Getting to the right weight for you, ain't easy. You usually start with getting down to the right weight for you and then keeping it there. Of course, this is all easier said than done. What we eat is largely a matter of habit. Good and bad habits determine almost everything we are in life and in terms of how we look, the results can be pretty obvious.
Overweight is becoming the new normal along with the range of illnesses we associate with those few extra pounds. Diabetes, heart disease and various mechanical problems to do with the extra weight on poorly exercised joints.
On a really simple basis, your body works like a bank. Food is cash, the more you stuff in, by eating, the bigger your account balance gets. The more you take out through exercise the slimmer the balance becomes. Thats pretty much where the analogy ends, I think. Somehow I like the idea of an ever increasing bank balance, while I would not be too keen on an ever expanding waist line.
The objective is to keep your account properly balanced, enough going in to meet your needs, a little to spare for a rainy day, but not so much that you could feed more than one off your waistline. The good news is that the more energy you expend, the less food you have to give up to achieve the right balance.
The problem with most diets is that they are designed to reduce your bank balance in more ways than one, but they are not designed to maintain the right balance on your account. You might need to look at two diets, a crash diet to get you to where you want to be and a maintenance diet to keep you there. Too often we crash land on our desired weight and let the old habits return and see our weight creep, or even shoot back up.
Of course, that just deals with the input side. On the debit side we also need to look at what is going on. For most of us who experience weight problems it is a case of not doing enough with what we have. We need to take more exercise. There are some benefits from exercise. Good exercise boosts your metabolic rate making your heart, lungs intestines and other internal organs to help you work and rest more efficiently.
The old latin line about healthy body and healthy mind really works. When you are fit and balanced, you are much more resistant to diseases of body and mind. There is no doubt that healthy people are less prone to depression. They fight off colds and flu far better. They look better. But as with anything worth having, it doesn't come come without a price tag. Very few people get to look good just because they are genetically programmed to look good, besides, the truly gorgeous among us are constantly stalked and pestered by the media and who wants that!
Getting to good is a journey, especially if you are nowhere close to it yet. However, there is one sure way of getting there and that is to start the journey. It helps if you set off in the right direction, but the great thing is that this is a journey. It is not a destination, you may never get there, or when you do get there you might decide you would like to be somewhere else.
What you decide to do with your body is your decision, a few kilos here or there won't really matter that much. You might decide that you want a specific weight range and a particular fitness goal. You just need to balance the equation for yourself. What goes in must come out. Food in, energy out. If you block the exit route, the body stores excess energy as fat. As long as you use more than you eat, you will lose weight.
One other thing, if you set out to climb a steep hill at a sprint, you will probably quit before you have gone more than a few dozen yards. Pick a pace that reminds you that you are trying to achieve something, but not so fast that it might put you off getting to the finish line. If you have a long way to go, you could set some smaller goals, loose a few kilos, then pick up your fitness level, then lose a few more kilos and so on.
Consider how long it took you to put those extra kilos on, they ain't going to come off overnight. It is going to be a case of eating less and exercising more, how much of each you do is something you may have a bit of choice on. But the key to longterm success is in building new habits that are stronger than the ones you are looking to break.
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