So you want to lose weight in eight weeks or less???

I hate to break it to you, but you’ve come to the wrong place.

OR HAVE YOU?

There’s a recurring problem people are having with weight loss and even though they all suffer the same repetitive struggles, instead of blaming the bad advice they were given, they blame themselves.

• I wasn’t disciplined enough
• I couldn’t stick to the diet
• It must have been the carbs/gluten/dairy/bananas!!

But it’s not all your fault because what you don’t realise is it’s not you who controls your body weight

It’s your Metabolism

I'm going to ask you to use your imagination for me as I explain how your metabolism can defy you with the use of an analogy.

"My Body is a Temple".

A temple is a place of worship with a divine presence reserved for a function of spiritual value. What this phrase actually means as it originated in the bible is that your body was given to you as the vehicle from which you are to worship and honour God.

But we’re not here to talk religion

Since then the meaning has been reinterpreted and therefore redefined... TWICE. The first new meaning was to worship the body by looking after it eg eating healthy and keeping it flexible and strong. After some time though the healthy aspect of the phrase disappeared and the meaning became to worship the body by giving it whatever the hell it wants which is often pizza and icecream. YUM!

Your body is not a temple

I don't want you to think of your body as a temple for now because I want you to realise what's actually going on inside your body when you deprive it of the foods it is accustomed to.

Your body is a company!

I want you to think of your body as a company instead. A company usually has a number of departments and each department has a team of staff who all play a role for the benefit of the company. In a company if a department or members of the team aren’t pulling their weight it slows down everybody else and delays the process.

Your company exists to keep you alive.

Within your company each department plays a different role to keep you going.

This is just a few of them

• regulating blood sugar levels
• producing and regulating hormones
• transporting oxygen and nutrients
• fighting off infections
• aiding digestion of vitamins and minerals
• processing your food into energy

Now in order to get all of this work done your staff need energy and they get this energy from the food you eat.

A massive 70% of the energy you consume daily is used by the company (your internal movements not your external movements)

For some time now, your staff have been spoiled for energy and have become accustomed to particular resources to extract this energy from. Since you’ve been giving your staff more than they needed, a lot of these resources don’t get turned to energy at all, because it takes time for your staff to extract it, they don’t need it, and since you haven’t been doing any exercise in more than a few months they’ve decided that you’re not going to be using it soon either. So instead of turning it into energy they don't need right now the resources get stored away for later

... as fat!

Day by day, week by week, this storage is gradually getting bigger and it happens so slowly that you don't notice until one day you look at some photos somebody tagged you in on facebook and barely recognise yourself.

So you jump straight onto google and start searching for ways to

LOSE WEIGHT FAST

And so here you are.

Let's pretend the amount of energy your staff gets has been 3000 calories per day.
Let’s also pretend that you’ve just found a doable diet of 1000 calories per day.

Back at the company your staff have been working efficiently until suddenly they’re getting only one third the resources they’re used to getting - but they still have to get the same amount of work done and they're not used to these types of resources so it will take some time to learn how to efficiently extract the energy.
They get to work making use of every last calorie they can find.

They even start pulling out resources from storage!

It’s working!!

As that number on the scales starts coming down you’re planning your new wardrobe.
But while you go about your days working (externally) the same amount you always did (if not more) your staff are getting tired. The resources from the storage take too much time to extract the much needed energy from. There’s only one thing that can give your staff energy fast enough!

Sugar!

You’ve been depriving yourself of all kinds of sugar, and now your bodies craving it. Everytime you eat something your staff discards the other nutrients and heads straight for the high GI carbs!!

Meanwhile your scales are not exciting you as much as they did the first week...
You’re thinking you must have done something wrong and you decide to go without breakfast.

But your staff have a job to do and they don’t have enough energy to do it.

Remember all those jobs we mentioned before?

Well here's a reminder.

Regulating blood sugar levels

Do you know how important this job is?
The reason diabetics take insulin is to fulfill this job. If you are thankfully not diabetic then your staff are producing that insulin for you. Balanced blood sugar levels are crucial for regulating your hormones, triggering your body to burn stored fat and increasing your metabolism.

It's important that your body has enough energy to do this job efficiently.

Producing and regulating hormones

Your hormones have a huge impact on weight gain/loss. With less energy for your staff to regulate your dosage you’re likely to create an imbalance.

Transporting oxygen and nutrients & aiding digestion of vitamins and minerals

Both of these jobs are necessary to get the right materials to the right places. Different nutrients have different jobs and even though you might be taking your vitamins, the department whose job is to get them there might be pulled to other jobs of more immediate importance!

Lets fast forward

If you worked for somebody who cut your wages by more than half how would you feel?
This is sort of how your body reacts to your low calorie diet. The next time you start to cut your calories and go on a diet your staff will react like it knows EXACTLY what you are doing. The second time around your body recognises instantly that there's a sudden deficit of energy and instead of working away as normal and pulling resources from the storage, it actually looks for energy to store...

Your staff will defy you.

For anybody who has experience of yo-yo dieting this should sound familiar to you.
It was easier the first time around, the second time you lost weight a little slower and the third time it seemed impossible to lose any weight at all!

Without enough funding your company slowed down.

How do we speed it up?!

Your metabolism - or the company we’ve been talking about - gives you the ability to lose weight. Some people think a fast metabolism is genetic and maybe it is but it doesn't matter what speed your metabolism is at because the important thing to know is you can improve it!

So here’s some tips to gradually speed it up.

Remember you don't need to switch lifestyle all at once. Take one new habit at a time.

Eat up

Don’t deprive yourself when you’re hungry. Just don’t be lazy by choosing crap.

It’s difficult to choose a healthy option when you’re hungry and you don’t want to have to prepare something. So plan your meals and even some healthy snacks in case you get hungry!

Oily fish and omegas

I hope you like oily fish! Omega 3 Poly-unsaturated fatty acids are like magic for your metabolism.

Learn to cook! Use fresh ingredients!

This is a skill that will benefit you for the rest of your life. By learning to cook you can avoid processed foods. Practice trying new ingredients and recipes and experiment to make it fun!

CUT THE CRAP

The diet industry likes to change its mind a lot. One minute fats are bad, the next it’s carbs, now it’s gluten. Be honest with yourself. You know what part of your diet is bad, stop letting the media confuse you! Either it’s the beer, or the daily deserts, or the crisps, or the takeaways. You know what it is. Rather than cutting treats from your diet completely, just practice treating your treats like treats! Treats are not for every day. They’re for special occasions.
Note: The whole weekend is not a special occasion

Walk it off!

Walking or cycling are the best forms of cardio for weight loss, because if your exercise brings your heart rate too high (like with running) your body will actually start burning muscle instead of fat. Try getting up early for a morning walk or cycle. It doesn’t have to be morning but the earlier the better because the exercise actually helps you find more energy for the day.

Muscle up

Muscles burn fat! The more muscle you have the more fat you burn.
If you're a woman please don't think that you'll get bulky. You're not a man, and you won't look like one unless you start taking steroids or testosterone!!

Summary

• Losing weight too fast can be detrimental for your metabolism
• Your body needs enough energy to process your food, if it doesn't have enough energy, it will actually start storing fat slowing down your weight loss progress

Tips to help your body regulate your hormones

• Get plenty of sleep
• Avoid processed foods
• Apart from trans fats, all fats have value, but with saturated fats you only need a little.
• Make sure you get your healthy fats (unsaturated/polyunsaturated)
• If you feel like it you can even supplement your omega 3's or the best food source is oily fish and avocados (yum)

Tips to speed up your metabolism

• Don't deprive yourself when you're hungry. Just choose healthy options
• Again get your omega's in!!
• Practice cooking with fresh ingredients
• Treat a treat as a treat
• Go for a walk or cycle almost every day
• Build up some muscle to help burn the fat

If this interested you follow me for lots more tips on health and fitness :)