Finding a Decent (Realistic) Weight Loss Program
Weight Loss > > Finding a Decent (Realistic) Weight Loss Program
To find a weight loss program that works-and stays working-we are wise to consult nutrition experts and medical professionals who have our health in mind over having in mind making a killing off our cultural craze to quick fix, image-boost, or ego-boost. In other words, we are best served by a weight loss program that emphasizes health over all other desires or needs.
I may get a lot of flack for divulging my opinion, here, but as an overweight middle-aged woman who from 10 to 40 (before I got wise) did every single weight loss program devised, I have an edge, here. Really.
And I have to expose the ugly truth: a healthy weight loss program does not include one full week-seven straight days of an all banana and skim milk diet. A good weight loss program does not have the words "grapefruit diet" in it. A reasonable weight loss plan is not printed on a grey sheet, prayed over at meetings three times a day, and does not include guilt-drawn confessions to a sponsor who demands you call to report one bite of sugar or flour (after going 30 days without any of either!).
A good weight loss program does not include harassment by cruel and judgmental bullies, haranguing and self-destruction, or any other absurdities that only serve to strip us of water weight or muscle tone and send us back into eating ourselves into the next size up from where we started before we started to "diet".
Granted, accepting ourselves as 300-pound, sedentary smokers who live only on bakery goods, canned sodas, and deep-fried fat isn't the alternative. In fact, a good weight loss program will reinforce the understanding that even a minor weight loss will likely make us healthier. According to the medical professionals at NIDDKD, for example, even losing "10 to 20 pounds can improve your health," lowering unusually high cholesterol, blood pressure, and heart rate levels. (National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases)
So from what I have learned-besides realizing that I have to get over the notion that popcorn is a vegetable and being chased by a tennis-racket wielding bicyclist is great exercise-is that we must find a weight loss program that does not deprive or punish or abuse or mislead…but instead nourishes with balanced foodstuffs, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes and is accompanied by pleasurable and reasonable exercise regimes. Now if I can apply all that I have learned...