Five Things You Didn’t Know about Losing Weight (but should)

(This article has been updated as of Dec 4, 2020. Covid has now dramatically accelerated the already growing trend toward online wellness coaching and age group-specific guidance on healthy habits. To address these needs directly I have launched a comprehensive online program for Boomers like me with my longtime colleague and favorite healthy eating expert , Anne Moselle, R.D. Check it out here.)

1. Exercise won’t usually get you lean by itself. If you run or bike several hours each week at a very high level of intensity, won’t you burn a lot of fat? You will burn a good amount of calories, some from stored fat, and most from carbohydrates. But here’s the flaw in the equation:

If you burn more fuel, you’ll eat more food.

And this is fine. But if you keep the same eating habits while they could be improved, you’re likely to eat right around the same amount of additional calories that you’re burning at the higher level of activity. The solution is to change the composition of what you’re eating so that it is more nourishing (vitamins, minerals, protein and fiber) and satisfying (keeping your blood sugar stable with various easy-to-implement eating strategies).

2. The missing element most important to successful weight loss is non-judgmental attention. Don’t you need to be unhappy with your body the way it is before you’ll adopt habits to change it? The problem with this attitude is that it makes your body, which is a miraculous and very adaptable machine, the villain. Shifting your focus to the decision you’ve made to condemn your behavior, your body or both, and realizing that it rests on a faulty premise is the sole pathway out of that vicious cycle. The truth is that your body works and then needs rest to recover, it heals when it’s injured, it gets thirsty when you need water and it stores fat when you’ve take in more energy than you’ve used. It’s like clockwork – precise and impersonal. It craves a steady stream of high quality fuel in the exact ratio of the demands you place upon it. And every decision you’ve made in the past is done, over. Change your mind and accept how the process works (always in your best interest) and you’ll change your decisions. Change your decisions and you’ll change your actions. That will change your results.

3. Emotion and physiology are important to separate when managing your eating habits. What’s harder for you – refusing a drink you don’t want or skipping meals and snacks most of the day? If you take the drink because you’re worried about offending your host, that’s emotion. If the idea of going through the day without a bite makes you nervous, that’s physiology. The truth is that most people can do both. However, resisting the hunger that wells up inside you brings with it a distinct sensation in your stomach and often in your muscles and energy level as well. Sometimes even the ability to focus and stay awake is affected by not getting enough fuel. But if you’re either already thinking about food or cued by sight or smell and you need calories in your body, chances are you’ll be loading up soon. If you can separate the two by noticing what you’re truly feeling in the moment, you’ll be able to eat more sensibly and feel less out of control.

4. The business model for most weight loss programs is based on repeat purchases, not your ultimate independence of them. Which situation is more likely to create a continual revenue stream: the next new exercise gadget that will be have to be replaced in six months or a fitness plan you can adapt to a gym, hotel room or your garage? Is it a diet program that sells you its “special food” or a simple set of guidelines with tons of examples that makes sense, satisfies you and is easy to practice for life? If you’re seeking lifestyle guidance that has practical value and makes your life better well into the future, it should be structured to make you, ultimately, independent of it.

5. Releasing your misconceptions about how to lose weight and fear of failure are the first steps you need to take before you can be successful in your weight loss efforts. Do you think it’s possible that you are under any mistaken assumptions about weight loss or that fear of failure might be creating the exact thing you dread? Fear and misunderstanding have ruined relationships, crippled businesses and toppled civilizations. Could they be the biggest obstacles to your long-term success in reaching and maintaining your ideal achievable lean body? Getting to the simple truth about what accumulates and eliminates fat and understanding that there is nothing to fear (so what if it takes you several tries and months or even years of fine tuning?) removes the most common and debilitating roadblocks at the beginning of the journey.

Aren’t you worth starting here?

Dan Taylor, ACE, NASM-CPT, is owner and head trainer at Pleasanton-based Tri Valley Trainer. They provide personal training and small group fitness solutions at their studio and a premium, innovative, medically endorsed web-based group coaching wellness program for the over-fifty tribe.