Especially with New Year's, there's an onslaught of advertisements for fitness and weight-loss. One of the most common resolutions is to lose weight. The advertiser's goal is to convince you that it can be done with no effort, even just by sitting on the couch. If getting in shape could be done in just twenty minutes a day, three days a week, then everyone would look like they stepped off the set of Baywatch. What's interesting is that there seems to be a sense of entitlement, as if people believe they have a right to be in shape without having to work at it. Perhaps it's a result of our "instant gratification" culture, but fitness isn't something you can buy on credit.
There's something appealing about the messages they're selling. Who wouldn't like to lose weight simply by sipping a shake or eating a bowl of cereal. And then to climb onto a piece of fitness equipment that's guaranteed to be more fun than work. "Who has time to slim slowly?" is the question asked by the 3-2-1 Slim Fast plan. The Special K plan offers weight loss by eating 2 bowls of cereal and 2 Special K snacks each day. Jenny Craig's Metabolic Max program creates a custom profile to stimulate weight loss. NutriSystem even offers gift cards!
But what happens when you stop drinking the shakes or eating the pre-packaged meals? Or when the fitness equipment feels more like work and less like fun? Perhaps that just wasn't the right program for me and I need to try something else. What about that South Beach diet? The grapefruit diet? Or, yes, the baby food diet? At some point, there's the realization that perhaps this whole health and fitness thing does take effort and there is no such thing as a free lunch.
If something seems too good to be true, chances are it probably is. The common thread with the majority of these plans is that they offer great results as long as you're on the plan. What they don't do is teach you how to make choices for yourself. Once the structure of the program is taken away, you're at a loss for how to re-create it on your own. That's why, when left to their own devices, people are more like to return to their old habits.
Staying fit and healthy is a lot like doing laundry. You can get everything washed, folded, and put away but I guarantee that there's going to be something in the hamper by the end of the day. Similarly, you may reach your initial goals, but without continued effort you probably won't sustain those gains.
When people comment on my fitness or physique, I may not talk it up, but I try to not downplay the effort I've put into it. Being healthy isn't always a chore, but it does take work and that's worth recognizing!
Food Log:
- Breakfast
- 4 egg whites and 2 eggs with salsa
- Snack
- Green beans with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray and spray salad dressing
- 1 tablespoon of peanut butter
- Dinner
- 4 oz chicken with onion and tomato
- 20g almonds
- Snack
- Generous tablespoon of peanut butter
Exercise:
- Time: 63 minutes
- Levels: 1 minute at level 1, 60 minutes at level 4, 2 minutes at level 1
- Distance: 4.90 miles - couldn't stay on until I reached 5 miles, since I'd be running late for work
- Calories: 700+ (I expect the calories burned to go down as my conditioning improves)
Today's Weigh-In: 147.6
No comments:
Post a Comment