New Year's Resolution season is right around the corner. If your goal is weight loss and you've failed in the past, here are three secrets that could make the difference between another disappointing January and real/sustainable weight loss.
When people think of weight loss, the first thing they think of is sacrifice.
The common assumption is that if you want to lose weight, you have to give up all your favorites. While there is a bit of truth to that, especially in regard to sweets and sugar, it's certainly not the whole truth.
Is it possible that less could be more? When it comes to dieting, could the quality of your calories be more relevant to weight loss than the quantity of them?
I've been working with weight loss patients since 2009. I published my book, HCG 2.0- A Modern Adaptation of the Traditional HCG Diet in 2013. Since then, I've learned a lot. I've learned that eating healthy and maintaining a healthy weight doesn't have to be miserable. I've learned that forever counting calories and carbs will never lead to genuine health and sustainable weight loss. And, I've learned that the only way possible to maintain a healthy weight is to learn to truly enjoy the taste and experience of preparing and eating healthy whole foods.
Changing habits to make your diet work for you rather than against you
Taste is an acquired sense. Most senses are. I remember the first time I heard my parents playing jazz music, it sounded like a bunch of repetitive horn and drum sounds. But as I grew up and exposed myself to more of it, to the geniuses of the industry, the top quality jazz musicians, I developed an ear for it.
The same can be said for the foods you eat. My sister Adrienne and I were very lucky. My mother was on the forefront of proactive health and wellness. I'm now a chiropractor and acupuncturist while Adrienne is an educator and certified meal planner that maintains a blog focused on nutrition for the whole family. We've never had issues with our weight because we acquired a taste for vegetables and lean protein sources from an early age. Eating healthy has always been easy for me because it's what I grew up with. I also grew up participating in meal prep. Whether it was outside with my Dad on the grill or inside with my Mom and one of her experiments. When we showed up at the family functions, picnics or holidays, the reaction was always the same- "What did Marilyn bring this time?" It was likely something that you'd find at a vegan restaurant today in Santa Monica rather than a rural picnic in 1988. But everyone always loved it. Most did, anyway.
The point is, the more you can expose yourself and your family to healthy whole foods, the more you'll enjoy them. You have to make your diet work for you rather than against you. If you're eating all the wrong food, the calorie dense nutritionally poor foods that are common place in the Standard American Diet, appropriately acronym'd SAD, then you're likely hungry all the time. Sure, distention of the stomach walls induces a physical feeling of fullness, but it's short lived if your body hasn't received the nutritional demands that it requires.
However, if you give your body the nutrition it needs, adequate protein, adequate fat (ideally with a 1:1 of Omega 3 to Omega 6s), and phytonutrition from vegetables, it will reward you with a normal satiety response. If you eat the right foods your body will tell you that it's full and content. This is how you make your diet work for you. This is why the quality of your calories is more important than the quantity. It's difficult to overeat on healthy foods.
The first step in changing habits is addressing them. Now that we've addressed the problem, the fact that you're feeding yourself fuel in the form of SAD carbohydrates, but not giving your body the proper nutrition it requires, let's talk about step two. Actually, changing the bad habits by forming new, healthier habits by making your diet work for you.
How adding a vitamin supplement to your weight loss plan can make all the difference
Weight loss is an abstract goal. We all know how to do it. We know what we shouldn't eat. So, just stop eating it. Forever.
You see how the word "forever" makes the sacrifice seem insurmountable? But what if you can remove the forever? Add an objective to the larger goal of weight loss, that will provide you with a timeframe in which you must modify your behaviour. If your doctor tells you you need to lose weight and simply refers you to the Weight Watchers website without providing you with any context other than what a BMI charts says you should weigh, it doesn't give you much in the way of, let's hope or optimism.
However, if you're recommended a supplement that provides you with a weight loss aid that lasts, say 40 days, that makes the required behaviour modification appear much more realistic and achievable, right?
That's what adding a supplement will do for you. Pick one. I would suggest my HCG Patches as they're all the rage in my private Facebook support group that is up to 20,000 members now. But you can choose whatever supplement you want. If HCG scares you, try my Photo Plus supplement. It's a whole food vitamin that bridges that gap between the phytonutrition (plant based food from vegetables) that you need and what is realistic in the busy world in which we live.
You may ask yourself, are these supplements merely placebos? And the short answer is, who cares. Voltaire said, a really long time ago, that medicine is merely doctor entertaining patient while nature takes its course. That means your body wants to be healthy. The best doctor in the world is the one that resided inside of you. If a placebo can help you eat healthy and change some bad habits to better habits over the course of 30-40, then by all means, spend the money and do it.
Two-fold results- If you can maintain your diet for 40 days with the assistance of HCG or Phyto Plus or Raspberry Ketones, that's 40 days that you're retraining your taste buds to appreciate and enjoy healthy whole foods. It's also 40 days that you're NOT eating the habitual garbage that necessitated a weight loss plan to begin with. So if you can commit for 40 days, and continuously focus on making your bad habits better ones, you'll have a tremendously better chance of not only reaching your weight loss goals, but making them truly sustainable.
The three keys to making your bad habits better...
Spend the money on good, quality food. What else do you do three times per day, every single day of your life? Eating, sleeping and exercise are the three most important determiners of your health. So spend the money on them and allocate more of your budget to the food you eat. On my HCG 2.0 protocol, a steak dinner with grilled vegetables is entirely allowable. So is all varieties of seafood. Eating healthy absolutely does not have to be miserable if you allocate the proper budget for it.
Make the time to eat healthy. Simple. Like I said, I've been doing weight loss for a long time. It's likely that the poor foods in your diet are not your foods of choice, but your foods of convenience. You have to take the time to prepare healthy meals. If that means setting the alarm 20 minutes earlier each morning, then do it.
Follow my sister's Keto Recipe Blog. She's brilliant. The recipes are 100% keto and HCG 2.0 approved, but she always demonstrates how you can add a starch to make the keto recipe entirely family friendly. You don't know what you don't know. Adrienne's HCG 2.0 recipes will blow your mind. They're all under 200 calories and 10 carbs per serving. And they're all delicious. I think "foodie" is a silly word, we all eat, but what's the harm in learning to enjoy cooking and trying new things?
Choose a diet plan that suits your expectations and your "style"
Look, a rapid weight loss plan like HCG 2.0 isn't for everyone. My theory on weight loss is the same as the theory I have in regard to my pain management patients. Let's get you out of pain as quickly as possible then worry about fixing your structurally so the pain doesn't return.
Same with weight loss- let's shed the weight as quickly as possible, then worry about keeping it off. After all, maintaining your weight loss is a really good problem to have, right? How many of your friends would love to have that problem?
While I entirely believe that HCG 2.0 is easier than most diets, it can be a bit intimidating. The good news is that HCG 2.0 is designed specifically for you and your body type. It utilizes a unique BMR calculation that customizes your daily calorie allowance based upon your height, weight, gender and age. It's really quite brilliant, even if I do say so myself.
And as we've already discussed, HCG 2.0 gives you all of the calories you need in the form of protein, fats and phytonutrition, but none of the excess carbs. This, in combination with your HCG supplement is what allows you to sustain yourself on your own stored fat. The average weight loss on HCG 2.0 is 20-30 pounds in 30-40 days.
But don't take my word for it, join our private Facebook group and ask for yourself. We're up to 20,000 members now. It's certainly not the biggest group on Facebook, but it's in the top 5 percentile in participation and activity. That should tell you that our members are active and eager to help and support you.
Again, if 2.0 doesn't fit your style, find something that does. Set your start date. Tell family and friends that you're beginning a weight loss plan and be specific about it. Find yourself a good supplement that's going to give you peace of mind and a 30-60 days supply.
Best of luck in reaching your New Year's Resolution weight loss goals and happy holidays,
Dr. Zach
drz@insideoutwellness.net