Oh the quick fix… the cleanse, the diet, the detox, the magic weight loss plant/pill/injection. Everything is always going to be so fast, so quick, so easy…just enter your credit card and effortless skinny bliss awaits! *Puke! Say it with me folks: QUICK FIXES DO NOT WORK LONG TERM! The magic pill, magic supplement, magic cleanse, magic injection, or magic diarrhea tea WILL NOT fix the mess that your lifestyle created. Stop falling for it! Every time you do you set your health back years! Okay let me cool my rant down and actually give you some helpful information you can use to better your health and fitness. *takes deep breath* Let’s break down the lasting damage that these harmful quick fixes can cause, and then I’ll break down healthier ways to lose weight slowly and quickly. HARMFUL WEIGHT LOSS. If you deviate too much from common sense, you will end up harming your body long term. Pyramid Schemes: I am going to give you specific examples that might get me in trouble. These are my opinions from 10 years of sitting down with people who have been harmed by these companies. I keep a box of tissues handy since they are usually in tears. There is a pyramid scheme called Optavia. They used to be a company called Medifast before that got sued into the stone age for deceptive ads. They simply slapped a new logo on the same exact crummy products and got back to business. Their marketing and tactics target women. They’ll make you feel insecure, tell you how easy it will be with them, and then take you for as much money as they can. They tell you to only eat 1200 calories (which isn’t even safe), tell you not to work out (what!?) and make you substitute real food with their garbage products. What will all this do? Yeah you’ll lose weight at first. However, you will be malnourished, surviving on processed garbage, getting out of shape from lack of working out, and you'll wreck your metabolism. You will lose a ton of muscle with some fat, so you’ll lose weight but you will feel terrible, you won’t look much better, and you will crash your metabolism. You are dramatically increasing the odds that you will gain this weight back quickly, gain some more, and that it will be even harder to get off. You may even set yourself up to have a bunch of hormonal issues as you age. Don’t do it! Optivia is the worst in a bad bunch that includes Isagenix, It Works, Herbalif, and any other multi level marketing company, aka pyramid scheme. Ozempic: The new weight loss drug has big pharma salivating but don’t be fooled by the hype. This weekly injection, that you have to get every week for the rest of your life (ka-ching!), will reduce your appetite and you will eat less and lose weight. This issue? Once again, they are seeing it isn’t only fat you are losing. Your body will cannibalize muscle, connective tissue, and other things your body needs for optimal health. The other issue is that excess weight is actually a symptom of metabolic dysfunction. It isn’t the problem alone. If you don’t address the dietary and lifestyle roots of your metabolic dysfunction, you will still risk much of the same diseases of obesity. It doesn’t actually solve the problem. Plus, it’s a new drug with a LOT of money to be made on it. Remember when they said oxycontin wasn’t addictive and then those lies caused our opioid epidemic? When this much money is involved, time and again those companies are not honest about all the downsides of their product. Beware. Tummy Tea: This gets sold by hot people on instagram. It’s just giving you diarrhea. You aren’t losing fat. You crap your brains out, weigh less, and then will go back to weighing the same the next time you eat food. When I ate local food in Afghanistan it did the same thing but cost less. Okay let’s shift gears to HEALTHY weight loss! Yes you can lose fat while preserving muscle and yes you can do it quickly if you want. Why wouldn’t you want to do it quickly? If you want to lose fat quickly, you have to be 100% compliant with what I outline below. If you’d rather live life following the 80/20 rule, even while you’re trying to lose weight, that’s totally cool. You can go all in or make incremental changes over time. Both work long term and one is not better than the other. As long as you are focused on long term health overall, we’re good. FAST Fat Loss: Lift full body 3 days per week, go on weighted walks the other 4 days of the week, eliminate alcohol, added sugar, and processed foods. Your breakfast should be 2-4 eggs with enough fruit to feel satisfied, have a protein shake after you workout, your lunch should be a salad with olive oil and vinegar and a piece of chicken. Dinner should be either another salad or a bunch of sauteed veggies with a lean piece of beef or more chicken. Have lean meat with each meal, eat fruits and vegetables (including potatoes) to satisfaction, and eliminate all refined sugar, alcohol, and processed food. Nuts are fine but measure your servings of them. Right now Alan is down 50lbs since the beginning of the year following this plan. He has been relentless in his execution and it shows. He’s built muscle, gotten stronger, and sped his metabolism up. Instead of his body fighting him now his body is on his side. He looks great, feels great, and is already halfway to his 100lbs weight loss goal. He doesn’t miss the sugar or the booze because he’s too busy feeling awesome and feeling proud of himself. I will say, this all-in, FAST fat loss mode is restrictive enough that it may not be for you and it is not a forever plan for anyone. That is where the SLOW weight loss comes in. SLOW Weight loss: Take the same workout regime and same nutritional regime as FAST weight loss BUT… you can have alcohol one night per week and you can have a dessert one night per week. Simple right? Simple doesn’t mean easy and simple doesn’t mean you won’t want some help, particularly with strength training. That’s where we come in! Fill out the form at the top or bottom of this page and I will be in touch! Serving Portsmouth, Kittery, and the broader Seacoast community, we help people finally get in shape, feel confident, and have all day energy, even if getting everything done is a constant struggle.
