Resolution 2017: I Will Stop Exercising to Lose Weight!

You must change your thinking about exercise and its proper place in your plan for health and fitness if you are to succeed. 

Do not stop exercising in the coming year (and beyond), but temper your expectations about what exercise can accomplish towards your weight loss goals. 

Exercise should not be your primary method of losing weight. 

It should not be your primary method of losing weight. 

The reason you will be utilizing an exercise program in 2017, and for the rest of your life, is to strengthen your body systems: cardiovascular/respiratory, muscular, skeletal, and cerebral. 

There is no substitute for exercise in achieving these health sustaining results. None! No pill, no diet drink, no prescription, nothing. 

You must continue to exert physical effort consistently. And if you do… 

You can still be strong in your sixties and beyond, simply by being consistent. At sixty five, I enjoy strength and mobility that most have lost long ago from neglect. I was never a star athlete; never the fastest, never the strongest. I simply have exercised purposely and conservatively all my life. 

If you want to be different when 2017 is done, you must make different lifestyle choices now and continuing forward. 

It certainly will not be quick and it certainly will not be easy.   

WHERE IT STARTS AND ENDS :

Weight management is first and foremost the control of the quality and quantity of food you consume. 

If you intend to change your level of health and fitness, this must be your mantra. There is no shortcut. 

Here’s Why:

You don’t have enough time or energy to exercise off extra calories consumed throughout the day. 

An average size cookie can be 150 calories. How easy is it to consume a few chocolate chip cookies after a meal that already contains more energy than you can burn before the next meal? You would need to walk more than three miles to use the energy supplied just from the cookies. 

The best and most vigorous exercise program is no match for a diet that chronically consumes excess calories. 

We are all genetically and psychologically different. What seems easy to me could be very difficult for someone else. 

There very well may be biological differences regarding the feeling of fullness that results from consuming adequate quantities of food. However, individual differences generally fall with the extremes on either side being a very small component of the population.

You can gain a tremendous advantage if you begin to focus on this feeling of fullness. Learn and practice mindfulness about both your motivation for eating and the process itself! If you can come to the point of getting away from the table when you first feel a sense of being satisfied (not full),  you will never be seeking weight loss answers again. Your body weight will normalize even without exercise! 

During an extended period of no exercise (due to injury), I developed this habit. Little by little, eating with a heightened sense of awareness, and commitment to a goal, the journey progressed. 

For the majority of us who fall into the ‘normal’  category regarding our biological responses to food and consumption, constructive changes are within our power to choose.

Not necessarily easy, but possible, nonetheless.

Since our response to eating is the issue, you must focus your awareness on the process; especially eating quality, nutritious food at a slower pace–intent on stopping before fullness. If good health is important to you, food must be viewed as your vital tool for proper nutrition. If your mealtime is anticipated as primarily a gut-filling endeavor, the odds are greatly against you. Change your thinking, change your behavior. 

 Look for foods that supply the protein, vitamins and minerals that are necessary to nourish your body. I promise that if you make the effort to consume healthy foods, your tastes and cravings will change. But it won’t happen quickly. And you must be consistent with your new food choices. 

I love chocolate. When I first tasted chocolate that was high in cocoa and low in sugar, the taste was bitter. Now it’s impossible for me to enjoy the sugar packed chocolate of a typical candy bar. All sugars should be understood as simple energy sources–those most readily converted to glucuse: the fuel your body recognizes. The sugars in fruits should be treated with the same caution. Just because they are part of the sweet taste of orange juice does not allow you to consume them recklessly.

 Your nutritional awareness will extend to understanding the pervasive presence of high fructose corn syrup–even in the bread you consume. Do these things matter? Yes, these are the details that separate the serious from ‘lose weight fast’ junkies.

Start drinking water with your meals (and in between). The amount of calories consumed in the form of drinks throughout the day is significant.  

This type of change is fundamental to your success. You can do it. 

Understand the mission: changing your lifestyle–small successful and consistent steps are much more important than grandiose changes that are likely doomed to failure.

To Your Health and Fitness,

Steven 

The Senior Health and Fitness Blog by Steven Siemons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0