Look Good, Feel Good
It's a commonly held belief that when we look good, we feel good and it's so true. So obviously, the pursuit of presenting our best appearance is priority!
The problem many of us face is we have allowed ourselves to be taken in by advertisers of all kinds of what appears to be great looking food to the extent that we think it's normal to overindulge in all manner of unhealthy, high calorie foods.
The result is that we are all gaining weight and don't understand why!
Not Holier than Thou?
OK, I'm using the "we" pronoun here so I don't come across as being an exception to that rule. But the truth is I figured out a while ago that bad food is the root of all obesity! I no longer allow myself to be tricked by the glitzy ads or attractive packaging that makes people buy and eat so much junk.
The thing is, we're all blessed with a truly miraculous gift called a brain that we can use to figure stuff out. Sure we can all be fooled by clever advertising tricks!
But we have the capacity, each and every one of us, to choose to be taken in by the ads or to use a little mental effort to see past the thin veil of sales chicanery to the actual truth back of it.
Why We Get Fat
Without wanting to sound like a trumpet lower, I'm a qualified nutritionist so it's like I don't know a thing or two about what food is good for us and what food is not!
But I don't want to go too deeply into the why's and wherefore's of nutrition and diet here. This website is more for looking and feeling good in our daily lives rather than for inflicting some strict eating regime on folks!
So I'm going to write in broader terms rather than go into specifics where possible. I'm going to let you use your own common sense to see the obvious in what is happening here and relate it to your own circumstances.
So let's look at why we get fat and why we can prevent it happening just by looking past what is staring us in the face.
The Calorie Conundrum
We hear about calories in, calories out and how we must be super-active so our bodies will burn off all the excess calories so we can look slim and look amazing like the celebrities we wee on TV and in magazines. But much of it is hype!
That's right, its hype. There is a multi-billion dollar industry back of the message that we all need to exercise more to stay thin, when the truth is they want us to exercise more in their gyms and sports centers so they can make more money off us!
We get fat because we over-eat, period!
We eat foods that are so overloaded with sugar and sugary substances that our bodies simply cannot ever burn all that extra energy in our normal day to day lives. And an hour or so at the gym or a 5 mile run will not burn it off either!
Are you amazed by that? Do you believe it? Or do you think it can't be true? Everyone says we should exercise to burn calories, so it must be true, right?
Think again. Recent cutting edge research is revealing a very different picture about why we are all getting obese despite exercising. One big study focused on obesity in children and totally rocked the foundation of older, commonly believed theories.
Children, Exercise and a Myth Busted
It was once believed that overweight kids exercised less because being overweight made them less active. But recent, in-depth research debunks this by revealing that kids that are overweight exercise less because they are overweight, not the other way around!
It was found that kids today do as much exercise as kids did 40 years ago. What's more, when they exercise more than usual, they tend to rest more afterward to compensate for the additional activity.
It's like our bodies are programmed to be able to do so much exercise each day and if we exceed that, we need to rest more to recuperate. Another surprising fact came out of the study. When we exercise more, we tend to eat more afterwards as a reward mechanism!
What Does This Mean If I Want To Look Good?
What it means is that sure, you should exercise as often as possible to improve your fitness. But don't expect it to burn enough calories to burn off all the extra you consume in the food you eat.
An hour on a treadmill for example will burn off around just 60 calories. A can of regular coke contains more than twice that!
If you want to NOT add 120-140 calories to your daily intake, forget the treadmill, just don't drink the coke!
Did that make sense? Read it again and let the simplicity of the concept sink in. You can apply that to everything you are about to eat!
My poison used to be chocolate bars, cupcakes, ice cream and cookies. I was never much of a soda drinker. Once I figured out the unbelievably simple truth about why I was gaining weight, I knew what to do.
Most importantly, I did it.
It's one thing to "know what to do" but another thing entirely to actually do it. Most of us know, deep down inside that a lot of what passes our lips and finds its way onto our tummies, thighs and butts via our stomachs can just as easily be avoided.
The hard part is convincing ourselves we don't need to eat that chocolate bar or cookie, or put that spoon of sugar in our coffee, or grab that refreshing cold can of soda from the fridge. We do it out of habit more than anything and like any habit, it can be broken.
It takes a little will power, a little determination and a ton of "I want to do this!"
Do You Want to Look Good?
What it all boils down to is how bad you want to look good. How bad do you really want to wear that great, fashionable outfit and look slim enough to look amazing in it and not like you squeezed a sack of turnips into it?
This was my dilemma too. I'm not Superwoman! I have average willpower and average tolerances and I hate to give up something I like. But I hated not being able to wear a certain outfit that I wore last summer more!
- You can sit there reading this and be thinking to yourself that maybe you'll just go buy the next size up and have your cookie with your sugared coffee and to hell with it.
- You can believe that all the processed food you buy in packets from the store that say they are healthy are really not making you or you family gain weight.
- You can believe that an hour in the gym will cure all your ills and you will be able to tuck into that giant slice of cream pie and eat all the hamburgers and fries with 32 ounce milk shakes that you want.
- You can believe that a can of soda per day is not a problem.
- You can believe what you want and stop looking in the mirror because it might lie to you.
Or you can take your head out of the sand and wise up. Start figuring this stuff out for yourself and see what's really happening here.
Once you have got it into your head that you are in control of the way you look and nobody and nothing else is, then you can choose to take control of you life. Buit it only works when you choose to do it. It has to be your choice and nobody else can make that choice for you. Not me, not your doctor, not your family. Just you.
How much do you want to look and feel good? How much is enough to make you take action?