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"Common Trends To Break To Become The Healthiest Ever"

By Chris Hill

Common Trends to Break To Become The Healthiest Ever!

Can you believe it is 2007 and we are talking about common trends to break to become the healthiest ever? It really seems the past year has gone by in a flash. My parents always told me the older I get the faster the years go by. I think I am starting to understand that.

One thing that goes with time seems to be our bodies ability to respond to abuse as it did when we were teenagers. Can you remember when you could eat whatever you wanted, drink whatever you wanted and still stay the same weight? What do you think happended? Why do you think we cant do that anymore?

If you really think about how your life has changed, you can understand completely what is causing that weight gain, or that feeling of getting out of shape. It may not be clear now but it will after you read this article. These few changes can be what will break the common trends to become healthier than ever.

The more people I see come through Personally Fit the more I see three common trends. The first trend is people who gain weight over time usually decrease activity, due to lifestyle change. Most of us were in college at one time or chasing young kids around and were much more active. We walked or rode a bike to class, we walked all over campus to get to our class. Then we played some type of sport or were involved in some type of extracurricular activity. Basically we rarely ever sat down for long periods of time.

Now as technology is evolving, everything in our worlds is designed to make things less labor intense. Which means less calories burned. It seems as we age this snow ball continues to roll down hill at a enormous pace. The activity decreases and the calories increase. Which leads to joint problems, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and chronic issues.

The second trend that seems to be affecting many people or newcomers to Personally Fit is that they just do not understand how to eat. What I mean is I meet many clients who think that starving themselves is going to provide results that will give them the body they had 20 years ago. They tell me, I lost 30 pounds on the cabbage diet back in 1985. But, to be honest with you and them the person that stands in front of me, is nothing physically or metabolically like the person in 1985.

Much of the research over the last 20 years, tells us that in order to maintain weight loss (which should be our optimal goal) is to eat healthy, not starve to reach a weight then add food back at a slow pace.Basically when we under eat we create a hormonal imbalance that creates an environment that makes it almost impossible to lose weight. We also do not have enough food in our systems to sustain basic metabolism. This will cause our metabolism to slow down. We eat our own muscle for energy and make it virtually impossible to see long lasting results.

Our lives cause us too be so busy we are not prepared to eat. We must use meal replacements and planning to make sure we get the correct amount of food in our system in order for fat loss to occur.

The third trend I see people do is extreme inconsistency with the three things that can make life so much easier. Those three things are balance nutrition, resistance training, and moderate aerobic exercise. Consistency, or should I say lack of, is the one thing that causes so many new years weight loss resolutions. If every person stuck with their new years resolution from the prior year, if they had a consistent nutrition and training approach, do you think they would be starting over again in 2007.

It seems many people are able to perform one or two of the three areas extremely well, but they completely neglect the third. This will set you up for failure every time. Most of the time the area that gets neglected is nutrition, which should be the most important thing of all. Being on again, off again, with your nutrition and your off again days are requiring you to consume more calories than you burn, you will be promoting weight gain.

Many people understand what to eat and even how, but lack of planning or stress eating causes an ambush on your nutrition plan. This results in people getting frustrated, blaming themselves, blaming their genetics, thyroid, or numerous other factors. After a few failed attempts they give up and slowly settle back into the trends that got them wanting to lose weight again. Then they look up and “boom” they are 7 pounds heavier than last year. So the mindset over the last 10 years has told us that January is a good starting point, so they start over with all these great intentions. After several bumps in the road they always come back to reality.

The only true answer to effective health and lasting weight loss is sweat, hard work, planning, good consistent balance nutrition, consistent resistance training, and consistent moderate aerobic activity. The clients who are the most effective with maintaining their results seem to do all three effectively.

About the Author:

Chris Hill is a NSCA certified personal trainer. He is the owner of Personally Fit by Chris Hill Inc. His website is www.personallyfitbychrishill.com