How to Win the Weight Loss War

Are you struggling to lose a few pounds, never mind worrying about keeping them off, and feel like you aren’t making progress?

You’re not alone. Many people have this problem. Health experts who study the problem think that weight management in today is more complicated than counting calories or exercising until you drop.

What’s different about weight, and weight loss, in today’s world, different from what our parents experienced, is that while we may eat and exercise the same, we tend to weigh almost 10 percent more.

How is that possible? Maybe the experts don’t have all the facts. Maybe we are eating more and exercising less, but health experts don’t think so.

One reason they give is that our hormones are impacted by a variety of environmental factors. Science has a name for these, endocrine disruptors. They could be anything from pesticides to preservatives added to food. This seems to lead to lowered metabolism.

Health experts have also discovered that it’s more difficult for obese people to lose weight. In other words, the more you need to lose the more difficult it seems to be.

What can you do if you need and want to lose weight and it isn’t happening? Experts recommend that you don’t try a fad diet, and they recommend that you don’t jump from one diet plan to another in an effort to gain results.

It seems the best thing you can do is to evolve a healthy way of eating that you can stick to in the long run, and then have patience that over time you will see results.

Eat as much fresh, natural, and unprocessed food as possible. This isn’t necessarily easy because it means more trips to the grocery store, and it takes more food preparation time, but it’s worth it to protect your weight and ultimately your health.

Pay attention to your surroundings. For example, use glass containers for food instead of plastic wrap. And think about your home. For example, do you use chemical air fresheners? Take a trip to the library and you’ll find lots of information on how to live with fewer pollutants.

You also need exercise. If you don’t exercise, you need to start. If you do exercise, maybe it’s time to change your routine. In either case, pick something you enjoy doing. And maybe find an exercise buddy, which might help you stay motivated.

Finally, you need an attitude adjustment, or what you might call an expectation adjustment. You need to change your idea of what weight loss means for you and what you call success.

For example, say you want to lose 20 pounds, and you’ve tried hard for two weeks and only lost two pounds. Maybe it’s time to change your goals so that you plan smaller increments of weight loss. Maybe those two pounds are actually a good result for your situation.

The point here is to honor what you did achieve and to keep going. And over time you might find ways to tweak your diet and your exercise plan to make them more effective, but that will only happen if you don’t give up.