Ten Things You Should Know About Weight Loss

1. Simply reducing calories is not a healthy way to lose weight, and often is not a way to lose weight at all.  Instead, cutting calories slows your metabolism so that you need fewer and fewer calories to survive.  The calories in/calories out equation is a myth! It does not work, as your experience has probably showed you by now.  Instead of counting calories (or points) learn how to eat, in any circumstances, to feel healthy, full and focused.
2. Being thin is not the same as being healthy.  Don’t try to get healthy by losing weight.  Instead, get healthy and you will lose weight.  Getting healthy promotes fat loss by its very nature: a healthy body is a body in balance; a healthy metabolism burns fat.  It also results in more energy, better focus, sounder sleep, clearer skin, better muscle tone, etc.  You must heal your metabolism if you want to be both lean and healthy.
3. Eating fat does not make you fat. In fact, eliminating fat will, sooner or later, make you sick.  It is essential to eat moderate amounts of healthy fats of all kinds.  Fats are critical for brain function, joint health, bone health, great skin, satiety and nutrient absorption.  And, like limiting calories, eliminating fat slows your metabolism.
4. Eating foods containing cholesterol does not (generally) adversely affect cholesterol levels.   Our systems are so much more complex than this.  Actually, eating a diet high in processed foods and refined carbohydrates is much more likely to result in high cholesterol levels than a diet which includes foods that contain cholesterol but come from healthy animals, including meat and eggs.  (A healthy animal is not factory-farmed or fed foods unnatural to it.)
5. Losing weight doesn’t make sense if you are losing muscle, bone and other fat-free mass, or hydration. The only thing you want to lose is fat. Otherwise you are eroding your health and speeding the aging process.
6. There is no such thing as “slow metabolism” is not a permanent condition.  You have either a damaged metabolism, or a healthy one. If your metabolism is damaged, you can heal it and return it to a healthy, fat-burning state using balanced nutrition and the correct kinds and amounts of exercise.
7. Dry skin, dry or brittle hair and nails, fatigue, memory loss, and lack of libido are all indications of malnourishment and imbalance, regardless of weight.  These are symptoms that can and should be addressed and repaired nutritionally.
8. You can be overweight and still be malnourished. This has to do not only with eating the wrong foods, but with inability to absorb nutrients because of damage to the intestinal tract.  Fortunately, the intestinal tract is resilient and can usually recover when nutrition is correct and balanced.
9. Identifying and eliminating food sensitivities is essential to any weight loss program. In fact, it is essential to any health program.  Otherwise, the chronic inflammation produced by your food sensitivities will continue to impede your weight loss, and your health, causing both short-term and long-term issues.
10. Most of the degenerative problems and diseases we accept as “aging” are significantly directed by our own lifestyle choices.  Every day you make thousands of choices, and every single time you have the opportunity to make a bad choice or a better one.  Educating yourself about your choices is the first step to living a life that is not only longer, but healthier and happier too.

Do you know someone, or are you someone, who has tried everything, done everything right, but still hasn’t been able to lose weight?  One of my specialties is helping people in that situation, by identifying the issues underlying the difficulty, helping correct them, and finally be successful.  Please see my 13 Week Success Program for more information.
© 2008 Fran Sussman

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