Set yourself up for achievement not failure

Many of you began your new year with resolutions of losing weight and getting in shape, and then you bought into the surplus of quick fix solutions and restrictive diets for fast weight loss. You started seeing results but you couldn’t follow them long term. Diets aren’t meant to be followed long term anyway.

You then resumed your normal eating habits and now you not only gained back what you’d lost but probably an additional 5 to 10 pounds. What a disaster and disappointment. You set yourself up for failure before you ever got started. Why?

Because most diet’s follow the premise of calorie restriction and with that in mind you slow your metabolism down 10-15% just by being on a diet. Calories are the body’s fuel source for all bodily functions. Proper eating even allows you to burn calories while at rest. Imagine that, you’re sitting around and your body works for you. Your body is like a car and food is the gas, when your car runs out of gas it stops and you do too.

You may decide to not eat breakfast to cut down on your calorie intake, but all that does is throw your metabolic switch and your body kind of goes into hibernation, everything slows down and when your metabolism slows down you feel it, sluggish, brain fog, you don’t feel like doing much of anything especially exercising.

Did you know that for every 3 pounds of muscle gained you increase your metabolism by 7%. Muscle dictates metabolism. The more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn from excess body fat. Your metabolism increases and you have more energy to build more muscle to burn more fat. You may even find that when you start strength training and your body metabolizes the way it was created to, you are eating more and that’s ok because you have kept that energy machine going. That’s one great benefit of strength training.

Did you know that sugar can alter your hormones signaling your body to “store” fat rather than “release” it? Ingesting sugars from cookies, ice cream and candies gets absorbed into your bloodstream rapidly thus elevating your blood sugar.

A better approach to healthy eating is to follow the low glycemic index way. Glycemic Index measures the way foods impact your sugar levels. Foods with high glycemic value rapidly raises your blood sugar levels, its gives you that sugar high, but it doesn’t last long and then you crash, get tired and eat everything in sight looking for that next rush.

By controlling the GI, your blood sugar will stay at a more level range and changing your diet, you feel more energized, alert and productive throughout the day thus increasing your metabolism to allow for body fat loss, and that’s what you want to achieve. You didn’t fail the diet, the diet’s failed you!