For most of us, the battle with our weight can feel like we’re spinning our personal wheel of fortune as we step onto the scale each morning anxiously watching where the needle lands. Sometimes you feel like a winner, but most days do you feel like a loser, wondering why, once again, the latest diet isn’t working?

One of the biggest challenges in coaching people from fat to fit isn’t necessarily teaching them what to do BUT instead teaching them what to stop doing. Most people have tried and failed to lose weight an average of five times. The same mistakes are often repeated and this is why they keep trying. In struggling with our day-to-day lives – the carpool schedules, the meals on the go, the overbooked holiday schedule – losing weight becomes just one more item on a long list of things to do.

In fact the term “weight-loss” does not accurately describe a sustainable, successful approach to healthy living. Did you know that one-third of the weight lost on a typical “weight-loss” program is lean muscle? Reducing calories, or following one of the many “fad” diets, may help you fit into your clothes this holiday season, however, the bad news is that without a balanced approach to healthy living you’ll lose lean-muscle, slow your metabolism and begin a path to long-term weight gain. So, those 15 or so pounds that you dropped by counting every calorie and following a regimented program are likely to reappear very quickly and you’ll be faced with beginning the diet struggle all over again in the New Year.
The secret to a lifetime of success is to look at your overall lifestyle, and lay the groundwork for nutrition and fitness that is sustainable, healthy and effective.

3 keys
1 The 40-40-20 Balance
Balance your protein and carbohydrates at each meal and with every snack. Experts agree that reducing body fat is a far superior way to approach your fitness and a better measure of your overall well-being. An effective way to focus on fat-loss is by feeding the body 40% carbohydrates, 40% protein, 20% fat along with a simple, consistent exercise program that includes both strength training and aerobic exercise to retain lean muscle while burning the fat.

This 40-40-20 ratio was designed to strengthen the metabolism, stabilize energy levels and support lean muscle growth with a constant supply of amino acids and glucose to reduce hunger cravings thereby leading to lower body-fat levels. 40-40-20 eating has been used by world-class athletes, fitness models and celebrities for years with great success.

2 Eating More Often
Eat more often – five to six times a day. Do not starve yourself! This is the number one way to guarantee long-term failure. Starving yourself slows your metabolism, eats away your lean muscle tissue and leaves you feeling grumpy, tired and downright lousy to be around.

Feeding your body throughout the day is the best way to fight hunger cravings and maintain stable energy levels. It strengthens your metabolism and provides your body with the constant source of nutrients it needs to recover from exercise. Smaller, but more frequent snacks/meals have been linked to sustaining lower body-fat for years. Experts suggest eating every 2-3 hours while you’re awake is essential in achieving long-term weight loss.

Grazing is the best way to control cravings (hunger hormones or ghrelin) and still lose weight. Researchers believe that it’s a rise in ghrelin levels and the associated drive to eat that makes long-term weight loss hard to achieve. When we restrict calories, ghrelin jumps in and encourages us to eat.

Amazingly, when you constantly feed yourself during your day, your portion sizes naturally decrease. When you sit down to a meal you’re not starving and as a result you can make better, healthier food choices. It’s similar to the philosophy that you shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry – when you’re in a state of hunger, everything and anything looks good and you want it!

3 Creating an attainable exercise plan
To maintain good health, you need a first-rate exercise plan. You can’t have one without the other. Focusing only on what you eat, will only get you so far. It’s essential to make time to exercise 30 minutes a day, six days a week.

Three days a week you should do aerobic exercise – treadmill, a vigourous walk, stationary bike, or kicking a soccer ball around with your kids. This isn’t about going for a stroll or parking your car farther away from the shopping centre door. While this helps you take a few more steps a day, if you’re not increasing your heart rate for 30 minutes it’s not effective.

The other three days a week should be strength training – working with hand weights and incorporating other muscle-building exercises into your routine. Strength training is important to achieve lifelong results. Lifting weights is the number one way to retain lean muscle (the body’s metabolic furnace) during weight-loss. Muscle burns calories every second of the day. And, as you exchange fat for muscle you’ll get smaller not bigger. One pound of muscle is half the size of one pound of fat. The more muscle you have, the more calories you need to maintain your present weight.

Often, women are tentative about strength training, concerned about getting big and bulky, but that’s not the case with this ‘alternating-day’ approach. Strength training can actually help in the prevention of osteoporosis by encouraging healthy bone density and strength.

The most effective time to exercise is first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Take a half-hour just for YOU before you begin the day. After an overnight fast, blood-sugar levels and carbohydrate reserves are low. Exercising before you replenish these levels causes your body to dip into stored fat for energy. It may not be easy to do (especially the first week), but you’ll see results...FAST!

Making it last
Remember, long-term results always come from a consistent healthy nutrition and exercise program. Don’t go on a ‘program’ for 12-weeks thinking that when the 12-weeks are up, you can go back to your old habits. The secret is to adopt a program you can commit to for the rest of your life. It’s this commitment that will give you the benefits of lower body fat levels, higher energy levels and an overall feeling of self-worth.

And, enjoy your life. If there’s a special party, holiday dinner or celebration enjoy the food and forget the guilt. If you eat healthy 90 percent of the time, the 10 percent you treat yourself isn’t going to make a difference as long as you adopt an overall healthy approach to living.

H&L

Meagan Brunner is the founder of Kinetix Living. In 1997, at the age of 23, Meagan weighed nearly 200 pounds. One year later, she had lost almost 75 lbs. through the creation of the Kinetix Living plan.

Kinetix Living offers a practical and attainable way for individuals to experience renewed energy, weight-loss and a real-life approach to healthy living. The company’s successful program integrates nutrition and fitness, along with educational programs, recipes and a thriving online community. To learn more about the Kinetix Living program, products and publications visit www.kinetixliving.com or call 1-866-KINETIX.