Educate Yourself – Key #2 to Effective Weight Loss
This second key will require some effort on your part.
You must educate yourself about health, training, fitness, and nutrition – the four pillars of weight loss and keys to a healthy lifestyle. There are no “Dr. Phil’s” here, just the real facts.
Get Educated – is the second of the 7 keys to effective weight loss.
A recent client, Brian, put it best, “I had to learn that a serving size was 4 ounces, not 10 or 12. Suddenly, I realized that instead of 2 extra large pizzas for four of us, we could have one large pizza and a salad and feel comfortably full and better about ourselves. Thanks to educating myself, I’ve lost 25 pounds in 90 days; my wife lost 32 pounds during this time. And, we didn’t even need to hire a trainer yet. I always had the attitude that I wanted to lose weight, but I didn’t know what to do so, attitude alone didn’t help, but got me started. Attitude must be combined with the other 6 steps we have learned.”
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You must learn about basic nutrition and the benefits of even minimal exercise if you are to effect change with your weight, even with an attitude shift there is still the work to do. What kinds of foods give the most benefits in terms of weight loss? What type of exercise can you do in your current fitness level that will burn the most calories? What is your maximal training heart rate? Is one cooking oil better than another for overall health benefits? What’s the difference in calorie burn for aerobic versus anaerobic exercises? You see, there are so many questions and so much to learn. It’s a journey that will benefit you for your whole life, potentially add years to your life, and best of all, it’s fun.
Begin by educating yourself about basic nutrition so that you are your own nutrition expert. Remember that we live in a world where pushing agendas is common place. Thus, do not rely on talk shows, actresses, actors, and others that may misguide you in your quest. Our goal is to help you, not sell you a diet product. Study all you can and you will be able to sort out the good information from the bad.
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Do you know how many calories you need each day? You would be surprised at how many do not know this simple fact. Therefore, would it surprise you to learn that a great majority of American’s consume as many as 4,000 calories per day, almost twice as much as is needed for any average sized male. Is it any wonder why the U.S. has an obesity problem? To get started, visit our tools section to calculate your calories requirements or begin with an average guess which is your body weight (that you wish to be) x 10 + 200. This number does not include exercise.
Also, we encourage you to read our entire “health” section to get a good foundation to your beginning knowledge base. You will begin to learn about blood sugar, cholesterol, and other body conditions related to fitness and health.