In my experience with weight loss, the only true progress I have ever made was when I either had the discipline or was forced by circumstances (being overseas as a student and flat broke) to cut back on portions. I may be a layman in terms of health and diet, but I know what has worked for me and what has not. You can take this article or leave it, but I think, in spite of what some doctors say, diet makes much more of a difference for overall health than most of us care to admit.
There are three main points I want to discuss here in regard to weight loss without unnatural supplementation or hype. One is the danger of exercise, another is portion control, and the third is natural supplements.
First, the danger of exercise. There are some sports I have tried in which I noticed an alarmingly large increase in my appetite. One is swimming. I don’t know what it is about water, but moving about in it for any length of time makes me just about hungry enough to eat the hooves off a dead rhinoceros. Without sauce. So I stay away form swimming. My favorite sport, in which I engage because my knees are overworn from four years in the Marine Corps infantry, is cycling. It’s a great way to stay active while saving my knees from unnecessary further wear. Cycling too, I’ve noticed, increases my appetite, but quite frankly I do believe one’s appetite will increase regardless of what activity one chooses to do, especially if one is just coming off a brutal stint of years spent wearing a rut into the couch with potato chip remnants and sheer force of will. When you get more active, your appetite will increase. I’ve noticed it’s easier to be disciplined if I take natural supplements, but more on that further down. Suffice it to say that exercise can be dangerous because, if you’re like me, you tend to justify overeating because you exercised today and you have “earned it”. Meanwhile, the energy you consume increases more than the extra activity burns said energy, and in spite of exercising you just get more pillowy. I know. Trust me. Be careful about exercise.
It might be advisable to change one thing at a time. Instead of starting with exercise, start with diet. Give yourself a month or two to make positive healthy changes in your diet as a lifestyle before going off and sweating to scantily clad people on exercise DVDs. Counting calories can be effective at paring down your portions, depending on your personality type. If you’re like me, that will drive you insane. What I have had to realize is that my lifestyle is nothing like Lance Armstrong’s lifestyle, and that I simply cannot justify consuming a 3,000 calorie soda pop with my triple bacon burger and fries for lunch. There’s one place here in town that literally serves three or four potatoes worth of fries with its burgers. Yikes. Think of the years you will be carrying that around with you and it’s easy to say no. Once or twice every six months isn’t gonna kill ya, but once or twice a week will certainly do so. Portion control is probably the single most important factor in how successful you will be at losing weight. What goes hand in hand with this is what kind of food you eat. Think of it as fuel. If you put cheap fuel in your car, fuel that has all kinds of stuff your car can’t use immediately to get it down the road, stuff that will cake on to its moving parts and eventually kill it early, then you get, honestly, the expected result. If, however, you put high quality fuel in your car, pure energy, it will purr and snuggle with you in gratitude. Depending on whether or not you’ve named it, which is another whole different article. Get into fresh foods that can be eaten raw, like fruits and vegetables. That’s the simplest and most dramatic change you can make. I used to take a huge dagwood sandwich and chips to work for lunch, along with a soda, candy, and even soup. I hate feeling hungry. That psychology must be overcome. Embrace the hunger. Your body is talking to you. Yay! Now I take an orange, an apple, some blackberries, or a green leafy salad with no dressing with me. I can travel lighter on my bike (yes, I commute to work on my bike) and I feel better throughout the day.
The new thing I have been doing is adding Shaklee vitamins to my diet. I have noticed an improvement in my attitude, general feel of my joints, and better results on the crapper. Well, how else can a brotha say it. Once you reach a certain age you stop mincing words. I just got here earlier than most. Anyway, Shaklee is different from store brands for a lot of reasons. Dr. Shaklee was the first to research vitamins and formulate a “vitalized minerals” supplement that he first marketed in 1915. Since then Shaklee has led the industry with its bioavailable vitamin supplements which are confirmed to be more effective than store brands by independent research groups. Our soils have been so depleted that we cannot reasonably expect to get what we need solely from what we eat as food. A vitamin supplement is an effective tool to impact overall health. This isn’t intended to be an ad for Shaklee–just a testimonial that their products work for me, that they seem to have impacted my nutrition in a positive way, and that I recommend them to anyone seeking to lose weight in a natural healthy way.
Your body is a wonderland, to quote John Mayer, and I mean that in the most reverential way. In other words, the human body should be carefully managed and appreciated. It only makes sense to treat it the way it was intended to be treated. The American diet constitutes abuse, in my frank opinion, so anything we can do to make it better, even by a little bit, will help us live better lives. Even if you don’t end up looking like an NFL player, so what? At least you’ll feel better about you. Take baby steps! And stay away from that death therapy at all costs…it’ll kill you.
