You Are What You Eat
Why Working Out Alone Isn't Enough to Guarantee Weight Loss
A lot of my clients come to me and say they can’t understand why they aren’t losing weight now that they are exercising regularly. If they’re now burning so many calories, why isn’t the weight falling off?
The way out of this dilemma is to be honest with yourself. |
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There are some physical conditions that can delay or even prevent you from losing weight. But 9 times out of 10, when you’re working out and not seeing the weight loss results you’d like, the culprit is your food intake. No matter how much you work out, your body weight comes down to one very simple formula: calories in versus calories out. If you consume more calories than you burn, you’re going to have excess weight.
The body only needs a certain amount of calories to support its basic metabolic functions and build and maintain muscle. Most people consume way more calories than their bodies require, and the excess gets stored as fat. If this is true for you, it’s not entirely your fault. Portion sizes are way out of control. Restaurants gotten us so used to enormous amounts of food that if we have less, we feel cheated. And even less than 100 years ago, if you wanted a piece of apple pie, you’d have to expend 2500 calories picking the apples, plowing the wheat, grinding the flour, and churning the butter. Now you just have to stop in at the diner, and you can get it with ice cream and a drizzle of caramel for only 50 cents more. Yikes! It’s no wonder so many of us are struggling with the scale.
The way out of this dilemma is to be honest with yourself. Do you really need a half-pound hamburger with cheese and bacon and a huge pile of fries every time you go out to eat? One of the things I hear from frustrated clients is, “Oh, I haven’t had donuts (or whatever their food of choice is) in SUCH a long time.” When I know that while that may be true about donuts, they have probably been consuming too many calories on a regular basis. Keep a food diary for two weeks so you can clearly see what you’re consuming. Find ways to replace your excess calories with healthier alternatives. And here’s a no-fail trick—eat more fiber. Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains all contain high amounts of fiber, which helps keep you fuller longer so you don’t have to feel deprived. Because even though you do likely need to consume fewer calories in order to lose weight, you don’t need to punish yourself.
If you have any questions about how to get your stubborn extra weight to come off, please contact us at info@kriswade.com.
