Submitted by: Monique LaFleche
How can I lose weight without dieting?
So many of us have asked this question and would love to find the
magical answer.
First, let me say that the answer isn t magic at all.
And second, allow me to define diet and dieting .
I think when we ask how to lose weight without dieting? , what we are
eally asking is how can I lose weight without following a specific
egime and restricting what I eat?
In this sense, diet refers to a program and food restrictions. With
the Atkins and South Beach diets, the number of carbohydrates you eat are restricted. With Weight Watchers, the number of calories in a day are restricted. With the Cabbage Soup Diet , calories and general
nutrition are restricted!
So that is one definition of diet . But the other way the term diet
is used is on Thanksgiving weekend, I follow a strict turkey, sweet potato, and gravy diet ! Another example, in my personal case, would be I follow a well balanced, high nutrition diet. No food is restricted on Thanksgiving Weekend (okay, maybe no tofu or brussel sprouts ) and similarly no food is absolutely taboo the way I eat either.
In my case, I have learned how to eat in a manner that pleases me
emotionally (I love food and am happy when I eat it!), but it also
meets the nutritional needs of my body. By doing this, I have a diet
that allows me to lose weight without absolute restrictions.
I know we have all partially fallen for, or at least wanted to
elieve, that there is some Secret Trick to weight loss:
Drink this tonic once a day and lose 10 pounds in a week!
This one simple exercise will give you 6 pack abs, with just 7
minutes per day!
The herbal weight loss secret your doctor won t tell you about!
Eat this one simple food and never diet again!
The truth of the matter is, your body is a complicated machine and no
mechanism within it works in a linear fashion. In your body it s more
like: most of the time if you do THIS, then THAT will happen. But
THAT can t happen if you also did that other thing as well.
Most diets today work on the premise that if you simply burn more calories
than you consume then you will lose weight. On the surface, that makes
perfect sense, and that is why most of us buy into that logic. But if
that were true, and calories in, calories out was the only factor in
weight loss, then why is it that 80-95% of diets fail within a year?
Here s an interesting story from my own experience. When I was in my
early 20 s, I volunteered for 3 months in a developing country. During
5 of those weeks we were in the rain forest and the only food we had
was: a big bag of rice, a big bag of flour, and a big bag of chick
peas. We also had some yeast, salt, and a couple of other small items.
But the bottom line was, we basically only had carbohydrates with no
protein, fat, vitamins or minerals. At the end of those 5 weeks, all
the men in our group had turned to stick figures while all the women
had gained weight and plumped right up!
We all ate the same thing. We all did the same work. We all got the
same amount of sleep. The only difference was our sex. Because we have
different hormones working within us, each of the sexes responded to
this form of nutritional (not caloric) starvation differently.
So let me explain what I have learned about nutrition and our body s
esponses and how I now use that information to lose weight without
dieting.
First off, calories in and calories out can t be discounted. It is an
integral part of the formula. Calories play a direct role in providing
us with energy. But indirectly, calories are also usually accompanied
y nutrition in the form of vitamins, minerals and trace elements. So
when you re consuming calories are you consuming high energy (many
calories)/low nutrition food or low energy (fewer calories)/high
nutrition food?
Equally important to the volume of calories is the breakdown of
calories in protein, fat and carbohydrates. I m sure you can imagine
that a 2000 calorie per day person will have a different physique
consuming 15% of their calories in the form of protein as opposed to
somebody who only consumes 5% protein.
One super important factor that is usually overlooked is your hormone
production. Human Growth Hormone (HGH) will burn fat, build muscles
and strengthen bones. Insulin will block HGH. And Cortisol is HGH s
arch nemesis and builds fat, burns muscle and depletes bones of
nutrients.
What you eat. The times that you eat it. The amount of fat you already
possess. Your sleep patterns. Your daily stressors. And the toxic
load on your body, are all factors in how your body produces these
hormones.
Then of course there is the level and type of exercise you undertake
and your body s base metabolic rate.
ALL of these things play a role in your weight loss or weight gain.
Think about this one weight loss fact : There are 3500 calories in a
pound of fat. So, if you have been maintaining your weight and then
decrease your daily calorie consumption by 500 calories, then in 1
week you ll have burned off a stored pound of fat.
That make perfect sense and seems easy enough.
But what if you replace a 600 calorie, high protein nutritious
eakfast (vegetable and cheese egg omelette and Greek yogurt) with a 100 calorie can of pop? What would happen to your insulin level? Your HGH production? Your base metabolic rate for the day???
Do you still think you ll lose a pound on the week??? I would wage
that you may actually gain weight!
Stay tuned. In upcoming articles I ll go over each of these weight
loss/gain factors one by one. By the end you should have the knowledge
necessary to know how to lose weight without dieting!
About the Author: Monique LaFleche: “I must be getting older.” This was an expression I was beginning to say with far too much regularity. It applied to my weight, how my clothes fit, to the energy I had, to how I looked… 2 years ago I grew tired of that excuse and my husband and I decided to do something about it. We learned that diets don’t work and we did our research and learned how to make nutrition work in our favor. Now we have improved health, more energy and better outlook than we did in our 20’s.
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