Why Weight?

I lost 4 pounds in the last two weeks and I didn’t even mean to. My diet plan: get sick, lie in bed, don’t work out and eat a lot of junk food and carbs. I should write a book, right? Seems like everyone and their mother has come out with their version of “how to lose weight”. Don’t eat carbs, eat only carbs, eat only high cholesterol foods, eat only raw vegetables, eat for your blood type, eat for your hair color, eat only in the morning, eat 10 meals a day, eat a big lunch and a small dinner, eat only cabbage soup…the list goes on.

When is the world going to realize (and it has been said over and over) that the secret to losing weight is not any of the above, but is…wait for it…EAT LESS, EAT HEALTHY and…here is the kicker...EXERCISE!!! There is no magic pill; there is no quick fix (well there are but they are dangerous to your health). There is only hard work and dedication. It is like anything else in this world – if you want it, you have to work hard to get it. You cannot just sit on the couch eating Cheetos and watching TV every day and expect to slim down to the size of Kate Moss. You have to actually turn the TV off and get out of your chair and take a spin around the block (at least a couple of times).

Unfortunately, people have become inactive over the years. We used to have to work hard for everything – if we wanted food, we had to grow it, kill it or raise it; if we wanted a house, we chopped down trees and built a house. If you would have mentioned a gym, the old settlers would have laughed in your face. Now we sit in our car, we sit in the office, we sit at home. To get any exercise, we have to force ourselves out to the gym or the park. And inactive people breed more inactive people. Our kids are following in our footsteps. Well actually, they are following in our butt prints, if you want to be literal about it.

Shape Magazine suggests getting a half an hour of “cardio-type” (walking, running, biking, etc) exercise per day. This could be done at lunch, or by walking up and down the stairs at work or home a few extra times, or by parking farther out in the parking lot. But we don’t “have time” for that. We still want a quick fix or a magic pill to make it all go away. We want someone else to take care of it for us.

Are we so busy living that we cannot even spare a half an hour a day in order to save our own lives?