Weight Loss vs. Healthy Living

Did you know that weight loss is a new phenomenon? We are the first generation to deal with even being overweight. We have taken it many steps further by building an entire industry around the losing weight. Being part of that industry for years, I don’t have anything bad to say about what we are trying to do. My only issue is with the way we are trying to do it.

Just the term weight loss strikes me as the wrong place to start. I understand that many of us have reached a point where we are overweight and want to lose that weight, but there is so much more. We make it seem that diet and exercise are only for those who need to lose weight. What about the people that have not yet become overweight? Do they not need diet and exercise?

I think we should be focused more on prevention and healthy lifestyle. That changes the entire feel of exercise. If you are presented with an option to live healthy and prevent countless diseases, it is more positive than weight loss. People would be more likely to not only start living healthy, but continue to do it if they weren’t focused solely on losing weight.

So what do we do? Well, that is a great question. The industry seems to be doing quite well selling us the new products, machines and systems. There is a new one every few months that swears to be the best. What’s even better is that we are continually told that it will be easier than “those other things you’ve tried”. What happens when they are not easy? We quit. Add that product to the list of failed attempts at losing weight. Now we’ll wait for the next big thing to come out. We won’t have to wait long.

I’m not an equipment salesman, nor do I recommend any particular plan. I’m not here to debate what works and what doesn’t. I am here to help change the way you look at exercise and nutrition. If you continue to look at it as losing weight, all you will do is focus on the weight you have now, try to find a quick way to reduce it and fail when you realize that this “great plan” doesn’t fit into your routine. Now it will be even more difficult to restart the next plan because you feel defeated. The add told you that this is THE way and it’s SO easy. It doesn’t feel good when something is “easy” and still doesn’t work for you, does it?

What if we looked at our health as an ongoing, lifelong routine that can be changed and improved at will? Wouldn’t life be easier if we just set goals, thought about what we needed to do to reach them and started on our way? I think so. I don’t think we would be worried about losing weight. We wouldn’t be trying to undo years of bad habits in one day, nor would we feel failure for not sticking with an outrageous diet we saw on television.

The beauty of healthy living is that you are not restricted to one way of doing things. You choose what you are going to do and you do it. There is no failure, there is only adjustments. For those that have mastered this lifestyle, it really is easy. It may take time to build into your life, but once you do, it never goes away. Parts of it may go away, if you choose to change your plan, but again, it’s all up to you.

As a health coach, I help people change their mindset. We go from “I want to lose weight” to “I want to live healthy and this is what I am going to do.” It sounds simple…and it is when you really think about it. We’ve overcomplicated a lot of things. Health is one of them. We’ve known for centuries that eating proper portions and staying active led to a longer healthier life. It’s no different today. We may have more options to choose from or more complications, but the bottom line is: You can live healthy if you want to. Stop thinking about weight loss and start living healthy. Weight is only a product of our habits. Change the habits and the mindset and you will change your results.