Tony Horton: Feel-Good Fitness
Your Gym Etiquette Questions Answered
Why You Can't Lose Weight + Tips for a Fix
Posted on Apr 20th 2009 1:00PM by Jonny BowdenJonny Bowden, author, nutritionist and weight loss coach cuts through all the misconceptions about diet and fitness to help you transform your body, your health and your life.
Web MD recently published a piece with the eye-catching title: "Why You Can't Lose Weight". And indeed, a number of the reasons listed were pretty interesting. In case you missed it, here's the executive summary:
All this is fine and dandy, but I fear that a lot of people reading the WebMD piece might be forgiven for throwing up their hands and saying, "See, there's not much I can do about it! Let's go to McDonald's!"
- You have a low resting metabolic rate, and high metabolic efficiency. What this basically means is that you "burn" fuel (calories) at a lower rate while resting, and are efficient at using calories while exercising (meaning it "costs" you fewer calories to run on a treadmill than your neighbor). According to Dr. Victoria Catenacci, a University of Colorado researcher, this can account for up to 22 pounds of weight gain!
- You are female. Because women have less muscle than men, they burn fewer calories (remember you burn calories in your muscle cells, not in your fat cells).
- You experience hunger, satisfaction and stress differently than others. We're just beginning to scratch the surface of understanding this one, but it's pretty obvious that some people struggle with appetite and stress a lot more than others.
- You don't like to exercise. This could be considered a big eye-rolling "duh," but some people seem to be genetically adapted to more activity than others. Mice that are bred for wheel running take to it like a surfer dude to the Malibu coastline. Others prefer the mouse equivalent of sunbathing.
- Your mother ate a high-calorie diet while pregnant. Emerging -- and disturbing -- research has been showing that what both your mother (and even your grandmother) ate may have an effect on you and your body weight.
- You weigh what you weigh because of your toddler diet. This is one reason why people like me are so adamant about teaching parents how important it is to shape tastes and habits early on while you still have some control over things.
All this is fine and dandy, but I fear that a lot of people reading the WebMD piece might be forgiven for throwing up their hands and saying, "See, there's not much I can do about it! Let's go to McDonald's!"
If you're one of the thousands -- perhaps hundreds of thousands -- of people for whom weight loss is difficult, I'd like to offer you a list of things you can actually do something about. - Eat less calories. Cutting portions by one-forth to one-third is a great place to begin.
- Don't believe the calorie counters on exercise machines. If they told you the truth about how many calories you're really burning, no one would buy them. You burn about 300 calories in a half hour of moderate to hard exercise, no matter what the treadmill says.
- Reduce carbs and sugar. You may be one of those people who "experience hunger and appetite" more acutely than most, but don't make matters worse by eating foods that produce their own cravings for more. It's pretty hard to overeat spinach and steak. Pasta and bread -- that's another story.
- Exercise harder and smarter. Walking 30 minutes a day is an amazing strategy for extending life, but it won't cause you to lose weight. Begin interval training, and you'll up the ante.
- Build muscle with weights. And women, listen up: You won't look like the cover of a muscle magazine just because you're pumping some iron. But you will build some calorie-burning tissue that will help raise your metabolism, not to mention make you look better in a bathing suit.
And finally, if nothing "works," try focusing on health rather than just the scale. Studies show that you can be "fat and fit" -- fit people who are overweight can live just as long and successfully as thin people who aren't fit. Just ask Steven Blair, Research Director at the Cooper Institute of Aerobics. Blair runs miles every week and is in the best shape of his life. But by his own admission, he happens to be fat. He's also healthy as a horse.
