Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Are You Stuck in the Weight Cycle?

(Warning: If what you read below describes you I'm sorry to tell you that you're caught in the weight cycle :( )

             You're not happy about the way you feel. You're tired all the time. You feel terrible about yourself. You have no energy. You feel crummy about the way you look. Your clothes don't fit any more. You're disgusted with yourself, so what do you do?  You go on a diet and start exercising of course!  Ha-ha!!                                                                                                         Four weeks go buy and you've lost 15 lbs., dropped TWO pants sizes and look a heck of a lot better!! Way to go!! Fast forward another 4 weeks and by this point your diet and exercise program become unsustainable. You are starving yourself. Your diet is just way too restrictive and you are at your breaking point, so what do you do? You begin to revert back to your former way of eating and your trips to the gym become less and less. 


                    What starts out as just a few "cheat meals" to satisfy the cravings you're having turns into a free pass to eat whatever you want, whenever you want. You've fallen off the wagon and your gym clothes are gathering dust.

                   As the weeks go by you gain the courage to step on the scale. Your jaw drops as you cry in disgust, "I weigh more now than when I started my diet." You step off the scale and drag your feet over to the closet. You begrudgingly grab a pair of "loose fit" jeans and hope for the best. You take a deep breath as you put one leg in and then the other, and now for the moment of truth...the zip and the lone button. Somehow you manage to get those pants zipped up and buttoned, but you cannot deny the obvious - you are now fatter than you were just a few short months ago.

                   You begin to feel angry and upset. In your head you repeat the mantra, "I don't care. I really don't care anymore. I'm never gonna have the body I want. I'm done." Guilt begins to creep its way in, but you fight to suppress it. As the weeks go by guilt has overtaken you. With one more look in the mirror you say to yourself, "What have I done?" You do your best not to go out in public for fear you might be seen. You're so embarrassed and ashamed. How can you face the same people who a few short weeks ago were complimenting you on how you looked? In your mind you just can't, so what do you do?

                     Well, for a few more weeks you wallow in self-pity. "Woe is me" becomes your theme song until one day you've had enough. You pick yourself up by your bootstraps, jump on Amazon to order the latest fad diet book and enroll in yet another exercise program. And so the cycle continues...


                    If this is you I want you to know there's hope for you. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but what I am saying is that with the right approach to diet and exercise living a consistent healthy life is possible. How do I know? Because I've watch some very close friends and students of mine accomplish it. I've seen them lose 30 lbs, 50 lbs, even 100 lbs! You might be thinking, "I've done or witnessed the same thing." Remember, I'm not talking merely about how to GET the weight off, I'm talking about how to KEEP it off! There are hundreds of "diets" and "tricks" to help you GET the weight off, but I'm interested in not only helping you get it off, but KEEPING it off. "How do you do that?" you ask. Great question, but you'll have to wait until part 2 of this blog post to get the answer :)


Have a fantastic day!

Sincerely,

James Terlecki

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