When it comes to weight loss, the buzzwords you might be hearing lately are lifestyle and change…as in, you need to make one to be successful at losing weight. It may seem like losing weight is a simple goal–do some exercise, go on a diet and voila!

While magazines and infomercials make it seem effortless, losing weight takes hard work and that often means changing different aspects of your life, like how you spend your time, how you schedule your day, and how/what you eat.

What’s Your Lifestyle Like? The reason lifestyle is so important is because how you live determines your choices and these choices decide how healthy you are and whether you’re on the road to weight loss. So what is a healthy lifestyle? The typical components include not smoking, eating healthy foods, exercising and keeping the body at a healthy weight. Where do you fall on the healthy lifestyle continuum? First, figure out how much time you spend doing the following:

• Sitting at a desk
• Sitting in a car
• Sitting in front of a TV
• Sitting in front of a computer
• Eating out at restaurants
• Drinking alcohol
• Eating fast food or junk foods
• Staying up late/not getting enough sleep

Now, how much time do you spend:

• Being active in general (taking the stairs, walking instead of driving, gardening, cleaning, etc.)
• Doing cardio exercise
• Strength training for all muscle groups with challenging weights
• Preparing your own meals and snacks and eating fruits, veggies and whole grains
• Reading food labels
• Tracking your calories
• Sleeping
• Dealing with stress in a healthy way

If you spend more time doing the things in the first list than the second, it’s time to reevaluate your priorities and decide what you really want for yourself. Living healthy means spending time and energy on your body–moving it around and paying attention to what you put into it. An unhealthy lifestyle means you can avoid expending energy, time and effort…but at what cost?

Choosing Health

As humans, we like habits and routines…so much so that we often keep doing the same things even when we know they aren’t good for us. Changing bad habits takes time and effort and, for a healthy lifestyle, you may need to change a variety of things including:

• What time you get up each morning
• What time you go to bed each night
• How you spend your free time
• How you spend your money
• How you shop, how you cook and how often you eat
• How much TV you watch
• What you do with your family and friends

Keep in mind the habits you have now were formed over many years and it’s unrealistic to expect to change them overnight.  While there will be times the old habits make an appearance before you know it, don’t let that deter you.  Get right back on track, this is a marathon, not a sprint.  While difficult, the rewards for making these changes will be endless.

Sugar, Sugar, it’s everywhere. Be aware that from the body’s perspective, sugar is sugar. Regardless if it’s cane, honey, or agave nectar. “Natural” sweeteners fall into the same category so don’t be fooled to think they are somehow better from a caloric perspective.

Drink your fruit or eat your fruit, which is it! There is no question that eating fruit is superior to drinking it. This is true for a few different reasons. One, drinking fruit invites over consumption in the form of calories and especially sugar. Case and point, it takes three to four oranges to yield 8 oz. of fresh OJ.  One medium orange has in excess of 60 calories and about 12 grams of sugar. Also when one drinks their fruit, they are bypassing the value of the fiber. Fiber slows absorption. Without it, one is facing an insulin spike, hunger, and the chance to store some dreaded fat.

Greek yogurt has been the rage in 2011.  But of course good old marketing has been playing a strong role as well so be aware that all Greek yogurt is not created equally. ”Flavored” Greek yogurt is the area of potential concern here. Again, it’s the sugar content which is usually stated by the number of grams of carbohydrates that can be the culprit. Look for varieties that contain twelve net grams of carbohydrates or less. For other easy eating solutions look at www.imetabolic.com/store/

A very interesting article just surfaced from the British Journal of Cancer tying one third (1/3) of all cancers are to tobacco, diet, alcohol, and obesity. Tobacco is the largest and most significant factor in both men and women. However, for women, being overweight and obese is the second most significant contributor and in men it’s number four on the list. Bottom line is this information helps paint the picture that ourL choices do matter and we all do have some control over the possible outcome related to these risk factors.

http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v105/n2s/full/bjc2011489a.html