Getting Healthy is Hard

I know, you’re thinking that this guy is trying to sell me something.  That is true but not what you think I am selling.

You see it took me a long time to get as unhealthy as I am today.  I worked at it really hard it and I imagine that there are a bunch of you out there that have been doing the same thing to yourselves.  I ate a bunch of bad stuff when I was young and continued to do so as I got older.

I tried a neat diet one time it was called a carb diet.  I ate bread. I ate pasta and I ate potatoes and washed them down with, yep you guessed it soda!  The thing I didn’t do was to increase my exercise to burn off the carbs that I ate and they went where everyone’s diet missteps go right around the middle until I reached the gigantic size of 300 pounds at the ripe old age of 43.  I am willing to bet that there are some of you reading this that are in the same boat.

So how do you get rid of those pounds?  Well first and foremost I need to tell you a couple of secrets.  Number one, those pounds do not come off as easy as they went on. Number two, they will not come off until you want them to come off.

Let’s take talk about the first one first. Weight loss does not come from a diet.  Let me clarify, permanent weight loss does not come from a diet.  Permanent weight loss comes from a lifestyle change (we will talk about that in a minute).  If you go on a diet and lose the weight a proven fact is that if you stop the diet you will most likely gain the weight you lost back and then some because chances are that you will go back to eating what you did before you lost the weight.  It is kinda the insanity thing, you know doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Second, you will never lose weight and keep it off unless you want to do it.  If you are trying to lose weight and you don’t really want to you will never do it.  It is kinda like quitting drinking or stopping smoking unless you really want to you won’t succeed at doing it.  I have seen many people try to quit smoking, they try to cut back, they try the “patch”, the gum but they never really succeed.  One has to want to quit, I know, I quit 30 years ago this October and I did it cold turkey after smoking three packs a day for more than 10 years not to mention we saved a ton of money! One more point on this, food is a lot like alcohol it is addictive to many of us but is nothing we can’t fix with a little help and support.

Changing your lifestyle is also hard.  Who wants to change?  I know I didn’t.  I loved the way I was living.  I was on the buffet circuit, a different buffet every other night.  I was also on the late dinner train.  I used to have dinner at 6:30 or 7 PM and then go sit on my favorite exercise equipment; you guessed it, my recliner.  I would do some finger exercises with the remote and give the TV a work out.  Then I would include 12 ounce wrist and elbow curls. Finally after that workout I got some sleep.

I know, this isn’t funny, it’s sad but that was my reality. That is when I hit bottom and started an almost no carb diet.  You know, it almost worked.  I actually went from 300 plus pounds to 208 in a 6 month period of time.  I even had to buy a new wardrobe.  Man I was “stylin’ and profilin’”!  I had new duds and my wife thought I looked pretty good too.

So, remember back when I said that diets don’t work?  Well this one was no exception.  I came off of that diet and went right back to what I was doing before. Ah, a little bread won’t hurt and then a little more and a little more until I went to the Doctor’s office and got weighed and tipped the scales at just shy of 260 pounds!  That’s when I realized that if I didn’t change my lifestyle I would be at the 300 pounds I was before and probably more.

So what did I change,  I decided to do a little exercise, after all I was almost 60 and hadn’t done a lick of exercise since I retired out of the military in 1993 and this was 2012.  I decided to walk, nothing strenuous, I started with 20 minutes a day 2 or three times a week and am now doing 40 minutes a day of a nice leisurely pace, I don’t even break a sweat.  I started having a meal replacement shake for lunch every day except for weekends and I did self-imposed portion control.  Finally the wife and I agreed to eat at between 4 and 5 every day.  This gave our food a chance to digest and I do not eat anything after 8 pm.  Did I see a drastic drop in weight?  No but I weighed myself at my PT’s office and I noticed that I weighed in at 235 which is 25 pounds less than what I was when I started the change.

To make this long story short, changing my lifestyle probably extended my life and will yours. For more tips and ideas contact me at bincalventures@gmail.com.

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