What inspired this particular post is an article I read online about one woman’s unfortunate struggles to lose weight and keep it off (you can read for yourself http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/weightloss/i-lost-50-pounds-and-gained-it-all-back-heres-what-went-wrong/ar-AAhWRYu?li=BBnba9O#page=4). She managed to lose 50 pounds only to gain 70 back in a just a few years. She ended up feeling like it’s an impossibly hard job to keep the weight off because, as science has already proven, after a drastic weight loss your metabolism slows down making it extremely hard to keep your weight from climbing back up. As a matter of fact the article mentioned that most contestants on the Biggest Loser show have gained all their weight back, so what she was going through was not unique to her.
The first thoughts that come to mind is my feelings of sympathy and sadness for her since she really did put in the hard work and achieved this drastic and amazing result of a 50 pound loss and yet, something was missing in the process because apparently it was not sustainable. Her circumstances changed and it resulted in her not being able to work out as much and not being as careful with her food intake. She ended up gaining 70 pounds in the process, feeling depressed and at a loss of what to do. I really do feel bad for people like her because most of this is not her fault. There’s a lot of misleading information out there and people are having a hard time figuring out what to do to better themselves.
Now, here’s my take on all this. A good rule of thumb when it comes to making health related goals is it has to be realistic and sustainable. Sure, you can work out for two hours and eat boiled chicken every day for a few months. But since you probably won’t be able to sustain that long term, don’t even bother because you will gain all the weight you’ve lost. We live in the get-results-quick world and we don’t want to wait patiently for the gradual change to occur. How long did it take you to become overweight? Many years right? Well, the more weight you have to lose, the longer it will take to lose it if you want to keep it off. As you lose weight a little at a time, you are allowing your body to adapt to the new composition and make necessary adjustments. The less drastic it is, the easier it will be for your body to adapt.
Next, please don’t do this to yourself where you make yourself work out every single day after years and years of not doing anything. You won’t be able to for very long. You’ll burn out, injury yourself or simply get sick of it and stop all together. If you lived a very sedentary life, it will already be a huge benefit to work out three times a week for one hour. It’s a lot easier to commit to three days as opposed to seven. Don’t worry, you can always add later as you get stronger and enjoy the experience more. Don’t rush the magic. Fat doesn’t like to budge. Your body wants to hold on to it for its dear life. You have to trick your body into letting it go a little at a time and not to desire it back! Trust me, the slower the better. Give your body a chance to get used to the little changes before doing anything else.
Another thing that needs to be mentioned is, the only other possible reason you end up with a slower metabolism is that you didn’t pack on enough muscle. As you were starving yourself to lose weight, you were actually losing muscle. So even though you may have been lifting weights, you weren’t feeding your muscles and therefore your workouts were useless. After this drastic weight loss, you lost fat, water AND muscle. With less muscle mass, your metabolism slowed down making it impossible to NOT gain weight.
I will end by advising all overweight people to not look at food as a diet but as nutrition. Choose lots of good quality fresh and preferably organic foods. Never processed. Concentrate on working out and look at food as fuel. Eat to perform! You may need to eat more than you realized since you are working out more. Your muscles are your best friends. Treat them good. Give them lots of good quality protein like chicken, eggs, fish, nuts, yogurt. And don’t go crazy with the low carb either. Just choose good carbs like oatmeal, all veggies, moderate fruit, potatoes, rice, quinoa, beans etc. By feeding your body good, healthy carbs, you will spare your muscles and let them grow. As your muscles develop, they will burn more fat even when you are not working out which will increase your metabolism. This is the magic formula.