Have you ever started a diet with all of the best intentions, and then, after a day or two, found yourself ready to call it quits? This has happened to me countless times. The first hunger pangs start up, and before you know it, that little voice inside of your head starts up. You know the one. It gives you one reason after another why you should start your diet tomorrow or next week. It reminds you how good a pizza with your favorite toppings would be right now. It might tell you that you aren’t strong enough to start a diet right now because of the circumstances in your life. Only you know exactly what it says, but that voice is always working against you making a change and improving yourself. The purpose of I Hate Being Fat is to help you to be strong and to resist those destructive demons that want you to jump into the car and head to the local Chinese buffet. It is also to help you to make sure that you’ve got the proper weight loss motivation and to help you as you deal with the challenges that come along whenever you commit to losing weight. PLEASE NOTE that I am not a doctor and I am relating my own experiences on this site. Nothing on this site is intended to be medical advice!!! Talk to your own physician before starting any weight loss or fitness plan.
How to lose 10 pounds in a month without going crazy
Some people don’t need to lose all that much weight. Unfortunately, I’ve spent most of my life needing to lose a lot more than ten pounds. For those people who really don’t need to lose that much though, I’ve got a couple of easy tips. I’ve lost ten pounds in a month a bunch of times. My problem is keeping it going after that! Seriously, when I’m not in weight loss mode, I usually have found that just cutting out snacking and adding a 1/2 hour of exercise a few times per week was enough to get those first ten pounds gone in a hurry. This time around, I’m taking a little bit different approach (which I’ll write about in a blog post), but just give that a shot. I think that most people don’t realize how much junk they stuff into their pie hole on a daily basis. Even if you are only eating a little bit of junk at a time, it still all ends up in the same place. You really don’t need to go nuts and start exercising for two hours per day. Some people really enjoy that, but I don’t. Besides, who wants to devote 14 hours per week to exercising? Isn’t there something else you could be doing?
What are the foods that make you fat?
This is one of those topics that gets thrown around all of the time and it seems like there are at least a hundred different opinions. I think most people agree that a chocolate diet is pure fantasy, but you can find diets based on eating just about every other type of food nowadays. After bouncing around and trying all sorts of different diets, I’ve finally decided to base what I eat on a plan that actually makes me feel pretty good. Even though I love carbs, I’ve got to admit that I feel terrible after I eat too many of them. I don’t mean “guilty” terrible. I mean that my butt feels like its dragging on the ground after a carb binge. At the same time, when I’ve gone with hard core low carb approaches, I have found myself getting sick of the food within about a week. The current plan I’m following is called the Lean Ape plan. I like it because it cuts out a lot of the “junky” carbs that make me feel terrible, but still allows, and even encourages eating the right carbs at the right time. The big bonus for me is that there is even a cheat day built in to each week that helps me to keep my sanity. Sometimes that cheat day is like a light at the end of the tunnel when I’m not feeling particularly motivated to watch what I’m eating.
I have found from my own experience that eating “diet foods” just doesn’t work for me. Those frozen meals that are meant to help you lose weight have the reverse effect on me. It isn’t that the food itself is fattening, although I do have my doubts about the low fat approach. The problem is that they leave me feeling totally unsatisfied. That leads to me constantly feeling hungry and obsessing about food. I don’t have the biggest reserve of will power when it comes to dieting, so eventually I always end up talking myself into eating something else. The net result is that I pay a bunch of money for frozen meals that don’t satisfy me and then blow my diet up within a couple of days. I don’t like that plan at all.
My time following a restricted carb diet has gone pretty well. Again, I’m not talking an Atkins like approach to obsessing over eliminating carbs. There is something about going into ketosis that I just wasn’t ever comfortable with entirely. I’m talking about watching closely and putting more of an emphasis on proteins and fats. I certainly feel hungry a LOT less when I eat like that.
Do I need to exercise to lose weight?
Here is the big sticking point for some people. Exercise. Remember when you were a kid and you exercised without even thinking about it? Maybe not. I might be dating myself here, but when I was a kid, we spent a LOT more time outside simply doing stuff. It might have been playing a pick up game of kickball or an impromptu walk through the woods looking for salamanders, but it seemed like we were almost always in motion. How does that compare to what you do today? I don’t know about you, but as an adult, I have to actively plan to get exercise into my day. The thing is, it really DOES make a huge difference in the amount of weight you’ll lose. With that said…
I hate cardio exercise!
There, I said it. I simply cannot stand doing things like running on a treadmill or jumping up and down in front of the television. I have an 
admission to make here. I have flat feet. When I was in high school, I actually did train myself to the point of being able to run 10 kilometers without dropping from exhaustion. Being tired was never the problem. It was my feet. By mile two I felt like I had knives sticking into the soles of my feet. It was a miserable experience and I never got close to anything like a “runner’s high”. That said, I do like playing sports like volleyball or other team activities. The problem is that as an adult, there aren’t a whole lot of folks my age waiting to go outside and play after dinner like there were when I was little.
This is actually a big reason why I like the new plan I’m on. It incorporates resistance training into the overall fitness plan instead of cardio. Honestly though, if you’d see me huffing and puffing as I lift weights, you might be convinced that there is some cardio exercise taking place! For where I’m at in the plan, I lift weights every two to three days for about 1/2 hour at a shot. Not too bad. It is definitely better than trying to force myself to go on a treadmill for an hour every day to burn a handful of calories. An added benefit is that I can actually see myself getting stronger.
NOTE TO WOMEN: You will not bulk up and become huge by doing resistance training. Men, who have a lot more of the “right chemicals” working for them have to bust their tails to get big. You aren’t going to grow monstrous arms by doing some resistance training in the majority of cases. Really. Think of how many guys you know “work out”. How many of them have suddenly become huge even when they are working at it?
Stop worrying about how to get in shape fast
We are such a bunch of babies nowadays. We want everything yesterday. Yes, this includes me too. I’ve come to realize though that most things that are worth anything are worth working toward. This includes fitness. Face it. If you need to lose 100 pounds, it is not going to happen in a month. How long did it take you to put that weight on? Exactly. I know that it is frustrating to feel fat. Believe me, I do. We’ve got to remember though that whether we lose weight or not, we’re still going to be somewhere in a year or two. You might as well start the journey and do your best to enjoy the experience. Know what your weight loss goal is, but understand that each day of eating right and improving where you are is a little victory. Try living in the present. Be proud of what you are doing now. If you only focus on getting to some number on a scale, you are destined for a let down when you finally get there. Why not actually get something positive out of the journey, no matter how long it takes?
Don’t Believe Weight Loss Lies
Listen, if you are searching for ways to lose weight, you will find thousands of people looking to sell you a bunch of junk. They know that many people who want to lose weight are feeling desperate. Don’t believe their lies. You will NOT get ripped in 2 weeks. Think about it. Does it even make sense? You also will probably not lose 100 pounds in three months unless you are doing something very unhealthy. Get a grip. There are some people out there who have no problem taking advantage of others for the sake of getting more money. Use your common sense. Realize that getting in shape and losing weight is probably going to take a little bit of time. That’s OK. Maybe developing patience will be a special side benefit that you never even considered when you started your weight loss journey.
Also, learn from other’s mistakes. Do a little bit of research. Read some weight loss forums. Look for legitimate reviews of weight loss programs. Once enough people see that a bad plan doesn’t work the way they thought it would, they move on. They also usually become quite vocal if they feel like they got scammed.
I’m convinced that there are a lot of decent weight loss and fitness plans out there that will work for people if they stick to them. That is the thing you need to remember. No matter what diet and exercise approach you like, it takes perseverance and a willingness to make some changes. Any plan that tells you otherwise is a scam. Use your head. Find a healthy diet that you can live with that helps you to feel good. Decide upon some exercise that you can stick with too. Now put them together, set some reasonable goals, focus on today, and get started.