Weight loss success secrets - Part 2 of 4

4. Diet: Don't Do It

If you're going to lose fat, you need to go on a diet, right?

The answer is, 'Yes and no.'

Nutrition plays a large role in weight management. People tend to make mistakes with their nutrition that can lead to weight gain, and adjustments are necessary to help burn calories and shed the unwanted pounds. For example,


• Many people eat for emotional reasons, rather than to fuel their body, which leads to too many calories and fat gain

• Portion sizes at most restaurants are out of control. More people eat out, and often accept these portion sizes that leave them consuming far more calories.

• At the turn of the century, only a fraction of food was processed. Now, over 95% of average consumption is highly processed foods. These foods are stripped of nutrients, and therefore provide an abundance of calories while leaving people undernourished from lack of vitamins and minerals

• Individuals lead far more sedentary lifestyles, but consume calories as if they are active

Many of these reasons contribute to overall problems with carrying extra weight.

The most common solution is to diet. The diet becomes part of the problem, however. Most diets involve some sort of control over the foods you are eating. There are rules and portion sizes. Few people enjoy 'being on a diet' and so they look forward to 'this diet being over.' And there is where the major flaw with diets comes into play: the yo-yo effect. Over 90% of people who lose weight with diets gain most of the weight back within 3 to 5 years!

Whenever a diet is a quick fix, it does not address the underlying problem. The problem is most likely not in your food, but rather in the thoughts that drive you to eating food. In other words, losing fat is more about releasing the thoughts that put the fat there in the first place, than going on a diet. When a diet is over, most people splurge and lose ground and then find they are back to where they started - sometimes even worse. So what is the solution?

In a descriptive study of individuals successful at long-term maintenance of substantial weight loss (Am J Clin Nutr. 66: 239-246, 1997), less than half of those who successfully maintained their weight loss counted calories, restricted their types of food, or followed a formal program. The majority did eliminate certain categories of food (for example, limiting them to only special meals or certain days of the week) and followed their own instincts with the program. Most ate several meals a day (5 as opposed to '3 square meals') and ate out at restaurants 2 or 3 times per week. Almost all integrated exercise into their plan.

We'll cover more solutions in the next part of this article.

5. Crunch Time

You've probably seen the advertisements on the web, heard them on the radio or viewed them on the television. 'See your abs - just 20 minutes per day.' Purchase a special device that you can work out with and suddenly you'll have a nice, flat stomach. If you are wise, you can even beat the system and do it for free by performing sit-ups and crunches hundreds of time per day, right?

Unfortunately, that's wrong. Perhaps one of the biggest myths related to fat loss is that you must work your abdominal muscles to have a flat stomach. It's simply not true!

Your abdominal muscles are located between your ribs and pelvis. There are actually four muscles that completely cover your internal organs. The most commonly known muscle is the rectus abdominus - this is the long muscle that has the characteristic bulges referred to as a 'six-pack'. It is interesting to note that this muscle is actually slightly bulged when relaxed, and only flattens when contracted.

Everyone has abdominal muscles, and almost everyone has those 'six-pack ripples.' These are caused by the fact that tendons stretch across the muscle to hold it in place. The indentations from these tendons cause the ripples. So why don't you see them?

The problem is that in most cases, there is a layer of fat over the muscle that keeps you from being able to see it. And, contrary to popular belief, working your abdominal muscles will not magically burn the fat from your stomach. Your body does not burn fat based on what muscles you are working (this is called spot reduction). Instead, hormones circulate and trigger the release of fats into the bloodstream where they can be processed. Working your abs may strengthen your abdominal muscles, but the fat that it is burning may come from an entirely different part of your body.

Working your abs simply makes the muscle stronger underneath the fat, but doesn't do anything to make it appear. For a flat stomach, you must lose fat, and to lose fat, you have to do more than sit-ups or crunches. Losing fat requires an integrated program of weight training, cardio, and proper nutrition. In our next segment, we'll explore 5 ways you can successfully tackle the fat (and keep it off for good).