Instant weight loss – now there’s a phrase to strike joy in a girl’s mind. Such a lovely word instant and when applied to losing weight it conjures up images of quick, effortless, easy weight loss. All those things that we dream that losing weight can be, but never is.
When I was in my teens and early twenties, my girlfriends and I had a diet we called “The Skinny By Saturday Night”. Whatever calorific sins had been committed in the last weekend, come Monday morning all would be forgiven and we would be assured of fitting back into our favorite skintight (think lying on the bed with coat hangers wrenching the zip up) jeans by Saturday night, providing we adhered to the basic principles of the diet – nothing but black coffee and cigarettes.
Yes, I can hear the collective groans and gasps of shock, but remember this is extremely popular time when smoking was not considered the death sentence it is these days, and was certainly not something that banished a person to social obscurity and condemnation which is now. We were also of that age where things like wrinkles, poor health and death were things that happened to our grandmothers, and not our ten-foot-tall and bullet-proof young selves.
So coffee and cigars for a week it was, and the weight literally fell off us. Somehow we never noticed, the tiredness, crankiness and crappy skin that went along with it, and if we had, we still wouldn’t have cared.
Then as we got older, wiser and more educated on what was and wasn’t good for our bodies, something awful happened (or maybe it was an excellent), we realized that we couldn’t lose weight instantly anymore, and that even if we replaced the coffee and smokes with lettuce and mineral water, the weight would cling stubbornly to our thighs and butts in such a way it never had before.
So what happened? Well there are numerous reasons why a chance to maintain a steady weight, much less lose any excess, does decline with age, but usually the one that affects those like my friends and I who used extreme forms of dieting when we were younger, is the effect it has had on our metabolism.
Bodies are built for survival and when we starve ourselves, our body thinks there’s a famine coming and slows down the rate at which it burns food to be able to preserve energy. It learns to live on the lesser amount it is receiving. That really was a great mechanism for our ancestors; however, for us it’s not at all so good. When we start to eat normally, our body is still wired to fear the next famine and so it doesn’t speed the metabolism back up and instead stores it up as insurance money.
Neat little trick huh? You eat the same food that you did prior to your diet, but you put onto weight. Hardly seems fair does it?
So what’s the answer? Have we permanently destroyed our metabolism and doomed ourselves to a lifetime wardrobe of elasticized pants? Thankfully, that we can reboot our metabolism and turn it back to its normal settings.
Here are a few things start with:
1. Eat small snacks and meals and space them out through the day so that you can eat about every three to four hours. This will get your body back into the habit of knowing that it will get enough food and give it time to burn more efficiently.
2. Exercise – you don’t need to run marathons but you will should get your heart rate up until you are huffing and puffing a bit. Aim for 30 minutes most days each week.
The most crucial thing is to stop any type of super restrictive diet and to eat sensibly. Your butt will appreciate it and so will your skin.
Nikki Upton is a beauty industry expert, with over 20 years’ experience. Her aim is to share her inside tips and knowledge to empower readers to make educated choices about the skincare and beauty products they buy.
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categories: fat loss diet,fast losing weight,butt exercises,stomach exercise,ab fitness