Why American Women Struggle to Lose Weight
There are hundreds of reasons for the “fattening” of America, and we can all point to some of the factors that make us fat. Why then, is it so much more difficult for us to figure out what exactly will make us lose the weight? Ask ten different women what the key to weight loss really is, and you will most likely get ten very different answers. Which is correct? As a personal trainer, clients come to me genuinely confused, and I can understand why. There has been so much misinformation circulating for so long that we’ve lost sight of the truth. Clients tell me sheepishly that the reason they are fat is that they like to eat late at night, or they don’t drink enough water, and they really love carbohydrates. Some clients can’t look me in the eye while they explain that they are fat because they have a glass of wine every night, or because they simply don’t enjoy eating steaks and bacon at every meal. Others believe that if they could just remember which carbohydrates have a low glycemic index then the weight would fall right off. Lastly, there are those who simply believe that they are genetically destined to be fat. They have a low metabolism, they tell me. They have a thyroid problem. And every single one of them is wrong. Not only are the current trends in dieting based on sensationalism instead of science, some of them are downright dangerous.
The good news is that there is an answer, and it is a simple answer. My clients, and most Americans, are fat because they take in more calories than they expend. That’s it. It sounds old fashioned, but calories count. And like it or not, counting calories is the key to weight loss. Every single American would lose weight if they would simply move more and eat less. Now that’s not to say that every single one of us could look like (insert your ideal celebrity body here). Genetics and hormones can play a role. But the bottom line is that that role is much less significant than the intake versus the expenditure of energy. You can certainly do your best with what you’ve got to work with.
The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can be neither created nor destroyed, it can only change form. Let’s think about that in terms of calories. Take that pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. The label tells us that it contains about 1200 calories. If I eat it all in one sitting (and trust me, it’s been done), I now have 1200 calories of energy, just waiting for me to use them. If I don’t move around enough following that intake to utilize 1200 calories, that energy will be stored for use later. As fat. By the way, the same would be true if I ate 1200 calories in protein only, or vegetables only. Either way, my body is going to use that energy or store it to use later. Therefore, the key to weight loss is to eat fewer calories than you use during the day. It doesn’t matter what time you eat those calories. It doesn’t matter if you eat all your calories in ice cream. I’m not recommending that you eat a pint of ice cream at ten o’clock at night and be done with it for the day. If you burned more than 1200 calories in that day, you’d still lose weight, but you’d be missing out on a lot of important nutrients, and your heart wouldn’t benefit much from the excessive fat intake. But you’d still lose weight.
So how does the average American woman, one who is committed to losing the weight, apply the First Law of Thermodynamics to her life? Use the following strategies as a guide, and get started today!
1) Decide upon a goal. It should be a small goal. Losing 50 pounds isn’t a small goal. Losing 8 pounds this month is. Give yourself a realistic goal, a realistic timeframe, and decide upon a reward to give yourself when you reach your goal.
2) Enlist help. Tell a friend about your goal. Ask her to actively talk with you about your progress over the coming weeks. Better yet, work with a friend who has similar goals. If you don’t mention your efforts to anyone, then no one will know if you fail except for you – but no one will know how hard you worked when you succeed, either.
3) For one week, write down every single thing you eat. Record in a journal the time you eat, the approximate portion size, and try to estimate the calories. (If you have access to the Internet and a bit of dedication to this task, look at www.calorieking.com, where you’ll find calorie counts and portion sizes for anything you can imagine.)
4)For that same week, preferably in the same place, write down every bit of exercise you get. Walking up and down the stairs in your house four times while doing laundry counts. Walking the dog or rocking the baby counts, too. Be as specific as possible. (For help estimating the calories used in each activity, see http://www.caloriecontrol.org/exercalc.html.). At the end of each day, compare your totals. This should give you an idea of energy going in versus energy going out.
5) Do the math. Use your journal to figure out where you can drop calories, and where you can add activity. Don’t severely restrict your calories – any change should be moderate and gradual. A deficit of 100 calories a day will result in a 10-pound weight loss in a year. You should lose no more than 1 to 2 pounds each week. Losing weight faster than that now will only make it much more difficult to keep off, and could cause serious health problems down the road.
6) If you aren’t strength training, you should be. Adding strength training will increase your lean body mass, which will increase the number of calories you burn each minute whether you are working out, or sitting still. Moderate strength training will NOT create giant muscles. It is very difficult for women to build huge muscles, and it takes a lot more work than you might think. Never strength-trained before? Don’t worry. You don’t have to go to the gym and lift a lot of weight. Start by doing some push-ups, sit-ups, leg lifts. Grab some soup cans and do some bicep curls during commercial breaks. Practice doing squats while you’re on the couch – stand up, squat down until you are almost sitting and stand back up. Not only do these exercises build lean body mass, they will help stave off age-related ailments like arthritis and osteoporosis that affect inactive women.
7) Build nutrition and fitness plans that fit into your lifestyle. Though your lifestyle may change a bit to incorporate healthier strategies, you won’t be able to follow a plan that calls for drastic changes. If you drink a glass of wine every night or have to have some kind of dessert after dinner, build that in. If you require yourself to give it up, you will feel that you’re “on a diet,” which automatically implies a temporary change. This isn’t a diet – it’s a new way to approach your life. If you know that you won’t go to the gym, build small exercise spurts into your day. Go up and down the stairs for five minutes three times. You’ve just done 15 minutes of cardio. Use commercial breaks during prime time to walk laps around your house. If you do this for two hours, you will have done almost thirty minutes of cardio.
Any effort to lose weight will take commitment and effort. But it doesn’t take complicated food combinations or mysterious pills, and that’s good news. Everything you need to lose weight is already in your house and in your heart. It’s up to you to use it.
Resources:
Centers for Disease Control:
http://www.cdc.gov.
National Council on Strength and Fitness Online Articles:
http://www.ncsf.org.
Calorie King
http://www.calorieking.com.
CalorieControl.org
http://www.caloriecontrol.org.
