotional yardstick to a subject like weight loss, which can get quite emotional.

And this is the mathematical truth:

To reach a distant B you have either to raise your willpower or lower the barrier.

In other words, either grow very tall, or grind down the Himalayas—or, of course, some of both.

Willpower

Willpower carries a nice string of synonyms, among them: determination, resolve, resolution, iron will, strength of will, strength of mind, self-control, self-discipline. Pick any of them, it will serve well.

And willpower is defined as: a combination of determination and self-discipline that enables somebody to do something despite the difficulties involved (Encarta). Indeed.

And when it comes to weight loss, willpower is that quality you acquire by deciding that few—if any—things are more important than your health; that few things are more important than arriving at B (for more information, see the previous article in this series: Weight Loss Basics — An Investment In Health).

Barrier

The main barrier to arriving at a distant weight-loss B is hunger.

Look back at previous attempts. Willpower and enthusiasm alone can carry you for days, perhaps even weeks, until it rises, this raw, uncompromising thing in search of sustenance, louder and louder, this hunger.

Willpower buckles, determination evaporates, justifications work overtime to make shutting the beast up (as with a huge pizza) the absolutely right thing to do. Were there no such thing as hunger, long-term weight loss projects would be proverbial walks in the park.

A Helping Hand

As covered in more detail in the next Weight Loss Basics article, when the body is starved of either nutrients (such as vitamins, minerals, and amino acids) or energy (in the form of calories) it lets you know, in no uncertain terms.

A percentage breakdown of physical craving for nutrients vs. energy is probably impossible—and most likely varies from individual to individual—but let us, for simplicity’s sake, say that fifty percent of physical hunger is a demand for nutrients and the other fifty for energy.

Now, to lose weight you need to cut down on calories, so there little hope of pacifying the beast in that department, leaving nutrients.

And here is the good news: you can supply the body with calorie-free nutrients and so reduce hunger cravings by perhaps as much as half. And if, at the same time, you step up your willpower a fraction, to at least a tad taller than the remaining hunger, you will in fact succeed. There is no doubt about it. Like many others have succeeded before you, like so many are succeeding as we speak.

Appetite Suppressants

Appetite suppressants, such as caffeine or amphetamines, do not actualy reduce physical hunger, they reduce hearing. Your body still pleads, you just don’t hear it.

Hearing is a good thing. Stay away from chemical suppressants.

The multiTRIM Diet

All diet plans—except for the outright fraudulent ones, and be warned: they abound—have only one goal: for you to burn more calories than you consume.

Possibly the most sensible plan we have seen in recent years is the multiTRIM diet which supplies all needed nutrients to maintain health while easing hunger in a fifteen calories meal-replacement drink.

A multiTRIM Journal

A friend recently set out to shed 143 pounds over 18 months with the help of the multiTRIM diet. The blog-record of her journey can be found here.

 

About the Author

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho based Ulf Wolf writes about health and weight loss for various clients and publications.

My 100 lb weight loss journey from 268 to 168