Think You're Doing Everything Right?
BY DAN GALANTO
New Years is over. Three months in the past, and statistically, an overwhelming majority of those wanting to lose weight as a resolution have quit.
Through no fault of their own, I might add.
If you wanted to sell your diet to the public, you’d market it as “fast”. Fitness media uses some key ideas to promote whatever they’re selling you. Those key ideas are easy, fast, & dramatic weight loss. Those ideas should immediately sound familiar as they’re the key take-away points for any diet, supplement, or workout program.
Since everyone does this, a reasonable person would think, “The norm is that it should be easy, fast, and I should lose a lot of weight!” Sustainable weight loss doesn’t operate this way. You’re more than capable of losing a lot of weight quickly. However, keeping the weight off is a whole other game.
“Oh… I need to give up all carbs for the rest of my life just to keep the 15 lbs of water weight off? No bread, no candy, no pastries….””
While thinking all weight loss should be easy, fast, and dramatic, we start to automatically think a new diet will be our saving grace. We forget the last “new” diet we tried was too difficult because this “new” diet is different. We think, “Oh! As long as I go, Keto, I’ll get to my ideal weight,” which is an easy, fast, and dramatic way of looking at it rather than thinking, “Oh… I need to give up all carbs for the rest of my life just to keep the 15 lbs of water weight off? No bread, no candy, no pastries….”
We tend to not think long-term because we only keep immediate in mind. We want results right now because that’s what’s marketed to us, and we think if the diet is easy, it should be sustainable. If all I had to do was drink a juice every day to reach my goals, I could do that. The issue comes when I learn I ONLY can drink juice. That’s a much bigger lift.
Suppose diets would be like if you wanted to make a tennis ball touch the bottom of a pool. The easy, fast, and dramatic way is to throw the ball as hard as you can so it goes as far down into the water as possible. Yet we all know it’s going to float right back up. The more sustainable way would be to weigh it down under something heavy. If done correctly, it’ll be difficult to bring that ball to the surface again.
You know already that short term solutions rarely product long term results. I have full faith that most of you are reasonable. At the very least you’re more reasonable than I am. Even so, every time I see a well-constructed weight loss advertisement on Instagram reels, I must rethink to myself, “Wow is that possible? That new supplement is incredible.” But it’s not. It’s not incredible. The advertisement is the thing that’s incredible. The supplement (which, by definition, is not necessary) is probably garbage. You don’t need to go searching for the next new product that will change your life. You, yourself, as you are, are the best resource you have to change your body. Why would supplement companies help you lose weight? If you lose weight, you won’t need their product anymore. The goal is for them to disrupt you from staying on a sustainable path toward your goals. The more they can distract and confuse, the larger pool of people relying on them for the next “new” thing.
You’re capable of reaching your goals on your own that will work for you that you know you can keep up with. It might not be easy, fast, or dramatic, but once it’s off, gaining the weight back will be difficult, slow, and insignificant.
Dan is a current epidemiologist, ACSM CPT workshop instructor, author of A Big Distraction, and has held various fitness certificates dating back to 2007. Currently, he is a certified exercise physiologist (EP-C) through ACSM with the Exercise is Medicine credential. Dan’s professional emphasis is disease prevention through exercise and self-efficacy.
To promote this stance, Dan started a Youtube Channel to teach people how to do something they may have never thought they could do and answer fitness questions that are commonly asked.