Wouldnt it be nice if there was a magic weight loss pill or perhaps some concoction that you could consume that will melt away all your unwanted fat?
Lets assume there was, would you have to take it for the rest of your life for the results to last forever?
And if you do take it in the long term, what would the side effects be?
Wouldnt it also be nice if those exercise routines promising a six pack in six days work, or if you could get your dream body in six weeks.
I once bought a fat burning cream that you apply on areas you want to lose fat, in the hope that I would not have to exercise or eat clean.
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I even bought an electric vibrating belt and several ab machines promising to give you a sixpack. But thats nothing compared to what my biggest buy was- a fat melting machine- salon style- which I imported from the United States.
With that baby in my life, I thought that if I ate healthy and used the fat buster I would never have to exercise again in my life if I didnt want to.
While I may have seen some difference in everything I bought- call it the placebo effect if you like- nothing really worked.
That aside, the problem with everything I bought is that it all had to used/applied regularly.
I didnt have the patience, time or discipline to follow the instructions and use as required. Weight loss is hard work, and maintaining your weight after weight loss is just as hard.
I have been on numerous diets or eating plans from the low-carb, whole-food diet to a high protein diet to the quick fix cabbage soup diet.
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The protein diet I recall all too well. I had met a prosecutor in court who I hadnt seen in months. She looked as if she had shrunk.
The second I had a free moment, I immediately went to her and started complimenting her weight loss.
She bragged that it was the protein diet she had been on for three months that had led to her weight loss.
She even detailed how it worked.
That night I went home and researched it and most of the comments or reviews of the diet were favourable.
So, before I knew it, I was on the protein diet and in a week or two I lost 1 kilogram. However, it wasnt long afterwards that I got sick and tired of only eating protein and that was the end of the diet.
These days I do intermittent fasting when it suits me, which is an eating plan that switches between fasting and eating on a regular schedule.
However, the downside is that you can end up eating less calories which is actually bad for the body.
What I can say about majority of the diets out there is that a lot of them actually do work, however, it may not be sustainable in the long term, because you just get sick of them.
The key to staying at a particular weight is exercising and cutting out junk or unhealthy foods. But this is difficult to stick to because there are those days, where you crave a donut or chocolates or anything sweet. But thats okay, you are human after all.
However, its important to stick on the healthy side of food more than on the unhealthy side. Its even okay to have a cheat day, or even a cheat weekend, but dont overdo it.
I have always admired celebrities and have held a lot of them in high esteem, always wondering how on earth they manage to stay looking so beautiful and in shape at red carpets events.
But then when you look at unposed photos of them, snapped by paparazzi you realise they are not as perfect as you thought they were.
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For the movie Monster, South African born actor Charlize Theron put on 80 pounds or rather 13.6 kilograms.
It reportedly took her six weeks to lose the weight. Can you or me lose so much weight in that timeframe?
Maybe we can if we had a personal dietician, chef and personal trainer. But many of us are not that lucky.
These personal trainers are like alarm clocks that just wont stop going off. I mean they arrive at your home as scheduled and your training gets started. No time for procrastination.
As a working-class person, with no personal dietician, chef and personal trainer, its difficult to be disciplined especially when it comes to exercising and eating healthily.
In addition, for a lot of people not in the public limelight, they dont get paid for looking good, or having a Size 6 figure.
They do it for themselves.
The bottom line is that if you want to lose weight, or stay in shape there are no quick fixes, you have to put in the work, exercise and eat healthy.
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Opinion | Discipline and hard work - The Citizen
