If Not Metabolism, Then What??

 

 

So yesterday I talked about how blaming your metabolism for being overweight is a fools errand. The culprit is your brain, and the way you have let it train you to live. You can't take a magic pill that resets your metabolism and allows you to lose weight while sitting on the couch watching Lipozene commercials. The standard advice to burn more calories than you consume through diet and exercise is still right on target. But for most people it isn't really very helpful (if it was no one would be overweight).

So here are some lifestyle tips from Herman Pontzer, a professor of anthropology at Duke University and author of several books on healthy, sustainable weight loss.

Pick a Diet. Any Diet. The bottom line is that any diet will cause you to lose weight so long as it reduces the number of calories you consume to below the number that you burn each day. Even the high-sugar, high fat Twinkie Diet (done to prove that ANY diet in a calorie deficit will cause weight loss, 27 pounds in 10 weeks, in this case). So what is the best diet for you? The one you can stick with forever. That being said, it is healthiest to eat foods that are filling and nutritious - vegetables, fruit, meat and fish. Any calories that are not burned, no matter what type of food they come from, end up being stored as fat.

Reduce Temptations. If you are craving half a bag of Doritos but there are none in your house, you have a pretty good chance of not eating them. (Yes, you can run to the grocery store, but will you really do that?) On the other hand, if there is a bag in the pantry, odds are it will be half gone in an hour. Don't stock foods you want to avoid.

Alter Your Rituals. A lot of the eating we do is simply habit and ritual and we do it without even really thinking about it. A doughnut or fast food McBlubber Sandwich for breakfast. A sugary desert after dinner. A salty, fat laden snack while watching TV. These are habits, and your brain loves habits. Change the food or change the habit. (Easier said than done yes, but I never said it was easy. Just possible.)

Your Scale is Your Friend. Despite what you may have heard, weighing yourself every day, or at least on a regular schedule, will make your weight loss efforts more likely to pay off. This simple, 10 second action makes you much, much more aware of where you stand (no pun intended) and what you are eating.

Exercise. Ok, you knew this one was coming. But there is a reason it is always on these lists. Beside helping you fend off heart disease, diabetes, cancers, dementia and a long list of other diseases and conditions, it burns calories. That means you can eat more than you could without exercising and still be in deficit and lose weight!

Have a Plan. Most people who try to lose weight succeed. That's right, they do. For a while. But over 90% of them end up regaining the weight they lost, and often more. To avoid regaining those pounds you worked so hard to lose requires a lifelong change of habits. Figure that part out at the start. Or save yourself the effort.

For most of my adult life (am am 70 years old) I was 20# to 50# overweight. Two years ago I adopted this approach, lost the extra weight and have kept it off ever since. Seriously, I am not special. If I can, you can. 

Drop a comment if you want the details of how I did it.