The Truth About Weight Loss

There is only one factor that remains constant in all plans, programs, pills, and gadgets intended for weight loss. Somewhere in their message is the real truth:

ENERGY BALANCE!

In a 24-hour period, how much energy (calories/food) went in and how much energy (activity) went out?  That's the big secret: energy in, energy out.

At the end of 24 hours, if your calories are the same number as calories out - your weight stays the same. This is true energy balance.

If you ate/drank more calories than you used in 24 hours, you stored those extra calories as body fat and you gained weight.

Now here's the part I like, if the calories you used for the day, in activity, were more than the calories that you ate/drank, then you lost weight.

Have you ever noticed that those weight loss pills have statements printed on them that say things like, "Use this product with a healthy diet and exercise for best results." Then why do we need your pill?

And then there are those that say: eat bacon, eggs, steak, cheese, cream, butter, oil at every meal, nothing else - no fruit, no bread, and no pasta. (Personally, life without pasta is no life.) The trick here is that you eliminated the largest food group (carbohydrates) - you naturally eat smaller portions of protein or fatty foods, so of course you could lose weight eliminating any of the food groups in your daily eating!

If you ask me they are all nuts, crazy, pazzo (Italian for 'crazy')!
I am tired of the misinformation and half-truths! We all know the truth, but too many of us are still holding on to that big dream that someday, something will come along to allow us to eat anything we want, in any amount we want and we can keep a slim lean body. Add to that great health, stave off disease, slow aging - OK, WAKE UP NOW - time to face the truth!  

There is no pill, there is no magic "food combination" and there is no secret exercise machine or plan.  If you have lost weight (body fat) and have kept it off for a while, I am sure that the core of your journey centered on energy balance.
I've been in the Health and Fitness Business for 25 years and I have witnessed those that have been successful at weight loss and those that still battle day after day with those extra pounds. MOST people that are enjoying life at a healthy weight are people that are consistent with structured and unstructured activity!

Structured Activity is making specific time for physical activity whether it be going to a gym, exercising on home fitness equipment, doing those wonderful 'walking videos', fitness walking outdoors, swimming laps, biking on trails or any other activities that you might engage in to get in shape.

Unstructured Activity is your smart choice of walking more than riding (park your car farther from your destination, use stairs not elevator/escalator, stand rather than sit. It all adds up to more energy (calories) used.

Remember stored body fat is simply stored energy. Calories are sources of energy, if we take in too many calories; these sources of energy are stored in our bodies as fat.  So don't think of excess weight as fat, think of it as lots of energy that needs released.

Now, if the most important factor in losing weight is activity then why are we so eager to jump on fad diets?  Why don't we try a new diet - that's right, THE WALK DIET!

I don't believe most of us are overeaters. I believe the epidemic numbers of over-weight individuals in the country come from being under exercisers.

The more machines and technology do for us, the less the body needs to do, the easier it is to gain weight on 'normal' amounts of food!  It wasn't large amounts of food that put weight on many of us. It was less activity year after year!  For more on The WALK DIET click here!