You Can Grow Younger

The Real Reason You Put the Weight Right Back On

People put the weight right back on, fail to stick to a workout routine, or procrastinate, never getting started -- NOT because they lack the will power, self control, or the time, but because they are sabotaged by their own self image.

Let's say you lost 15 pounds. You have more energy, you like the way you look now, your clothes fit better, and your number-one says you look GREAT! Despite all these reasons to keep the weight off, you put it right back on. Why? Good question!

Is it because you have no self control, no will power? If this were the case, you wouldn't be able to hold down a job or be trusted to take care of a young child in your charge. Is it because you have no time -- you're too busy? Probably not, because if I offered to pay you $1,000 or even just $50 for each hour you exercised, you'd willingly sacrifice a little TV or computer time to head for the gym or take a walk during your lunch break.

No, the real culprit is your self-image. Your self-image is how you see yourself -- it's your identity. It's who you are! Your self-image could be, for example: a business owner, the mother of three, a coin collector, trustworthy, honest, good with crossword puzzles and fat. Er, I mean, 20 pounds overweight.

This is how you see yourself -- it is your self-image, or identity. If you were to eliminate one of these aspects of yourself, it would be like the annihilation of part of you. A piece of you will have become extinct -- another endangered species has bitten the dust, so to speak.

The self-image's job is to create stability and consistency in your life. It therefore fights change, because lasting change means that a part of who-you-are has been destroyed.

If you were a beer drinker one day, a teetotaler the next, and a connoisseur of fine wines the next, you'd have no consistent identity. Your beer-guzzling buddies would be confused. You wouldn't be able to relate to them and they to you as a teetotaler or a wine connoisseur. Life would get very confusing and untenable.

When you lose 15 pounds, there is a "disconnect" between the current physical you that you temporarily become and the self-image version of who you "really" are or are "supposed" to be. This causes angst and discomfort in your mind/body system. Your self-image self -- your subconscious mind -- will then work to bring your physical self and its new weight back in line with your subconsciously-established view of your body. Therefore, it will slow your metabolism down, increase your appetite, make you sluggish so you won't want to work out, and give you one excuse after another why you should skip your exercise class or eat that last half of the cheesecake.

If you take action without dealing with your self-image first, you are most likely doomed to failure. No self improvement, including weight loss, can last unless you change your self-image -- change how you see yourself.

You'll find out how to change your self-image in The Real Reason ... part 2.

Ed Mayhew is a speaker and the author of Fitter After 50 and Fitter for Life

Calories Are Smart -- They Count -- part II

In part one I left you hanging with a day’s calorie total that was not adding up in your favor. That is, I had you (hypothetically, of course) starving yourself all day and then, in the evening, due to your resulting, ravenous hunger, snacking to the tune of 2100 calories (1200 from a pint of ice cream,

900 in

the form of a seven-ounce bag of munchies, and zero from a 20-ounce soda). That, plus the calories in the day’s starvation diet, put you at a belly-bloating 3100 calories for the day – catapulting you to a depressing two-pound weight gain each week (theoretically speaking, of course).

Now it is time to look at some of the possible solutions to the hypothetical predicament in which you find yourself (that is, in which I have placed you). First, let me assure you that I do not intend to “should” on you. These are steps you can take, if you so choose, if you ever find yourself in the above-mentioned situation.

¨      Eat a nutritious -- stick-to-your-ribs – breakfast (e.g., oatmeal, sliced bananas, and skim or 1% milk).

¨      Have a small meal or snack every 3 or 4 hours to keep your blood-sugar levels in check.

¨      See that each meal/snack consists of a protein source, a complex carbohydrate, and a fruit or vegetable (e.g., a tuna fish sandwich with sliced tomatoes on whole-grain bread or peanut butter on slices of apple).

¨      Consume foods with healthful fats (e.g., sprinkle walnuts or almond slivers on your salads, cook with olive oil, …).

¨      Always check the Nutrition Facts label on packages of processed foods, paying special attention to the serving size and the CALORIES PER SERVING. Based on this information, decide how much you will allow yourself.

¨      Never eat snacks from a box or bag. Always pour the amount you are going to eat into a bowl (based partly on the number of calories you wish to allot yourself). Then close the bag and put it out of the way in an inconvenient-to-get-to place.

¨      Exercise three or more hours per week. Besides burning calories, exercisers tend to limit their food intake so that all their sweat won’t have been in vain.

¨      Never eat in front of the TV. Studies have shown that you’ll eat up to 71% more food while watching TV.

These are some of the techniques that will help. However, you’ll never keep those unwanted pounds off until you change your self image. As long as you see yourself as a fat magnet or too wide for your height, anything you do will be an uphill battle. Until you see yourself the way you’d like to be, you will continue to re-manifest the body that your self-image has created and goes to great lengths to maintain. Alas, this is a topic for another time. Until then, the only sure way to lose an extra 200 unwanted pounds is to drive off while your husband is still in the restroom.

Calories Are Smart -- They Count -- part I

Calories count, and the sneaky little buggers can add up quicker than dollars at the gas pump. I was reminded of this fact of life the other night when I had a hankering for a sweet treat.

While checking out my options in the frozen desserts aisle, I found a berry pie. Yum! I dutifully read the Nutrition Facts. No trans fats. That's good and 340 calories per slice, I can handle the extra calories of this little transgression, I thought.  After all, I've been keeping my calorie intake and calorie output in balance for a while. And off I went with my bounty.

At home, as I was reading the instructions for baking said treat, I noticed what had to be someone-at-the-pie-factory's idea of a joke. It stated right on the box that a serving was one-tenth of the pie. Now, you have to picture this little (when you're in full-snack mode it is minuscule) 8-inch diameter pie, cut into 10 tiny slivers -- I mean pieces. They've got to be kidding! That's the size you ask for when you are watching your weight, but don't want to hurt the cook's feelings. This means the whole pie is 3400 calories and a reasonable, snack-worthy helping is 500 to 650 calories or a full one-quarter to one-third of your 2000-calorie daily allotment (as determined by Big Brother Government himself). What a depressing predicament.

As you might imagine, this berry-licious pie is not the only calorific temptress on the store shelves. Let's look at some other snack options that I like.

There's a delicious (my opinion) snack that combines pretzel pieces and cheese stuffing. They are only 130 calories per serving, but wait, there are 7 servings (it says so right on the bag) in the easy-to-eat-in-one-sitting 7-ounce bag. There are 65 one-inch log-shaped pieces in the bag (that's right, I counted them). That means a serving is just 9 pieces, and come on! Who can stop at just nine of these salty delights? One could (that is, I did) easily polish off the whole bag while watching a favorite TV show and hardly notice he's (I've) done it. That's seven times 130, or 910, calories -- almost half your daily ration of calories in a single sitting.

How about a pint of premium ice cream, Vanilla Swiss Almond to be precise? It's only 300 calories per serving, but wait, there's suppose to be four one-half-cup servings per container. Are you kidding? Do you realize how small a half cup is? This for years was my wife's favorite treat and she would polish off the whole carton in single sitting. That's 1200 calories! Not that I'm one to pick on my wife, mind you.

Here's the problem. Maybe you'll relate to it. You're trying to lose a couple of pounds, so you skip breakfast because you don't need the calories and you don't really have time, anyway. You have a small lunch and supper. You've done well for the day, having taken in just a thousand calories or so. But now, around 8:30, you're starving. You decide to reward yourself with a snack. After all, you deserve it (you've been "so good" all day) and can afford the calories because you've eaten practically nothing. You put your feet up, put on your favorite show, and before you know it you've finished off the whole bag of cheese-pretzel thingies. Thirsty, you down a zero-calorie soft drink. But, you're still hungry and you've only had a single little snack. You've got to be able to afford one more snack without going over your self-imposed-calorie limit. Right? So you down the pint of ice cream and off to bed you go feeling a little guilty, but knowing you kept your calorie count down this day. But did you? Let's see, Vanilla Swiss almond, 1200 calories -- pretzel thingies, 910 -- diet soda, 0 -- starvation diet during the day, 1000 . You're at 3100 calories -- 1100 over your quota. Theoretically, at this rate, you can starve yourself all day, every day, and give in a little to your snack urge at night and gain 2 pounds per week.  -- to be continued --